In this segment, we round up the best albums released each month. From Rosalía to Westerman, here are, in alphabetical order, the best albums of November 2025.
Austra, Chin Up Buttercup
Austra‘s majestic fifth album traces her journey of grieving the end of a relationship by translating its chaotic emotions through the lens of Greek tragedy, the euphoria of Eurodance, and science fiction that overwhelms with its humanity. These filters do nothing to restrain the purity of KAtie Stelmanis’ performances, embodied equally in their humour, brokenness, and hope. “I don’t wanna cry about you forever,” she sings on ‘Look Me in the Eye’, not hiding the time it’s taken to get there; savouring the yawn instead of rushing into a new day. Read our inspirations interview with Austra.
Danny Brown, Stardust
There might be a self-reflective throughline across Danny Brown‘s latest effort – and first since becoming sober – but it doesn’t hinge on the introspective, natural flows of his last album, Quaranta. Instead, it feeds off the communal energy of a crew of cutting-edge, hyperpop-adjacent artists who help the 44-year-old affirm not just his status and lyrical dexterity, but the reason he keeps falling back in love with music. “You wondered what made things enjoyable when you were younger,” Angel Prost, one half of Frost Children, intones at one point. More than just wondering, Stardust – easeful and electrifying, relaxed and glitched-out – simply revels. Read the full review.
FKA twigs, EUSEXUA Afterglow
One could accuse FKA twigs of taking her world-building too far with EUSEXUA, which was reimagined the same day it was expanded with a brand new album. Yet you can tell twigs’ strategy stems not from perfectionism or a mere desire for post-release tinkering (which most artists would share), but genuine enthusiasm for the project and its malleability. That extends to EUSEXUA Afterglow, which doesn’t dim so much as continue to ride the high of the original, sticking to the concept while borrowing some of the looseness of CAPRISONGS. It’s hard to imagine coming out of it and wishing it were just another deluxe album. Read the full review.
Keaton Henson, Parader
Parader is torn between Keaton Henson‘s present reality of living in the English countryside and the fragmented memories that reverberate through it; fittingly, production duties were split Luke Sital-Singh, who grew up with similar emo and hardcore influences as Henson, and Alex Farrar – in his words, “the king of that loud, snarky American DIY sound” – who helped him tap into a grungy, guttural, arguably American confidence that used to be as formative as it was aspirational, even mythical. “Do I really have any business now/ Singing this song and sounding like I did when I was eighteen?” he sings on ‘Past It’. Singing to him, maybe, the part he knows would be stoked about being part of the whole parade. Read our inspirations interview with Keaton Henson.
Hatchie, Liquorice
When it comes to love, Hatchie knows that even the fleeting stage of infatuation encompasses more than just ecstasy. “Something lingers in the sea between/ Much more than this midwinter kiss,” she sings on ‘Sage’, a highlight on her new album Liquorice, which triangulates the dizziness, desperation, and disillusionment of young romance like it’s something you can bite into, savouring every layer. Recorded at Jay Som’s home studio in Los Angeles, Liquorice brims with nostalgic influences, but Pilbeam’s maturing perspective – she’s 32 and married to her longtime collaborator Joe Agius – makes it feel worlds away from the project’s beginnings almost a decade ago. “I’m still stuck with these pathetic dreams,” she sings on the closer, a sentiment that could suck the life out of anyone. For Hatchie, it’s all colour. Read our inspirations interview with Hatchie.
Oneohtrix Point Never, Tranquilizer
As far as Oneohtrix Point Never records go, Tranquilizer’s most immediate antecedent is Replica, an album that’s almost a decade and a half old. While that collection saw Daniel Lopatin wistfully repurpose sounds from bootleg DVDs compiling TV commercials from the ‘80s and ‘90s, Tranquilizer mines from a set of commercial sample CDs preserved on the Internet Archive. The flimsiness of that maintenance – the page was taken down, then suddenly came back – is part of what inspired the producer and differentiates his follow-up to Again, the way swathes of potentially soulful music can be lost to and resurface through time. Read the full review.
