The Quietus Albums of the Year 2025 (In Association with Norman Records)
Here are our favourite albums of the last 12 months, as voted for by tQ staff, columnists and core writers
Low Culture Essay
Low Culture Essay: Tariq Goddard on Jeremy Brett, the Perfect Sherlock Holmes
Tariq Goddard declares that in Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, the actor delivered one of the greatest TV performances of all time – one that was so total, it arguably destroyed him
Columns of the Year
Straight Hedge! The Best Punk and HC of 2025
Noel Gardner caps off his 15th year as our punk and hardcore columnist with a roundup of the 10 best records of 2025, and reviews of 10 more that got away
Columns of the Year
Spool’s Out: The Best Cassettes of 2025
With AI on his mind and joyous sound in his ears, Daryl Worthington dives into his 20 favourite cassettes of 2025, finding the world’s tape conveyed eccentric undergrounds remain in brilliant form
Reviews
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Live God
As Cave himself slides into his establishment artist era, a live set recorded in Europe in 2024 sounds best when you can still hear the old grime and the seediness, finds CJ Thorpe-Tracey
Reviews
Review Columns
Cassettes
Spool’s Out: Cassette Reviews for November by Daryl Worthington
From radical dance music to triumphant, intricately layered synth pop and a levitating collaboration between a Ugandan embaire ensemble and a Japanese dub producer, Daryl Worthington finds rays of joy on cassette to blast away the impending winter entropy this November
Baker’s Dozen
Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives
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Low Culture Essay
Low Culture Essay: Tariq Goddard on Jeremy Brett, the Perfect Sherlock Holmes
Tariq Goddard declares that in Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, the actor delivered one of the greatest TV performances of all time – one that was so total, it arguably destroyed him
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Anniversary
Been Around The World: The Magical Odyssey Of The Avalanches’ Since I Left You
A concept album that transcended its concept, a stealth mix-CD, global disco, sampledelic exotica, yacht rock by other means: the Australian group’s debut was many things, writes David Bennun - and above all it was, and remains, a joy. This article was first published in 2020
The Portal
Explore 15 Years Of Cultural Wayfinding
Each week we conjure up a miscellany of tQ writing from the mists of time for you. Most often random. Sometimes themed. Always enthralling.
Explore The Portal
Culture
Books
The Lodger In Me: Bid from The Monochrome Set on the Aneurysm that Changed His Life
In an exclusive extract from his new book, Strange Young Alien, the founder member and principal songwriter of the Monochrome Set discusses the ruptured cerebral aneurysm that changed the way he thought about music and the creative process
Books
Stroppy, Optimistic, Overdressed Young Men: Robert Elms Remembers the Blitz Club
Blitz: The Club That Created the Eighties, a new book by Robert Elms, returns the reader to a bygone London of squats full of future popstars and cans of Red Stripe to recall the nightclub that birthed Spandau Ballet and Visage and might just have invented the future
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