The 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2025

Love is beautiful, love is cruel, and love in all its forms is courageously explored on Reb Fountain’s latest album.

The talented singer-songwriter excels at the same things on How Love Bends as she did on previous albums, Reb Fountain (2020) and Iris (2021): bracingly vulnerable lyricism, touching on identity, resilience and, yes, love, and a shapeshifting sound that traverses folk, rock, and pop. Long may her consistency continue.

Grecco Romank are proud weirdos. What else would you expect from a band who, as RNZ notes, have been said to make “dungeon eurorave” and “sewer pop” music?

But to only focus on the Auckland trio’s inherent strangeness would be to do them a disservice, because as Arts Colony, their new album, shows, they’re a skilled musical unit. A lesser group of musicians would have fallen off the tightrope that all weirdo bands must walk: being wickedly playful without sounding too self-indulgent.

Chaos in the CBD spent a decade building their name as purveyors of euphoric deep house, garnering over 100 million streams in the process.

Their long-awaited debut album explores house music and more across 14 tracks, with Louis and Ben Helliker-Hales proving themselves adept at a number of diverse sounds — soul, R&B, ambient, Balearic.

Aided by supreme collaborators such as Nathan Haines and Novelist, some tracks are a call to the dancefloor (and the beach), while others offer respite for chilled-out contemplation.

A Deeper Life will go down as one of the great New Zealand electronic records.

Life Advice is a taut collection of rugged post-punk from Soft Bait.

The Auckland-based band recall the likes of Viagra Boys and IDLES throughout their album, though the ominous atmospherics and rock ‘n’ roll swagger might make a listener think of the much-missed Glasgow band, The Amazing Snakeheads.

But Soft Bait make thrilling tracks like “Long Line” wholly their own, thanks to a commanding vocal performance and a rumbling rhythm section.

More moving neo-soul from the West Auckland artist.

The self-admitted introvert says that The Flowers That Grow From Concrete Pavements kickstarted a “healing journey” for him, and you can hear this in his stirring and sincere vocals.

The quality running through Nadia Reid’s first album since 2020’s Out of My Province is what we’ve come to expect from one of New Zealand’s most consistent singer-songwriters.

Enter Now Brightness received a glowing four-star review from us earlier this year. “It’s another winner in Reid’s impressive discography,” we wrote.

Cory Champion was a finalist for Best Jazz Artist at last year’s Aotearoa Music Awards for his Clear Path Ensemble project — expect him to be a contender in that category again in 2026 thanks to Black Sand.

Champion’s hypnotic compositions reward return listens, particularly the lauded “Cascade d’Ars” and the groovy “Good Time for Good Things”. Black Sand is a sonic voyage you’ll want to take again and again.

MĀ reached new heights on her second studio album.

Flipping effortlessly between te reo Māori and English, she raps and sings about subjects she cares deeply about — climate change and her work as a biodiversity ranger. The result is a measured observational record that deftly balances its weighty subject matter with playful production.

There’s a Tuesday have had a career year to remember.

The Christchurch-born indie pop band were selected for a prestigious Seoul residency, which led to them spending 10 days recording at professional studios and collaborating with local musicians. They also stopped by Australia for a headline show and BIGSOUND showcases.

There’s a Tuesday also found time to drop their second album. According to the Asia New Zealand Foundation, they stood out thanks to their dreamy sound and thoughtful approach to songwriting, and both of these things are on full display in Blush.

They flit between polished indie pop gems and rawer, rockier moments, making for a record that should win them many more overseas fans.

The best album title in this list, yes, and the best of the entire year. But what about the music?

“The Auckland-based four-piece deliver a more cohesive and controlled collection than their promising 2023 self-titled debut album. The Lord Is My German Shepherd proves that Ringlets are the most exciting post-punk band to emerge from the New Zealand music scene in years,” we praised in a four-star review earlier this year.

