*if a member of an outfit appears on another track as a collaborator, both the original outfit’s track AND the collaboration are permitted. If an artist possesses multiple projects, both projects are permitted an entry.
So here we are! Wrapping up the Top 50 Songs of 2025! Songs must have been released after 1/1/25, and only one entry per artist allowed!*
This is Part III! Part I can be found here, and Part II can be found here.
10. Adjy – The Festival Grounds
In 2021, Chattanooga’s Adjy unveiled a record that changed the entire direction of my life; ‘The Idyll Opus (I-VI)’ remains the number one album of all time here, and the manner in which it compelled me to write about it is partly why any of Vinyl Fantasy Reviews is a thing.
That magic, even four years later, remains potent and true. Still working hard on the next part of the majestic Idyll Opus project, Christopher Noyes and his merry band of musicians gifted the world a glimpse into what is to come back in May, and ‘The Festival Grounds’ is one hell of a sneak peek. Sounding bolder and brighter than anything the band had put out prior, the track leaps and frolicks with math rock riffs, raucous gang vocals, soul stirring brass, and Noyes’ trademark esoteric lyricism. It sparkles with a youthful summer exuberance, as the band sing of breaking into hot tubs on summer vacation and dancing through wavering crop fields, shifting backwards and forwards in time in a desperate effort to find the life that is worth living.
Adjy are taking their time with their sophomore record, and every moment is as guaranteed as anything can be to be worth waiting. Listen to ‘The Festival Grounds’, behold ‘The Idyll Opus’, and prepare to see that magic is truly real.
9. Coheed & Cambria – The Continuum I: Welcome to Forever, Mr Nobody
Coheed & Cambria: come for the space opera narrative about two on-the-run criminals and their omnipotent son, stay for the genuinely heartbreaking ruminations on mortality and relevance.
Nyack’s favourite sci-fi prog rockers Coheed & Cambria have been around in various forms for thirty years as of 2025, and have recently started to consider what a post-Coheed world may look like for themselves. The band have insinuated that the latest arc of their grand science fiction narrative, the Vaxis pentalogy, represents an ending of sorts for Coheed, although what form that ending takes is yet to be seen. Regardless of whether the end is in sight, the band have showed no signs of slowing down, and their most recent record, ‘Vaxis III: The Father of Make Believe‘, showed songwriter Claudio Sanchez at his most vulnerable and confessional in a long while, perfectly blending the worlds of the fiction and the real.
In a move that long-time fans of the band rejoiced over, ‘The Father of Make Believe‘ brought back the multi-suite musical pieces that the band used to weave into their works, such as ‘The Velorium Camper’ and ‘The Willing Well‘. This time, the band crafted a four-part suite known as ‘The Continuum‘ to wrap up this record, and it is part one of this suite that makes it to number nine on this list. Josh Eppard’s percussion lands like blows from a professional boxer, whilst Zach Cooper’s is as phenomenally melodic as ever, delivered with a crushing fuzz. Meanwhile, Travis Stever and Sanchez lay down industrial tinged riffs with a mechanical sense of menace. It’s a particularly brutal outing from the prog-rockers, only made all the more impactful by Sanchez’s bleak and bitter lyricism; ‘Lying beneath all that’s left of the dream/Headstone reads “Mr. Nobody”‘ he sings during the thrilling post-chorus, as he grapples with the weight of regret and mortality. When the world has forgotten you, what was the purpose of your art?
Even thirty years deep into their careers, Coheed & Cambria can surprise and delight, and refuse to go quietly into that good night.
8. Counterexpressive – This Rainfall Feels Like An Ending
All the way back in January of this year, Dallas’ Counterexpressive dropped their debut LP, ‘So Long As There Is Quiet’; a post-hardcore hidden gem, it is a remarkable record that delivers an unconventional and raw listening experience. Vulnerable lyricism and emotive melodies collide with bleak screams and ferocious riffs, constantly sounding like a band on the verge of self-combustion. Yet at the very end, the band wrap all of the ferocity with the genuinely beautiful ‘This Rainfall Feels Like An Ending’.
