Well hello there! As has become our wont, we will kick off our Album of the Year of 2025 posting with our Superlatives List! As a reminder, that's where we get together as a group to have some fun, choose some silly/serious categories of albums, and submit a few albums to each! Sometimes it's one album! Sometimes it's five! What cheer! Being serious for a moment, it's our way to get away from ranked lists, being the futile attempt at cataloging music that they are, and give more space to the sheer diversity of a year's worth of releases.
After this, we'll aim to post an Album of the Year content piece every few days, whether that be our individual Top 25s, guest lists, and the respective end of year entries for our columns. We expect that to take us all the way into February which, if you ask me (and you are, because you're reading Heavy Blog!) is when end of year content should end.
OK! Let's get to it. Goodbye 2025. You sucked just as much as any year.
-Eden Kupermintz
Unto the Breach
Albums most likely to make you cause/sustain grievous injury
Chaos Inception - Vengeance Evangel
It’s always a good year for death metal, but in 2025 I found myself revisiting fewer albums from the genre than in years past. While more ambitious offerings from Malthusian and Veilburner earned significant playtime later in the year, it was Chaos Inception’s too-brutal Vengeance Evangel that kicked things off on a particularly sadistic note for me. This brain-wrinklin’ album set the bar so high that I quickly relegated anything falling short of its standard to the dustbin—sorry, (most) death metal bands.
In a big year for ex-Benighted drummer Kevin Paradis—who also contributed to that insane Umulamahri record and had many tech-death fans hoping he’d land the Archspire gig—this feels like his most compelling work to date. Simply put, Vengeance Evangel is fucking dense, channeling the exquisite balance of intensity and technicality found on classic Immolation, Morbid Angel, and Hate Eternal albums into something that somehow feels fresh: not quite tech, not quite prog, not quite dissonant, and not quite brutal, but certainly all of those flavors at once. It is, more plainly, utterly relentless.
Paradis’ precision blastwork efficiently propels guitarist Matt Barnes’ (Monstrosity, Quinta Essentia) mind-melting riffs and unruly lead work, allowing no time to step back and process what the fuck just got hammered into your ears. After months of steady listening, I’m still left wondering what is “actually” going on here—but my vertebrae know the story of this raged-out triumph all too well thanks to its maniacal and uncompromising nature. If there’s one album that could match my “ugh, fuck you” feelings toward 2025, it’s Vengeance Evangel.
-JJ
Psycho-Frame - Salvation Laughs in the Face of a Grieving Mother
I find my listening habits have severely softened in my 30s but a select few heavy acts still rustle my jimmies. By and large, Frame takes what they do seriously, but some of their heaviest moments (like THE 808 in “Blueprints”) are just so laughably goofy and satisfying. I won’t say they’re reinventing the wheel, but they do stand apart from the rest of the deathcore scene as of now. Salvation…. bludgeons like a sledgehammer, but what’s left isn’t formless rubble, but a monument to visceral, primordial angst. Basking in it makes my brain think I’m still 95% neanderthal.
-JF
DRAIN - ...IS YOUR FRIEND
I don’t often listen to crossover hardcore or, indeed, to hardcore itself. But sometimes there is an anger in my stomach that doesn’t want the fast, shreddy timbre of thrash metal but instead yearns for deeper, weighter punches. And that’s when I reach for that good, pissed off hardcore. This year, I reached right into DRAIN’s cesspool of riffs and boy, did I get what I want. Lyrics that spit in authority’s face, chunky, meaty riffs that don’t stop for a second, a vocalist that sounds just as cynically pissed off as I feel, and a groove section that can out-kick a mule. DRAIN really is my friend and they’re my friend that eggs me on as I smash my fists into a wall. I love that friend. Also that fucking cover art rules so much.
-EK
Bleed From Within - Zenith
This entry needs to start with a confession: I dislike moshpits. Both due to my bespectacled nature and the fact I dislike having to move away from the acoustic sweetspot at gigs just to avoid getting elbowed in the nose by that one shirtless idiot with a backwards ballcap who treats every show like a powerviolence battlefield.
Thus, most of my injurious albums are reserved for infusing my workouts with the extra pump needed to brrak walls and push boundaries.
Queue Bleed from Within’s Zenith: this year's stalwart and straight-backed companion to just about every moment I pushed through a boundary and met my knuckle-dragging inner ape. The slick, hooky and bulging brand of metalcore that these Scots peddle might not be the most brutal thing I’ve heard this year, but it always managed to get the blood and iron pumping.
-BK
The Armed - THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING MUST BE DESTROYED
Last time we heard from Detroit collective The Armed, they’d treated us to an arena-ready rock album in Perfect Saviors in the summer of 2023, right around when they were opening for Queens of the Stone Age and evidently gearing up for a mainstream breakout. But lots has changed since that relatively sanguine summer, and where Perfect Saviors was dramatically less abrasive than any of their prior releases, 2025’s THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING MUST BE DESTROYED has the pendulum swinging hard in the other direction. The verbose title tells the story plenty – the future is here, and it fucking blows in a lot of ways. The Armed meet the moment with blistering, fiery rage, with the album’s brief half hour runtime largely consisting of two minute cuts sometimes so over the top they borderline warp the tape in distorted fuzz and pure anger. But like with any Armed release, it’s still best experienced live: I had the good fortune of seeing the band live twice this year, including an especially sweaty set at Toronto’s Project Nowhere festival, with both times heavily featuring the new album in the setlist. All I can say is if The Armed come to your town at any point in 2026, grab all that anger you’ve got bottled up and get ready for bodily injury and blast beat catharsis alike.
-AH
Turtle Tea Party - Play Hard, Fuck Harder
The debut album from Philly duo Turtle Tea Party will shatter your eardrums, break your neck, and have you belting out the chorus within the first song…and it’s only 102 seconds long. Combining the bludgeoning heaviness of metalcore with the blistering fury of cybergrind, plus a generous dash of punk swagger, Play Hard, Fuck Harder is a rainbow of abrasive sounds mashed into crushing-yet-catchy songs.
-BH
Buttholectomy - Maggot Infested Carcass Eruption
The band name tells you everything that you need to know about this album, but in case you’d like more gory details: Maggot Infested Carcass Eruption is a filthy, brain-splattering chugfest oozing with grimy samples from newscasts, movies, and YouTube. It’s the audio equivalent of a Tubi horror movie with echoes of “House of 1000 Corpses.” Every time you listen to it, your mother becomes a little less proud of you. But sometimes you just need to scratch the primitive part of your brain that also craves Twinkies and a Coke Zero. You need a murderous onslaught of gurgled vocals smeared over downtuned guitars and blastbeats, then riddled with gruesome and chronically online samples. Add in four different collab tracks, a hip hop interlude, and grimly cinematic outro, and you’ll be left surveying the wreckage from this horrific slab of br00tuality.
-BH
I’m not crying, you’re crying!
Albums that got you totes emosh, holding back the tears, or sobbing uncontrollably.
