Things of 2025: Neil Laurenson & Attila Peter share their favourite music and culture of the year

To start of the new year we’ve been looking back at some of our favourite releases, gigs and events of 2025. Yesterday Mathias Kom shared his selections, including a country-folk album written entirely in Māori, a vampire western movie and a song described as ‘bard rap’ – you can read his picks in full here. Today it’s the turn of Joyzine writers Neil Laurenson and Attila Peter.

Neil Laurenson

New Musical Discovery – My Mercury

I didn’t realise how much I missed Noah and the Whale until I heard My Mercury. The London-based band fronted by Canadian Michael Leger have been described as ‘Americana-kissed indie’, and their debut album is out next February. Their single ‘Before’ has the wide-eyed wonder of Springsteen and ‘Almost Ice’ takes the epicness up a notch, but ‘Fourteen Hours’ is my favourite so far – a swooning, beautiful song that sounds like a collab between Kathryn Williams and Damien Rice. Watching their ‘Lunch With…’ set at 5DB studios is 33 minutes extremely well spent. Just gorgeous.

My Mercury: Bandcamp / Instagram

Album – Great Grandpa – Patience, Moonbeam

Great Grandpa’s third album Patience, Moonbeam is this century’s Automatic for the People – there, I said it. It’s beautiful, strange, funny, inventive…it’s like nothing else I’ve heard this year, and I think about it a lot. On the second track ‘Never Rest’, the band recall a time when someone said ‘“Edelweiss”…’cause it sounds nice.’ The Edelweiss flower is found in remote mountain areas in northern Europe. However, Patience, Moonbeam is as American as a serving of apple pie on momma’s porch in Kansas. The album cover is a painting of the moon held up reverentially – an offering to others rather than a trophy. Once you’ve listened to Patience, Moonbeam, you’ll consider it a mandatory act of kindness to share it with everyone.

Great Grandpa: Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp

Single – Odette Saint Wolfgang – ‘Rabbit’s Eulogy’

Can I even refer to this song as a single? I don’t know if it’s been released, and I can’t find a single thing about Odette Saint Wolfgang other than the Soundcloud page that I am already well aware of. In the past two months, I must have listened to ‘Rabbit’s Eulogy’ about three hundred times. If an alive Hans Christian Andersen wrote indie music, it would sound like this. It sounds like it was recorded in a well in the depth of a forest. It’s like waving goodbye to your dreams at the edge of the sea with the moon as your witness. Odette Saint Wolfgang has 39 Soundcloud followers – if this review means she has 40, my work is done.

Listen to ‘Rabbit’s Eulogy on Soundcloud

Gig – Fury – The Marr’s Bar, Worcester, 19^th December 2025

Fury frontman Julian Jenkins is wearing a black Santa hat with ‘bah humbug’ written on it and a Greggs T-shirt – rock and (sausage) roll! The band begin with the title track from their latest album Interceptor. Matt Fletcher on lead guitar plays an unbelievable solo – his fingers move like spiders up a drainpipe on fast forward. The song ends with a “ha ha ha!” from Julian like a triumphant Joker or evil Santa. The Marr’s Bar is absolutely packed – it makes a tin of sardines look as empty as Thatcher’s soul. At one point, Tom Fenn drums as if he’s announcing the commencement of war. As the band leave the stage and ‘Take My Breath Away’ starts playing, everyone reflects on their glorious exhaustion. It’s like we’ve all been to a massive house party in America in 1987.

Fury: Website/ Facebook / Instagram

Festival – Worcester Music Festival – 12-14^th September 2025

“What’s in a name?” said a bloke from the Midlands. There are over 250 names in the Worcester Music Festival programme, two of which are Fretstomper and Fret Stomper. One could be a noisecore band, the other could be a Danish folk singer. The city is alive with music. My highlights include Hurricane Tapes (post-punk shoegaze), Spincycle (‘instrumental psychedelic experience’), Moss Grotto (Godspeed+), SAUR (daft post-punk), Nigel Clark (Dodgy frontman), and Heavy Peace (doom grunge).

Worcester Music Festival: Website / Facebook

Music-related moment of the year – Heavy Peace (Worcester Music Festival)

At the start of track #3 of Heavy Peace’s set, revellers rush towards the stage to get a better look of their new favourite band. This is a Cavern Club moment, and not just because of Ruben Seabright’s high guitar stance. “Nothing feels the same!” he screams, and hopefully it won’t feel the same for much longer once they’ve been snapped up by a big label. Heavy Peace make Deftones sound as loud and menacing as Vashti Bunyan.

