Modern pop with echoes of Hendrix and George Harrison? Instrumental jazz rock to rival Pat Metheny or Jeff Beck? A landmark release for metal guitar?
It’s all here in MusicRadar’s top five guitar albums of 2025…
1. Towa Bird - American Hero
Despite the album’s title, Towa Bird is a British export, best known for her work with Olivia Rodrigo on Driving Home 2 U.
Towa gained popularity on TikTok by inserting guitar riffs into other people’s songs, and on American Hero she applies this talent to her originals.
At 35 minutes, no one could accuse it of carrying excess baggage, yet there are guitar hooks everywhere. The song Intro ends with her dancing up the neck in a burst of effortless 32nd notes. FML has octave fuzz solos interjected between bursts of backing vocals. In Sorry Sorry, vibrato-soaked guitar hooks drive the climax of each chorus.
The pop world is currently blessed with many talented guitar-toting women, but not many centre the guitar like this.
Towa has described Hendrix’s Are You Experienced as “formative,” and she shares Hendrix’s love of fuzz, octaves, and a strong melody.
She’s also a Beatles fan, and she has a George Harrison-worthy knack for writing licks you could sing—on Deep Cut she plays the vocal melody with other guitar phrases swirling around it. The solo in Wild Heart has an inventive use of octave up harmony on specific notes.
Not just an indie rock songwriter, Towa is one of guitar’s most important young voices. (JS)
2. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere
Absolute Elsewhere is a supernova of the myriad influences that have been cooking in the Denver, Colarado death metal quartet’s headspace since their 2016 debut album, Starspawn.
Ambience abuts brutality. There is synth-rock, speed metal, spaced-out krautrock and prog. Death metal and lyrical cosmicism are the great emulsifiers holding it all together. Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning takes a guest spot on organ/synth, and was on home turf. Blood Incantation tracked this at Hansa Studios, Berlin – ground zero for krautrock, where Bowie worked with Eno.
Paul Riedl (vocals/guitar/synth) and Morris Kolontyrsky (guitar/synth) used B.C. Rich Ironbirds through 5150 tube amps for distorted tones, Roland Jazz-Chorus combos for cleans, and proved that the Ironbird is more versatile than you might think. Kolontyrsky’s Gilmour-esque solo on The Stargate was performed on one.
Hansa is now officially on death metal’s morbid timeline, but it was a jerry rigged swamp cooler away from losing everything when the AC failed during the sessions. Riedl would see the poetry in that; creation and destruction have gone hand in hand since the universe’s beginning. The fullness of time will have the ultimate judgement, but in the here and now, Absolute Elsewhere feels like a landmark release for metal guitar. (JH)
3. Syncatto - Fiction
Syncatto, the solo project from Artificial Language’s Charlie Robbins, has enjoyed a breakthrough year; so much so that it now outweighs the success of his parent band.
Guitarists may know him from his Neural DSP presets, but Fiction – augmented by his contributions to the Star Wars Outlaws and Cobra Kai soundtracks in 2024 – has solidified his reputation.
It’s a kaleidoscopic showcase of his talents. While the virtuosity of his unique flamenco-meets-modern-prog hybrid style is evident, it never dilutes the potency of his heart first, technique second songwriting.
Nightfall delivers a dizzying warp-speed take on selective picking and neck-breaking bends that are heavy without the need for high gain, while sing-able electric melodies weave around delicate nylon flourishes on the title track. Afterglow, meanwhile, cleverly builds around its sumptuous hook.
There are crafty collaborations too; he enjoys some hugely flavoursome trade-offs with violinist Coen Strouken on Black Velvet and delivers transcendental neo-classic licks and deft earworms with Arch Echo on Prestige.
Impressively, he proves a worthy shredding adversary of Dream Theater's Jordan Rudess on Midnight Mass. Here he thumps and hybrid picks his way through
its texturally rich rhythms before they lock horns during a mind-boggling arpeggio roller coaster. (PW)
4. Nick Johnston - Child Of Bliss
Many wonderful guitar players have risen to prominence over the last decade, but few can rival the bluesy magick of Nick Johnston in terms of instrumental lyricism and tonal brilliance.
Part of that comes down to his usage of an S-style guitar with low gain instead of eight-string metal machines with fanned frets and endless distortion, but most of the credit lies in his approach to harmony and melody – using non-diatonic chords to create suspenseful twists and turns alongside vocal-like hooks that hit you straight in the heart.
Of course, there are moments on his latest album that dazzle on a technical level as well, with some of the finest legato and string skipping you’ll hear this side of Guthrie Govan, but these moments are only ever used to serve the song – something which many of his contemporaries are guilty of forgetting.
In that sense, Johnston is much more than just a guitar player – he’s a master storyteller that can paint highly evocative musical portraits capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with anything by Pat Metheny or Jeff Beck.
As well as showcasing his finest piano work, the jazz rock explored on songs like the title track, Through The Golden Forest, Moonflower and Memento Vivere could very well be the Canadian mastermind’s finest compositions to date, navigating through ethereal extreme in ways that will have your jaw locked firmly on the floor. (AS)
5. Opeth - The Last Will And Testament
It says a lot about Opeth leader Mikael Åkerfeldt that calls for him to bring the death metal screams back over the last decade were tenaciously ignored, but as soon as the vocal minority had given up with their demands, he surprised us all with an album that blends the older aggression with the orchestral exploration pursued on more recent albums.
The Last Will And Testament will be remembered as one of Opeth’s finest releases thanks to the juxtaposition of light and dark on tracks like §2, §4, §5 and grand finale A Story Never Told.
There’s a sense of urgency to how the ideas evolve, giving the music a sense of chaotic restlessness that will have you transfixed from beginning to end with few opportunities to pause and reflect. It’s a surprise move from a songwriter typically known for penning labyrinthine structures that ebb and flow at their own pace, with little regard for quick choruses and instant gratification.
A very special mention has to go to lead guitarist Fredrik Åkesson who delivers the solo of his career so far on the closing track, mixing feel and virtuosity in a way very few have ever done.
For a large number of prog and metal fans, this is the colossal masterpiece that ruled 2024. (AS)
