Our favourite indie albums and singles released in January 2025 - featuring Franz Ferdinand, Pastel, The Lambrini Girls and more.
Welcome to first edition of 2025 of our monthly indie review blog. In this edition, we review the best new indie music released from the month that’s just been.
January itself was an absolute bumper month for new music giving us plenty to mull over! With contributions from Matthew McLister and Neil Renton, here's a review of the best albums from January 2025.
Albums
Franz Ferdinand - The Human Fear
Apprehension kicks in when you scan the track listing for the first Franz Ferdinand album in seven years.
Names like ‘The Doctor’ and ‘The Fear’ quite literally get you anxious with worry. Are everyone’s favourite Noughties art school Scottish starlets gone all dark and depressing? They’ve not.
They might have gone through major line up changes since they first burst onto the scene but they’re never altered.
They’re still play with a wink and a nod to glam rock. They’re still as tight as their drainpipe trousers. They still know how to entertain us.
Having seen them live the new material fits nicely alongside the older stuff. ‘Audacious’ ‘The Doctor’ and ‘Night and Day,’ are great additions to set lists.
They’re still the same band. Panic over. (Words by Neil Renton)
Pastel - Souls in Motion
Yes, Pastel are another band influenced by Stone Roses and Oasis, but don’t sigh too hard - they pull from that period while producing an ear-catching sound fresh and exuberant. A special band, one different to the many other pretenders before them. True to form, cousins Jack and James Yates (the two outspoken band leaders who bring a heap of vitality to the project) formed the band after seeing the Stone Roses in 2016. But tribute act they definitely are not.
Pastel’s debut album has been a long time coming then. They first began teasing music as far back as 2020, quickly building an online following due to their swaggering indie aesthetic and grand Madchester-inspired anthems that achieve the simple feat of making people feel good about themselves. Indie rock royalty appears on board too. Ride’s Andy Bell considers himself a fan – even remixing single ‘Your Day’ last year – and Liam Gallagher selected them to play on his Knebworth 2022 bill.
From start to finish, Pastel’s debut has us in the palm of their hand and it’s rare to hear such a young band sounding so confident and accomplished in what they do. With 2025 being the year Britpop nostalgia takes over the nation’s consciousness in the form of the Oasis reunion, Pastel prove anthemic British guitar pop isn’t just the past but very much the future too. (Words by Matthew McLister)
FKA Twigs - EUSEXUA
There’s a lot going on in the first album in five years from Tahliah Barrett. Inspired by the rave scene in Prague it finds the performer pushing boundaries and listeners limits in equal measures.
It might not be as attainable as most of the stuff you get in the charts these days but stick around for an enthralling experience.
‘Childlike Things’ featuring North West is maybe the most accessible track on here, but it’s not the best.
‘Girl Feels Good’ about female sexual pleasure could have been ‘Ray of Light’ Madonna it’s that exceptional while ‘Drums of Death’ is a techno twitch of the senses.
It’s about falling in love with and on the dancefloor and it’s worth the half a decade wait. (Words by Neil Renton)
Ringo Starr - Look Up
With the recent success of Martin Scorcese’s Beatles ’64 documentary and murmurings of a new Beatles film in the works, the never-ending lust for Fab Four nostalgia definitely isn’t going away anytime soon. In the background to this, Ringo Starr is still cooking…music that is.
The former-Beatle ventures into Country territory on his latest album, Look Up: one that lacks lyrical depth but generally succeeds thanks to the who’s who list of genre contributors.
Look Up pushes through a wide spectrum from the world of Country, Americana and Bluegrass, Ringo’s rugged Scouse charm mixing it with countrified elegance. Lead single ‘Time On My Hands’ uses slide guitars and dreamy orchestrations: an upbeat bop about break-up resilience. Meanwhile, the boat is pushed out in a Country-Rock direction on both ‘Look Up’ and ‘Rosetta’ to escape any tweeness heard elsewhere.
Ringo’s tired vocals may be too much to bear on occasion, but, overall, ‘Look Up’ still remains a pleasurable listen. Yes, corniness takes over at points and the whole “peace and love” vibe is cliché-central, but these 11 tracks make for a nice starting point to Country music in general. (Words by Matthew McLister)
Rose Gray - Louder, Please
It’s been a fantastic few years for female performers to get the recognition they deserve. And keeping the momentum going is the debut album from Rosie Gray.
It’s a celebration of the best dance music since the nineties and sweeps us all up in the eutrophic rush of clubbing.
There’s many highlights. ‘Angel of Satisfaction’ lays waste to everything that stands in its way with its confident swagger and ‘Free’ is a playful romp that will live rent free in your head well after you’ve heard it.
It’s not all about going out. ‘Switch’ finds Rose challenging a partner in the bedroom and ‘Hackney Wick’ laminates a well spent youth.
It this is a taste of things to come then there’s no reason why she can’t follow in the footsteps of her peers.
What follows a BRAT summer? A Gray Winter. And it’s hypnotic. (Words by Neil Renton)
Lambrini Girls – Who Let the Dogs Out
Brighton duo Lambrini Girls – formed of Phoebe Lunny (vocals and guitar) and Lilly Macieira (bass – have been the toast of 6Music for some time now. Anytime they did receive airtime, it was difficult not to sit up and take notice at the particularly abrasive punk style blaring through the airwaves.
Debut album Who Let the Dogs Out impresses for the most part. There’s a real raw and catchy charm to these ten tracks, delivered with an unrivalled and unpolished punk charisma. The opening half features an irresistible run of ferocious tracks that take aim at a number topics through male misogyny (‘Big D*** Energy’), the treatment of females in office workplaces (‘Company Culture’) and police corruption (‘Bad Apple’).
However, it must be said that the lack of quieter/breather tracks in the second half means that the in your face style can become a bit wearing. Still, they redeem themselves by the finale and prove there’s enough there for us to continue to be excited about the future of this new band. (Words by Matthew McLister)
The Verve - This Is Music - The Singles
It’s a bit of cop out reviewing a greatest hits collection. If you’re a fan of the band you’ll already have every track and all the remixed B-sides.
But this is a perfect example of the fact there was more to Richard Ashcroft and Co than ‘Bitter Sweet Sympathy.’ In fact there was more to The Verve than just Richard Ashcroft.
You could put a valid point across that when it came to they were the most talented group of musicians that emerged from Britpop.
Few bands could touch either the quiet stirring moments such as ‘History’ or the sonic horizons of ‘Slide Away’ and everything else in between.
If there’s a better Greatest Hits collection released this year then it’s going to be some twelve months. (Words by Neil Renton)
Mogwai - The Bad Fire
There’s something quite remarkable about Mogwai’s success over the past three decades. The post-rock pioneers, known for their moody yet hopeful soundscapes and unconventional song structures, have smashed through any perceived ceiling of limitation.
Four years on and The Bad Fire is the Glasgow band’s eleventh studio album. Recorded in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, at Chem19 studios with Grammy-Award winning producer John Congleton, their latest keeps things on brand by offering another highly emotive masterclass of (mainly) instrumental post rock.
The Bad Fire might not cure your January blues entirely but it’ll at least provide a glimmer of hope to get you through the bleakest of months. All in all, an utterly enthralling 11th studio effort from these post rock stalwarts. (Words by Matthew McLister)
For the best tunes of each month, listen to our Best indie songs 2025 playlist below.