Filipino music continues to show its range and resilience across scenes and cities, with bands like Linger Escape shedding light to Bicol’s shoegaze scene with ‘We All End In The Same Place’. Elsewhere, SOS settled into a more steady and mature ground in their craft with ‘It Was A Moment’, a record shaped by patience, distance, and willpower. Meanwhile, WAIIAN’s ‘BACKSHOTS’ spent the year operating on what success means to him and what the rewarding tune of excitement sounds like when your friends have always stuck around for you. What made 2025 stand out was this shared sense of grounding; Artists weren’t chasing trends as much as they were refining their voice, trusting their communities, and allowing time to do its work. Across regions and genres, releases felt deliberate and lived-in. Point to a scene that continues to move forward through consistency, craft, connection, and of course, a little bit of hype. We saw standout releases from artists all across the spectrum, including the Hardcore Punk intricacies of Ghost Stories, the exploration of femininity in Barbie Almalbis’ ‘Not That Girl,’ the rawness of Man Made Evil’s self-titled debut album, the ultimate sci fye comeback, and Hazylazy’s approach to ‘Antagonisms,’ among many others. From indie rock and shoegaze to hip-hop, hardcore, pop, and club classics, these acts reflect the celebration of depth and diversity in Filipino music in 2025. This list gathers the releases that stayed with us throughout 2025. We hope they find their way into your rotation into the new year. – Faye Allego 30. Fatigued – Negative Tide Though Emilio Gonzales is the solo force behind Fatigued, ‘Negative Tide’ speaks in a trio of narrators: Gonzales through his moniker, the voice of his Jazzmaster, and the ever-present murmur of emotional unrest. The guitar carries the story as much as the vocals do, blurred at the edges and a little bruised, guiding the regret with quiet intensity along Gonzales’ own introspection. Love in absence, growth is failure, and yearning is confrontation. It stays catchy enough to hook, yet sad enough to bruise, tasting bittersweet like unfinished truths. In surrendering control, Gonzales proves unrest can still sound this tender and whole. — Faye Allego 29. Bambu – They’re Burning The Boats Don’t mind the tiering on this list for now; just pay attention for a good minute: here are three reasons you should listen to Bambu’s latest project. First, and most importantly, Bambu writes his lyrics as if our lives – as colonized peoples, as members of the “Global South,” as the disenfranchised and disempowered – depend on it. The rapper-activist has always spoken with a sense of urgency in the same vein as the saying “rap is the CNN of the streets.” It’s reportage broken down in verse and beautiful rhyme. Everything he speaks rings in the corridors of the present day. Second, even after more than two decades, Bambu’s sharp tongue has never dulled. The shattering of the wisdom he dispenses comes after his smooth delivery – never cold or calculated. Production, courtesy of Fatgums, addle Bambu’s lyricism to a hypnotic state. The heads already love this. Third, ‘They’re Burning The Boats’ eschews Bambu’s wisdom that points towards the future. Empathy, political commentary, and emotive storytelling are common threads in Bambu’s body of work, but this time around, it comes in a different hue. Not too fiery, not too world-weary, but still quick enough to leave you slack-jawed. Listen to it. Right now. — Lex Celera 28. Manny Most High – The Offering ‘The Offering’ is Manny Most High’s invitation to his stream of consciousness. In his debut album, the Australian-based, Filipino hip-hop artist extracts the genre’s essentials and contemporary derivatives to create something cohesive and self-aware. Tracks like “Father,” “8 Ball,” and “Hot Date” weave classic boom bap with hypnotic loops and atmospheric production to capture a visceral feeling. There’s also “Collapse,” which takes the characteristics of cloud rap and trap music to deliver melodic bars in lofi fashion, akin to Yung Lean’s style. The use of moody instrumentals along with Manny’s reverbed vocals intends to make each track feel like a recorded journal entry played over hazy beats. A true experimentalist, Manny Most High proves that constant reinvention is necessary for any quintessential creation. — Aly Maaño 27. Bins – Body Project A producer and a DJ in Metro Manila’s underground music scene since 2012, Bins debuts with his EP ‘The Body Project,’ a spiritual four-track house project that reconciles the body and the soul through dance. The steady 4/4 pulse lassoes the body into a soulful swaying, reminiscent of the ecstatic clarity of 1970s gay spaces where the songs’ rhythmic structure was gospel. These favor groove over gesture, as they encourage endless dancing without ever feeling punishing. Bins showcases the genre’s simplicity with his funky and hypnotic synths. If house has always lived as the music between sin and salvation, Bins leans into that line with tenderness, and proves that bodily pleasure (that isn’t sex) can be a route toward something quite transcendent. — Jax Figarola [bandcamp width=350 height=470 album=705163910 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false] 26. (e)motion engine – tell me how you f(e)el ‘tell me how you f(e)el’ is a mixed bag of bangers. With their single releases “boy” and “milk” finding a home in the debut EP, (e)motion engine takes the chance to flesh out their sound while still delivering on what made fans fall in love in the first place. The 6-piece project offers tracks that are moshpit worthy all the way to quiet contemplation. Ranging stylistically, they’re all unified in (e)motion engine’s unwavering need to be unapologetic in their vulnerability. It’s evident that no matter what direction they go with a track, they wear their hearts on their sleeve as they do it. Once the engine starts rolling, it’ll be hard to stop it. — Rory Marshall 25. A Side Boondocks – ANAK SA LIKING KAWAYAN Packed with heavy, blaring bass and a whole lot of attitude, A Side Boondocks show