Music of 2025 - Part 1

As I write this, there are only a few hours of 2025 left. Despite those, generally from the older generation, that seem to want to continually insist that there is no good music being made anymore, 2025 has been another excellent year for music and concerts. I have written the most ever blog posts in a single year this year, and I also attended the most concerts in a calendar year in 2025 - with 58 shows, which averages at over one a week, attended. It has been a very tiring year, especially during the first couple and last couple of month blocks - and 2026 is already shaping up to be another strong gigging year, with 25 tickets already purchased. I cannot see myself topping 58, which is ludicrous when thinking about it, but I am sure that 2026 will be busy - and I will be crossing a couple of big names off the list including the likes of Metallica and Sammy Hagar. In terms of new albums, too, 2025 has been excellent. Putting together my Albums of the Year list, which will follow tomorrow, is always tricky - and this year was no different. Outside of a couple of big standouts, the rest of the list really could have been filled by a number of other very strong releases - and I do not think that I will ever tire of hearing new music. As always, I only have a limited time to review albums each year. I think that I manage to get an impressive number covered each year, but there are always many more that I wished I had covered - and there are likely plenty more excellent albums that came out this year that I have not even heard yet. One person cannot hear and review everything - and it should be pointed out that this blog is 100% run by me. Everything here is written by me and each album I review was bought by me. I have no contacts in the music industry so I do not receive promotional copies of albums - and I have never been guest listed at a concert in exchange for a review. This is a blog by a music fan who just wants to get his thoughts down and, largely, be positive about all of the excellent new music and concerts he experiences. There is no agenda here - and the reason that most of the coverage here is positive is because I do not tend to buy albums that I do not think I will like. There are disappointments sometimes, of course, and the occasional dreadful support band sadly comes on my radar, but this blog largely celebrates the best of new hard rock and metal - with other genres occasionally thrown in for good measure. I work full time, and my gigging calendar often takes up a lot of my free time - so all the reviews I manage to get to are generally squeezed in during evenings and free weekends. Given my busy lifestyle I think I manage to review a respectable amount each year - and I plan to do that for as long as I am able to. Readership here is fairly low, but enough people stumble across the reviews to make writing them worthwhile - and I knew a few bands that have been grateful for the coverage in the past. As always, though, there were albums that I did not get around to reviewing this year - either because I did not get them close enough to their release date to make covering them worthwhile or because they came out during busy times and I prioritised other releases. As such, as I have done for the past few years here, I will cover five albums that I did not get to during the year - presenting five additional mini-reviews to round out the year. As has become tradition, too, I will also briefly review my favourite live release of the year - as I do not cover live albums on this blog as a rule.

Kicking off this series of mini-reviews, then, is the latest album from the Swedish power metal act Bloodbound, Field of Swords. This one came late in the year, dropping in late November, so I just ran out of time to cover it properly. I have been aware of Bloodbound for years, but I only checked them out properly this year. I have spoken regularly this year, especially during the second half of the year, about my re-discovered love of power metal. The second half of 2025 seems to have been dominated by power metal - and Bloodbound are not the only power metal band to be featured in today's post. I picked up 2021's Creatures of the Dark Realm a couple of months ago, and enjoyed it, only to find out that a new album was soon due. As such, I picked up Field of Swords and have been very much enjoying it. Despite the band having a keyboard player, and there are certainly some big synth-led moments and symphonic overtones, Bloodbound generally feel a bit more guitar-driven than some of the fast-paced, modern power metal acts. The keyboards add a lot without ever sounding too cheesy, but the Olsson brothers on guitar tend to drive everything - with nicely layered riffing, harmony guitar leads, and plenty of shredded solos. There is a heaviness to some of the band's material which eludes some up-tempo power metal bands, then, and Fields of Sword really manages to straddle the line between big, poppy melodies and a metallic crunch nicely - incorporating both. The band tend to remind me of a faster-paced and more symphonic HammerFall - rather something overly bombastic or silly like Gloryhammer. The sing-a-long choruses and endless solos are very easy to latch onto, then, and I can see myself listening to this band a lot more going forward.