Ringlets might not be to everyone’s taste, but they’re very adept at what they do.

The lead vocalist of The Naked and the Famous was always going to produce a striking solo debut album.

As our four-star review noted, Slow Crush “isn’t a million miles away from that band’s brand of indietronica.”

“Whether she’s asking someone to ‘Kiss Me Like You’re So in Love’ or singing odes to ‘Boys and Guitars’, it’s a swooning, sweet collection of tracks that brings some intimacy to her widescreen pop,” our review added. Here’s hoping Xayalith has plans to release more solo records.

New Zealand’s answer to Kevin Morby? Maybe. Tom Lark is just as thoughtful a songwriter as the US musician on Moonlight Hotel, which finds him pondering the parallels between his family’s historical displacement following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed the West Coast pioneer town Murchison and his own displacement due to the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.

Lark — aka Shannon Fowler — churns out catchy psych-folk tracks like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. A lyricist to treasure.

There’s a reason we kicked off our new Deep Dive series with The Circling Sun’s latest album.

“Arranged for a vast array of woodwind, brass, keyboards, synthesisers, acoustic bass, drums, percussion, and choir vocals, Orbits is the very opposite of a sophomore slump,” as the feature noted. “Through a free-flowing confluence of spiritual jazz, Brazilian bossa nova, and samba soul influences, The Circling Sun build on the 1960s-slanted sensibilities of their 2023 debut, Spirits.”

Jazmine Mary has a knack for sounding better with every album.

That’s some feat considering the quality of Dog (2023) and 2021’s The Licking of a Tangerine, which won the Auckland Live Best Independent Debut award at the 2022 Taite Music Prize.

Their lyrics are as poetic as ever on I Want to Rock and Roll, which was born out of a period of “heartbreak and sadness.”  Mary’s honesty always finds a way of deeply connecting with a listener.

“This was about finding middle ground,” Alien Weaponry told us in an interview about their latest album. “The first album had that catchiness people loved, the second was more technical – so this time, we brought them together.”

Mission accomplished. Te Rā is their most fully realised record to date, representing a significant step forward for the metal trio.

Foley’s second album in two short years is another reminder of their electropop prowess.

Now based in Sydney, the NZ duo returned home to record That’s Life, Baby! on Waiheke Island, with that beautiful location becoming the group’s “extra member.”

The result? “A collection full of shimmering vocals, dynamic guitars and hooks that stick, all delivered with newfound confidence,” we wrote in a positive review.

“Bright, punchy, and full of their signature confessional style, That’s Life, Baby! is a slice-of-life with the attitude to take on whatever comes your way. Foley’s second album should bring them to a wider audience.”

Internationally known as one half of comedy musical icons Flight of the Conchords, embarking on a solo project was always going to be a tricky proposition at first for Bret McKenzie.

“My team in LA were quite confused by this plan,” he told us about his decision to make his debut solo album, Songs Without Jokes, “but everyone knew that I love music and play a lot of music, so it wasn’t a big surprise for me and for people who know me. But for people that know me from just Conchords, it was quite confusing.”

His second solo effort, Freak Out City, is all the evidence any Conchords diehard needs that McKenzie is a fine musician in his own right.

The sense that McKenzie and his collaborators were having plenty of fun in the studio shines through on tracks like “All the Time” and “All I Need”. It’s a more optimistic collection than Songs Without Jokes, too, and its retro sound will satisfy fans of ’70s pop.

Tami Neilson’s voice is a booming delight throughout Neon Cowgirl.

Neilson’s latest collection of joyous country music was fashioned while travelling coast-to-coast in the US for five months with her family in a motorhome. The trip immediately followed a serious health scare for the evergreen musician, which made her slow down and saviour the journey.

Neon Cowgirl is soaked in the sounds and sights of America, from Nashville to Vegas. Whether she’s belting out a barnstorming number or sinking into ballad territory, Neilson always sounds in top form — it makes her 10th album sound as fresh as her first.

