Welcome back my friends to the flamboyance that never ends, and please be welcome to yet another of our fortnightly fumbles around the dank and sweaty intergluteal cleft of popular culture.
Tonight, as we brace ourselves for the un-lubed horrors of 2026, I thought we’d take a fond look back at 2025 to consider a few of the album releases from last year that I really rather enjoyed. These are not strictly my favourite albums of the year (with perhaps a few exceptions) as I often get the feeling my enthusiasm for Scandinavian Death Metal or Intersectional Progressive Patagonian Nose Flute music is not universally shared nor greatly appreciated within the confines of this august organ. So, for tonight’s missive, I shall confine my mutterings to the more mainstream releases that crossed my path over the last twelve months and proudly present Ivory Cutlery’s Albums of the Year for 2025 – Not Arf!
And I think we’ll start with Pulp – always my favourite of the mainstream Britpop bands. I know Jarvis Cocker could be a touch pretentious, but I thoroughly enjoyed his very public pop at wacko Jacko and I’m still a fan of the band’s original run of albums (well, the first 4 or 5). However, after a couple of decades with no sign of any new studio albums on the release schedules, I’d pretty much written them off as an active creative unit.
As a result, although the much vaunted Oasis reunion left me cold, the news that Pulp were back in the studio most certainly did make me sit up and pay attention – and I’m delighted to say it’s been worth the wait. More, the band’s eighth studio album, is a pretty decent return to form and a thoroughly enjoyable addition to their catalogue.
Pulp’s albums from the end of their initial run kinda felt like they were trying to move away from their Britpop roots. More, however, feels like they have come to terms with the band’s original DNA, are happy to embrace it and are keen to explore. It’s a mature album (and why shouldn’t it be – Pulp first formed at the back end of the 1970s), but it feels familiar and far more sprightly and energetic than some of their previous albums. As a result, I am very happy to commend it to the house.
So onto Suede, who I suppose were also lumped in with the Britpop movement as well. However, I always felt that was largely a case of lazy journalism (perish the thought) and convenience packaging for their A&R team. There was always far more to Suede than Britpop wannabes and their first four studio albums from the 1990s remain firm favourites of mine.
Suede are currently on a tremendous second run, with practically everything they’ve released since 2013’s Bloodsports being quite simply top notch. As a result, I was very much looking forward to Antidepressants (their tenth studio album) and I have to say, the boys done good – very good indeed.
The new album is definitely on the the darker (almost Gothic) side of their alt. rock / post-punk explorations (think Siouxsie and the Banshees wonderful 2022 All Souls collection and you’ll be in the right area of tonal darkness) and after a good few listens I’m happy to say that Antidepressants is an excellent release and quite frankly sits comfortably alongside the very best in their catalogue.
Time for quick mention of an album that’s really been growing on me. The band are called Turnstile and the album is called Never Enough. Turnstile are an American rock band from Baltimore. They formed in 2010 and originally had a fairly straightforward hardcore punk / post-punk sound. However, they evolved quickly and soon developed a more sophisticated alt.rock feel that eventually delivered their breakthrough album, Glow On, in 2021.
Glow On landed Turnstile no less than three Grammy nominations and served as my introduction to the band, and I’ve been rather keen on them ever since. Their profile in the UK has never been particularly high, but hopefully their latest (fourth) album will go some way to changing that situation.
Never Enough was released last summer, promptly made its way into the UK Top Twenty and received no less than five Grammy nominations. It feels like a big and very confident step forward for the band, and I have to admit that I’m enjoying this one a lot.
Blimey! More golden oldies, I’m afraid. This time it’s Stereolab. with Instant Holograms on Metal Film. I guess I had mentally filed Stereolab away as yet another outfit I thought might be done and dusted as a creative force. It’s been about a decade and a half since they put out anything new, and although their quirky art-house pop was usually interesting (often very much so), some of their later work did feel (to me at least) like they were beginning to tread water.
However, the band returned to live work just before covid (great timing, guys) and initial reports were very good indeed. As a result, I was pleased to note they were back in the studio and was looking forward to their latest release with no little anticipation. Pleasingly, Instant Holograms on Metal Film far exceeded my expectations. It’s probably their best album of this century and just might (it’s still a bit soon to be certain about this) be my favourite Stereolab release since Dots and Loops.
Time for some Celts. And I think we’ll start north of the border with Dumbarton’s David Byrne (the Talking Heads geezer). As a solo artist, Byrne has always done reasonably well. But he really hit pay-dirt in 2018 with his eight studio album, American Utopia. This was his first US Top Ten album (as a solo artist), sold very well indeed (by far his biggest seller as a solo artist) and eventually became a successful musical and filum as well. So, it was a case of job well done, firm pats on the back and thumbs up all round. However, personally, I wasn’t all that keen.
Nevertheless, as it was by far the biggest success of his solo career, I was intrigued to see what he would come up with for an encore. And the answer was 2025’s Who Is the Sky? which, I’m happy to report, is a solid return to Byrne’s signature mixture of art-pop, sharp observations, wry humour and narrative storytelling. Byrne (along with the late, great, Ivor Cutler) remains a Scottish master of dry observational wit and, as far as I’m concerned, Who Is The Sky is an utterly splendid return to form.
So onto our next Celt of the evening – this time a Taffy: Andy Bell (not the Erasure chap) with his 5th solo album Pinball Wanderer. Bell is probably best known as the bass player for Oasis, and I would normally greet the Tapesque prospect of a solo album from a rock ‘n’ roll bass player with no little trepidation (excluding of course Fish Out Of Water by the late, great, Chris Squire, which is a very fine album indeed). However, my fear was misplaced and I am much pleased to report that Andy Bell’s latest album is a very fine piece of work.