More power metal follows, and we stay in Sweden for the latest effort from Majestica, Power Train. I had been aware of the band for a while, due to them being fronted by former Sabaton guitarist Tommy Johansson, but it was not until seeing them live with Battle Beast back in October that I actually started paying attention. I soon picked up the band's second full-length album (excluding a 2020 Christmas effort), which was released back in February, their first since 2019's Above the Sky. Whilst I know that Johansson used to front a band called ReinXeed, which Majestica is essentially a rebranded version of, I get the impression that the Majestica era is meant to be seen as something of a new start. Outside of Sabaton, Power Train is my only exposure to Johansson's work, though, but I have been really enjoying it. It is, unashamedly, a power metal record - with fast songs, plenty of double bass drumming, poppy choruses, big synths, and lots of shredded, neo-classical solos. Johansson looks and sounds a bit like Yngwie Malmsteen - and Power Train might have been something Malmsteen could have written had he worked with a proper singer and stopped taking himself so seriously. Thankfully, though, Johansson is also a great singer - and there are plenty of melodic choruses here to sing-a-long with, alongside some big, high-pitched screams. Compared to the Bloodbound album previously discussed, Power Train feels much more up-tempo and poppy. There is less of a crunch here, but the guitar playing throughout is still weighty and busy - whilst the smooth synths allow a core power metal sound to shine through. I will be following this band going forward - and will pick up their older albums in due course.

Turning now to something totally different - and one of the big names in the current UK progressive rock scene: guitarist Luke Machin. Machin burst onto the scene in the early 2010s as the frontman of the progressive metal act Maschine, but since then he has made his name playing with a number of well-established UK-based progressive rock acts - including It Bites, The Tangent, and Karnataka. Whilst Maschine was always his vehicle, and I get the impression that a third album is in the works despite the band having been quiet for a while, this year Machin launched his solo project Soulshine - with its self-titled debut album dropping earlier in the year. I only picked this one up recently, at a Karnataka concert, so I have not spent that much time with it - but it is certainly not what I expected. Whilst there is certainly some prog on here, particularly towards the end of the album, it is an extremely diverse release which straddles pop, soul, funk, rock, prog, and even the odd hint of hip-hop. A huge number of well-known guests helped to bring the album to life, including the likes of Pain of Salvation's Daniel Gildenlöw, UK prog scene stalwart Peter Jones, and guitar hero Guthrie Govan; but some of the best vocal performances early on come from relative unknowns in Sh'kye and Anastasia Pshokina. Pop hooks, a mix of programmed and acoustic drums, and plenty of busy guitar playing makes Soulshine a captivating and evolving listen - with the closing ripping instrumental Final Boss touching on jazz fusion thanks to some busy saxophone.

Moving away from the genre-bending previous album, then, to something more grounded and hard rocking. Despite having first seen them back in 2018 opening for The Quireboys, and watched them rise through the ranks since, 2025 was the year that I properly gave Those Damn Crows a chance. They did not do much for me back in 2018, but when a local show in a surprisingly large venue was announced earlier in the year I was curious. I knew that the band were getting a lot of love, and given the little effort it would take to see them I bought a ticket. In the lead up to the show, which I enjoyed, I picked up the band's four albums - including latest effort God Shaped Hole, which dropped back in April and reached number one in the Album Charts. This is a great achievement for the band - and the tour took in some surprisingly large venues - seeing them play to around a 1000 people here in Plymouth. Whilst I think I prefer the band's previous couple of albums, which rock a little harder and feel a bit less earnest, God Shaped Hole remains a strong effort. It is the sort of album which the band likely thinks showcases a more 'mature' side of their songwriting. This is generally code for 'less fun', and God Shaped Hole is less fun that what came before - but the songwriting remains tight and enjoyable, even if there are too many slower songs here and not enough riffy rockers. I can see why it caught on, though, and topped the chart - and many of the songs ended up feeling much bigger live, as most of them were played live at the show I went to. Post-grunge and the US radio rock-influenced British rock bands are not always my favourites, but I have been glad to catch up with Those Damn Crows again this year.