Jens Kuross - Crooked Songs
It’s funny how the world works. Back in 2020, I stumbled upon Hayden Pedigo’s Greetings from Amarillo—a blessed discovery that had my wife and me completely obsessed with his American primitive guitar style. Fast forward five years and we’re celebrating our wedding anniversary by catching Hayden live. Like good fans, we show up early to grab a good seat and take in the opener, Jens Kuross, with no expectations whatsoever.
We never saw it coming.
What hit us was deeply moving. Working with nothing more than a Wurlitzer and an earnest voice, Jens brought nearly all of Denver’s Swallow Hill Music to tears. While emotions were already running high for us, we didn’t expect to find ourselves among a roomful of watery-eyed strangers. Mid-song, he catches himself, voice breaking, tears tracing down his face: “Music, man…” In that moment, everyone felt the weight of it—the weight of his music, and of an honesty laid bare not just for the audience, but also for himself.
As luck would have it, the record sounds as if it were plucked straight from that live experience. Part early Bon Iver, part Eels’ E, and wholly soul baring, Crooked Songs allows Jens’ emotion to pool in the spaces between his words and the keys, often spilling over into something inexplicably tender and hopeful—even when carried on the back of sadness. At a time when cynicism finds me easily and hope seems to dissipate in an instant, I can find that glowing little something that’s hiding deep inside just by tossing on this humble masterpiece.
-JJ
The Tea Club - Chasm (96/24)
Considering that their previous release, If/When, makes me burst into multiple different types of tears whenever I hear it, it’s probably no surprise that The Tea Club’s surprise, late-in-the-year, release is my choice for this category. Simply put, The Tea Club are now my favorite progressive rock still in operation; their hand for intricate but heartfelt music is once again on display with this release. However, it now approaches emotional weight from completely different directions, spliced with indie and even brit rock, a dark, subtle album that caught me completely off guard. “The Bell Ringer?” “Vineyard”? Pure tear inducing bliss. Even more “forceful” tracks, like the opening track, are filled with a sort of gloom that descends and envelops me.
-EK
Green Thumbs Up
Jaunts through the forest, hikes through the mist, journeys in nature
Wardruna - Birna
As a lifelong urbanite, and inhabitant of a deeply uninteresting country nature-wise, this is as much a category of imagination as it is one of lived experience.
Since I moved to a different city a couple of years back, the empty pastures of the surrounding farmland, dotted with old farmhouses and churches have yielded some inspiring walks nonetheless.
Wardruna’s Birna has been a close companion on many of these walks over the past year. Meditative yet propulsive, Einar Selvik and co. 's established nordic folk project might not be metal, but it appeals to a similar thirst for immersive soundscapes, bombast and instrumental layering as many a metal album. Birna’s slew of traditional Nordic instruments, coupled with Selvik’s immediately recognisable voice managed to transport me to fjords, misty forests and glaciers even when they were not physically available.
-BK
Heavy Blog is Not Heavy
Albums we played when we needed to give our chronic tinnitus a break from even more ear-splitting cacophony
Hayden Pedigo - I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away
Hayden Pedigo is my Person of 2025™. Teaming up with Chat Pile on one of my favorite releases of the year and introducing me to the phenomenal Jens Kuross would be more than enough in any year, but his 2025 outing, I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away, just might be my favorite entry in his discography. Thoroughly transporting, Hayden once again creates a sonicscape that invites listeners to marvel not so much at his technical ability—as impressive as that may be—but at the picture he patiently paints through memorable guitar phrases, impeccable arrangements, and subtle-but-crucial atmospheric flourishes. It’s like Bob Ross in audio form: unfolding with a familiar, unhurried rhythm that somehow always reveals something beautiful and inspiring. For that, I couldn’t be more appreciative.
-JJ
Shiner - BELIEVEYOUME
The phrase “your favorite band’s favorite band” gets thrown around a lot by music critics, especially while discussing Shiner — and for good reason. The Kansas City post-hardcore act has influenced countless bands, yet never quite gained the full recognition they deserve. After a brilliant string of albums throughout the 90s and early 00s, the band called it quits in 2003. That is, until their reunion album Schadenfreude dropped in 2020. Schadenfreude had its strengths, but it often sounded uneven — almost as if the band was trying to discover what they should sound like after a seventeen-year hiatus. As far as I’m concerned, BELIEVEYOUME is the sound they were searching for.
BELIEVEYOUME expertly balances the band’s various, sometimes conflicting tendencies: spacey atmospherics juxtaposed with trudging sections thick with distortion, earworm melodies over unpredictable chord progressions, and tonal complexity with power chord muscularity. Yet, some of those characteristics are more prevalent than they were before. Rhythm guitarist and vocalist Allen Epley’s time leading the shoegaze/space rock outfit The Life and Times almost certainly influenced BELIEVEYOUME. “Lazarus” and “Jackie,” for example, could have easily been written for The Life and Times, as they feature more straightforward songwriting and a more prominent use of delay and reverb than previous Shiner albums. While the band demonstrated proficiency in complex rhythms and time signatures on the math rock-inspired Lula Divinia (1997) and intricate arrangements on the prog rock-slanted The Egg (2001), the songs on BELIEVEYOUME are leaner as they are stripped to their bare essentials. Despite that, drummer Jason Gerken’s performance is arguably the best of his career. While the band leans into their spacier side throughout the album, Gerken’s busy yet tasteful playing adds a significant amount of momentum to each track.
While BELIEVEYOUME is certainly still heavy in the way that Shiner always has been, the album will serve you well if you want something slightly less abrasive than all of the black and death metal you normally listen to. BELIEVEYOUME may just end up being the introduction to your new favorite band and not just your favorite band’s favorite band.
-JD
Racing Mount Pleasant - Racing Mount Pleasant
It was tempting to put this album into the “Album’s I Couldn’t Stop Talking About” superlative, because no other release grabbed a hold of me and made me develop a hyperfixation like Racing Mount Pleasant. The kind of album where every time I listened to it I developed a new favourite song, and I just had to keep coming back to it. Formerly known as Kingfisher, their first release under their new name is a captivating balance of invigorating and heartbreaking post-rock. Their sound is influenced heavily by the room-filling orchestra of chamber pop and some of the expansive ambition of art rock, drawing many comparisons to the British “Windmill Scene” and their peers in Black Country, New Road. But this Michigan 7-piece’s take on this sound is more cohesive and approachable, while being as affecting.
Harmonizing with energetic dual saxophone melodies, trumpet, flute, and beautiful string sections are a blend of strong vocals that carry a ton of earnest emotion. There’s a bit less spoken-word rambling than BCNR, but great use of backing vocals accent some of the stream-of-consciousness style with some really passionate ear-worms. The more intimate and sentimental moments even echo the homely comfort of indie folk acts like Bon Iver. Enveloping all this is a powerful album-spanning lyrical narrative touching on spiralling relationships and spiralling mental states that hits incredibly hard. This is a gorgeously melancholic album full of bright bursts of life that offered a lot of comfort and catharsis this year.
-TB
Värttinä - Kyly
It’s rare that an album as generally playful and calming as Kyly manages to engross me as much as it did. The inquisitive lilt of both the instrumentation and the inimitable Finnish language and the accompanying skill of the three frontwomen make for a wonderful panacea when it’s time for something lighter.
