Looking Back at Rough Trade’s Top Albums of 2025

Opening in November 2014, Rough Trade in Nottingham quickly became a hub of musical talent, where artists and fans alike can connect, doubling as a record shop during the day (the biggest in the Hockley area). The Mic's Emily Rogers reports.

It follows in the footsteps of its predecessors across London and New York. The Nottingham branch has been blessed with performances by Little Simz, Fontaines D.C., English teacher, and many more fantastic artists. The location is invaluable to Nottingham, not only as a nucleus for music, but also for reinvigorating the vinyl industry, as well as lots of charity work. This includes (but is not limited to) Beat the Streets, Notts Pride, and CALM.

Rough Trade recently released their top thirty albums of 2025, let’s deep dive into three of my personal highlights…

viagr aboys: Viagra Boys

Viagra Boys skate the line between grotesque parody and a lyrical diary.

Hailing from Stockholm in 2015, Viagra Boys skate the line between grotesque parody and a lyrical diary (as frontrunner Sebastian Murphy admitted to GQ magazine in 2021). This is their fourth studio album, living up to their previous success, such as touring with Queens of the Stone Age and winning the Swedish Grammies for Rock of the Year in 2023. Their latest album viagr aboys sees the turn inwards to darker self-reflection and satirisation.

Highlight: ‘Man Made of Meat’

Overall, this song is oddly addictive.The chaos of thrash-y guitar riffs and frankly obscene lyrics serves as a perfect first track on this album. Murphy’s vocals parody both ends of the political spectrum, satirising steroid-users in McDonald’s, globalisation, and even (controversially) the death of Friends star Matthew Perry. Overall, this song is oddly addictive – I never thought I’d find myself so often singing about ‘your mom’s […] flappy giblets’ but here we are. The rest of the album is equally as bizarre and fun, and is definitely worth listening to. Viagra Boys are just so cool.

Heavy Metal: Cameron Winter

Heavy Metal is deeply personal yet so meticulous. Each piano and violin carefully mapped to construct a catharsis that sits between familiarity and, at moments, raw discomfort.

Cameron Winter, known best as the frontman of Geese, released his debut album at the end of 2024. The album takes a softer tone than listeners of Winter may have expected from previous work – while he maintains the experimental vocal styles, the instrumentals are lo-fi and buzzy. This permits the true beauty of his voice and lyricism to shine through: delicate, nostalgic, and loose. Heavy Metal is deeply personal yet so meticulous, each piano and violin carefully mapped to construct a catharsis that sits between familiarity and, at moments, raw discomfort.

Highlight: ‘$0’

This track in particular has always really stuck out to me. It is a song about worthlessness, with a strange existential rambling outro in which he asserts that ‘God is real [and] I actually wouldn’t joke about this’. As the penultimate track, these lyrics work as an unfulfilling, unresolved answer to the previous tracks – his contemplation of identity and ego and artistry. The song opens with a sort of pained but beautiful wail, flooding into soft piano, strings, and layered vocals that engulf Winter’s voice. The enigmatic nature of the song is compounded in the moments of audio distortion that paralyse listeners into truly trying to get to grips with his emotional rambling, cutting to a long and fractured but resolving instrumental with the familiar piano paired with twangy strings and choir notes.

If Heavy Metal is anything to go off, Winter has an exciting solo career ahead of him.

Forever Howlong: Black Country, New Road

Black Country, New Road’s album following 2023 Live At Bush Hall (testing out the waters of their post-Isaac Wood world) saw a return to the studio, culminating in arguably some of this year’s most beautiful and musically complex sounds. While the diverse instruments and haunting lyrics fit comfortably into their previous contribution to their plethora of experimental rock – Forever Howlong is characterised by its solely female vocals; the duties of which shared between May Kershaw, Tyler Hyde, and Jockstrap’s Georgia Ellery.

Highlight: ‘Nancy Tries to Take the Night’

This piece is truly representative of inner turmoil, hopelessness, and questioning.

The story of a woman with an unexpected pregnancy that is equal parts heart wrenching and disconcerting. Hyde’s vocals are quiet and reflective, speaking as the subject, those who mock her, and even as her unborn child. This piece is truly representative of inner turmoil, hopelessness, and questioning – ‘do you want it?’ serves as a haunting refrain. This is brought home by a Reichian woodwind crescendo, anchored by Charlie Wayne on the drums and Ellery’s subtle yet anxious violin.

Whether you were a fan of their seminal Ants from Up There or are a BCNR newcomer, Forever Howlong is well worth a listen, and was my personal favourite album of the year.

By Emily Rogers

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Edited by Max Durno

All photos are courtesy are courtesy of Viagra Boys, Cameron Winter and Black Country, New Road