17 December 2025. Today, NRC has announced their selection of 25 best Dutch albums of the year 2025. The album Infinity Stairs by Rozalie Hirs is in the top 10! The list was compiled based on the top picks of NRC reviewers Marnix Bilderbeek, Hester Carvalho, Jonasz Dekkers, Joost Galema, Rahul Gandolahage, Ralph-Hermen Huiskamp, Amanda Kuyper, Peter van der Ploeg, Frank Provoost, Saul van Stapele, Joep Stapel, and Leendert van der Valk.
25. Claw Boys Claw: Fly
Out of nowhere, it turns out that Fly, the thirteenth album by Claw Boys Claw, is the definitive swan song of the Netherlands’ rock pride. Singer Peter te Bos may be celebrating his 75th birthday on Christmas Eve, but the teenage sweat still drips from his armpits. He wants to woo girls, he sighs (in love) and tenderly – but also wants to smash skulls, he yells angrily and mischievously. Go see them in the spring, it might only be three more times.
24. zZz: Konnichiwa – Guten Tag – Money Money
An unpronounceable name, but with a magic that remains intact even after ten years of silence. And the unique thing about this raw rock is: there is NO guitar. The venomous riffs of synths, keyboards, and samplers are the driving forces, while Björn Ottenheim sings from behind his drum kit and Daan Schinkel plays three keyboards with outstretched arms. This is more than music; it’s a chokehold.
23. Meetsysteem: Gekleed in Donker, Ze Vroegen Niks
The crafty pop of Meetsysteem is full of details that first sound like mistakes. Then, through the acoustic layers, more and more elements emerge where electronics echo. And suddenly, everything falls into place perfectly. Beautiful.
22. SMIB: Eendraght Maeckt Maght
Now as a quartet, with a new concept (the army) and a series of bravura tracks, SMIB makes a fist: for Eendraght Maeckt Maght. Ray Fuego, GRGY, Nnelg, and Loopey bark at the recruits, sometimes macho, sometimes funny. They swing on dark beats and clearly air their hearts. About sneakers, clocks, and kitchen equipment: “Kitchenaid, I can’t mix/ With those guys.”
21. Long Fling: Long Fling
The couple Pip Blom and Willem Smit (Personal Trainer) have now also musically joined forces. Upbeat melodies and Blom’s crystal-clear voice, combined with Smit’s dreamy poetry and tempestuous experimental drive: the best of both their worlds come together here.
20. Dudok Quartet Terra memoria: Saariaho & Shostakovich
Music lives in the fleeting now, but it is the ultimate bearer of memories. Thus, Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet sounds grim and desolate beneath its bright surface. Saariaho’s title piece, in contrast, is dreamy with a diffuse depth. The Dudok Quartet convincingly brings two different worlds together.
19. Sun Mi Hong: Fourth Page: Meaning of a Nest
South Korean, Amsterdam-based jazz drummer Sun-Mi Hong is steadily climbing to the top. As a subtle mixer and an impressionist who can make her drumming “sing” with her eyes closed, she seeks rhythms you don’t quite expect. Her jazz tells stories. On previous albums, she referenced the discomfort she felt when she first moved to the Netherlands for jazz. Fourth Page: Meaning of A Nest is a return home, in many ways. As elegant, dreamy, and abstract as it is, she looks back on her youth with her strong international quintet.
18. Eefje de Visser: Vlijmscherp
The sister album to last year’s Heimwee (which was also on this list) is more direct and striking. They are connected, and with this second album, you understand the first better. At first, Eefje struggles with sadness, pain, things she doesn’t want to talk about but feels compelled to share. This second album reveals Eefje as an open book.
17. Maite Hontelé & Ramon Valle: Havana
Ramon Valle is Cuban, Maite Hontelé played salsa at the highest level in Colombia for years. A few years ago, she suddenly stopped; she was sick of her trumpet. “And then this man came,” she said this summer. Valle brought back the joy of playing, simply by playing what feels right. As clichéd as it sounds, it’s just as surprising and versatile in the Latin jazz that results.
16. Winne: Mssyeh
Mssyeh is a musical translation of Winne’s grieving process after the murder of his best friend, Feis. Less upbeat and pumping than his earlier work, but more open-hearted and emotional. It listens like a diary. A diary of a poet, with tight beats and filled with many different samples.
15. Sophie Straat: Wie de Fak is Sophie Straat
Sophie Straat’s themes range from intimate and personal to angrily social-critical. Sometimes worries can be danced away, but the songs always touch on the twists and turns of life. Sophie Straat sees risks and takes risks. That makes her more than just a singer or role model; she’s someone you can seek shelter with.
14. Daniel Rowland et al.: Isidora Zebeljan: Three Curious Loves
“Her notes brought tears to our eyes and dried them in passing,” said the widower of Isidora Zebeljan about her music. Violinist Daniel Rowland and friends paid tribute to Zebeljan. It’s a fearless dive into the imagination, often boldly dancing with anything that can cause fear.