Värttinä still know when to let the darker or more experimental tones permeate the music, and while “Maaruska”, “Kaihomieli” and “Juhola” offer a warm blanket of cottage-ready indie folk, the title track shows the dark, shamanistic tones that prevailed on some of their earlier albums. “Kazvatti minua muomoin” closes out the album with one of the most gorgeously forlorn melodies I’ve heard this year, carrying Karelian tragedy in its layered vocals.
-BK
Brad Mehldau - Ride Into the Sun
I first became a fan of pianist Brad Mehldau back in 2016 via his fantastic double album Highway Rider, which itself became a major gateway into more jazz listening generally. One of my favourite tracks from the album at the time was a tune called “Sky Turning Grey (for Elliott Smith)”, but 2016 me had no idea who this Elliott Smith was, and did not think to look him up, either. Skip ahead nearly a decade, and 2024 me found myself massively wishing I’d had done so at the time – because upon finally having discovered Elliott’s music, I quickly became a massive fan of the late singer-songwriter’s incredible body of work. So it really felt like stars aligning when Mehldau then announced Ride into the Sun, a full record paying tribute to Smith two decades after his untimely passing, featuring jazz piano renditions of several classic Elliott tunes alongside features from the likes of Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear and mandolin wizard Chris Thile.
Ride into the Sun is a lovingly crafted jazz record that fully engages with Elliott’s songwriting mastery, with careful arrangements that emphasize even the tiniest details in the original songs. That said, don’t assume knowing the originals is some kind of prerequisite – even if I hadn’t spent much of 2024 poring over the chord progressions and melodies underpinning Elliott’s music, I’d still find Ride into the Sun a warm and comforting listen, especially with classics like “Sweet Adeline” and a beautiful full band cover of “Tomorrow Tomorrow” getting some lush jazz piano treatment here. Even the bitterness of “Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands” finds an added vibrance and warmth here, though Mehldau still manages to preserve the original’s manic, twisted feeling throughout.
Any Brad Mehldau album is basically guaranteed to be phenomenal jazz listening anyways, but it’s especially nice to see the intersection of Mehldau’s playing and Elliott’s music unfold. And if this album ends up beyond your gateway to Elliott’s work itself, then I hope you enjoy exploring what he gave to the world before his tragic departure as much as I have.
-AH
Total Wife - Come Back Down
There were so many amazing indie pop and shoegaze releases this year, but what this Nashville experimental-pop duo accomplished with that sound is what really stuck with me. I usually pick my favorite records based on how often I’ve fallen asleep to them, so the fact that these songs allegedly followed Luna Kupper into her dreams after recording makes perfect sense. The instrumentals feel both familiar and foreign—like a dream where you remember exactly what happened, yet can’t quite grasp the details. The vocals, however, are remarkably clear, standing out like the people you meet in your sleep. There's something really poetic about that contrast.
-Mish
Grower Not a Shower
Albums you didn’t understand or downright hated initially, but eventually blossomed into a near-and-dear listen
The Callous Daoboys - I Don’t Want To See You In Heaven
To be fair, I’d written The Callous Daoboys off many moons ago. It just wasn’t scratching any itch I had. Cool stuff? Sure, just not my jam. Even the cinematic double music video release for “Two-Headed Trout” and “The Demon of Unreality Limping Like A Dog” didn’t really do much for me. Lah-dee-dah, fast forward, I’m taking a walk along the water, letting the streaming suggestions take the wheel in my ear buds. Something crunchy and sassy comes on. Intrigued and pleasantly surprised, I pull out my phone to see who it is. Daoboys. “Man, that’s a weird bummer. I bet this is probably the only good song on the album” I tell myself. I finish the song and carry on. On the walk back, another random song pops up. “Ok, ok, this is sick, I can dig” I think. I check again and sure enough, it’s the Daoboys yet again. So, I gave in. I tossed my old bias aside and started from track one. The first pass through admittedly didn’t blow my socks off, but those couple moments that caught my attention were fun in context. Over the coming days I found myself with vocal hooks lodged in my head. “Two-Headed Trout” was tapping me on the shoulder incessantly, so as to say “I told you so.” Lo and behold, I’m a dumb idiot. Whatever preconceived idea I had of TCD was promptly replaced with a need to put this album on repeat, thus cementing itself as one of my favorites from the year.
-JF
Ihlo - Legacy
There used to be a time when djent was not a bad word because the genre was not bad. That was back in the day when the sound was fresh and bands were actually doing something with it. One of those things was leaning into the combination of djent and its origin genre, progressive metal. Think early TesseracT. But today, the genre has such a negative connotation that I never even bother checking out releases that are somewhat adjacent to it and, when I do, there’s some sort of mental block that prevents me from enjoying them. That was the case with Legacy, initially, for me. The second I heard those chugs, my brain turned off and I wrote the album off as “not for me”.
But, for some reason, I came back to it and something clicked. This album was firmly rooted in something else, in something bright and progressive, which used the djent sound to create backbone and meat. In short, this album was more in the tradition of TesseracT and Caligula’s Horse than anything else. And those are two of my favorite bands, so I kept listening and let me tell you, I fell absolutely in love. Legacy doesn’t do anything in particular that you could point to for its originality. But everything it does veritably weeps with passion and love. The big riffs are big and moving. The vocals are touching and well written. The grooves are thick, present, and always interesting.
In short, the band clearly love the music they are making and they make it not out of some misplaced callback to the past but rather because that’s the music they would like to make. If you are looking for a grand, emotional, and groovy progressive metal album that was released this year, this is where I’d start. Listen past the chugs for the emotion and you’ll be well rewarded.
-EK
Psychonaut - World Maker
I came to appreciate Psychonaut from a safe distance at first, becoming somewhat ironically acquainted through Hippotraktor, the more post-metal oriented band also fronted by Stefan de Graef.
I was definitely aware of the quality in albums like Unfold the God Man, but aside from specific songs they never particularly appealed as a whole. 2025 changed that by means of a convergence of two events: the release of World Maker and my first instance of seeing Psychonaut live over the same weekend.
World Maker feels to me like an altogether more directional album. While some of the hazy, psychedelic meandering remains, the songwriting is mostly taut with coiled-spring tension and purpose and when the sails of the mind-ship hang limp it’s for a tasteful breather, not an unfocused drift.
Psychonaut’s excellent live performance, exemplified by Stefan de Graef’s boundless energy on stage and his excellent live volume as he performed back to back shows with both Hippotraktor and Psychonaut, further pushed the album into my unexpected favorites of the year.
-BK
Shower and a Shower
Long and impressive albums.
Thumos - The Trail of Socrates
Coming from an albums-not-songs guy who still gripes about Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper being way too long, it makes absolutely no goddamn sense that an even longer album—nearly two hours in total—has become one of my most frequently visited records of the year. What I do know, however, is that Thumos can spin serious philosophical threads into an instrumental tapestry unlike anything I’ve heard in quite some time.
While progressive doom has delivered plenty of highs in recent years, few releases place listeners on a true quest quite like The Trial of Socrates. Shifting fluidly between doom, post-, and black metal with thematically appropriate gravitas, Thumos have crafted something akin to nerding out over a Scorsese film. Entertaining? Surely. Loaded with intricacies, reprises, and allusions? Of course. Will you need to settle in and dissect individual pieces to appreciate how they fit into the larger whole? If that kind of thing is your bag, totally! No matter how you sink your ears in, there’s an abundance to appreciate on a close listen or passively.