Boasting over four million monthly Spotify listeners, it’s safe to say Balu Brigada are one of the biggest success stories in modern New Zealand music.

That’s what made their debut album, Portal, so highly anticipated, and it lived up to the hype.

Viral sensation “So Cold”, which they performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, is the obvious standout, but tracks like “Backseat” and “Sideways” could have been just as massive for the sibling duo of Henry and Pierre Beasley.

The fact the brothers wrote and produced Portal entirely on their own makes their debut even more impressive.

Reuben Scott is the dynamic presence leading Salt Water Criminals, the Dunedin-born, Auckland-based band also featuring members of Office Dog, Daffodils, and Awning.

I Believe in Dog, their second album, is a hell of a rock record, jumping between slowcore, alternative rock, jangle pop, and more with ease.

Salt Water Criminals are one of the most pleasing grassroots success stories in recent New Zealand music, building their reputation through exhilarating live shows.

What I Believe in Dog shows is that they sound just as strong on record. A third record from these impressive musicians should see them refine their music even further.

Womb reached their peak (so far) on One Is Heading Somewhere.

The dream-pop band’s third LP is minimalistic without sounding slight; impressionistic lyrics and glistening guitars make for a mesmerising listen. It’s an album for the yearners and the daydreamers.

Tom Scott is a Rolling Stone AU/NZ favourite, regularly appearing in our lists for his Avantdale Bowling Club and Home Brew projects, so a solo album from the relentless musician was always going to attract our attention.

ANITYA is exactly how one should begin a new sonic chapter: fans of Scott’s other projects will find plenty to like here, but he crucially pushes his sound in fascinating directions. The memorable hooks and lyrics are still present, of course, but ANITYA is a more expansive collection, journeying through smooth R&B, downtempo jazz, neo-soul, and whichever other genres Scott fancied trying.

Ladi6 sounds refreshed on her latest album.

Le Vā is a deeply personal record for the acclaimed artist, dedicated to her late, beloved mother.

“Le Vā is the space between – between life and death, between who I was and who I’m becoming,” the Kiwi hip-hop icon said. “It’s about acknowledging loss, holding love, and finding new ground in that in-between.”

A New Zealand music legend bows out in style.

As its album title suggests, Scribe Is Dead is the rapper’s final record, as he revealed on social media a few months ago.

“I’m not doing media or promo,” he wrote. “Everything I want to say is in the music. The journey I had to take to get to this point is not for the faint-hearted… I hope you enjoy this last contribution and most personal album to NZ hip-hop – a community I have loved being a part of and will always support in some way.”

If we never hear new music from Scribe again, this collection is a powerful way to go out. Scribe Is Dead is done entirely on his terms — a track like “Newshub”, which features a news clip discussing an old warrant for his arrest, could only appear on a final, I-don’t-give-a-fuck record.

Scribe’s individuality and bars will be missed, if this is really the end.

New Zealand’s country-pop superstar just can’t stop collecting landmark moments.

It was announced this week that Kaylee Bell will support Six60 and Synthony at the first-ever live concert at Christchurch’s new stadium. The announcement came just a few weeks after she sold out Christchurch Town Hall, another major show in the same city.

All of this is to say that the Canterbury-born artist is enjoying a sensational career period, which has been powered by a keen work ethic.

Case in point: she followed Nights Like This, a top 3 hit in 2024, with Cowboy Up one year later, not content to wait to unleash more rollicking country anthems.

Despite being such a swift follow-up, Cowboy Up isn’t marked by a decrease in quality, with “Song for Shania” and the title track sounding as good as anything Bell has previously released.

Aotearoa hip-hop has a superstar in the making.

The youngest performer at Laneway 2025 featured in our Up-And-Coming Aotearoa Artists series, which came ahead of the drop of his debut full-length album.