Pinball Wanderer is a rather splendid mix of Krautrock and Madchester sensibilities that, for me at least, works remarkably well. It’s one of those albums that seems to creep up on you. I played it a couple of times and thought it was perfectly fine. But I kept getting drawn back to it for repeated plays, enjoying it more and more with each spin, until I eventually found myself thinking “bloody hell! This is seriously good!” I’ll admit, I’m not familiar with Andy Bell’s previous albums, but that’s a shortcoming I fully intend to correct this year.
OK – before we get to my top three albums of the year, I think we have time for a few honourable mentions:
Doves: Constellations For The Lonely. Bleak cover, dark themes, cracking content.
Nine Inch Nails: TRON: Ares (Original Soundtrack). Boring filum, splendid soundtrack.
Florence & The Machine: Everybody Scream. I’m beginning to think this might be their best album to date.
Nation of Language: Dance Called Memory. Described as dance music for introverts, I like it because it reminds me of OMD – and that’s a very good thing.
And so, without further ado, onto my top three albums of the year. In any normal 12 months, my album of the year would probably have been the eponymous debut by Tom Penaguin, the French prog-rocker and multi-instrumentalist from Brittany.
Penaguin has been creating, posting and sharing music (sometimes in his own name, sometimes using pseudonyms) for well over a decade now and has popped up in psychedelic rock and metal bands such as Orgöne and Djiin. However, he finally got his arse in gear and got around to releasing his first solo album, which (despite his previous work and numerous outings) he apparently considers to be his true debut.
The self-titled Tom Penaguin was actually released in Spain in 2024, but obtained much wider distribution in 2025, which is when I got my sticky paws on it, and I have to say it’s an absolute corker.
Interestingly, the album was recorded with almost entirely vintage equipment, which undoubtedly contributes to its wonderfully warm and comforting analogue sound. When combined with Penaguin’s splendid compositional and musical skills, this very fine album honestly sounds as if it was recorded somewhere near Canterbury around 1971 or ’72.
If this had been released by Egg, National Health, Caravan or Hatfield And The North, it would probably be hailed as classic of the Canterbury genre – it really is that good. If you are a fan of Canterbury Prog, this album is a must listen. It’s hardly been off my turntable since I got my copy and, truth be told, I’m probably in danger of wearing the bloody thing out.
However, as wonderful as it is, Tom Penaguin is not my album of the year. Why not? Because the mighty Sparks chose 2025 to release their latest album, Mad! (their 26th studio album) and (almost, but not quite) contemptuously sweep all other contenders aside.
As usual, the album was met with great critical acclaim (music critics are usually very kind to Sparks), but Mad! also found great favour with the punters, entering UK Album Chart at a very creditable No.2. This is perhaps unsurprising. Sparks have been on a very serious roll for most of this century. 2002 saw the release of their magnum opus, Lil’ Beethoven and 2006 saw the release of their splendid follow-up, Hello Young Lovers.
Those two albums completely revived the commercial and critical standing of a band that had kinda been bobbing about in the doldrums for most of the 1990s; and since this magnificent return-to-form, Sparks have released a string of very (commercially and critically) successful albums: Exotic Creatures Of The Deep, Hippopotamus, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip and The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte.
Many Sparks aficionados (including your humble scribe) will suggest that as good as the band’s ’70s and early ’80s works are (and some of them really are very good indeed), this later period of the band has completely overshadowed their earlier work. Happily, Mad! effortlessly continues that splendid run of form with a top-notch album that The Daily Telegraph described as a “theatrical album of operatic synth-pop bangers”. I can’t argue with that, but I would add that Mad! also has a harder edge than some of their previous albums and at times reminds me of their rock band sound of the mid-to-late ’70s. It is, without the slightest scintilla of doubt, a bloody marvellous album.
However, despite the imperious efforts of the brothers Mael, Mad! is not my album of the year. Why not? Because 2025 also saw the long-delayed and much anticipated release of LSD by Cardiacs.
This album has a long and tortured history and I was never entirely convinced it would eventually see the light of day. The album was originally slated for release way back in 2008, but was postponed indefinitely when the band’s frontman, Tim Smith, suffered a severe stroke and cardiac arrest that sadly left him unable to play or sing.
Over the next decade or so, the compositions for the album were painstakingly pieced together by Tim’s family and friends, who apparently communicated with him via an alphabet board using only the movements of his eyes and his left hand. Tim’s brother and musical collaborator, Jim Smith, used this information to push on and complete the album in his brother’s stead. Sadly, Tim Smith passed away in the convid summer of 2020, but Jim continued to work on the album, based on the guidance his brother had provided. LSD was eventually completed and released last year.
It’s a difficult album for me to consider with any degree of objectivity. Cardiacs are probably my favourite band of all time, so the release of LSD was a genuinely bittersweet experience. I’m not going to pretend this album is perfect, some of it works (very well indeed) and some of it doesn’t, but it’s a very fine and fitting tribute to a truly wonderful artist that has clearly been completed with the love and care of everyone involved. LSD is my album of the year because if you told me I could keep just one of last year’s albums, LSD would unhesitatingly be my pick.
Anyway, I think that’s probably quite enough of my random new year ramblings. I’m always keen to listen to new music, so please post your nominations for album of the year in the comments below, particularly if they include any Scandinavian Death Metal or Intersectional Progressive Patagonian Nose Flute music.
TTFN and happy new year to Puffins one and all. May your pillows be tasty, your gardens inclined and your puddles well jumped.
Goodnight, and may your frog go with you – Not ‘arf!
Featured Image: And We All Swing Together from the National Library of Ireland on The Commons (no restrictions for use via Wikimedia Commons).
© Ivory Cutlery 2026
