It’s time to reflect on the year in music! This month, we’ll be highlighting Jam of Today’s favourite albums of 2025. Working our way up to the #1 album, which will be revealed on the 31st of December, we’ll go one by one past this year’s favourites. Today, our #17: ‘Cowards‘ by Squid.

Third time’s the charm. After acknowledging Squid’s previous albums ‘Bright Green Field’ (2021) and ‘O Monolith’ (2023) only a full year after they had been released, I wanted to make sure to incorporate their third album into my endlist this year. It seems like I’ve succeeded, since ‘Cowards’ has claimed a very respectable #17 spot in my Album of the Year list.

For years now, Squid has been indie’s hotshot, the star student who consistently releases some of the genre’s most interesting productions. Many of their songs and singles have turned into critically acclaimed successes and fully in line with those previous works, ‘Cowards’ seems to go on a similar route. Squid’s approach to the art-rock genre with nods to post-rock, experimental rock, and post-punk have done them many favours over the years, though it’s worth mentioning the great quality the musicians possess as well. Having seen Squid live a handful of times, I can safely consider them to be amongst some of the better live acts I’ve seen over the last few years. Anyway, how about this third album, aye?

Much like its predecessors, this album is an intense genre-fusion ride covered in hidden sounds you will only really start to appreciate the more you play it. The many fading horns, violins or even harpsichord: Squid spares no effort into showing off their multi-instrumentalist talent. By means of openers ‘Crispy Skin’ and ‘Building 650’, you get treated to the most approachable songs of this album right at the start after which ‘Cowards’ smoothly transfers into a more complex piece of art rock, full of strange and intriguing references like we’re used to from acts rising up from the infamous Windmill scene. ‘Cowards’ sounds like yet another typical Squid album, which isn’t surprising given that it had been finished before their previous one had been released. A solid one, that is, though I might need another few months or so to be able to grap its full extent.