RNZŌ SZN thrills through its creator’s bubbly personality and playful bars. What’s especially notable about this debut is the level of co-signs: Church, AP, Deadforest, and Dera Meelan recognise a special talent when they hear one.

And did we mention RNZŌ is still in his teens? The future is very bright for this prodigious rapper.

Another word-of-mouth sensation like Salt Water Criminals, Pearly* are one of the most promising rock bands in current New Zealand music.

Not So Sweet, their debut album, marks them out as worthy heirs to the classic Dunedin Sound bands that emerged from Pearly*’s hometown decades ago. Oasis, Pixies, and Radiohead are other clear influences, and they combine all of their inspirations to create their own spin on ’80s and ’90s rock.

It’ll be exciting to see where Pearly* go from here.

When it comes to music, “consistency” should never be a pejorative term. Much has been said and written about The Bats’ longevity — it’s been Robert Scott, Kaye Woodward, Paul Kean, and Malcolm Grant all the way together since the early ’80s — but some would have you think this isn’t something to be admired.

Out of all the Dunedin Sound and Flying Nun bands alongside whom they first came to prominence, The Bats have maintained an incredibly high level across releases and decades. The fact they’re able to produce an album like Corner Coming Up, over 40 years into their career, is testament to their enduring quality.

There can’t be many more haunting album openers than “The Gown”, an existential anthem that teeters on the brink of life and death. It’s slower and heavier than most of their earlier work, but it’s a groove that suits their late period well. (There’s still plenty of the jangle that first made the band famous all those years ago, particularly in the sublime “Lucky Day”.)

What sinks other bands this deep into a career — lack of innovation and subdued spirit — doesn’t plague The Bats. Take any individual part of these tracks, whether it’s Woodward’s quivering guitar lines or Scott’s tender lyrics, and you’ll hear someone who’s still eager to grow as a musician.

And a final word on Scott: when it finally comes time for The Bats to call it a day (not for a while, hopefully), he’ll go down as one of New Zealand music’s all-time songwriters.

BENEE has been in training for this moment. Ahead of the release of her second album, she supported global pop superstars Olivia Rodrigo and Tate McRae on their respective tours.

“Just playing arenas of those sizes [was] so inspiring because I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh,” she told us in a recent interview. “I want to play an arena.”

The Grey Lynn-born artist is in luck, because Ur an Angel I’m Just Particles is the record that should propel her to those bigger stages in her own right.

BENEE’s first LP since 2020’s Hey U X makes up for lost time, dropping viral-ready hits like “Cinnamon” and “Sad Boiii” and “Animal”.

But this second album isn’t just a fun, throwaway pop record. “I’ve poured my whole heart into this project, and I’m so grateful for your patience. I can’t wait for you to step into this world I’ve built,” as she said.

Ur an Angel I’m Just Particles proves that BENEE has the personality, confidence, and songs to rise to the level of Rodrigo and McRae.

Dream-pop is a notoriously difficult genre to pull off. At its best, it’s transformative and hypnotic, but if performed without conviction, it sounds listless and dreary.

Phoebe Rings suffer no such problems: they’re very good at working in those genre.

At Rolling Stone House at SXSW Sydney 2024, their music was a much-needed sonic tonic amidst the frenetic festival. Their gentle style of dream-pop is innately soothing, but the Auckland band don’t create mere elevator music: there is exquisite musicality bubbling under their songs’ pristine surfaces.

Lorde’s previous album, Solar Power, had many detractors (and a few admirers, this writer included). Fans missed the moody palettes of Melodrama, or the incisive songwriting of Pure Heroine.

To those detractors, Virgin signals a return to the gritty Lorde of old. But things are different for the artist: her most introspective and personal record to date finds her redefining herself — her gender, her career, her past — in fascinating ways.

Virgin is a dizzying ode to reinvention, and it’s a record that perhaps only Lorde could have pulled off out of all her pop contemporaries. New Zealand’s most famous artist’s endless sonic curiosity should be celebrated.