Acoustic guitars dance with a deep, weighty melancholy, as bassist Caden Large sings with a spellbinding falsetto that strikes you right in the tear ducts. Percussion rattles with a locomotive energy, as it carries the listener forwards ceaselessly towards some unknown destination. The closing chorus in particular is truly phenomenal, as Large’s vocals shift into incredible soaring passages. Then, as if it was sunlight breaking through the clouds, the track gives way to a simple, dreamy, guitar-led instrumental that carries a real sense of hope.
It’s a magnificent work of art, and by far the greatest album closer of the year, tying up the fractious angst and anxiety of the record in a moment of heartbreaking, soul-mending catharsis.
7. Careful Gaze – one day this will let you go
Sometimes, great music can be found in the most unexpected of times and places, and that is truly the case for number seven on this list, as Minneapolis’s Careful Gaze sculpt an ambient intermission of an EP and land on something truly soul stirring.
In 2022, the post-hardcore outfit released their incredible sophomore LP, ‘WRATH LIKE FLOWERS UPON MY BROW‘, and established themselves as a need-to-know band within the scene. Gabriel Reasoner‘s musings on fighting inner demons, confronting religious trauma, and honouring the love given by those no longer present were supported by soundscapes that ranged from rip-roaring to heartbreaking. Yet since then, it has been a continual period of metamorphosis for the band. Whilst a steady trickle of singles were released, the band shrank from five members to just three, and the future seemed unclear. Instead of shying away from this, the band have embraced it, and this year released what is described as the bridge to Careful Gaze LP3: the predominantly ambient, wildly unexpected, and absolutely breath-taking ‘one day this will let you go‘. This EP will be discussed in full on our upcoming Top 10 EPs of 2025 list, but making the number seven spot here is the project’s title track.
The only track from the three present on the EP to feature vocals, this is the kind of work of art that can only be born from a place of necessity; an exercise in catharsis that arrives after a period of much turmoil. Synths radiate like the first moments of the dawn and the dying embers of sunset all at once, wavering with a beautiful and incomparable sense of hazy nostalgia. ‘Nothing can save you’ repeatedly declares Reasoner, his low voice transforming into soulful bellows that contain multitudes of indescribable emotions, as the ambient backing slowly morphs into something tangible. Guitars coalesce from the mists, and percussion slowly approaches like distant thunder, before the tension gives way to a glorious climax that rains down upon the listener like silver bolts from heaven.
Where Careful Gaze go from here is wholly unclear, but this is a band can produce true magic from uncertainty.
6. Eve O’Riordan – Crying Wolf
Front-woman of funk rock outfit Iguanas On The Floor, Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts student, and folk pop songstress Eve O’Riordan emerged last year with her wonderfully fun and free-spirited debut single, ‘Mascara’, and the potential was clear there and then. She presented as an artist with charm and character, and a talent for sucking you into her world.
Even so, the most prepared of listeners could not have anticipated just how phenomenal she would be on her sophomore single. Leaning heavily into the folk elements of her sound, ‘Crying Wolf’ documents the relationship O’Riordan has possessed with her mental health, and a persistent, dogged belief that her struggles are not worthy of attention or assistance. The elements are simple; the bounding folk twang of acoustic guitars, galloping percussion, and O’Riordan’s soaring vocals are presented with a distinct rawness, as if you are listening to this track being played live. Yet what comes from these simple elements is so, so much more than the sum of its parts.
O’Riordan’s performance is endlessly shiver-inducing, as she swoops and dives from her vulnerable falsetto to breathtaking belted passages, building with the instrumental backing towards a climax of utter desperation. Electric guitars shimmer and cymbals crash, before cutting out abruptly and letting O’Riordan take centre stage with vocals that crack with ferocious, unrestrained emotion. It’s a magnificent moment in an already wonderful track, hitting you square in the diaphragm as O’Riordan, so tired of keeping quiet, finally lets her pleas for help be heard.
The joys that can be found in your local music scene are surprising and limitless, and O’Riordan is a testament to anybody questioning whether the grassroots of Liverpool has anything worth listening to.
5. The Throwaway Scene (feat. Charlie Rolfe) – This Place Is Full Of Envy
Is it a Vinyl Fantasy Reviews Top 50 Songs list if The Throwaway Scene aren’t in the top ten?