13. S10: Mijn Haren Ruiken Naar Vuur
Singer Stien den Hollander, aka S10, has been releasing music since she was 15, and with each new creation, a different side of S10 emerges. From urban hip-hop to light electro, to bouncy breakbeat, to ballads and poppy melodies, her heartfelt musings come in various styles. For Mijn Haren Ruiken Naar Vuur, growling guitars and keyboards elevate her pop rock. But she sings lightly and narratively instead of rough and energetic. Her deeply felt emotions ensure the polished music always has deeper layers that eventually come out.
12. Dudok Quartet: Tchaikovsky: String Quartets, Vol. 2
The Dudok Quartet completed its Tchaikovsky two-part series with another delightful album. Tchaikovsky’s fame is based on operas and symphonies, but before the fame, he wrote a few string quartets. Like the theatrical Third, which the Dudoks combine with an early work and self-arranged parts from the piano cycle The Seasons.
11. Cappella Amsterdam: Lassus: Penitential Psalms
Penitential psalms to reward yourself with: behind each of Orlando di Lasso’s (known as Orlandus Lassus) seven psalms are beautiful depths. So beautiful that one at a time is enough. Enjoy, but consume in moderation – then the wonderfully balanced, sonorous choral sound of Cappella Amsterdam shines the best.
10. Anton de Bruin: Sounds of the Eclipse
Sounds of the Eclipse is the second album that Rotterdam’s all-round creative Anton de Bruin delivers within a year. The keyboardist, who plays in Dragonfruit and the band of Ghanaian-Rotterdammer Peter Somuah, and has made jazz club BIRD his second home for years for musical crossovers, blends dub and afrobeat with jazz. His playful, uplifting sound is as danceable as the British urban jazz of a band like Ezra Collective. A track like ‘Running on Slippers’ with flutist Fanni Zahár moves like a train.
9. Rozalie Hirs: Infinity Stairs
The sophisticated music of composer and poet Rozalie Hirs is color, light, space, wind, movement, and something elusive. This delightful portrait album contains five solo pieces (for cello, voice, bass clarinet, electric guitar, and flute) and the trio Infinity Stairs, performed by top musicians. Expansive, refined, and meditative chamber music that reveals great imagination.
Listen to the full album on Spotify.
8. Robin Kester: Dark Sky Reserve
The lyrics of Dark Sky Reserve by singer/guitarist Robin Kester, the follow-up to her impressive debut Honeycomb Shades from 2023, read like a story. One song flows into the next. The story is about driving through meadows, going to a party, watching a black-and-white film. But also about climbing out of a depression. And about self-deception and doubt. She expresses it directly and simply, without embellishment. Her voice, nurturing and heavenly, has an undercurrent of no-nonsense.
7. Roufaida: Coming Up For Air
Rotterdam’s debut album by Roufaida is a bit stronger and more danceable than the folk-imbued EP that made her a name in 2023. On Coming Up For Air, she searches for light, for the air above the water. She does this with a completely unique sound, in a perfect fusion of Western and Arabic musical cultures.
6. Channa Malkin & La Sfera Armoniosa: Vivaldi – Fury / Mercy
Under the title Fury / Mercy, these musicians created a beautiful sample of Vivaldi’s skill and power. With eleven – in one case twelve – instrumentalists, the ensemble led by lutenist Mike Fentross beautifully and flexibly colors the arias as a counterpoint to vocalist Malkin and also independently in two orchestral concertos.
5. Juho Myllylä: Herder’s Herd
In a blind listening test, no one would guess that Herder’s Herd is a recorder album after the first notes. On his debut album, Myllylä uses no less than ten different recorders in every imaginable size. At times, he growls or screams like a madman through his flute.
4. Terzij de Horde: Our Breath is Not Ours Alone
With sandblasted throat vocals over complex screeching instruments, Terzij de Horde blows all anger and despair off on Our Breath is Not Ours Alone. Their third full-length is an unrelenting rain of blast beats and viciously hard riffs in their hardcore punk-laden black metal. Not easy, but purifying.
3. Nusantara Beat: Nusantara Beat
This debut album was eagerly anticipated, as Nusantara Beat has been a festival hit for years. Here, we hear how Indonesian instruments meet surf guitar, trendy synths, and buzzing sound effects, all set against a bed of gamelan. This music swings, sways, and undulates, surprising with humming electronics, boasting great melodies, and breaking new ground with every track.
2. Olivia Vermeulen & Jan Philip Schulze: In Heaven
No, there’s nothing wrong with the CD player or streaming service when you hear a dull rustling from the speakers while listening to In Heaven, the new album by mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen and pianist Jan Philip Schulze. The album is a mosaic of music. There is space for romantic reflections on heaven and the universe by classical greats like Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, and Schumann. And besides these 19th-century men, who have long been celestial, there are also female voices and contemporary ones.
1. Sef: Lieve Monsters
On Lieve Monsters, it seems that Sef, who wrote and produced nearly all the music himself, has landed – the forgotten experiences of fun music (‘De Leven’, ‘Broodje Bakpao’) and heavier music (IJSLAND) have taken shape and returned as poetry. Or better yet, as really great music. Lieve Monsters is “a spekkoek [layered cake], with as many foolish-smart word games as layered lyrics,” we wrote in June. An album where melancholic lyrics clash with uplifting beats, with real feelings, subtle, layered, and always swinging at new angles. “And if behind that corner, the end of the world turns out to be lurking, we might as well dance.”