As the year progresses, we look to the future to guess at the upcoming albums from our favorite artists and pontificate as to what their new sounds will reveal. We hungrily devour press releases to look for producers and collaborators, and our eyes rest on the screens as new song are released as official singles or lyric videos. Here are a non-exhaustive list of albums that our editors have been anticipating from this year.
In Space – Edith Frost
Release Date: February 28, 2025
In the ’90s and early 2000s, Edith Frost made some of the most underrated albums to come out of the Drag City camp. Tuneful, sorrowful, scene-setting affairs that were as powerful as those being made by her peers but somehow didn’t get quite as much of the limelight. After her 2005 LP It’s A Game, Frost all but disappeared save a few self-released things here and there. In Space marks her first album in 20 years, and the singles shared before its release point to a nonlinear evolution in her slightly psychedelic, sort-of-but-not-quite country, righteously angry and sometimes heartachey songwriting style. – Fred Thomas
MAYHEM – Lady Gaga
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Lucky for me, I didn’t have to wait long for my most anticipated album of the year. Lady Gaga‘s MAYHEM dropped on March 7th, which made this Middle-aged Monster very happy. All three singles hit a different sweet spot: “Abracadabra” pushed the Fame Monster/Born This Way nostalgia into the stratosphere, while “Disease” cranked up the sentiment of the album’s title with a dash of the industrial-inspiration of the project. And though it doesn’t quite fit into the dance-pop revival theme, the sublime duet “Die With A Smile” with Bruno Mars is the cherry on top. Unless Nine Inch Nails or Muse — who both have packed 2025 live schedules — release new albums this year, MAYHEM is hands down the one for me. – Neil Z. Yeung
Dead Channel Sky – clipping.
Release Date: March 14, 2025
On their previous two albums, noise-rap trio clipping. delved into horrorcore influences, producing their fiercest and most well-received work to date. Dead Channel Sky, their upcoming release, is inspired by cyberpunk and revolutionary hip-hop and electro dating back to Afrika Bambaataa and Egyptian Lover. Judging by the songs that have been released so far, it also seems like they’ve been expanding on the Detroit techno influences felt on the Drexciya-inspired 2017 single “The Deep.” Not only that, but “Change the Channel” sounds like the Prodigy, and I could definitely go for a big beat revival right about now. – Paul Simpson
For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) – Japanese Breakfast
Release Date: March 21, 2025
Michelle Zauner really came into her own in 2021. She authored her first book, Crying in H Mart, about struggling with her mother’s death from cancer and reconnecting with her Korean heritage. She also released her third album with her band Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee, whose synthy, ’80s dayglow aesthetic felt like a companion soundtrack to her very personal memoir. Following what surely was another transformative period living and working in Seoul where she was born, Zauner is set to return to Japanese Breakfast with 2025’s For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). Produced with Blake Mills, the album, heralded by the poetically atmospheric single “Orlando in Love,” promises an even more nuanced and sonically textured continuation of her story. – Matt Collar
Forever Is a Feeling – Lucy Dacus
Release Date: March 28, 2025
One of the joys of binge listening to the 2023 boygenius album the record was discovering three brilliant songwriters with uniquely diverse voices (both in the singing sense and in their outlook and approach to music making). Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers represent different vocal ranges but the songs featuring Lucy Dacus‘ breathy and subtle melodies are the ones that stood out to me most, sending me scouting through her back catalog and enjoying each album. This upcoming release features appearances by her fellow boygeniuses plus Hozier, Bartees Strange, Madison Cunningham and a host of others. The pre-release singles have been charming and heartbreaking and I can’t wait to hear the whole thing. – Zac Johnson
Time Indefinite – William Tyler
Release Date: April 25, 2025
In the latter half of the 2010s, William Tyler became a figurehead for the burgeoning instrumental guitar movement. An indie rock journeyman who’s spent time with bands like Lambchop, Silver Jews, and Hiss Golden Messenger, Tyler earned widespread acclaim for 2016’s Modern Country and its 2019 follow-up Goes West, a pair of elegant instrumental full-band records that fused textured ambience with intricate guitar-driven arrangements. In the ensuing years, he went on to score Kelly Reichardt’s award-winning indie film, First Cow, and release a duo album with fellow guitar innovator Marisa Anderson. With Time Indefinite, out April 25 on Psychic Hotline, Tyler returns to solo music, charting a divergent path into a more liminal and experimental place. Its three advance singles, out now, comprise a lush mini-suite utilizing loops made on an old tape machine he inherited from his late grandfather. It’s notable break away from the full-band sound of his last two records and a definitive personal statement. – Timothy Monger
Animaru – Mei Semones
Release Date: May 2, 2025
If “Dumb Feeling” is any indication, Animaru, the full-length debut from this Berklee jazz-educated, Brooklyn-based Ann Arbor native, is going to be somewhere among my favorites of 2025. At the very least, it’s the type of bossa-inflected, bittersweet indie pop that I welcome eternally. Mei Semones has put her own spin on this category on previous EPs, and the song’s fun-to-hum melody, lithe strings, playful dynamics, and roll-with-the-punches attitude (“This is a dumb feeling/There’s something I like about it”) deliver the charm at a time with very little of it. – Marcy Donelson