It has been a roller-coaster of a year for The Throwaway Scene. Following on from releasing the emo banger ‘Talking Slowly‘ back in February, the band have enjoyed live performances alongside Love Is Noise and Delaire the Liar, and a well-received set at Burn It Down Festival. In the midst of this, founding bassist Sam Clarke departed the band to join Love Is Noise, as Cameron Humphrey sought to rebuild the project into a fully-fledged band.
Losing a founding member would sometimes be an event that forces a band to take a pause and re-establish themselves. For The Throwaway Scene, this was something that they have simply taken in their stride, and with Owen Cousins of Displacer currently serving as acting bassist, the band have unleashed another incredible emo anthem. Featuring Charlie Rolfe of As Everything Unfolds, ‘This Place Is Full Of Envy‘ continues to flesh out the theatrical, gothic melodrama of their sound, as the band make allusions to the oppressive and false nature of the music industry. Rolfe’s vocals intertwine with that of Oliver Haim’s phenomenally, melodies dancing atop of the lyrics with a powerful sense of exasperation and desperation. Tom Ward’s percussion is a thumping backbone that drives the track forwards with an electrifying energy, whilst Tom Green-Morgan lays down the kind of killer riffs that makes this an instant emo classic of a track.
The Throwaway Scene kick off their 2026 with a March co-headlining tour with Hell Hotel, so there is plenty of time to learn the lyrics of your new favourite emo band. The UK alternative scene is packed with phenomenal bands just waiting to break through; will you be there to make that happen?
4. Sleep Token – Caramel
Before half of you click this page closed, give me a moment.
Sleep Token’s ascent into the upper echelons of the alternative scene has been beyond meteoric. In late 2022, they were cult favourites of the scene’s expansive underground, but by May 2023, the band had racked up millions of listeners, and would go on to sell out arenas both sides of the Atlantic. It felt like a coalescence of all of the right factors coming together at the right time: a band with an interesting sound, a strong visual style, an air of mystique, and a concept that could be dug into, releasing a song that was simply unlike anything else around at the time, right when fandom had truly begun to re-emerge on spaces such as TikTok. Their third record, ‘Take Me Back To Eden‘, scored 100/100 here, earning the Vinyl Fantasy Reviews Album of the Year title, and the closing number ‘Euclid‘ earned the Vinyl Fantasy Reviews Song of the Year title.
Fast forwards two years, and Sleep Token have only continued to grow, but that hasn’t been without its hurdles. Their fourth record, ‘Even In Arcadia‘, released earlier this year to incredibly divisive reviews; to some it was the sound of a band truly claiming their status as arena headliners, and for others, it was ‘metal for Disney adults’. Here, the record received a fairly positive review, with the band creating a messy collection of tracks that featured some genuinely interesting musings of the cost of fame when your whole shtick is being anonymous, and also featured ‘baddiecore’ baiting lyrics and completely undercooked attempts at genre-bending. You cannot slap trap beats over djent riffs and call it creative.
In the midst of the messiness, however, Sleep Token produced one of their finest tracks to date. With its afrobeat rhythmic styling and confessional lyricism, ‘Caramel‘ serves as the first real glimpse at the man behind the Vessel moniker. It serves as a simultaneous love song to his fans, thanking them for giving he and his bandmates monumental success, and a cry for help, trapped by parasocial individuals who have gone so far as to seek out the band’s birth certificates. ‘They ask me, “Is it going good in the garden?”/Say, “I’m lost, but I beg no pardon“‘ Vessel sings, isolated and crushed by the weight of unexpected fame, but unable to feel that his complaints are valid when he has achieved the kind of fame most musicians can only dream of. The melodies are sumptuous and spellbinding, reverberating with a sense of guilt and desperation, and the frenzied breakdown in the back half is nothing short of a panic attack in sonic form, as Vessel confronts the fact that maybe getting everything he had every dreamed of won’t fix the flaws he sees in himself.
‘Even In Arcadia‘ is a record that deserves to be criticised heavily for its over-reliance on safe ideas and performances that simply do not flow well, yet ‘Caramel‘ should not be tarnished with the sins of its record. Sleep Token letting listeners peek behind the curtain with confessional lyricism and a genuinely intriguing blend of pop and metal is the kind of risk that the band should take more of. It may have just missed out on a top three position here, but let it be known that Vinyl Fantasy Reviews will remain a staunch ‘Caramel‘ defender.
