Newsletter

15 Must See Live Acts - The Class of 2025 Shortlist

Discover some great new acts recommended by the Association of Music Editors.

Class of 2025 Collage by Drowned in Sound

Meet The Class of 2025 in association with SeeTickets, featuring 15 must see live acts, as voted for by The Association of Music Editors.

Over the past three weeks, editors and podcast hosts have been voting to compile a shortlist of new acts for the first ever Class of 2025. Choosing from a longlist that was generated by a poll of 800 members of the Music Venues Alliance (founded by the Music Venue Trust), they were asked to nominate the live acts they believe every music fan should see in 2025.

Drowned in Sound tallied up the votes from experts who edit music websites, music magazines, and host music podcasts to create this shortlist. The judging panel featured the editors of Kerrang!, Mixmag, Yorkshire Evening Post, Record of the Day, Loud Women, 101 Part Time Jobs, Sodajerker and more - a full list of participating publications and podcasts can be found at the end of this article.

Next week, the winner and runner-up will receive a share of the £1000 prize fund from The Class of 2025 official sponsor, See Tickets.

You can listen to a YouTube playlist featuring a track from each artist.

Without further ado, here's your Class of 2025, in alphabetical order, featuring words from various music publications and links to read full features or reviews:

Amelia Coburn

As the title of Coburn’s debut album Between The Moon and the Milkman alludes to, the beauty of everyday events on your doorstep are magnified when you travel further afield. Her observational songwriting glistens with theatricality, as she unravels narratives over considered layers of acoustic instrumentation. The songwriter’s curiosity for storytelling was nurtured from childhood through reading, writing “daft little poems” and listening to her dad’s eclectic record collection. She was exposed to everything from punk stalwarts like The Sex Pistols and The Clash, to Classic FM on the drive to school, to the soundtracks of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. Coburn’s paternal grandmother was a singer in Teesside during World War II and her grandfather was in a local choir, so there’s always been a strong familial connection to music, despite no one playing an instrument.

Read: Interview on The Line of Best Fit
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

ARXX

Brighton’s ARXX have gone from playing small rooms to an enthusiastic UK fanbase to supporting major headliners at the Royal Albert Hall and Eventim Apollo, and to playing their music overseas in an ever-growing number of countries.
And in Good Boy they have a new album out today that will reaffirm (if reaffirmation was ever needed) their status as one of the UK’s most cherish-able musical units.

Read: Album of the month on LOUD WOMEN

Benefits

It’s no secret that the world at large feels a little hopeless right now, and with the new album from Teeside noiseniks Benefits, that feeling is mirrored and then some. On ‘NAILS’ - their newly-released debut, which was written through the darkest days of the pandemic - the band paint a powerful but furious portrait of both the failures of modern life, and the scant seeds of hope that they hope to nurture.

Read: Interview on DIY Magazine
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Big Special

Big Special are the band of this snapshot now and are two outsiders from the Midlands who are about to become very big news indeed. They perfectly combine a chip shop hip hop with the intensity of punk rock and, like their album says a post-industrial hometown blues in songs that are driven by huge jackhammer drums and a beat up Beat Poetry about a beaten up UK that captivates the audience before bringing the life affirming huge chorus that has hands aloft and hearts pounding. In a packed and sweaty venue, Big Special are on the cusp of greatness. Their debut album is already a shoo-in for one of the albums of the year, and their visceral live show is a thrilling yet dark snapshot of the underbelly of the dying days of the Tory UK.

Read: Live review on Louder Than War
Listen: Big Special in session for Steve Lamacq on BBC Sounds.
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Chanel Beads

Despite the title, Shane Lavers’ debut album Your Day Will Come wasn’t always meant to be. The New York-based musician started out by dropping pairs of songs (like 2023’s shoegazey fan favourite Ef and its looser counterpart, Shining Armor) and would tell himself the project wouldn’t grow beyond that. But as his collaborative team expanded to include his partner Maya McGrory, who plays guitar and sings feather-light vocals, and Zachary Schwartz, who uses his violin to create transcendental drone, Lavers says the “world of the sound” widened out. Suddenly an album felt within reach. Chanel Beads is still technically a solo project – “it all starts and ends with me,” he says – but most live footage shows the three of them standing toe-to-toe with the crowd, veering between blissed-out ambience and raw, hardcore intensity.

