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A compact 100-watter, some liminal ambience and a metal offset: this is my gear of the year 2025

December 17, 2025

2025 is almost over, and so arrives year-end list season, clattering through the swing doors of journalism right after everyone gets bored of sharing their Spotify wrapped. Is there anything more festive than curling up in front of the fire with a mulled wine and several hundred year-end lists? For my sake, I hope not, because here comes another one.

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Year-end lists are great opportunities to look back over emerging trends, and identify where the strongest innovations lay across the year. And this year I was pleased to see that, while the digital side of things continues to grow in power and usability, the world of analogue amps and bespoke pedals was actually a pretty damn dynamic one this year. My personal gear preferences tend towards the messy, loud and, yes, inconvenient universe of real analogue kit – so without further ado, let’s see what I was impressed by this year.
My favourite guitar of 2025: Jackson Lee Malia LM-87
Jackson Lee Malia LM-87 guitar. Image: Press
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Is it a metal guitar for offset nerds? Or an offset guitar for metal nerds? Who knows, but either way, Jackson’s new Lee Malia signature is absolutely my top pick of 2025’s new guitar releases. Firstly: it looks cool as hell, but manages to keep it relatively classy. This is not the kind of heavy guitar that screams “mettuuull”, shotguns a beer and stage-dives into the moshpit. Instead, its dark, open-pore finish, the offset shape and the weird tune-o-matic nabbed from Malia’s love of vintage Gibsons make it appealingly minimalist but nevertheless mean looking. Sonically, the combo of a subtle P90 in the neck and an absolute jackhammer of a bridge humbucker makes it great for doing textural things as well as drop-A chugs, and ergonomically, the thing is built for speed and comfort – a boon in any genre.
The LM-87 also shares what’s compelling about the Jack Antonoff and Diamond Rowe signatures: Lee Malia’s personality is here, but it’s definitely a guitar that transcends his and Bring Me’s influence. It’s a minor trend, but a trend nonetheless, for signature guitars to feel a little more like the artist is an honest part of the design process, and less like the guitars are very expensive, playable merch. The side effect is that I still feel drawn to the instrument despite the fact that, and Bring Me The Horizon’s kind of metal is very much not what I’d choose to listen to. Long may this approach continue, basically, where artists of all stripes can contribute to the wider world of cool gear, beyond appeals to their fanbase!
Read the full review.
My favourite amp of 2025: Orange Tour Baby
Image: Orange
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It’s no secret I love Orange amps, and I’ve recently been having a very good time with the brand’s solid-state offerings. Late last year I bagged myself a used Super Crush 100, which is essentially a JFET version of the Rockerverb preamp running into a Pedal Baby power amp. It’s a great amp and I love how it sounds and looks, but I was really impressed with one of Orange’s more compact solid-state offerings this year – the Tour Baby.
The Tour Baby is the same size as the Pedal Baby, but adds two preamp channels and a built-in compressor for the cleans. Given its miniscule size but beefy 100-watt power stage, it’s a really compelling option for gigs where you don’t want to load the boot of your car to bursting but still want to kick out some serious dBs on stage. Its overdrive sounds are great too, and it took dirt pedals amazingly – the mid-gain character of the dirty channel was an excellent combo with thick fuzzes. In all, it’s a very Orange take on the compact-solid-state thing, with some added versatility and portability, all for under £400. What’s not to like?
Read the full review.
My favourite pedal of 2025: Old Blood Noise Endeavours Bathing
Image: Press
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A lot of guitar gear is rooted in what was. Innovation may not quite be a dirty word, but there’s a lot of gear that arrives every year – particularly in the pedal universe – that’s retreading old ground. Maybe with pretty carbon comp resistors and unique enclosure designs, but retreading is retreading – but it’s hard to level that accusation at Old Blood Noise Endeavors’ Bathing. It’s a delay with a totally unique signal chain that shunts the feedback through a variable-stage and variable-LFO phaser – which is a whole lot of jargon to say it sounds utterly unique, totally gorgeous and, true to OBNE’s stated goal, very ‘liminal’.
While it’s by no means for everyone, it’s hard to think of a pedal release I was so intrigued by this year, and I have a lot of respect for the approach of aiming for a totally new, uncharted feeling with a pedal – the art of the thing is in the driving seat, and it’s the sort of thing I’d love to see more pedal companies do.
Read the full review.
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