Heavy Peace socials: Facebook | Instagram

Film – Superman

Neither an original choice nor an original film, but I enjoyed this very much for its right-on allegorical tone (Gaza will be free), and Nicholas Hoult is a fantastic baddy. I remember him as a boy in About A Boy, so to see him play a very convincing adult psychopath was quite the shock. The flying dog was annoying, and Superman was a little tardy in saving a few people, but minor quibbles. I’ve just read that a sequel is due in 2027. Yet another one? It doesn’t matter if it’s as good as this one.

Book – Pierre Novellie – Why Can’t I Just Enjoy Things?

Published last year, but I’ve just read it. Like Novellie, I am a grumpy late-diagnosed autistic man, which is why I somewhat ironically enjoyed this book very much. I only wish I could share his talent for humour as well as his permanent anxiety in this chaotic neurotypical-friendly world. Whether you’re autistic or not, you will also enjoy Why Can’t I Just Enjoy Things?

Pierre Novellie: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Live Theatre – Back to the Future: The Musical (The Adelphi, London)

If you think a musical based on one of the most popular films in history is simply a shameless moneymaker then I implore you to put aside your pithy putdowns, get your wallet, and enjoy the show. I went from 0 f**ks to 88 in a matter of seconds, and what the stage crew do to make the DeLorean move – literally move – has to be seen to be believed.

Back to the Future – The Musical: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Art Exhibition – I Grew Up 90s –Worcester

In my home city, the local museum hosted a 90s exhibition. The NME ‘Battle of Britpop’ cover from precisely thirty years ago was blown up to 100 times its original size. A Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive were housed in a transparent cage. Hello magazine revealed that Princess Diana is alive and well. I felt very, very old.

Museums Worcestershire: Website / Facebook / Instagram

TV Programme – Stranger Things

I am typing this the day before I am going to watch the final episode of the final series. Season 5 of Stranger Things has been a constantly thrilling and often baffling blend of monsters, romance, gore, and precocious physics. This time tomorrow, I’ll be pining for a new programme that also successfully mixes E.T., Stand By Me, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Stranger Things: Facebook / Instagram

Podcast – Blindboy Boatclub – The Blindboy Podcast

Blindboy Boatclub – aka David Chambers – is another late-diagnosed autistic man. He has been doing a weekly podcast for eight years, and the episode title ‘A 19^th century volcanic eruption resulted in people training falcons to have sex with their heads’ is one of the more conventional ones.

The Blindboy Podcast: Listen on ACast / Website / Instagram

Attila Peter

Favourite Albums of 2025

1. The New Eves: The New Eve Is Rising

It’s a bit of a cliche to say that a band tears up the rule book, but the Brighton-based quartet do just that on their debut. They whisper, chant and howl as they create a sort of feminist manifesto that draws on religion, mythology and literature. Freak folk, post-punk and primal rock all rolled into one; you’ve never heard anything quite like this before.

The New Eves: Bandcamp | Instagram

2. Quinton Barnes: Black Noise

There are albums that defy categorisation and then there are those, like Black Noise, that set out to shatter labels. The Montreal artist’s project fuses hip-hop, free jazz, funk, drone, breakbeat, experimental music and insert-your-genre-of-choice only to then dissolve them all. It’s chaotic, powerful, fearless art dedicated to the exploration of Black identity.

Quinton Barnes: Instagram / Bandcamp

3. Adeline Hotel: Watch the Sunflowers

Prefer subtle shifts and vivid imagery to big, hokey hooks? Dan Knishkowy and his collective’s latest release, crafted over many years, is an intimate album filled with beautifully structured songs that slowly unfold and draw you in. You’re floating between indie folk, alt-country and dream pop, with no desire to ever come back down. Mesmerising.

Adeline Hotel: Instagram / Bandcamp

4. Tuxis Giant: You Won’t Remember This

5. Lovely Assistant: Fuck Love

6. Geese: Getting Killed

7. Hannah Frances: Nested in Tangles

8. Tune-Yards: Better Dreaming

9. Anna Tivel: Animal Poem

10. The Saxophones: No Time for Poetry

11. Iona Zajac: Bang

12. McKinley Dixon: Magic, Alive!

13. Mamalarky: Hex Key

14. Laveda: Love, Darla