Experienced as a unified work (my preferred approach) or taken piece by piece, The Trial of Socrates is the gift that keeps on giving. Through innumerable listens, new motifs, connections, and subtleties continue to surface, sure to reward the patient and curious for many years to come.
-JJ
Oromet - The Sinking Isle
While the album’s “pure” runtime is not that long (though 40 minutes is definitely not short), it packs inside of it realms upon realms of music. We already knew that Oromet were capable of massive, towering doom, as evinced on their self-titled debut release. But The Sinking Isle takes this to whole new levels, packing hours and hours worth of ideas, gestures, and subtleties into its engaging and crushing core. Maybe choosing a funeral doom album for this category is cheating but there really wasn’t an album that felt more monumental and massive to me this year and I believe that’s what this category is about.
-EK
Not-A-Grower but a Shower
Favorite EPs.
Ben’s Raincoat - Radiant Cliffs
Named after an item from indie game Risk of Rain, Ben’s Raincoat is a fun nostalgia trip back to that era of 2010~ progressive metal that I have a lot of lasting love for. Evoking early The Faceless, Fallujah, and Kardashev, it stretches the lines between death metal and deathcore, while being equally melodic, progressive and technical. Beyond that, it’s consistently plain fun. There’s no shortage of cool riffs, but the song-writing is fleshed out with intense atmospherics, timely heavy breakdowns and some flavourful solos. Complimenting this is some intricate drumwork and a fiery vocal performance delivering a range of death growls and Travis Ryan-like screams. Intentional or not, even the production has a bit of a 2010 sound, which mostly comes off more nostalgic and endearing than dated or distracting. Radiant Cliffs is one of 2025’s more under-appreciated EPs, and anyone whose taste was shaped in that era should especially find a lot to love here.
-TB
Ostraca - Eventualities
Screamo and post-metal have frequently shown to harmonize well, with a fusion of dynamic, tension-building and visceral sounds coming together for moments of earth-shattering emotional catharsis. Over the past few years Ostraca have been cementing themselves at the forefront of this movement, culminating with their latest and most “post-” sounding release with their 4-track EP Eventualities. There is an immense amount of passion, fury and vulnerability on display packed into these 20-minutes, especially by their frontman who leaves absolutely everything on the floor in his performance. You can feel the exhaustion, pain, and deliverance in every scream. This outpouring of often incomprehensible but audibly earnest vocal delivery works so well as another layer on top of the tension stretching post-rock instrumentation. “Esau” has one of the most effective crescendos you’ll find this year, building into a frenetic explosion of grinding violence that made for one of the most memorable musical moments of 2025.
-TB
Suffering Hour - Impelling Rebirth
I’ve shared many a word on this slab of blackened death metal goodness, already. But here’s a few more, because I can and I wanna. Leave me alone.
As an EP, it’s hard to beat what Suffering Hour put on display throughout Impelling Rebirth. The songwriting is diverse and intriguing, the performances are superb, and the production holds it all together with a perfect sense of nastiness. It’s honestly one of the band’s best releases (which is saying something), but also brings to the surface my one deep criticism of Impelling Rebirth: This should be a full-length. There is nothing here that makes me feel like these tracks should be relegated to b-sides or leftover status. This is a premium product and at least three or four more tracks of this quality probably would have put this thing at the top of my list for the year in death metal. Alas, we wait impatiently for the next installment in Suffering Hour’s ascendancy to death metal royalty. Will just have to spin Impelling Birth another 1.2 billion times, I suppose.
-JA
Vower - A Storm Lined With Silver
As I stated in my review, I’ve been following Vower for some time now, hoping out of the ashes of Palm Reader and Black Peaks another great project would rise. So far, I have not been disappointed. A Storm Lined With Silver was easily my most spun EP of the year, and as I write this wearing my Vower t-shirt, seeing them perform these songs live is still fresh in my mind, a jagged talisman of kinetic energy helmed by the utterly commanding live presence of frontman and vocalist Josh McKeown. I can’t wait for the next instalment.
-BK
Elder - Liminality / Dream State Return
There really was no other choice for me for this category; I listened to Elder’s surprise release probably more than any other EP in 2025. It’s no secret that I love Elder and that I have been a fervent follower of everything they’ve done, including the directions that most others did not like as much. It’s a delight then to hear them continue to iterate on everything that makes them so great, namely big, colorful melodies and moving epics that take their time to explore their far-flung sounds. “Liminality” is all of that and more, a true “classic” Elder track but married with their more recent sounds, expansive and majestic, while “Dream State Return” is a tight, energetic coda that caps so many of the grandiose ideas presented in the first track. Together, they make for some of Elder’s finest work and one which I cannot wait to spend years and years with.
-EK
Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Our Lord and Savior, Music?
Albums you wouldn’t stop shoving down strangers’ throats any time music was a conversation piece
Dessiderium - Keys to the Palace
“You have never fucking heard an album like this” is a sentence I said multiple times in the year 2025. Usually, it was followed by “unless you’ve previously listened to me and heard Christian Cosentino”. For those who have been following my writing, you know how high a praise that is and it is well earned. Dessiderium has performed the same maneuver that Cosentino has, taking a common metal sub-genre (namely progressive death metal) and turning it on its head by playing it brighter. The rich synths, the insane guitar licks, the overall feeling that you are being pummeled to death by a tree bursting into full flower, just make this album sound like nothing else. Look how normal I’m being about this album! Listen to this album! PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM!
-EK
Snooze - I Know How You Will Die
I always make a point to ask as many folks as possible about their AOTY contenders, regardless of what month it is. But ever since April, I feel like I have teetered on being machiavellian in asking. I was genuinely curious, of course, but I’d be lying if I didn’t have Snooze’s mathy masterpiece cocked, loaded, and ready to fire as soon as my victim – er, interlocutor returned the question. It’s just got everything I love about music, how could I not gush? The drumming is deliciously dynamic, the orchestrations are outrageous, and the happy is always heavy. I actually wish I was asking someone their AOTY right now.
-JF
Mawiza - Ül
I’ve written at some length about Ül this year, so I’m keeping this one short. I’ve been pushing this band as the decolonial follow-up to Gojira to many of my less metal-savvy friends over the past year and fully hope that prediction comes to pass. We need more bands that push technical yet stadium-ready heavy music with an important message, and Mawiza did that like none other this year.
-BK
Amazing Amalgamations and Hype-worthy Hybrids
Albums that expertly fused disparate genres, combined genres that should not work together but do, or offer exceptional examples of established combinations.
Ameretat - self-titled
I knew jack-diddly-squat about Iranian folk music, but thanks to Ameretat’s self-titled release, I got a little crash course delivered alongside some righteous, ripping hardcore. The band finds a rare overlap where folk elements aren’t forced or tacky, but instead sharpen and heighten the raucous rhythms of their louder moments. There’s also something inherently punk about pairing traditional folk melodies with d-beats and singing in non-English tongues, using heritage not as ornamentation but as a source of power. At a time when Iranians (and more generally all immigrants) face increasing hostility and erasure, this self-titled release is a welcome reminder that music can create a defiant proclamation that is loud, proud, and unflinching in its refusal to be silenced.