The headline of our 2025 interview with MOKOMOKAI says it all: “MOKOMOKAI embrace the complexity of being Māori. Their music is better for it.”

The Māori hip-hop trio’s willingness to tackle the most difficult of subject matter is winning them swathes of admirers and hardcore fans around Aotearoa.

On PONO!, their third album, Manu, Dusty, and Ghos are three musicians who know how to bring out the best in each other. The latter pair’s lounge instrumentals provide the ideal backdrop for Manu’s reflective rhymes; there can’t be many better groups in current hip-hop — at home or overseas — at conjuring spooky atmospherics. More rappers and producers would do well to follow MOKOMOKAI’s bold example: mining uncomfortable lyrical territory isn’t something to be feared.

There’s a lot of noise being made down in Dunedin.

Shlee Nicholls, Josh Nicholls, Connor Blackie, and Joel Field make up Dale Kerrigan, who are leading an exciting vanguard of noise-rock bands in the damp South Island city.

After securing their status as one of the country’s best live acts, Dale Kerrigan released HEAVY GREASY, the album they’d always had the potential to make, midway through this year.

From start to finish, HEAVY GREASY is an assault on the senses. Amid layers and layers of disorientating distortion, Dale Kerrigan unleash head-banging moments of thrash that will appease the elder statesmen of punk and metal, alongside moodier flashes of emo that will appeal to the disillusioned Gen Z generation.

The tracks on HEAVY GREASY sound like they could only have been made in Dunedin. “I had this theory that the reason I’m so noisy and angry is because of the weather in Dunedin,” Shlee once told RNZ). Their sound, however, is more akin to Slint and Sonic Youth than any of the classic Dunedin Sound bands.

HEAVY GREASY ends with what could be Dale Kerrigan’s mission statement: “The Amps Are for Everyone to Use”. Music should be messy; music should be raw; music and noise should be for everyone to make.

Dale Kerrigan are the sort of band that make you believe in the future of guitar music.

How do you a top an album as special as Expert in a Dying Field? How do you top an album that won awards around New Zealand, and featured on almost every major music publication’s year-end list in 2022?

The Beths give it a great try on Straight Line Was a Lie, a record powered by Liz Stokes’ most personal songwriting to date.

Their  latest album is filled with plenty of their usual pristine power-pop, but it’s different tracks like the heartbreaking “Mother, Pray for Me” that really stand out.

“Past the pain and grandeur that accompany growth can sometimes come the realisation that you might end up exactly where you started. The Auckland, New Zealand-based four piece the Beths reckon with this conundrum on their fourth studio album, Straight Line Was a Lie, which adds a more introspective tone to the adrenaline-packed indie rock they’ve always done well,” Rolling Stone US noted in a positive review.

As Stokes told us in a recent interview, she battled through a lot to get to Straight Line Was a Lie. New Zealand is lucky to have a songwriter still operating at this level, despite personal obstacles, four albums into her career.

The dancefloor is calling you, thanks to Geneva AM.

Geneva Alexander-Marsters is the producer and vocalist behind Geneva AM, who believes in the power of music.

“For Pikipiki I wanted to be in a healing space and sometimes that means seeking community, manifesting joy, creating space for renewal – you don’t have to do that alone… I feel like I’ve been crafting some kind of positive force field that I’m about to throw over everyone,” she told Under the Radar.

Her debut album as Geneva AM, Pikipiki, is one way to go about achieving that. Pikipiki is a joyous and uplifting celebration of Alexander-Marsters’ Māori identity; even when it’s dealing with thorny issues, as in “Urban Planning”, you can’t help but tap your feet.

What Pikipiki achieves recalls MOKOTRON’s dazzling work on his Taite Music Prize-winning 2024 album, WEAREA: Alexander-Marsters bends classic genres — chiefly disco and dance — to her own will, reframing and rejuvenating them, utilising them to explore and honour her heritage.