Read: The full interview over at Crack Magazine
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Cherym

“All craic, no crap.” That’s how Alannagh Doherty sums up Cherym’s energy. The Derry-based duo – drummer/singer Alannagh alongside singer and guitarist Hannah Richardson – have seen this attitude, coupled with their livewire punk, steer them right so far. First for 2024, they’re heading on tour across Ireland with Enter Shikari this spring. Not bad.

Having formed in 2018 as a kick back against the “boys’ club” they saw in music, they went on to release their first EP, Hey Tori, in 2021. Now they’ve dropped their debut album, Take It Or Leave It, and as the title suggests it’s boldly unapologetic, offering an honest take on what it’s like to be a queer woman in the 2020s.

“We’re queer, we write songs about being queer, about experiences we have as women, and people automatically look at that and go, ‘Oh, that’s political,’ because it’s against the grain,” says Alannagh. “We’re not political, that’s just who we are.”

Read: The full interview over on Kerrang!'s website

English Teacher

Their relatively steady pace of progression, which included a couple of stop-start years during the pandemic, has stood them in good stead, as has their grounding in Leeds, another aspect of the group’s palpably northern identity. Last year, Fontaine wrote an impassioned paean to the importance of regional scenes in protest of BBC plans to scale back their ‘Introducing…’ platform. “I think we had about five years of developing through the Leeds scene that brought us to where we are,” she says, “and that’s the reason we’ve gotten to this point. Being part of a scene that was supportive of us and helped us to grow, but also being able to work with organisations like Music Leeds, helping us to get PRS funding; that kind of stuff is what helps you build the connections that gets you to something like Later…with Jools Holland. We had great access to support and I think us getting to where we are now proves that it works, that keeping those things accessible in the regions is pretty vital.”

Read: The full interview over at Loud and Quiet
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Fat Dog

Formed in south London during lockdown, Fat Dog became known for their wild and hypnotic live performances well before the release of their first single King of the Slugs in 2023. Since then, the five piece have released four more singles this year, and their debut album WOOF, before being cast as one of BBC 6 Music's Artist of the Year.

In the family tree of music, if Depeche Mode and Rammstein had a lovechild, it would be Fat Dog. And yet, it is deliciously fresh. Sprinkled with Nine Inch Nails and a bit of Fontaines DC. The ferocious marching electronica mixed with psychedelic guitar has an energy and madness I'm increasingly enjoying seeing at live shows.

Read: Live review over at LeftLion
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Geordie Greep

Black Midi, when they arrived in 2017 as the most un-Brit School band to ever form at the Brit School, felt like a band that could comfortably push and twist in multiple directions simultaneously. Convoluted time signatures and polyrhythms from Morgan Simpson, by some distance the best drummer I have ever seen live, were layered up with post-punk art-rock guitars and the Beavis-as-The-Great-Cornholio yelping and jittering of guitarist and singer Geordie Greep.

Yet after three albums, culminating in 2022’s Hellfire, Greep recently announced on Instagram, while promoting The New Sound, his invigorating debut album as a solo act, the band were “indefinitely over”. Messages from other band members and management after his comments suggested there was no coordinated plan on the timing or the wording of this. It was not quite Paul McCartney announcing the end of The Beatles when promoting McCartney in 1970, but in the world Black Midi occupied this was surprising news.