-JJ
Halfmass - Ten-Gallon Heart
In my review of Ten-Gallon Heart earlier this year, I wrote about the album’s genre-agnostic sound in broad strokes rather than specifics. After listening to the album at least a dozen more times since then, I must admit that I still find it difficult to discuss this dense, expertly composed jigsaw puzzle of genres in finer detail. Each song explores such an incredibly diverse and distinct swath of sonics that it can be challenging to hone in on specifics that stand out throughout the album’s running time. This characteristic is most immediately applied to the various genres the band employs, but it also applies to arrangement and mixing as each shift in genre is masterfully supported by subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) changes in equalization, effects, and/or instrumentation. The pastoral, pensive folk at the beginning of “Glare,” for instance, has an analog mid-range warmth that wraps around you like a blanket. In striking juxtaposition, that very same track ends with a clanky, plodding industrial noise beat that sounds as if a metal compactor is struggling to function. From raucous noise rock and post-hardcore to understated Americana and slowcore, there is arguably no other band weaving in such a wide variety of disparate genres as deftly as Halfmass is. This is the one album in 2025 you will listen to while repeatedly asking yourself, “Am I still listening to the same band?”
-JD
Point Mort - Le point de non-retour
Prior to my discovery of Le point de non-retour I had never heard of Point Mort, and I have been consistently enraptured with this strange frankenstein of a truly progressive “Chaotic popcore/Postcore” album (as the band themselves describe it). The fact I have to resort to the band’s idiosyncratic genre classification feels more like a triumph on their end than a failure on mine, as this is the kind of wild rollercoaster ride that truly convinced me heavy music is forever able to delight me with the unexpected. Between chaotic, tempestuous guitar attacks, textured synth patches and intermittently corrosive and gorgeous vocals, bolstered by a wildly technical rhythm section, this album is firing on all cylinders without losing the plot. Reminding me of Todtgelichter at times, yet eluding comparison on most fronts, Point Mort have delivered a truly unique and incomparable record with Le point de non-retour.
-BK
Belted Sweater - Belted Sweater
While “synth punk” and “dance punk” are established subgenres, seldom has it sounded quite like this. Instrumentally, Belted Sweater are a straight up synthpop band with some post-punk tendencies. It's straightforward and well written, and a few of the Depeche Mode-esque grooves and great drumming will get your head-bobbin’. The cold, unpolished production and some decent retro synth tones help give it that authentically classic 80s sound. But as soon as the vocals kick in here is where you realize this is a very different beast (and also where some confused synthpop fans might turn it off). That's because the entirety of the vocals are harsh, raspy shout-screams, somewhere between screamo vocals and hardcore punk. Poetically self-acclaimed, “Like if Henry Rollins was in the Pet Shop Boys but with live drums and even gayer lyrics.” It's not the best vocal performance you'll hear this year, but it's one of the most surprising and effective. It's visceral, cathartic, it just fucking works. The pain and desperation uniquely contrast and compliment the upbeat synth melodies unlike much I have ever heard.
-TB
The Medium and the Message
Albums that offer both exceptional music and a concept, message, theme or ideology that rises above the pack
Crippling Alcoholism - Camgirl
Crippling Alcoholism’s Camgirl is one of those albums that perfectly glues together its message and its musical vehicle, creating a grotesque, melted musical sex doll, looking balefully at the audience from beneath peeling lashes. Camgirl is the kind of album that’s both hard to look at straight yet impossible to put out of your mind, sitting pretty like a visceral traffic accident in shades of black and red and pink.
A rotten gothic confection of syrupy synths, 5 am sticky-club floor atmosphere and undercurrents of an altogether more nefarious blackened and grindy quality that occasionally rear their ugly head, the album thematically deals with fictional online performer ‘Bella Pink’, observed through both her own eyes and those who view her both as a person, an object, or anything in between.
Tony Castrati’s often delightfully demented vocal performance, paired with dark and twisted lyrics offer the perfect contrast to the often straight up catchy hooks.
Camgirl perfectly zip-ties its music, lyrics and theme together into a grisly yet absolutely enthralling vice-crime scene of an album.
-BK
It’s Metal, Jim, But Not as We Know It
Albums that pushed the boundaries of what can generally be considered “metal”
Sum of R - Spectral
Few releases I heard this year really stretched the boundaries of what can widely be considered metal, but Spectral is one that undeniably did. Originally formed by Swiss multi-instrumentalist Reto Mäder, this iteration of Sum of R includes drummer Jukka Rämänen (Hexvessel, Dark Buddha Rising, Waste of Space Orchestra) and vocalist Marko Neuman (Convocation, Ligation). Throughout the album’s running time, the trio explores psychedelic doom, krautrock, and drone. While there are certainly more straightforwardly metal compositions, such as “Solace” and “Violate,” much of the album lacks many of the traditional signifiers of a metal album.
Most of the songs have a free-floating improvisational quality, reject an overabundance of distortion, and contain a multitude of sounds and instrumentation outside of the conventional guitars, bass, and drums. “Null,” for example, begins quietly with a guitar drone but gradually builds as Rämänen’s improvised drumming becomes increasingly louder and more frantic. A major chord progression performed on a modulated synthesizer replaces the drone as Neuman’s vocals cycle through strained gurgles, robotic invocations, and tortured howls. While Spectral may stretch the boundaries of metal in regards to its compositional stylings, the album’s dark, discomforting atmosphere speaks to psychological horror that is explored by many metal bands. Yet, given how alien and bizarre much of the album sounds, that psychological horror is more striking on Spectral than on most metal albums you’ll hear from this year.
-JD
DJ Privileges Revoked
The most ear-splitting, head-spinning albums that we played on repeat, even though (or because) they made us sick. Unrelated: we’re not allowed to have the aux cord anymore.
God Complex - He Watches In Silence
When I wrote about this release back in March, my closing sentence stated “I just keep coming back for more”. Little did I know how true that would be. It's been on high rotation all year and I think that is because of two factors; 1) It's a 5 track EP that lasts about 12 minutes in one sitting. 2) Every song is so ludicrously heavy that you just want to experience the bombardment again and again. Similar to how retired professional boxers always come back for one last fight.
The pummelling is utterly relentless. In fact, there are moments where a melodic interlude might have actually made more sense, but instead they decided to add more blast beats and guttural depravity on top of what was already there. It's like they wanted to push not only themselves but the listener too. This release isn't for the faint hearted, but it is a brilliant example of unhinged modern metalcore. In a year where some of the big hitters missed the target, it's good to see one of the up and coming bands shining through. I can't wait to see what these determined scousers have in store for us next.