3. Benefits (feat. Shakk) – Divide
Following on from their 2023 debut, ‘Nails’, Teesside’s Benefits stared long into the abyss of their own demise. With the departure of founding member Hugh Major and a persistent inability to retain a drummer, it could very easily have been time for the band to throw in the towel; musical careers have caved over far less.
Instead, the duo of Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major leaned into their live tendencies to incorporate dance and house into their noise rock rampage, and the result was the genuinely remarkable feat of musicianship that is ‘Constant Noise’. There is much remaining to be said about what they achieved on their sophomore effort, but for that we shall wait until our Top 10 Albums of 2025 year list arrives. For now, it is time to celebrate the third best track of 2025, ‘Divide’.
An absolute behemoth of a track, ‘Divide’ commences with little more than a looping drum rhythm and a pulsing, distorted bass line soaked in fuzz. Hall delivers his spoken word with the suggestion of a rap flow, staccato and sharp. He speaks of a society in constant mitosis, separated and segregated by constant culture war; the concept of a meaningful rebellion wholly obfuscated by a system that ensures the blame always lands anywhere except upon those rigging it in their favour. Hall is bold and unrelenting in his presence and this works perfectly with the ferocity of Shakk’s guest appearance.
A lyrical Rottweiler, Shakk’s scathing, rapid-fire observations cut through the thick, hypnotic swell of the now synth laden instrumentals, contrasting perfectly with the darker, steadfast presence of Hall. There’s a real desperation to it all, with each prime minister elected only serving to quicken the decline into facism, each decision only serving to repeat the mistakes of the past, each moment to stop the rot slipping by as British towns crumble and foreign towns are razed.
When both vocalists collide during the incredible bridge and closing verse, fireworks happen. Tides of synth crash down over the listener as the duo repeat the mantra ‘Divide, for power, for greed/For oil, for me’, swirling around and around the listener and sucking you deep into an adrenaline fuelled trance. It is a bold, brilliant, unrelenting, and uncompromising listen that comes from a place of raw, unapologetic creativity and vision.
The third place for Vinyl Fantasy Reviews Song of the Year 2025 is ‘Divide‘ by Benefits featuring Shakk.
2. Maia Rowan – Big Yellow House
It brings me incredible joy to be able to include two musicians based in the grassroots of Liverpool on this top ten list. The city truly is the City of Music, and not thanks to the hollow platitudes and marketing slogans of a city council that seeks nothing more than to boost tourism numbers via legacy acts whilst letting local venues die out at a never-before-seen pace. No, Liverpool is the City of Music thanks to the incredible amount of talent that arrives from all over the globe to give their gifts to this community of creatives, and –‘s Maia Rowan is perhaps the perfect example of this.
Whilst studying at LIPA, Rowan has been hard at work crafting their quirky and playful pop sound that takes influence from the likes of Regina Spektor. It is heartfelt and confessional, but also with a genuinely delightful degree of whimsy; it seeks to make you laugh and cry in equal measure. Rowan has been hard at work sculpting a record that details her mother’s battle with cancer, and a glimpse into that world comes in the form of the absolutely magnificent and utterly heartbreaking ‘Big Yellow House‘, which captures the number two spot on the Top 50 Songs of 2025 list. Rowan utilises the track as a diary for all of her seemingly bizarre and irrational fears, such as her heart giving out if she uses the same towel that her cat died on, or sleeping next to windows when staying at a hotel. Her quaint, wavering tones are draped beautifully over a charming, captivating piano performance that juxtaposes a sense of earnest simplicity with a theatrical undertone.
Rowan grapples with existential dread in a manner that almost feels a little like the sonic equivalent of a Wes Anderson movie, with fantastical musings on Obama and being eaten alive. Yet in between these moments of childlike wonder are lyrics that hit like a semi-truck. During the second verse, Rowan sings ‘I’d stay awake til I was too tired to be scared I’d die in my sleep/’Cause who am I to put my trust in an electric meat machine‘, and it is easy to imagine that anybody who experiences anxiety of the health and existential kinds, and those who experience OCD, will have felt these words connect like a bolt to the brain. The manner in which Rowan simply yet wondrously sings of the irrational thoughts and deepest, darkest fears we experience is the sign of an artist with an incredible depth of talent just waiting to be explored.