Read: The full interview over at the Big Issue's website
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Getdown Services

Getdown Services might never have expected to get anywhere further than the local venues they cut their teeth in for their first two years as a band, it’s with this spirit of accessibility and fun that the entire project has evolved. First becoming friends in a Year Nine music class more than a decade ago, when Ben and Josh finally decided to ditch their serious interim bands and reunite, they knew they just wanted it to be a laugh. “We found some people to be quite cold and gate-keepy. Plus, because we were also quite terrible, people didn’t really give a shit,” Ben recalls of their pre-Getdown outfits. “So when it came round that we’d do [a band together] again, we just figured we’d do it on our terms.”

Read: Full interview at DIY Mag
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Lambrini Girls

Since the release of their EP ‘You’re Welcome’ 19 long months ago, Lambrini Girls have been on something of a riotous whirlwind, playing just about here, there, and everywhere, and with their infectious sound and unrelenting politics, it should come as no surprise that their debut album ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ has been so highly anticipated.

The album is one filled with fiery politics at its forefront, and opening track ‘Bad Apple’ dives in at the deep end. Initiating the listener with blaring sirens and distorted bass, before splintering into a raging breakbeat as vocalist Phoebe Lunny proceeds to tear down the British police force, ensuring that no issue or problem with the institution is left undiscussed. To accompany the scathing lyricism that Lunny lays down throughout the album, the instrumentals of each track can be equally as ferocious. It certainly seems as though bassist Lilly Macieira has grown increasingly more confident, with a willingness to explore a breadth of styles that helps to diversify each track from the others.

Read: Album review over at God Is In the TV
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Panic Shack

A barreling determination has been at the heart of Panic Shack since day dot. The four-piece formed in 2018 out of Cardiff’s DIY-minded scene; soon enough, the graft they put in across the local circuit resulted in an early appearance at the city’s award-winning Sŵn Festival. In a crowded field, what continues to differentiate Panic Shack from their peers is how lively and spiky their music is, with all its edges unsmoothed. 2022 debut EP ‘Baby Shack’ traversed through a range of emotions – from tenacity (‘Jiu Jits You’) to disgust (‘I Don’t Really Like It’) – with a zeal you rarely hear in other young bands today, offering wild-eyed choruses that unspool in bursts of giddy, stop-start guitars.

Read: Full interview at NME.com
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

TTSSFU

Hailing from Wigan and now taking Manchester’s vibrant music scene by storm, Tasmin Stephens, better known as TTSSFU, has carved out a unique space in the dream pop and shoegaze genres. From crafting tracks in her bedroom on GarageBand to signing with Partisan Records and supporting renowned acts like Soccer Mommy and Mannequin Pussy, 2024 was nothing short of transformative for the artist... From her introspective DIY roots to the electric energy of live performances, TTSSFU’s world is as raw and compelling as her music.

Read: Full a fascinating interview over at So Young
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

W.H. Lung

On their third album, Every Inch of Earth Pulsates, W.H. Lung decided to adopt a more instinctive approach to songwriting, focusing on attempting to capture the electric energy of their remarkable live performances. This new method involved trusting their muse and avoiding overthinking to preserve the raw emotion and vitality of their music.... Tracks like “Lilac Sky” may echo the post-punk influences of The Cure and Joy Division, but over the years W.H. Lung have consistently created something uniquely their own and very much exist in their own space... a superb body of work that crackles with sublime melodies and poetic, insightful lyrics, offering a compelling reflection on the interplay between love and loss.

Read: The full review on Under the Radar magazine's website
🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

Wunderhorse

🎟️ Tickets Available on See Tickets

The Class of 2025 Shortlist

Here's the list in full

Amelia Coburn
ARXX
Benefits
Big Special
Chanel Beads
Cherym
English Teacher
Fat Dog
Geordie Greep
Getdown Services
Lambrini Girls
Panic Shack
TTSSFU
W.H. Lung
Wunderhorse

The Judges

Members of The Association of Music Editors, in no particular order:

Learn more about The Association of Music Editors at music-editors.com

Sign up for Drowned in Sound