-PK
Barren Path - Grieving
I can count on two hands the amount of people who’ve been in the car with me when I decided it was a good idea to introduce them to Barren Path’s unique and punishing brand of pure deathgrind. The reactions were not mixed. They were uniformly slight variations of “what the fuck is this?” Which is to be expected, but still… won’t anyone love Grieving with me? [insert Michael Cera sad walk gif]
For real, though. This album is incredible. It feels like a coronary in musical form, destructive and relentless in its desire to subjugate listeners to its will. But weirdly enough, Barren Path’s particular brand of audio violence isn’t without significant amounts of texture and nuance. There’s a boatload of unexpectedly delicious riffs, licks, and blasts to sort through once the dust has settled and acclimation to the band’s brand of breakneck grind takes hold. It’s an incredible album that definitively rewards repeat listening, just don’t expect your normie friends and family to love it with you.
-JA
Time Stealer
Albums from the past that you discovered this year that without a doubt stole your attention from this year's releases.
Wye Oak - Tween
I don’t know how this one was hiding in such plain sight for so long. I’d been introduced to Wye Oak by my partner recently, specifically their album Civilian, which was phenomenal. Tween though is another animal. Built upon incredible lyricism and haunting vocals from Jenn Wasner, this album has a beautiful soundscape drenched in reverb and breathing room. The album’s second track “If You Should See” is nothing short of soul-nourishing. Wasner floats above alternating bubbly grooves and driving pace. The first time I heard it, I immediately knew it captured everything I love about music, which doesn’t happen too frequently outside of my core listening habits. I dove into the rest of Tween with so much enthusiasm that I neglected months of new discoveries. Sorry BTBAM, Crippling Alcoholism, Agriculture, etc.
-JF
The CafFiends - Fission, Fusion, and Things Made of Concrete
There are always albums from the past that I discover years later that make me wonder, “How did I never hear this before?” This year, everything from the pop punk of Keep This To Yourself (2010) by Transit to the ambient/downtempo of Oxido En El Espejo (2024) by Boundary forced me to ask that question once again and stole my attention away from 2025 releases as a result of multiple listens. But it was Fission, Fusion, and Things Made Concrete (2004) by The CafFiends that truly surprised me.
I hesitate to refer to Fission, Fusion, and Things Made of Concrete as the American version of The Shape of Punk to Come, but the influence that Refused had on The CafFiends is all but undeniable. True, Fission, Fusion, and Things Made of Concrete lacks the scope of The Shape of Punk to Come, both conceptually and sonically. But one listen to the deadly rhythms (see what I did there?) found throughout Fission, Fusion, and Things Made of Concrete will convince you that this Californian quartet made a worthy effort in trying to reach the same artistic apex as Refused. Throughout the album’s running time, the band delves into moody post-punk/indie rock (“Twenty Three”), cool jazz (“Beauty Queen Reprise”), and experimental electronic music (“Velocitation”) - all nestled among a string of fiery, brilliantly composed post-hardcore and metalcore songs.
If you’re a fan of late 90s/early 00s post-hardcore and metalcore bands such as Refused and Drowningman, then you, like me, will likely consider Fission, Fusion, and Thing Made of Concrete a lost classic. One listen through may compel you to ask, “How did I never hear this before?”
-JD
Funebrarum - The Sleep of Morbid Dreams
To be completely transparent, 2025 was not the year that first introduced me to the “Evoken Gone Death Metal” outfit Funebrarum. Fans of modern OSDM worship should be very familiar with this collective’s seminal sophomore release by now, and if you count yourself among that group and have yet to give this record a spin I strongly suggest you change that. But when this record popped up in my recommended list I hadn’t listened to it in at least six or seven years. Giving it a few spins in November ended up being a multi-month love affair that I’ve yet to extricate myself from. The Sleep of Morbid Dreams is among the greatest records to come from the mid 2000s OSDM revival (think Dead Congregation/Blood Incantation levels of awesome), and may genuinely be the single best example of the capabilities of this reinvigorated style. It’s a must listen for every death metal fan, and a record that I could not stop listening to upon revisiting.
-JA
Code Orange - Forever
Code Orange is… forever?" Given the band’s recent struggles—marked by a difficult album rollout and a sense of internal friction—it’s worth asking if that statement has become outdated. Whenever the band’s legacy is discussed, or when their charismatic, braggadocious drummer-turned-frontman Jami Morgan is mentioned, the conversation often devolves into "what ifs." Critics and fans alike suggest the band squandered their momentum, arguing they should have eclipsed the likes of Turnstile or Knocked Loose.
I reject that narrative. However polarizing Forever may have been upon release, Code Orange remains the same DIY hardcore outfit whose relentless work ethic earned them two Grammy nominations. Revisiting this record makes one thing clear: the issue isn't a lack of "unused potential," but rather the specific way they chose to wield that potential. Even if the band decided to regress to their roots today, the result would undoubtedly surpass the quality of almost any hardcore demo released this year.
- Mish
Scene Tourists
Albums from genres outside of your comfort zone/regular listening that opened some doors for ya.
Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz
Not to toot my horn, but I consider myself someone who has fairly wide-ranging musical tastes. Genres as eclectic as ambient jazz, noise rock, deep house, and experimental R&B can enter my earbuds over the course of an hour on any given day. But the appeal of hip hop has always eluded me. And it’s not for lack of trying or lack of exposure. Since I was a teenager, the majority of my friends have listened to hip hop to varying degrees and have exposed me to the likes of Aesop Rock and Open Mike Eagle. While there are a handful of releases I have liked over the years, I’ve struggled to connect with the vast majority that I’ve heard.
However, I’m convinced that the brilliance of Revengeseekerz presents a potential path forward for me to once again test the waters of hip hop. True, Revengeseekerz is not exclusively a hip hop album, but it undoubtedly draws extensively from the genre along with digicore, hyperpop, EDM, and other styles. The album is intense and densely layered with samples, including of random screaming and glass breaking, but under the controlled chaos are genuinely catchy pop hooks performed with intentionally heavily auto-tuned vocals. I have historically been turned on to certain genres through releases that integrate sounds from styles I’m already familiar with and enjoy, and Revengeseekerz seems like it could very well be another one of those gateway albums.
-JD
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
Noteworthy collabs/features
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo - In the Earth Again
What do you get when you combine America's hottest noise rock/sludge band (with an affinity for Korn bass riffs) and an underappreciated solo artist bringing ambient acoustic Americana to a modern audience? One of the bleakest and most powerful releases of the year. This is one of those albums where when I first heard it announced it was hard to even imagine what it would sound like. The end result has been loosely labeled post-rock by some, but it's really much more than that and hard to give one overarching genre. Some songs sound more like Hayden, with delicate finger-style guitar crafting melancholic passages to accept your incoming doom to, while others really just sound like regular Chat Pile songs with an ambient spin. And while both these are great and provide strong juxtaposition and eclecticism to the flow of the album, this album really shines when they find a unique middle ground. Raygun's restrained, more spoken word style delivery provides a darkly affecting layer to the haunting atmosphere of tracks like “Radioactive Dreams.” Here, Chat Pile's dreary, heavy sludge underlines the blissful guitar harmonies from Hayden, that feels like watching the world burn from the most beautiful vantage point. In the Earth Again is deeply ambitious and masterful coming together of sounds that probably shouldn't work. It's two artists on opposite sides of the musical spectrum finding a common ground in capturing the exposed rot in the heart of America, and making a little bit of magic from it.
-TB
Mementos
Albums you got into/purchased after a particularly impressive live performance.
