Top Pick
Outergods – Dethroned & Devoured (crossoverish blackened-death/grind)
Taking stick at this almost-halfway point, and I can say, with wholehearted certainty that the sub-genre that has been irking me the most in 2025 is absolutely blackened death metal. It isn't as uninspired or low-effort enough for me to eliminate entirely, like its more classically blackened brethren, but the genre is undoubtedly over-represented and under-delivering. Every week there's a slew of perfectly fine and unoriginal but otherwise inoffensive blackened death metal albums that leave me wondering: do we really need any more albums that sound like this?—to which the answer is always a resounding "probably not."
On the plus side, this sorry state of blackened affairs is only makes and album like Dethrones & Devoured hit even harder. It didn't take much, but by adding a bit of crusty hardcore urgency to proceedings, Nottingham's Outergods have breathed new death into an otherwise abundantly stagnant sound. At times, the album becomes furious enough to border on grindcore, but they also know how to slow things down and ride a rocking, mid-period Satyricon-style groove when necessary, so that the album overall reminds me most of Australia's Ruins with the vocal-gain turned all the way up. This much-needed urgency and added dynamics is enough to make Dethroned & Devoured stand out on its own, but the band also bring with them a legion of lethal riffs that have been perfectly honed to penetrate the defenses of even the most entrenched black metal traditionalist. So yeah, listen to this instead of the new Behemoth album or whatever.
Release Roundup
Agabas – Hard Anger (horny black/prog-death)
Altesia – The Somnambulist (prog rock/metal)
Ando San – Oh Kay (actually-nu prog, hip hop)
Angel Shot – God is Not a Safe Space (nu metal/deathcore)
Archers – Temporary High (melodic/alt-metalcore)
The Archon Rift – The Harrowing Path Between Loathing and Love (instrumental tech-death)
Ashen – Chimera (nu/alt prog, metalcore)
August Moon/As Serenity Fades – Earthborn/Lowering Sunset/Rosegardens (melodeath)
Avkrvst – Waving At The Sky (progressive rock/metal)
Basement Torture Killings – The Gallery of Monsters – Part 1 (death metal)
Berried Alive – Wrathberry (whacky deathcore)
The Biscuit Merchant – Tempora (progish death metal)
Blind Watchmaker – Shadows over Elysium (weird metal)
Bocc – Obrint El Taut (death-doom)
Breathing Below – The Body I Left Behind (nu metal/core)
Bryan Eckermann – The Fall Of Heaven (death-doom)
Buckcherry – Roar Like Thunder (who even listens to this?)
Burial Ground – Sentence Passed (death metal)
Byonoisegenerator – Subnormal Dives (noisy “jazzgrind”)
Byzantine – Harbingers (progressive groove-thrash)
Cash Bribe – Demonomics (crossover thrash, hardcore)
Catscan – Inside My Mind: The Demo Anthology (tech/death thrash)
Crosson – Guilty Of Rock (bad glam)
The Cure — Mixes Of A Lost World (goth remixes)
Daggr – Torn Veil of Existence (thrash)
Dark Matter Secret – New Matter (instrumental tech/prog-death)
Darkyra – Life Force (power metal)
Death Reapers – Thirst For Chaos (melodeath)
Deathgoat – Dragged Into Realms Below (death metal)
Designer Disguise – Cold Blue (baddiecore)
Disgustingest – Purging Suppuration (slamming brutal death)
Dolven – In My Grave…Silence (acoustic doom) Premiere
Drēor – Hell’s Kitchen (death metal)
Evadne – The Fragile Light Of Fireflies (acoustic doom)
Evilgloom – Wave'n'Rave (nu/electro deathcore)
Fairyland – The Story Remains (power metal)
Fallujah – Xenotaph (progressive death metal)
Fromjoy – Ataraxia 19.13.8.1.19 (electro/breakcore)
Flight Of Icarus – Terra Nova (heavy/symphonic metal)
Goya – In The Dawn Of November (sludge doom)
Grog – Sphere Of Atrocities (deathgrind)
Hatred Inherit – Void (death metal)
Hexvessel – Nocturne (doomy black/goth metal)
Insania – The Great Apocalpyse (power metal)
Iron Mind – Test Of The Iron Mind (hardcore)
Karçaz – Estrela Pálida do Silêncio Mórbido (black metal)
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island (funky psyche-rock)
King’s Hammer – To Speak In Tongues (groove death)
Klesha – A Void Beyond All Comprehension (sludge-synth)
Leafblower – Burn Cruise (stoner rock)
letlive. – The Blackest Beautiful Revisited (album-of-the-decade-core)
Lights Of Vimana – Neopolis (mellowdoom)
Limberlost – Beautiful Scars (pop metal)
Lipoma – No Cure for the Sick (melodeathgrind)
Manticøre – Stiller Schrei (nu metal)
Masseti – Odds And Ends (prog metal)
Memories Of A Lost Soul – Songs From The Restless Oblivion (melodeath)
Mistone – Colors (instrumental electro/alt metal)
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts – Talkin to the Trees (old folk)
Nightbearer – Defiance (blackened death metal)
Paleskin – Euphoric End (baddiecore, emogaze)
Phantomy – From the Wild (hard rock, hair metal)
Professor Emeritus – A Land Long Gone (heavy/prog metal, doom?)
Prophets Tomb – Through Pain (death metal)
Returning – Numenous (post-black metal)
The Risen Dread – Death from Above (groove death)
Ritual Awakening – Greed (crusty melodeath)
Row Of Ashes – Tide Into Ruin (sludge)
Sargassus – Vitruvian Rays (melo-blackened death)
Second Death – Cruel Bones (djethcore)
Sedative – Love Is Not Enough (deathcore)
Shrinkwrap Killers – Feed The Clones Pt. 2 (weird prog, post-punk?)
Sigh – I Saw The World’s End (Hangman’s Hymn MMXXV) (weird/progressive/thrashy black metal)
Signeri – Signeri (goth metal, mellowdoom)
Skyborne Reveries – S/T (doomy post-black)
Standover – …When A Clenched Fist Is No Longer An Option (deathy crossover, Hatebreed-core)
Star Circus – From The Wreckage (soft hard-rock)
Still Dusk – Chronicles Of Dystopia (prog metal)
Strange Boutique – Let The Lonely Heart Sing (goth)
Sun After Dark – Tatkraft (blackened goth-doom)
The Curse Within – Through Inferno (metalcore)
Tupperwave – Under the Map (vaporware)
Ultrablut – Tja (post-hardcore)
Under the Ashes – Sacrifices Heaped (death metal)
View from the Soyuz – Ubiquitous (melodeath, metalcore)
Wizzo – Place of the Chosen Lords (stoner/alt rock)