NEW MUSIC FINDS OF 2025

2025 was an exciting year for me in terms of musical enjoyment. My faith in new music was fully restored, after decades of not finding any current artists that could hold my attention. Here are the worthy acts that got me as thrilled as I was when I first discovered music as a kid back in the late 70s.

It’s interesting to note that all of these bands are female (with the exception of one, which just has a female vocalist) - I must be embracing my feminine side, or the algorithms have been pushing me in that direction. Anyway, it makes me laugh to remember some years ago when I was accused by some ornery fellow of not having any women musicians in my playlists - well, it wasn’t true then, and it certainly isn’t now.

All of the bands mentioned below are real artists writing their own material - they aren’t even full-time musicians, so their work is pure, sincere and not driven by commerce. They’re also people who don’t care about conforming to anyone’s ideas of what someone on stage should look like - no beautiful plastic puppets chosen by some big record company to sing inanities written by a team.

Adwaith

My favourites! Since I discovered them almost a year ago, my interest has only grown and not a day goes by when I don’t listen to at least one of their songs. All three of their albums thus far are gold - melodic indie rock sung in their native Welsh language. I wanted to support them financially, so I bought their superb new double album on vinyl, even though I didn’t have a turntable at the time, so thanks to them for getting me back into record collecting. Check out my earlier posts on them here and here.

Violencia

Another non-English singing band, Violencia are a punk quartet from Tijuana in Mexico. Three guys and a woman on vocals playing very short songs full of anger - the energy is astonishing. I discovered them by chance after typing in something like ‘good current punk bands’ into Google, and of all the names that search brought up, Violencia was the only one that immediately resonated with me. This music is well-played and razor sharp, full of killer riffs, sudden tempo changes and the prize-winning screams of the singer. Great for waking you up or as an antedote to smooth jazz or any other overblown noodley crap. To date they only have one album, but it’s superb, all action and zero filler.

Sister Wives

Next up, the wonderfully named Sister Wives, a female quartet from Sheffield who play a strange mix of prog and rock with folky and punky overtones, all with keyboards to the fore. Songs are in both English and Welsh, and sometimes both. Very mysterious and a tad creepy (in a good way) - check out the video to the song ‘O Dŷ y Dŷ’ to get a taste of it. I discovered them when Libertino Records (the label Adwaith are on) sent me a free double album sanpler, and this band stood out a mile as exactly my kind of thing.

The Cords

The algorithm sent The Cords to me. A teenage female duo from Scotland, I can only describe their debut album’s sound as a twee Ramones. Short, extremely simple chord patterns played without distortion topped by infectiously melodic singing lines that stick in your head. The songwriter in me wants to shout ‘add another part, put an instrumental break in somewhere’ but repetitive and primitive as the music is, the catchiness is undeniable. I’m not sure if I will still love this a year from now, but at the moment it brings a burst of simple joy to the proceedings.

Horsegirl

I’d already heard about this Chicago female trio before, but only really started to listen to them a couple of weeks ago. I’m not certain if I’m going to like every song, but the ones I do like, I really like. They were in high school when their first album came out, and are at university now as their second has been released. Avant garde quirky experimental song structures with scratchy guitars and mumbled lyrics delivered by non-smiling women who have heard a lot of Stereolab and Sonic Youth. What’s not to like?

One of the great things about all of the above bands (and representative of women in rock in general, I think) is that there is no guitar wankery, no enormous drum kits - it’s just pure self-expression and art for art’s sake.

Looking forward to making more discoveries in 2026.