Rivers of Nihil - Rivers of Nihil
This year, I had the distinct honor of being local support for these guys on one of their routing days with my band Solshade. I’d seen them a couple times prior with an older iteration and always enjoyed what they’d pulled off, but never totally resonated with it. Their new incantation however completely blew me away. With vocals being handled by Adam Biggs and Andy Thomas, something just clicked for me. Their vocal ferocity and finesse placed atop a cornucopia of prog riffage quickly secured this as a favorite from the year. Halfway through their set, I marched on over to the merch and pointed viciously at a copy on vinyl. *chef’s kiss*
-JF
zeta - Was It Medicine To You?
I was first acquainted with zeta at this year's edition of Post Fest. over in Indianapolis. They gave such an electric and pissed off performance of their brand of muscular post-rock (fueled by their rage at ICE for fucking over members of the band) that I fell instantly in love and find myself digging through their discography. Was It Medicine To You? immediately jumped out at me as the best expression of that aggression I loved during their show. I've gone back to it all through the year for the same kind of energy, floating high by the joint impact of the album itself and that electric performance I saw. There's nothing quite like that combo.
-EK
What’s Old is New Again
Reissues, remixes, remasters, re-whatevers.
Frontierer - Orange Mathematics
I’ve gone back and forth on this one a few times. I binged it back in 2015, fell out of love over the years, but baby, we are so back. I typically shy away from the whole remix/remaster bit, as I love the time stamp that production innately lends. With Orange Mathematics though, whatever Ped did, he made it more abrasive and more listenable. It doesn’t give me the ear fatigue it once did, and as a result I’ve been enjoying the hell out of this album, circa 2015. No gym session is complete without “Helium Vat” or “Cascading Dialects.”
-JF
Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden (2025 Redux)
If you’d have asked me before I heard this release whether Foundations of Burden needs a reissue, I probably would have answered in the negative. But then again, I can probably count on one hand albums that I think need a reissue; it’s just not something I really think about. But then I sat down, with much trepidation, to listen to one of my favorite doom albums of all time and, lo and behold, the people rejoiced for the reissue was good! This is not a remaster but rather a complete remix from scratch, plus a remaster, plus new recordings from the band. The latter, I think, is what makes the real difference - there are simply passages that have new sounds on them and are made grander and even more evocative for that. But the band have, smartly, used this scarcely, resulting in an album that is definitely Foundations of Burden, just more so. OK, be right back, I’m listening to it in the background and I need to go curl up in a ball and cry.
-EK
Envy - All The Footprints You’ve Ever Left And The Fear Expecting Ahead
Thank fuck this got a repress. A seminal release—and for many, Envy’s defining work—All the Footprints… long felt like a far-fetched dream for my collection (I’d been casually eyeing copies on Discogs since 2018 to no avail). Like so many classics, especially those on the fringes of popularity or from the extremes of musical taste, being late to the party usually means you’re either shit outta luck or paying exorbitant prices simply to enjoy it on your own terms for the rest of your life [obligatory “fuck streaming music (exclusively)!” here]. I guess that’s part of the fun of collecting—I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love flipping through record stores and stumbling onto a hard-to-find gem—but it can be excruciating knowing some records may never get a spin on your home setup.
What makes that sting even worse is knowing precisely how essential an album like this is. All the Footprints… is a landmark Envy record for good reason. With its blistering, chaotic screamo urgency, patient post-rock sensibilities, and an emotional weight that feels both immense and intimate, it’s an immersive experience tailor-made for headphones-on listening. Their quiet-to-cataclysmic swings still hit with startling force, a welcome reminder that Envy didn’t just help define a sound, but forever expanded hardcore’s emotional ceiling. While I don’t honestly believe there’s anything exceptional about the audio quality of this press (or really most vinyl records), to hear it for the “first time” again was satisfying in ways I never expected.
Interestingly enough, there are still copies—both vinyl and CD—currently available on their Bandcamp. Don’t whiff on grabbing one, because this probably won’t come around again.
-JJ
What Took You So Long?
Comeback albums.
Algernon Cadwallader - Trying Not to Have a Thought
This is potentially a hot take, but there are two types of albums that I find rarely live up to their hype: the collab album and the reunion album. Collab albums often come off as undercooked and are rarely the sum of their parts, whereas reunion albums seldom live up to the promise of the band’s previous work. For Midwest emo heroes Algernon Cadwallader, I can safely say that their reunion album, and first collection of new music after nearly fifteen years, lives up to the hype.
Stereogum once called Algernon Cadwallader’s debut album Some Kind Of Cadwallader (2008) the “starting point for the entire [2010s] emo revival and thus also required listening for anyone interested in how DIY indie rock took shape in the past decade.” For a band concerned with their legacy, this might be a lot of pressure to live up to. However, legacy is not something the members of Algernon Cadwallader have ever seemed particularly concerned with as a band overflowing with absurdist irony and ecstatic yet wistful playfulness, and Trying Not to Have a Thought largely continues that very approach. Nevertheless, the band has found ways to expand their sound ever so slightly, which reflects their maturity as people and musicians.
Tracks such as “Hawk,” “noitanitsarcorP,” and “You’ve Always Been Here” most closely resemble the material from the band’s original run: meandering open-tuned guitar interplay teeming with hammer-ons, pull-offs, and finger tapping; locked in and relatively straightforward bass lines and drum patterns that hold everything together; and endearingly off-key vocals that hiccup and waver. Yet tracks like “Koyaanisqatsi” reveal compositional restraint inasmuch as they demonstrate a more advanced approach to production and arrangement with the inclusion of an organ, triangle, and shaker. Lyrically, the band has turned their focus outward rather than inward as they interrogate the injustices present in American history and class stratification.
With Trying Not to Have a Thought, the twinkle daddy kings have successfully recaptured what made their initial run so defining for the 2010s emo revival, surely appeasing longtime fans. But their maturity as musicians and individuals is evident in the subtly updated contours of their style. Maybe they should be dubbed the “twinkle zaddy kings” from here on out.
-JD
The Isosceles Project - Bear the Torch
There are a few names I hold dear to my heart from the past decade or so. They are a unique combination of excellent music alongside almost complete obscurity. See, I don’t normally care how big or small a band is: if the music is good, I will listen to it. But there’s something special about those torches (get it) that you keep alight almost by yourself, and with a few other dedicated die-hards, and carry through the long dark of a band’s dormancy. Sometimes, from that already small subset of bands, there’s an even more joyous event: the band, project, group, whatever, erupt back into light. Suddenly, there’s new material from that forgotten and lonesome band you have been raving about for a decade to whoever would listen, sounding like a weirdo recommending some obscure album they’ve found in a darkened corner of the internet. You still sound like that to be clear but at least now you can point to new music and go “see? I told you this rules!” and, if we’re being honest with ourselves, nothing feels quite as good as that.
Anyway, listen to The Isosceles Project. I promise you you have never heard progressive instrumental metal played quite this way. I done told you to listen to them but now there’s new music for me to point to. All hail the triangle!
