The Best (British) Projects of 2025
The records that defined my 2025
2025 has shaped up to be one of the strongest years for albums in recent memory. Not just hits or viral moments, full bodies of work that feel intentional, imaginative, and era-defining. UK rap finally cemented its global position with long-form statements; Dave returned with his most mature and complete LP yet; SHERELLE dropped a debut that re-engineered the dancefloor; Jim Legxacy stretched his universe into something widescreen; and FKA Twigs delivered the kind of cultural event most artists spend careers chasing.
Throughout the month, I’ll be adding to this list with more records that shaped my year and proved, once again, that albums still matter.
As always, feel free to argue with me in the comments or DMs (I’ll defend every selection with my whole chest). But if you care about the shape of music in 2025, these are the projects you need to sit with.
Anyway, dive in, and check back tomorrow for new additions.
Little Simz - Lotus
‘Lotus’ is Little Simz’s sixth studio album, and it finds her grappling with self-doubt, fractured friendships, family tensions, and a catalogue of personal upheavals. The project opens with ‘Thief,’ a track clearly aimed at long-time collaborator Inflo, though she never names him explicitly, whom Simz sued earlier this year for failing to repay £1.7 million. She calls him a “devil in disguise” and even expresses sympathy for his wife, Cleo Sol. From there, the album unfolds like a memoir, moving through a spectrum of emotions with a mix of clarity, abrasion, and vulnerability.
There are moments where the experimentation doesn’t quite land. ‘Young,’ for instance, pairs a nursery-rhyme cadence with post-punky production, creating a slightly jarring clash. But these dips are easily overshadowed by the album’s peaks: tracks like ‘Free’ and my personal favourite, ‘Blood.’
‘Free,’ partly inspired by the work of bell hooks, (she references All About Love directly: “I read All About Love, then I gave it to Jade,”) sees Simz laying out her relationship with love, fear, and the constant negotiation between the two. It’s a deeply earnest moment, crystallising her desire to grow past the emotional constraints she’s carried.
On ‘Blood,’ she goes back-to-back with grime veteran Wretch 32, the two of them playing siblings as they explore the weight of family ties, the complexity of those relationships, and the loneliness that shadows adulthood and success: “On a real, twin / I really don’t know much about your lifestyle, or what comes with it / But I know you, so it’s weird to feel like I can’t phone you.” It captures the intimate distance that so many sibling relationships carry, mine included, in a way I haven’t really heard anyone articulate before.
Overall, ‘Lotus’ is more grounded, and a little messier, than Simz’s previous work, but it doesn’t entirely take away from the project. It’s still one of my favourites of the year, and I’m intrigued to see where she chooses to go next.
FKA Twigs - Eusexua
To coin a word, define it as “the pinnacle of human experience,” and then name your album after it is an ambitious feat, to say the least. But that’s exactly what Tahliah Debrett Barnett, better known as FKA Twigs, does on her third studio album (and her first in five years), ‘EUSEXUA.’ It’s by far her most cohesive project to date, a work in which she explores eroticism, the power and vulnerability of submission, and the emotional charge of intimacy across a palette of experimental techno, house, and club-futurist production, all bedded by shimmering harps and glitching drums.
The accompanying visuals nod to various BDSM movements and broader erotic aesthetics, while also seeing Twigs embody a range of personas - some humanoid, some distinctly otherworldly.
Across the project, she keeps features sparse, calling only on Koreless and North West, the latter performing entirely in what sounds like Japanese(?). The minimal guest list makes Twigs’ own voice, in all its fractured softness and operatic reach, feel even more central.
Unsurprisingly, the general consensus is that this is her strongest album yet, a distillation of everything she’s hinted at across the past decade, and its follow-up, ‘EUSEXUA Afterglow,’ more than earns a listen.