6 Brilliant British 2025 Debuts
We’ve spent the past 8 months combing through every corner of the music spectrum to build a living archive of the records that deserve to be remembered and cherished. Let’s take a look back at 6 of the strongest homegrown debut albums we’ve found so far this year:
Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out
Released within the first few weeks of 2025, Who Let The Dogs Out kicked the year off like a brick through a billboard. Brighton’s Lambrini Girls are the punk band of the year, giving us everything we want and more with the kind of presence that instantly commands a room. Supporting headline acts like IDLES and Amyl & The Sniffers, they’ve become legends in their own right, using every scrap of stage time to speak truth to power. With an ability to make you laugh, rage, and feel seen all in the space of a single song, their debut album is fierce, funny, and one for the history books.
HONESTY - U R HERE
HONESTY is less of a ‘band’ and more of a collective, blurring the lines between electronic production and live instrumentation. Based in Leeds, their debut album U R HERE is a fully formed reimagining of British club culture with a meticulousness that sets it apart from the endless churn of electronic releases. The record carries the emotional weight of Massive Attack or Burial, and already sounds timeless, full of deliberate care and human directness.
Waldo’s Gift - Malcolm’s Law
Waldo’s Gift are three musicians from Bristol playing the hell out of their instruments with zero concern for genre borders, creating a wild mix of funk, rock, jazz, electronica, and pure improvisation. Their debut record Malcolm’s Law is bursting with ripping guitar lines, looping effects, and breakneck rhythms pulled straight from their hometown’s club undercurrents. A fun first jam-band that wants you to dance rather than just admire their skill, bursting with punk energy and fearless spontaneity.
Sam Akpro - Evenfall
South-east London’s Sam Akpro draws on the deep mood and atmosphere of early ‘90s trip-hop but refracted through the distinctly modern lens of London grime. Evenfall is a debut that’s layered, contemplative, and beautifully produced, and whilst much of it leans into a downtempo mood, Akpro shifts gears across tempos and intensities, delivering moments of real urgency alongside smoky grooves and meditative textures.
Slung - In Ways
Slung are a four-piece from Brighton who are already fully in their stride, with a great singer, a great guitarist, a great bassist, and a great drummer, proving that the simplest recipe is still the most effective. Their debut album In Ways veers between swaggering grunge riffs, sludgy alternative rock, and heartbreak balladry with a strength of songwriting and vocal performance that lifts them far beyond the niche categories of doom and sludge. A powerful, confident debut from a band with seriously big potential.
Soot Sprite - Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon
The debut album from Exeter’s Soot Sprite is the kind of record we want to recommend to everyone, offering comfort by speaking directly to the emotional realities of 2025. Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon is a record about the resilience that comes from focussing on what you can control instead of what you can’t, with the widescreen scale of shoegaze, the brooding weight of grunge, and the intimacy of indie pop. It’s deeply affecting rock music that grabs you by the heart without melodrama, and a debut that feels extremely special.