-EK
Coroner - Dissonance Theory
I don’t exactly know what I expected from Swiss thrash upperclassmen Coroner after a 30-year hiatus, but it certainly wasn’t the release of one of the best records of their career. While Grin certainly has its detractors, Coroner are one of those bands from the heyday of thrash who it could be argued have never released a bad record. Dissonance Theory does absolutely nothing to dispel that notion. Their sixth full-length record is an absolute blast from start to finish. A meticulously constructed to blend the traditional and modern, Dissonance Theory feels neither like a shameless homage retread nor a soulless revision of the band’s classic sound. It’s instead a pitch perfect thrash record that sounds like Coroner in all the ways that matter, honoring the band’s past while heralding a bright future if they choose to continue playing together. I certainly hope they do. It seems like there’s plenty left in the tank for these elder statesman of thrash, and here’s hoping there’s a lot more where this came from.
-JA
Season’s Greetings
Albums that seem tailor-made to soundtrack spring, summer, autumn, or winter
TWRP - The Longest Weekend
I’m not sure quite how, but TWRP managed to time their release of an album about the joys and melancholy of going away for the weekend right before I went away for the weekend. Actually, I do know how they pulled it off: they released the album right at the end of summer, when everyone uses the relief in the heat before the cold sets in to travel. TWRP also managed to keep that feeling of “dying excitement”, of “last chance to see”, with perfect precision. Like all of their albums, The Longest Weekend is filled with a lot of joy (like the joy of nature present on “Critters”) but there’s also a lot of melancholy. Listening to the title (and closing) track of the album while leaving an amazing vacation with my mom (who I miss a lot) was really tough and wonderful and the track brought me to tears many times. It’s just another testament for how an ostensibly “silly” band manage, time after time, to write emotional and emotionally effective music. God I love these silly gooses. Look at that cover as well - it just screams late summer, doesn’t it?
-EK
Object Unto Earth - The Grim Village
This album could star in several of these categories and, indeed, stars pretty high up in my end of year list itself. Stumbling on to this album and then introducing the entire Heavy Blog Discord to it to the extent that we now have a band member in the server is one of the best things that happened to me this year. I also could not stop listening to this album all throughout the year. Something about specifically the way its guitar riffs work with the vocals, alongside the excellent writing and theme, kept me coming back for more and more of our froggy protagonist’s wheelings and dealings.
The release itself dropped last winter but I grew attached to the story, especially its visions of the afterlife, around Spring. Suddenly, I found myself humming it even when I wasn’t listening to it and singing snippets of it in the street constantly, moved by its sense of adventure as the world was waking up around me. The rain drenched trees, the urban rivulets, the rich moss; everything was calling me back to the album's story. I listened to it constantly during those months and, even after so many plays, it still feels fresh and delightful, filled with Spring, and I find myself drawn to it time and time again. Truly a special release.
-EK
Beginner’s Luck
The debut albums that blew us away.
Shrive - Leach
Shrive got that juice. That groovy, trippy, and often unpredictably heavy juice. It’s the sort that doesn’t just satisfy a thirst for sonic punishment, but also keeps you on your toes, forcing you to engage and match wits rather than simply bask in a truckload of crushing riffage.
Rooted in noise rock but pulling freely and frequently from post-metal, psych, and sludge, Shrive dips and dives through polyrhythms, creeping around with some Duane Denison–flavored guitar work, lurching bass lines that feel just as menacing as they are hypnotic, and drum work that’s cerebral and busy without ever feeling indulgent. The heaviness isn’t exclusively blunt-force; it’s elastic, shifting, and constantly on the verge of turning shit sideways when you least expect it. Even after numerous attempts to burn Leach into my brain, I’m still caught off guard by many of the sudden twists and subtle transitions.
For anyone without the patience for a 20-minute SUMAC track, consider Leach as a kind of speedrun or crash-course alternative. Across its 21-ish minutes and four tracks, Shrive deliver a similar balance of tension, weirdness, and weight—but further distilled, a touch more restless, and for me, impossible to fully pin (or put) down. I’m already in line for seconds—feel free to get behind me.
-JJ
Denude - A Murmuration of Capitalist Bees
Denude's debut album was released at the very start of 2025 (on the 10th of January to be precise) and has now spent 12 long months marinating in my overcrowded consciousness to stand out and become one of my favourite albums of the year. A Murmuration of Capitalist Bees is an absolute beast of a debut and has no right sounding as accomplished as it does. That is, until you find out who is behind this project. Denude consists of three veterans of the Chicago and Milwaukee DIY scene who can list some solid bands in their careers (Piglet and Murder in the Red Barn to name just two), and that wealth of experience explains a lot. It's why each song sounds so well considered, leaving no musical stone unturned to help deliver their message abrasively yet succinctly.
This is math rock with purpose, but just because it has some serious issues to air doesn't mean it can't be catchy. Some of these songs will stay in your head for weeks with their clever structures and delightfully intricate riffs. The ear worm “12th Battle on the Isonzo” starts with a single chord being struck over and over, almost taunting the rest of the instruments to join in. James David's anxiety-inducing vocals of “We pack bags inside of bags. We ship boxes full of boxes. We wrap plastic in plastic” set the scene, before the frustration builds further to highlight how absurd our consumerism obsessed society can be.
There are some similarities to bands like Almanac Man, Coilguns and even Enablers, but overall Denude have carved their own unique take on math rock where each song has a standalone attitude with its own story to tell. Even if math rock is not your go-to genre, you should dip your toe into this record, and after a few tracks I'm sure you'll end up diving right in.
-PK
Hedonist - Scapulimancy
Hedonist sound like they’ve been playing together since 1992. Which is about as sterling a compliment as I can give a young death metal band, especially regarding their first full-length release. Scapulimancy is a riff-filled banger of a debut that is among my favorites of the OSDM worship variety in recent memory. Damn, this thing is so fuckin’ good. The songwriting is crispy and to-the-point, cutting straight to the quick by using just the right amount of time to sit on any given deliciously nasty lick or riff. The performances compliment the songwriting with verve as well, mixing the heft of Bolt Thrower with the feral nastiness of Asphyx with the kind of violent glee reserved exclusively for those who fundamentally understand this genre’s sonic history and how to explore it. There’s little to scoff at here. Just pure, unfiltered, neck-snappin’ goodness. It’s an utterly fantastic debut from a death metal act I will be paying very active attention to in the coming years. Stellar stuff.
-JA
Crowquill - Crowquill
It's possible that I'm breaking the rules a little by including an EP rather than a whole album, but leaving this out would be a national disservice to the city of Leeds and its hardcore scene. Crowquill, consisting of Liam Turton and his tattoo-laden brethren, made calamitous waves across the UK for their super chaotic metalcore/mathcore style that feels like a love letter to the early-2000s Boston sound, channelling the jagged energy of Converge and the crushing weight of On Broken Wings. I would also go as far as to say that for those still mourning the hiatus of Vein.fm, Crowquill is the spiritual successor you’ve been looking for—it’s a visceral, high-octane experience that filled the void for me instantly. It’s a bit of a shock that this is the band’s debut, considering that these guys play like the legacy bands that they are inspired by, but thank god for The Coming Strife for cherry-picking these brutal, hate-swollen sounds that "normies" like me otherwise would have missed.
- Mish