The Skinny's Scottish Albums of 2025

It’s been one of the busiest years for releases in Scotland that we can remember, which in turn has made it all the harder for our writers to agree on a top ten. While debut albums from Brógeal, VLURE, Water Machine, Humour, Rianne Downey, Former Champ and Cwfen sparked excitement, returns from Goodnight Louisa, Emma Pollock, Constant Follower, Ailie Ormston, Sian and Claire M Singer also caught our writers’ attention. But none enough to break the top ten, where you'll find three releases on Mogwai’s Rock Action label including, spoiler, their own; three debuts; this year’s SAY Award winner; a bunch of artists returning with new knock-out albums; and the recently crowned BBC Introducing Artist of the Year. Without further ado, in reverse order...

#10 Mogwai – The Bad Fire

[Rock Action, 24 Jan]
Just creeping over the line is the eleventh studio album from Glasgow post-rockers Mogwai, helping celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary in style. The first record since their 2021 SAY Award-winning and Mercury Prize-nominated album As the Love Continues, of The Bad Fire we said, “It’s a record that calls back on various points from their oeuvre, such as the sparse atmospherics of Come On Die Young on the impressively unnerving Hi Chaos and What Kind of Mix is This? or the bombast of Happy Songs For Happy People while offering a fresh and, dare I say it, poppier version of the band on stompers such as Fanzine Made of Flesh or Lion Rumpus.” 

#9 Dancer – More or Less

[Meritorio Records, 12 Sep]
Following on from their 2024 debut, 10 Songs I Hate About You, Glasgow post-punk, art-rock outfit Dancer returned this year with More or Less. We said: “Dancer don’t try to reinvent the wheel [...] Songs like Baby Blue and Just Say Yes contain the bouncy spiky riffs synonymous with Sacred Paws, their buoyant bass grooves call to mind Field Music and the resounding choruses of Always Running and Deadline evoke erstwhile outfit Frankie & The Heartstrings. With slicker production, cleaner tones and plenty of their own unique charm thrown in, Dancer may not make big-budget blockbusters, but they may make your favourite cult-indie classic.”

#8 Franz Ferdinand – The Human Fear

[Domino, 10 Jan]
Franz Ferdinand returned this year with their sixth studio album, The Human Fear; their first album in seven years, it was also the first to feature guitarist Dino Bardot and drummer Audrey Tait. Upon the album’s release, bassist Bob Hardy talked us through the album track by track, saying: “We set ourselves the goal with this record of completely embracing our identity as Franz Ferdinand and a key part of that, from our point of view, is that songs need to groove.” We said: “A lot of the classic Franz Ferdinand sounds are present here [...] there’s a sense that the Glasgow band are having fun as they settle into a new era.”

#7 Cloth – Pink Silence

[Rock Action, 25 Apr]
The third album from Glasgow siblings Rachael and Paul Swinton, aka Cloth, and the advice from its producer Ali Chant (Perfume Genius, PJ Harvey, Yard Act) was to “let go” – the pair did exactly that with Pink Silence. In our review we said: "For Cloth, [letting go] meant aiming for a more muscular, expansive sound” aided by strings from Owen Pallett and guitar from Portishead’s Adrian Utley, but found that it was in “Paul’s lyrics where Cloth truly let go. His words of loss and heartbreak are carried by Rachael’s serene, hushed vocals, ensuring that on Pink Silence, Cloth expand their sound while retaining their intimacy – ultimately they succeed in letting go.”

#6 Barry Can’t Swim – Loner

[Ninja Tune, 11 Jul]
Starting the year off with the third spot on BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2025 list, Joshua Mainnie’s second album as Barry Can’t Swim arrived in the summer, showing a more introspective side to the Edinburgh producer and musician. We said: “What elevates Loner is Barry’s willingness to shift gears. Tracks like About To Begin burst with intense momentum, while Cars Pass By Like Childhood Sweethearts swerves into wistful jazz textures. These contrasts feel purposeful, painting a picture of dislocation and identity in flux. With Loner, Barry Can’t Swim cements himself as a boundary-pushing voice in electronic music, one fluent in mood, movement, and meaningful reflection.”

