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 #12: ‘motionblur‘ by Split Chain.

Great news for all you readers getting sick and tired of me constantly sharing grungy nu-metal acts on the blog: today’s album will be the final one of 2025! After Bloom, Superheaven, Soul Blind, OVERSIZE, Thornhill, and Deftones, Split Chain’s ‘motionblur’ will get the honour of being the final album within this genre to be highlighted on Jam of Today this year.

Every year, there’s a handful of releases I know will end up high in my personal endlist before they have even dropped. Split Chain’s debut album is a prime example of this. ‘motionblur’ was easily one of my most highly anticipated releases of this year after me discovering the band in 2024 and taking a massive liking to each and every one of their singles. No surprise I shared so many on the blog already: ahead of their debut album, I had highlighted 7 Split Chain songs on Jam of Today of which only 3 eventually made it onto ‘motionblur’. Safe to say I turned into quite the fan! I even found myself at the Split Chain show the day the band released this particular album, albeit at 2000trees so I was probably always going to check them out.

Amidst the incredible rise of grungy nu-metal acts, something about Split Chain makes them feel like they are the flag bearers of this revival. Having only started as a band in 2023, a bit of viral success launched them to a large amount of listeners and a spot on the renowned UK hardcore festival Outbreak within a year of their existence. Apparently, their social media presence has had a positive influence on this, too, though I can’t confirm any of that due to me not being present on the socials myself. Therefore, all that’s left for me to do is review their music and with that, I will be able to entertain myself for hours.

As of December 2025, we’ve seen many Jams within this genre passing by on the blog. Whether it was by ways of under-the-radar bands Gnarlah and Retail Parks or the odd classic by Local H or Catherine Wheel: we’ve heard, seen and enjoyed it all. Now that Split Chain has released ‘motionblur’, I feel like we can officially tone it down a bit. For me, this is where it all comes together; this album has it all. Not only are songs ‘I’m Not Dying To Be Here’, ‘who am i?’, and ’Subside’ amongst my top songs of the last year, the entirety of ‘motionblur’ is filled with extremely well produced nu-metalcoregazegrunge or however you want to call it. Stunning vocals filled with emotion, guitars being as dreamy as they are raw and a dark and gloomy bass over satisfyingly tight drums: every single component of this record strengthens one another and it creates for a simply fantastic debut. Like we’ve heard before on similar albums, its ender turns out to be the crown jewel: ‘my mistake…’, a heart-wrenching and stunning 5+ minute song being the best possible way of wrapping up ‘motionblur’, an album placing Split Chain as kings on top of the revival-rock.