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As we continue our 2025 coverage, we want to highlight some stellar EPs released this year. Below are our favorite shorter-form releases, spanning styles and moods. Check out these short-form standouts, and be sure to dive into our unfolding array of year-end roundups.
Honorable Mentions:
Previous Industries – EVERGREEN PLAZA
After – S/T
Force Model – BARRICADE
Jawdropped – JUST FANTASY
Steel Wool – S/T
5. Cataratas en Siberia – TODAS LAS TARDES QUE NOS ROBÓ EL FUEGO
Genre: Midwest Emo
Few bands debut with such clarity and poise as Peruvian ensemble Cataratas en Siberia on TODAS LAS TARDES QUE NOS ROBÓ EL FUEGO. Heavily inspired by the tragic romance of EL SALTO DEL FRAILE, the band is completely and utterly locked in: math-y, stop-and-start grooves, beastly riffs, choirs and screams that slowly morph into each other with ease. The title track, a frothy and mellow post-rock odyssey, calls for total surrender: “Later, I feel all fire will return to the ocean / Later, I feel time will return to the body.” Rarely does taking the plunge feel so enticing. [Jay Bracho]
4. Rachel Chinouriri – LITTLE HOUSE
Genre: Alternative R&B
Court jester Audrey Hobert’s humiliating admissions in WHO’S THE CLOWN, the tender melancholy of oklou’s CHOKE ENOUGH: 2025 has been a good year for pop music about daring yourself to feel the full emotional spectrum that comes with falling in love. Among all these sweeping declarations, Rachel Chinouriri’s LITTLE HOUSE sparkles. Chinouriri’s music is, at times, perfect for dancing while wearing your cutest shoes — gracefully atmospheric. Above all else, she is earnest. This EP joins her pantheon of wistful desire, contributing moments as excited as the butterflies of “He’s so perfect / God I hate him” in “Can we talk about Isaac?,” or as honest as her divulgence “I know it sounds dramatic, but I need you in my life” in “Indigo.” When I think about how to best explain this project and what makes it so special, I think about the almost hypnotic repetition she ends “Indigo” with, a soft “You make love feel like … ” That’s the heart of LITTLE HOUSE. [Caro Alt]
3. Jane Remover – ♡
Genre: Digicore
What seemed like a dream that would never come true, Jane Remover pulls their shimmering singles on one EP. Jane’s pop sensibilities are shown in full effect, with incandescent beats and striking melodic hooks that are crafted with a lovesick delight. Throughout 2025, Jane Remover has shown different sides of their musicality, and in ♡, they end the year with their heart glowing prismatically—displaying their passion in its radiant state thus far. [Louis Pelingen]
2. En Masse – NEWVIOLENTTRENDS.
Genre: Post-Hardcore
The appeal of En Masse’s 2023 debut, BURDENED YOUTH, was its unpredictability — the sense that, at any moment, a song could fall apart. On their June EP, NEWVIOLENTTRENDS., the Connecticut post-hardcore band lets a bit more air in; on “justthisonce” and “taketwo,” En Masse slows things down, focusing more on atmosphere than brutality, enhanced by Adam Cichocki’s cavernous production. They still know how to cut loose (the frenetic lead single “masq” is proof) but the chaos of NEWVIOLENTTRENDS. is a more controlled chaos this time around — but no less chaotic. [Zac Djamoos]
1. Ethel Cain – PERVERTS
Genre: Alternative Pop
After a stellar debut and sudden explosive popularity, the past three years have been seemingly arduous to navigate in the public eye for Ethel Cain — especially online. Beset by our current cultural climate’s “irony epidemic” and the dialectical contradictions inherent in, well, essentially everything, Cain has resorted to impassioned Tumblr. posts and essays pleading to be understood. She released two records this year: a standalone “EP” titled PERVERTS and the proper follow-up and “prequel” to PREACHER’S DAUGHTER, WILLOUGHBY TUCKER, I’LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU.
As an EP that lasts 90 minutes, PERVERTS is a study in contradictions. It is a provocation to her own audience after receiving a mainstream breakout and flattening into meme; a thorny entanglement meditating on the relationship between desire, trauma, and rapture; a contractual obligation that frontlines some of Cain’s most profound, cinematic music. The opening title track begins with a lo-fi recording of a 19th century hymn before stretching into 12 minutes of harrowing ambient noise, muffled voices, atonal drones, and Angelo Badalamenti-style synths. Each track veers between similarly experimental genre palettes: minimalistic electronic, slowcore, shoegaze, spoken word, and haunting ballads. The results are stark, uncompromising, difficult, and heavy, but also functionally as cinematic and cathartic as Cain’s pop-gesturing songwriting. By accentuating din and despair underpinning her early material, Cain has emerged with a sophomore effort that redefines her artistry while also playing to her strengths. [Luke Phillips]
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