#5 Brìghde Chaimbeul – Sunwise

[tak:til / Glitterbeat, 27 Jun]
Smallpipes virtuoso Brìghde Chaimbeul returned this summer with the absolutely gorgeous Sunwise, a record rooted in winter, the customs of the season and Scottish folklore. Featuring original material as well as traditional music arranged and reworked by Chaimbeul, Duan features a Gaelic spoken word contribution from her father about New Year’s Night / Hogmanay folklore. Of the record, Chaimbeul said: “It's a music and language that has survived so much and for so long – it's the music of people. It's music of the land. And I think it's extremely relevant to hold on to that and learn from that in current times.”

#4 Brooke Combe – Dancing At the Edge of the World

[Modern Sky Records, 31 Jan]
Dalkeith singer-songwriter Brooke Combe has had one of her biggest years yet, joining Benson Boone on his North American arena tour and receiving a SAY Award shortlisted nomination for her debut album. Of the record, we said: “What’s most impressive is the album’s rawness. Combe’s versatile, unfiltered vocal shines throughout. Her newfound creative freedom allows her relatable lyrics of pain and detachment to flow with an unbridled sheen of self-empowerment, especially on L.M.T.F.A. (Leave Me the Fuck Alone) and This Town. By trusting her own instincts and refusing to dwell on the past, Combe has penned a sensational debut record, delivering ten sumptuous tracks of old-school soul that ooze with the essence of an artist in full bloom.”

#3 Kai Reesu – KOMPROMAT vol. i

[self-released, 12 May]
It was a surprise guest appearance from Glasgow-based rapper Jurnalist with Man of Moon at Kelburn Garden Party that alerted us to Kai Reesu’s existence back in July. A little late to the party, KOMPROMAT vol. i is a phenomenally cohesive crossover jazz and hip-hop record that catapulted them into public consciousness when they won The SAY Award in November. In a feature with the band in August, we said: “The sextet are making music that genuinely feels fresh and unlike anything else coming out of Scotland right now. Their recent KOMPROMAT vol. i mixtape firmly cements them as serious ones to watch.” And they essentially told us this is just the start; with work already well underway for KOMPROMAT, vol ii, you’d best not sleep on Kai Reesu.

#2 Kathryn Joseph – WE WERE MADE PREY.

[Rock Action, 30 May]
Kathryn Joseph’s fourth album WE WERE MADE PREY. is, as we've come to expect of Joseph, another record of immeasurable beauty. It saw her music expand and evolve in more electronic and textured ways, thanks to working alongside producer and synth whizz Lomond Campbell, whose soundscapes we described earlier this year as “a welcome backdrop to Joseph’s almost fickle voice [...] The animalistic spaces Joseph occupies are tethered to her original mix: the incongruence of tragedy told in gentle, softer tones. WE WERE MADE PREY. conjures, eerily, even more delicate ways to doubt, rage and come to terms with being.”

#1 Jacob Alon – In Limerence

[Island/EMI, 30 May]
Finally, we reach the number one top spot. We’ve already said a lot about this album elsewhere on this website, so here we’ll share an excerpt from our Album of the Month review back in May. “Alon’s voice is the central weight that everything else orbits around. Like Thom Yorke, they stretch their vowels out until they're thin, laid over us in a high tenor. Other times they're hazed and weary, like on August Moon and Sertraline. Sometimes Alon's voice wobbles in the way that Orlando Weeks’ or Adrianne Lenker’s might. That is perhaps inevitable given the honesty of this record. In Limerence is a debut album that is at once confident and vulnerable. That interchange and trade-off is presented most clearly in the lyrics of Sertraline: ‘You’re tired / Well who isn’t, babe / It’s the price for being awake’.”

In an interview with Alon back in April, we pointed out the feeling of hope and perseverance found across the record. “There’s a lot of despair I’ve felt and that has inspired a lot of the music, but I suppose the act of creating in itself is an act of hope,” Alon told us. “I believe in the other side of despair – transforming, healing, moving through pain and having it blossom into something beautiful. The album begins stepping into the mouth of the world of dreams and spiralling over the edge of what is real and what is memory, fiction, fantasy.”