The December 2025 / January 2026 issue of Dork is here - and it’s a monster.
Leading the charge this month is Hayley Williams, crowned with Dork’s Album of the Year for ‘Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party’. Twenty tracks of raw honesty, gallows humour and fearless self-reconstruction, it’s the record that shaped 2025 - blistering, cathartic, messy, and utterly alive. Our AOTY cover feature delves into the chaos, the freedom, and the fallout, exploring a year when Hayley stepped out of the machine and created something that didn’t just define her year, but ours, too. Alongside it, we pull together the full Best of 2025 package: the albums that mattered, the tracks that wouldn’t let go, the EPs and mixtapes that set the pulse, and the highlights of the year as told by ‘the talent’ in their own words. It’s loud, sprawling, and full of surprises - exactly how the year felt.
Sharing the spotlight are HAIM, fronting the issue with a wildly confident return in ‘I quit’. After a year of sudden announcements, cryptic clues and a wave of rumours, the sisters arrive with a record that’s sharp, self-aware, and as defiantly HAIM as ever; the sound of three musicians who know their strengths and aren’t afraid to stretch them till they snap. Our feature cuts through the mythology to find a band embracing humour, heartbreak, reinvention, and release, all in the way only they can.
And then there’s Keo, leading the charge into 2026 with our annual Hype List. This year’s crop is one of our strongest in years, running from the vivid cinematic punch of Florence Road to the jagged ambition of Cliffords, the sharp-edged charisma of Westside Cowboy, the high-drama brilliance of Erin LeCount, the rising force of Villanelle, the neon-streaked precision of NXDIA, the technicolour riot of The Sophs, and the next-wave crop of emerging names shaping the future you’ll soon be seeing everywhere. It’s a list built on instinct, excitement and that unmistakable feeling that something’s about to break open.
Inside the issue, we also drop into the stories shaping the end of the year: Picture Parlour on building out their own world brick by brick, Chilli Jesson stepping into a new chapter with Dead Dads Club, and Kid Kapichi getting festive, feral and fully unfiltered in Any Other Questions. A nice, quiet finish for 2025, then. Ahem.
The December 2025 / January 2026 issue of Dork is out now. Pick your cover - or collect the set.