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Boston Globe

The 20 best albums of 2025 (so far)

Annie & the Caldwells, 'Can't Lose My (Soul)' The 'about' page on Annie & the Caldwells's website offers a single, mundane statement — 'we're a family band from West Point, Mississippi' — but the music this family makes is simply out of this world. Led by singer-matriarch Annie Caldwell, 'Can't Lose My (Soul)' delivers six spectacular, extended workouts of disco, funk, and gospel-soul call-and-response fervor that testify — to their faith, and to the power of music. (Stuart Munro) Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Bad Bunny, 'DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS' Advertisement The Energizer Bunny of Latin music reigns supreme with his sixth solo LP, a twisting odyssey where plena, salsa, and bomba from the Bad Bunny performs during the first show of his 30-date concert residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Alejandro Granadillo/Associated Press Billy Nomates, 'Metalhorse' Billy Nomates comes equipped with a withering alto cut with half of a snarl, and it'd serve her exceedingly well for black-hearted cynicism (or country music). But the art-pop she serves up via 'Metalhorse' — grand and wheezing here, flattened into synth-garage there — finds her clinging to a belief in the humanity we all start with instead. From there — well, that's where things get interesting. (Marc Hirsh) Advertisement D.K. Harrell, 'Talkin' Heavy' The blues is more alright than it's been in years, thanks to a recent surge of young, Black, Southern-raised talents. One of the most exciting is Louisiana-born singer/guitarist D.K. Harrell. Like his most obvious influence, B.B. King, Harrell knows how to make a soulful sound that's informed by traditional blues but still sounds funky and fresh. (Noah Schaffer) The Delines, 'Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom' The fourth album from Portland, Ore., band the Delines continues what they do so well: combining Willy Vlautin's unflinching portraits of trials and tribulations from the hardscrabble side of life, Amy Boone's husky, impossibly weary vocals, and the band's delicious country-soul instrumentation. If there's a new one from this band, it's pretty much a lead-pipe cinch that it will show up somewhere on my best-of list. (Stuart Munro) Durand Jones & the Indications, 'Flowers' This Echezona & JPRiZM, 'Ényì' Advertisement With Afrobeats thriving in the diaspora, a cadre of US-based artists are now putting their own spin on the music. Boston-based artist Echezona and producer JPRiZM have crafted this heartfelt multilingual celebration of women and community; it's full of club-ready grooves that hit a sweet spot right between Afrobeats and hip-hop. (Noah Schaffer) Ethel Cain, 'Perverts' An EP testing the limits of 'extended' play? A double-album statement disguised as interstitial palate cleanser? Singer-songwriter Ethel Cain's nine-song, 90-minute project 'Perverts' defies simple categorization as it sheds the gothic Americana of 2022's 'Preacher's Daughter' for an imposing and intoxicating sea of drone, dark ambient, and spectral folk. It's a deep dive into the abyss, inviting (or daring) listeners to follow it down. (Ben Stas) Hallelujah the Hills, 'Deck' Mirroring a traditional pack of playing cards — that's four records for four suits, 52 songs for 52 cards, plus a pair of 'joker' tracks — the ambitious, towering 'Deck' is the biggest swing yet from long-running Boston outfit Hallelujah the Hills. The high-concept conceit may be the hook, but bandleader Kali Uchis, 'Sincerely' Since her emergence in the early 2010s, Virginia-born Advertisement KiNG MALA , 'And You Who Drowned in the Grief of a Golden Thing' The audacious debut full-length from Los Angeles pop savant KiNG MALA tackles the often-ugly collision of ambition and romance with high-concept songs that find her fighting a deity. On tracks that possess the grandeur of cinema scores and the white-knuckle emotionalism of bedroom pop, KiNG MALA takes on the world's biggest ills, knowing that any scars she weathers will double as proof of life. (Maura Johnston) Mei Semones , 'Animaru' The debut album from this Berklee grad recalibrates the recent indie infatuation with samba and bossa nova (see: Laufey, John Roseboro). Start with the fact that Semones sings in Japanese as often as English; add that her band indulges in chamber-pop rock and occasional math-y breakdowns. 'This is a dumb feeling,' she sings. 'There's something I like about it.' (James Sullivan) Mdou Moctar performs at the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival./file Mdou Moctar, 'Tears of Injustice' The latest from the electrifying Tuareg guitarist Paquito D'Rivera & Madrid-New York Connection Band, 'La Fleur de Cayenne' Showing up unannounced is rarely advised, but it worked for Spain-based pianist/composer Pepe Rivero. When visiting New Jersey, he dropped by the home of master clarinetist and saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, and decades later, the two Cuban jazz greats are still creating music together. D'Rivera sounds as inspired as ever on this elegant set full of pan-Latin rhythms. (Noah Schaffer) Advertisement Pulp, 'More' The first album in nearly a quarter-century from Britpop's brainiest collective finds the group older, wiser, and a little more sentimental than they were in the early '00s — although their knife-edge wit and ability to crank out festival-ready anthems are still quite intact. On songs like the gorgeous 'Farmers Market' and the tense 'Grown Ups,' lead raconteur Jarvis Cocker and his band look back at the past with bemusement and toward the future with tenderness. (Maura Johnston) Saba & No ID, 'From the Private Collection of Saba and No ID' What do you do when the producer who shaped some of the biggest songs for Jay-Z, Kanye West, Common, Beyoncé, and Rihanna drops 100 beats in your lap? If you're rapper Saba, you take it as a challenge — but also a chance to exhale after unpacking trauma on 2018's 'CARE FOR ME' and 2022's 'Few Good Things.' The duo ended up with 15 songs that are inviting ('Crash') and flirtatious ('Breakdown'), but still soulful ('Reciprocity') and thoughtful ('How to Impress God'). (Julian Benbow) Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, 'Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory' Approaching the goth/post-punk/Krautrock amalgam of her current outfit with open-minded intentionality, Advertisement Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory Devin Oktar Yalkin Tamino, 'Every Dawn's a Mountain' He's been dubbed 'the Belgian Jeff Buckley' — a heavy saddle. Actually half Egyptian (his grandfather was a movie and pop star from Cairo), Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad might be more like Timothée Chalamet's version of Leonard Cohen. None of which is intended to denigrate his obvious promise as a performer all his own. Tamino's third album is a quiet stunner. (James Sullivan) Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith, 'Defiant Life' Player-composers Julian Benbow can be reached at