Well, the first quarter of the year anyway. Sooooo much music, my music picks of 2025 playlist is already over two hours long.

January seemed to be country and girly pop inspired, interestingly.

Notable mentions (there is actually more than this!), mostly albums:

• Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out. Always going to love some angry shouty girls (it’s why I love A). Five tracks from this make my picks of 2025 so by volume this should be my album of the year.
• Moonchild Sanelly: Full Moon. Big Booty is my favourite.
• Ethel Cain: Perverts. It’s a bit like listening to an art installation, not that that in itself is a bad thing, but Vacillator is the closest to an actual song.
• Rose Gray: Louder Please. Cross between Dua Lipa and Charli XCX? Which is a pretty good thing. Free, Party People and Switch are really, really good.
• Geowulf: The Child. I only really like Stay Baby.
• Willow Avalon: Raising Hell. It’s country music so not my thing, but for some reason I love Something We Regret.
• Alessi Rose: for your validation. An EP. Start Wll Over is great. Pop, but great. Ikyk is great too.
• Jasmine.4.t: You are the Morning. Yay for Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation having a surprise Phoebe Bridgers appearance (and having a great song name).
• Déyyess: Claire. Another EP. More pop perfection. If I Was Ur Boy is just utterly superb.
• FKA Twigs: Eusexua. Perfect Stranger and Striptease are the obvious standouts for me. And Childlike Things, well, much like Jessica Winter’s L.O.V.E. I can’t actually decide if it is really really good or really really bad.
• Heartworms: Glutton for Punishment. Probably going to be my album of the year emotionally, it’s just superb. I only actually have Just Ask To Dance and Mad Catch in my playlist so far, but I do actually love the whole thing.
• John Glacier: Like a Ribbon. I didn’t know what it was going to be like, but not like this? A female CASISDEAD? Maybe? Emotions and Ocean Steppin’ are the ones I like best. This deserves more listens.
• The Wombats: Oh! the Ocean. I like Blood On The Hospital Floor and I Love America And She Hates Me the most. It ‘s not bad (at all) it’s just not A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation.
• Mallrat: light hit my face like a straight right. Via little M. Pavement and Hideaway are the best. For some reason I feel a bit too old to be listening to this.
• Saya Gray: Saya. H.B.W is good, but Lie Down is the stand out to me and how I discovered the album - which makes you wait until the end.
• Marie Davidson: City of Clowns. Sexy Clown and YAMM (both versions) are my favourites although Fun Times is fun times too.
• The Architects: The Sky, The Earth And All Between. This is pretty great. I loved Whiplash and Curse from last year and they probably remain my favourites.
• Antony Szmierek: Service Station At The End Of The Universe. I like it, but not as much as Circle of Light and Working Classic which aren’t on this. Rafters is maybe the nearest? Crashing up is good too.
• Divorce: Drive to Goldenhammer. All My freaks, which I knew about before hand, is heads and shoulders above everything. It is such an amazing track that it makes all the other good stuff on the album seem a bit bland in comparison.
• Housewife: Girl of the Hour. A lot of this I heard last year. I like everything on here. Maybe I like I Lied and Divorce most of all.
• Fust: Big Ugly. More country, but Spangled is a tune.
• HotWax: Hot Shock. Hard Goodbye has just such a great opening sound.
• Freak Slug: I blow out big candles (but with a cherry on top). Spells is superb.
• Chloe Qisha: 21st Century Cool Girl and Sex, Drugs And Existential Dread. Both are singles. Both utter pop perfection.
• Sacred Paws: Jump into Life. For me, not hitting the heights of Almost It from Run Around The Sun.
• Snapped Ankles: Hard Times Furious Dancing. Probably Raoul is best, but despite the great album name there’s nothing that furious. Where’s the Caganar is pretty good too. All in all probably not really my thing.
• Sleeper’s Bell: Clover. Really pretty beautiful, but Room is the standout for me.

And then there is stuff I’ve not got to around yet and will have to roll over into April:

• Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women). I’ve given it one quick listen, but not properly.
• Greentea Peng: Tell Dem it’s Sunny. Same.
• Perfume Genius: Glory.
• Panda Bear: Sinister Grift.

Probably said superb too much. Oh well.

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Some quick initial thoughts on Salomon Sense Ride 5:

• In a roundabout way I got them for a fiver which is why I went for them (wouldn’t normally consider Salomon just as a way to cheap the options down).
• They are a great road/trail/dog-walking shoe.
• The tread pattern reminds me of the old Vittoria cyclo-cross tyres I had - i.e there is an even enough surface for road use and enough tread for off-road.
• Since they are a road to trail shoe they are “good enough” on the road and “good enough” off-road. But not great on either. That is just the compromise you have to make.
• I have of course christened them through lots of mud, but I was “cautious” in them in the really slippery bits because they don’t instantly “bite”.
• The fairly tight tread pattern also means they don’t shed mud that well once it’s dry.
• They have a semi-collapsible and nice soft heel counter which I like.
• They look pretty good.
• They do take a bit of breaking in. I was not a fan of walking in them when I first put them on, but I’ve done almost 100km of running in them now (and more walking) and they are fine now; And were fine some point before this.
• The laces aren’t normal laces, but they are mostly set and forget.
• The absolutely worst thing about them is they have a really shallow toe box. A size UK 10 feels too small, but actually isn’t length wise. I replaced the insoles with some old Nike ones which are a bit thinner and that helped. I still thought I was going to end up with badly bruised toenails, but actually they are no worse than usual.

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