And there might not be a better song than “Urban Planning” in all of New Zealand music this year.

“The motorway was an awa [river] / In the museum they put my waka/ I feel at home in the city / I got my Tipuna [ancestors] with me,” Alexander-Marsters sombrely ponders, all while the most enticing electronic rhythm chugs along; nobody said that the best dance music couldn’t be contemplative.

The most wonderful individual moment, though, comes during “Meet Again”, when Alexander-Marsters gets meta.

Start getting your Taite Music Prize outfit ready, Alexander-Marsters.

To say that Theia’s debut album was highly anticipated would be an understatement.

An alt-pop star of note for almost a decade, Theia waited so long to release her first full-length for an important reason: if she’d rushed into her debut while still being on a major label, it would be have been a much poorer record.

Theia went independent around the turn of the 2020s, surrounding herself with a “beautiful female team” who had her best interests at heart. A venture into te reo Māori as TE KAAHU then strengthened her belief in her own art.

The result is Girl, in a Savage World, one of the most overtly political albums in recent New Zealand music. “I’m so proud that I trusted my gut and my vision, because I know it was a wacky freaking vibe!” she told us.

It feels like fate that Theia’s album arrived at this particular moment, with New Zealand’s current conservative government attempting to push back on Māori rights.

Now based in Los Angeles, where she’s found a supportive community of fellow Indigenous people, she had to watch from afar as events like last year’s Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti happened in her homeland.

“I just threw everything away and started afresh when that new government came into power, and [I] was just filled with fury and passion,” she said.

Dick Move make pure punk music, no post or art or proto prefixes in sight.

The Auckland band have never sounded as angry or righteous as they do on new album Dream, Believe, Achieve — quite right, too, considering the current state of New Zealand government.

In a blistering sub-30 minutes, Dick Move, led from the front by the impassioned Lucy Suttor, take on toxic men, capitalist politics, and patriarchal systems with lacerating honesty.

Proper punks have always been defined by a fearless determination to speak truth to power, and Dick Move’s five members — Suttor alongside Lucy Macrae, Hariet Ellis, Justin Rendell, and Luke Boyes — take pride in their anti-authoritarianism on their latest record.

But don’t let the heavy subject matter fool you: as Suttor recently told us, Dream, Believe, Achieve is a hopeful album, the work of musicians and people who believe in the power of community to overcome systematic injustices. Up the nurses, up Dick Move!

Where to begin with Marlon Williams’ profoundly personal fourth album? Perhaps with the opening line in our review:

“Te Whare Tīwekaweka is the album we’ve all been waiting for from Marlon Williams — a stunning ode to love, life, and connection, sung entirely in te reo Māori.”

As captured in an accompanying documentary, this album meant more to Williams than any record that came before — “Williams, as you’ve never heard him before,” the headline to our print interview with him read.

Williams could have taken the easy route after the success of 2022’s chart-topping My Boy, but Te Whare Tīwekaweka represented the more ambitious and meaningful path forward.

How it paid off: Williams’ first album of original songs written and performed entirely in te reo Māori is a wonderful example of celebrating one’s heritage.

From the opening notes of “E Maweha Ana Au” onwards, Williams invites the listener on his journey of self-discovery.

Because this album may be intensely personal but it’s also for everyone; Williams didn’t hole up in a recording studio himself, after all, instead working closely with his band, the Yarra Benders, and Lyttelton artist KOMMI.

You can hear Williams’ connection to the material with every te reo lyric, the sense of a higher purpose being channelled through his art.

“His voice packs a velvet punch, rolling over breezy country-bluegrass strums and simple, pop-tinged melodies. Williams’ album is indebted to the late Hirini Melbourne’s minimalist style. Add the rich choral harmonies of He Waka Kōtuia, and these waiata hit deep — like a warm embrace that calls you home to te ao Māori,” our review continued.