Rounding off this mini-review series is Slots - the latest solo album from CJ Wildheart. Easily the most straight ahead of the five albums covered here, Slots continues on from CJ's current prolific run of strong solo albums - mixing hard rock, punk, and pop together to create a sound which is not too far away from his previous day jobs with The Wildhearts, Honeycrack, and The Jellys whilst perhaps feeling much punkier. I have gotten to know CJ's solo catalogue a bit over the past year or so, having seen him live three times, and each show has found him and his band in rude form. Songs from Slots have dominated his setlists this year - with their hard-driving riffs, jumping energy, and hooky choruses wowing audiences each time. It is an album that is easy on the ear despite the heavy riffing and plentiful energy - and with CJ handling basically everything besides the drums this is a true solo effort. A fun cover of The Jam's In the City is included - but it is the tight original material that of course shines. It may be quite similar to what came before, and what will come after (as CJ is already working on his next album), but this sound never really gets old - and it is great to see CJ so prolific and busy since the classic Wildhearts line-up crashed and burnt a few years ago.

That is the end of 2025's coverage of new albums but, as mentioned, I also like to give a shout-out to my favourite live release of the year. There have been a lot of excellent live albums this year, but my favourite is the latest live release from Dream Theater, Quarantième: Live à Paris, which was recorded on the band's 40th anniversary tour last year - and their first with founding drummer Mike Portnoy since 2010. Dream Theater are no stranger to live albums, and the band have a huge amount of them at this point, but a record of this fantastic tour was always going to be a must-have. I went to the tour's opening night in London, which was my favourite gig of last year, and it was easily the best Dream Theater show that I have been to to date. The band have never disappointed live, often keeping setlists fresh from tour to tour - but the tour last year pulled out all the stops in terms of production and song choices. Punchier, heavier songs came early - mixing favourites like The Mirror and As I Am with songs not played for a while like Panic Attack and Constant Motion - whilst a barnstorming second set saw the band really go for it with gargantuan numbers like Stream of Consciousness and Octavarium wowing the crowd. Whilst it is a shame that the London show was not filmed, as the atmosphere was electric throughout, which is unusual for shows at the O2 Arena, I imagine that each show on the tour received a similar reception - and the crowd at this Paris show do their bit to make this latest live album a real triumph. The sound quality and mix throughout is excellent, with each of the band's five members doing their bit to really make the near-three hour experience a special one - whilst the concert film is shot tastefully and with real precision.

Well that wraps up my coverage of 2025's new releases - save for my Albums/Gigs of the Year lists which will follow tomorrow. I always like start each new year looking back at the best of the previous one - and 2025 has been full of greatness as has already been alluded to. I will close this post out by looking forward to 2026, though, as there are already a number of potentially very exciting albums I am looking forward to hearing during the first few months of the year. The first review of the year is likely to be of Alter Bridge's upcoming self-titled album, which drops on 9th January, whilst another self-titled album, this time from thrash titans Megadeth, is due later in the same month. Perhaps the most intriguing new release early on, though, will be the third album from a reformed Glamour of the Kill - and band's first proper release since 2014. The singles sound promising, if a little different, but I am glad to have the band back after a lengthy hiatus and a failed reboot in 2018/2019. Looking slightly further on, too, I am ready for The New Flesh, Sylosis' latest opus in February - whilst Tyketto's Closer to the Sun should provide some feel-good vibes in March. Much more that is currently unannounced is sure to follow, too, and I have no doubt that 2026 will be as good as ever.