Rosalía, LUX
Rosalía‘s fourth studio album is a towering epic, a four-movement work that draws inspiration from female saints and poets with “the intention of verticality.” But the most disarming, by pop standards, aspect of LUX isn’t the Spanish superstar’s spiritual and musical ambitions, or the way she folds them into a compelling structure, but its heart-rending sentimentality, apparent in both the dramatic ways she wields these stories and every small waver of her voice. That’s the quality of its operatic scope that cuts through on each listen, taking stock of her lived experience as much as it seeks to undress it and ascend to a new world. It’s a singular document of an artist at the top of her game, shamelessly looking to the past while confronting the oblivion of the future. Read the full review.
runo plum, patching
While runo plum was building up her catalog and supporting the likes of Searows, Angel Olsen, and Hovvdy, she went through a breakup with a partner she was both romantically and creatively involved with, leading to a five-month burst of songwriting she sorted into at least two albums, of which patching is the first. Recorded last winter with longtime friend Lutalo and instrumentalist and plum’s girlfriend Noa Francis, this LP represents the sadness before the rage – yet the trio enriches these songs with the lush, tender detail that can get numbed out of the drab, early stages of heartbreak, letting the light in at the end. “Will the loneliness always be pending?” she wonders on ‘Gathering the Pieces’, by which point it’s already changing shape. Read our Artist Spotlight interview with runo plum.
Sharp Pins, Balloon Balloon Balloon
As murky and lonesome as Sharp Pins songs can be, Kai Slater has a gift for making them feel strangely radiant. On ‘Stop to Say “Hello”’, he sings about “the tired light where you open your eyes,” and that openness – same as a heart stripped of all defenses – is what buoys many of the songs on Balloon Balloon Balloon, his third album under the moniker; the inevitable pop. Though uniformly lo-fi and hook-laden, the 21-track collection doesn’t wash away its yearning or reverence for music of decades past, but allows their different shades to melt into one. As much as you may want to listen to it alone, as it was mostly made, you can only hope it stays out of the dark.
Stella Donnelly, Love and Fortune
“I’m undressed, paperless, filter gone,” Stella Donnelly sings on ‘Year of Trouble’ as she begins to confront the loneliness of a friendship falling apart. She does dress up other songs, like its brattier counterpart in ‘Feel It Change’, but that nakedness is what helps the record move from one chapter to the next, like taking heartbreak by its daily swings. Searing and unguarded, Love and Fortune is not just a record about bridges burned and straining for reconciliation, but a reclamation of the dozen selves pecking for attention in the midst of solitude. “Take back my little life, and push you away/ I set myself on fire, for someone else’s flame,” she sings on ‘W.A.L.K.’. More than careful not to reignite it, by the end of the ride, Donnelly sounds caring, kind, and turns out, more than a little fortunate. Read our inspirations interview with Stella Donnelly.
Sword II, Electric Hour
While Sword II‘s debut album, Spirit World Tour, focused on abrasive experimentation, the Atlanta trio’s follow-up finds them honing in on their collaborative songwriting: still eclectic and radical in spirit, only this time channelled through lush arrangements, greater lyrical clarity – not to mention longing – and warmly inviting harmonies. As blissfully disorienting as it is renewed with purpose, the new album was recorded in a basement of an old home they rented where the wiring was so faulty they had to use acoustic instruments to avoid electric shocks. “You’re so puzzled/ Trying to believe in something/ On your own,” they sing on ‘Halogen’. But together? That’s a whole different world of possibilities.
Westerman, A Jackal’s Wedding
There was one thing Westerman and producer Marta Salogni could not escape during their five-week residency in the Greek island of Hydra: the searing heat, which forced them to work through the night. There’s a dazed, liminal spontaneity to the record that offsets its conversational tendencies, much like its unadorned moments are balanced out by the sweltering light of ‘Adriatic’ or ‘Weak Hands’. In the dark, sleepless hours between recording and not, you can imagine the artist gazing up at the sky: “Home found/ Then forgotten/The gamble,” he sings on ‘About Leaving’, “Awake, and looking starward.” Read our inspirations interview with Westerman.