As Rowan wraps up the song with a brief stanza musing on the prospect of her mother facing cancer, you cannot help but take a step back and digest everything that Rowan has crafted. Through her willingness to be vulnerable and open with her trauma, Rowan has created a work of art that speaks to the very soul, and will have a line somewhere in its contents that will resonate with every listener. It is a genuinely magical affair, and the prospect of an entire record of material of this quality is truly, fantastically exciting.
The runner-up for Vinyl Fantasy Reviews Song of the Year 2025 is ‘Big Yellow House‘ by Maia Rowan.
- Stay Inside – Oh, Longshoreman
Deciding the number one slot this year was a tricky procedure thanks to how phenomenal some of the releases have been. At one point, it was Sleep Token’s ‘Caramel‘. At another, it was Coheed & Cambria’s ‘The Continuum I: Welcome to Forever, Mr. Nobody‘. The title has traded hands time and time again, as songs have entered, exited, and re-entered my listening rotation. Yet one track, released in July of this year, has remained a constant throughout the year’s entirety. The more I questioned as to what the Song of the Year for 2025 would be, the more I found myself thinking about this track over and over again, a track that had become the soundtrack to 2025, through late summer haze to frosted winter nights.
Stay Inside’s ‘Oh, Longshoreman‘ may well not be an immediately obvious pick for Song of the Year. There are no outrageous guitar solos, revolutionary genre fusions, or wild vocal acrobatics. It is a subdued, slack, shimmering affair, with dreamy guitars draped atop of a gentle percussive beat, delivered with something of a bluegrass flair. Melodies glitter with an ethereal yet whimsical sense of melancholy, as vocalist Chris Johns delivers an unconventionally captivating performance, glimmering with a smoking, swirling sense of jealous rage. The opening bar sets the tone perfectly; ‘Well, whose arm do I have to touch to get a rise from the one I want?‘ Johns asks, vocals delivered with the suggestion of a slur as if he has stumbled into a local saloon and witnessed the object of his affections in the arms of another.
The choruses are just as understated as the rest of the track, yet offer one of the most devilishly infectious listening experiences of the year. The manner in which Johns delivers the bar ‘Hot damn, I’m on the loose/I’m not the god-fearin’ man you got used to‘ is simply perfect, commencing in their feathery upper register and dropping into a gravelly low tone; it is playful, yet exudes just the subtlest of venom. It’s the sound of someone striking out, determined to prove others wrong, yet still not quite at peace with one’s own self; an irreverent rage tucked away in the deepest recesses of the gunslinger’s mind.
It is a track with many subtle elements, but the sum of these subtleties is ultimately a track that is simply perfectly executed in every regard. It transports you to a different time, place, and feeling, engulfing you in a cinematic experience that proves music does not need to be grandiose to be incredibly impactful. When a collection of artists come together with a clear vision, and an ambition to tell a genuine story, true magic can occur, and you can find yourself being sucked into their world. With ‘Oh, Longshoreman‘, Stay Inside have achieved just that. The local park becomes the great prairies of the American frontier, whilst the bus ride to work becomes a horseback ride into uncharted wilderness. The mundane becomes the wondrous, and the magic never loses its potency. ‘Oh, Longshoreman‘, without any demand other than to be listened to and enjoyed, became the soundtrack to 2025, and what a glorious soundtrack it was.
The Vinyl Fantasy Reviews Song of the Year for 2025 is ‘Oh, Longshoreman’, by Stay Inside.
VINYL FANTASY REVIEWS SONG OF THE YEAR
2021 – Adjy – Where June Meets July: III. at a Dance Where the Stars Cross
2022 – nightlife – fallback
2023 – Sleep Token – Euclid
2024 – Topiary Creatures – Cleaning Basil Out Of The Pool
2025 – Stay Inside – Oh, Longshoreman
VINYL FANTASY REVIEWS 
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