Happy New Year, folks. It’s still before midnight here in Pacific Standard Time (aka the only time zone that matters) so legally speaking I’ve managed to fire this off while it’s still 2025. I listened to lots of great shit this year, and my favorites are below. In each category I’ve got a list of runners-up in alphabetical order followed by a winner, and down at the bottom is my overall Album of the Year. Let’s get to it!
Death Metal
Runners-up:
Clairvoyance – Chasm of Immurement
Dormant Ordeal – Tooth and Nail
Glorious Depravity – Death Never Sleeps
Hedonist – Scapulimancy
Malthusian – The Summoning Bell
Mortual – Altar of Brutality
Ritual Mass – Cascading Misery
Winner: Rothadás – Töviskert… a kísértés örök érzete… lidércharang
As per usual, my hardest decision of the year comes in the death metal category. This year featured killer debut LPs from all over the world—Mortual (Costa Rica), Clairvoyance (Poland), Ritual Mass (US), Hedonist (Canada)—and you could make a decent argument for each. The veteran outfits here also delivered some of their best work: Dormant Ordeal’s first foray without founder Radek Kowal proved they haven’t lost a step, while Rothadás and Malthusian each delivered sophomore slabs of dark, brooding atmospheric brutality. The Hungarians won me out in the end with their pummeling, doom-tinged tunes, grim old school graveyard death with impressive songwriting and hefty thumping production. It’s moody and bleak, with foggy layers of heavy atmosphere and riffs to die for.
Black Metal
Runners-up:
Amalekim – Shir Hashirim
Blood Abscission – I I
Hæresis – Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum
Winner: Vigljós – Tome II: Ignis Sacer
This year was underwhelming for me on the black metal front, lots of good but very little great, and fewer still that really spoke to me. The Amalekim record’s dark, subversively religious aura latched onto me, as did the atmospheric balance of violence and beauty in Blood Abscission’s sophomore release. I discovered Hæresis in early December while checking out things I’d missed and was blown away by their stunning, thoughtful songwriting. It’s Vigljós, though, that captured my ears in dramatic fashion with Tome II: Ignis Sacer. Their raw, medieval-influenced tunes are exquisite, weaving evocative melody into layers of buzzing distortion, striking wails and screams against hypnotic guitars and drums that range from mesmerizing to downright danceable. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Progressive, Technical, Melodic, and Otherwise Rad Subgenre-Modifying Shit
Runners-up:
Cave Sermon – Fragile Wings
Defacement – Doomed
In Mourning – The Immortal
Pillars of Cacophony – Paralipomena
Species – Changelings
Synaptic – Enter the Void
Weeping Sores – The Convalescence Agonies
Winner: An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City
There was quite a dogfight here in the catch-all category for subgenre modifiers. In Mourning’s newest was downright stunning, while Cave Sermon’s expansion into post-death was nothing short of a triumph. Defacement also pushed into post-metal textures with great success, and Pillars of Cacophony literally infused their dissonant chaos with bioscience. Species laid down one of the coolest and most colorful prog thrash records in recent memory, Weeping Sores ripped out our hearts with agonizingly personal avant-death/doom, and German melo-tech outfit Synaptic shredded brains with their thrilling debut LP (shoutout Max from Sublation for putting me onto this January banger in December). But amongst all this excellence, the winner is The Sleeping City, a masterpiece of a follow-up to what for many was the 2022 AOTY. An Abstract Illusion have truly cemented themselves as the pinnacle of modern progressive death metal.
BRUTALITY
Runners-up:
Compulsed – Amalgamated Anguish
ByoNoiseGenerator – Subnormal Dives
Winner: Kakothanasy – Metagonism
In a world where brutal death metal bands are a dime a dozen, it takes a lot to stand out while playing straight up brutal death, but Compulsed did exactly that on their debut LP. The other way to stand out in the brutal scene is by playing either shit that’s excessively weird, which is how we find ByoNoiseGenerator’s remarkably coherent brutal jazzgrind here, or staggeringly technical and complex…which also applies to ByoNoiseGenerator, but more importantly describes Kakothanasy. The Swiss outfit, featuring members of Anachronism and Grotesquerie, delivered a mercilessly precise and punishingly heavy dose of ultra-technical nonsense (complimentary).
Great Achievement in Still Being Pissed as Fuck After 20+ Years
Winner: The Acacia Strain – You Are Safe from God Here
Many bands are pissed off. Many bands are pissed as fuck, even. The Acacia Strain are, if anything, more pissed off now than they were back in 2002. It’s a rare act that can roll on without losing a single ounce of venom over more than two decades, and these guys are the blueprint. You Are Safe from God Here is some of their absolute best work, a gargantuan, fuming eruption of malice that has all the unvarnished hate of their early releases honed with the more mature, progressive leanings of their last few.
Best Clean-Sung Metal ’25
Runners-up:
Majestica – Power Train
Messa – The Spin
Winner: Pagan Altar – Never Quite Dead
Being someone who 1) is a millennial and 2) came into metal fandom in my late teens, I met a lot of legendary bands on the late side. I’ve devoured many a legacy act discography in retrospect after being tipped off to their existence by a trusted source, and to wit: I’d never even heard of Pagan Altar until Westin recommended this record as one of our mid-year nominees. I’ve fallen in love with the bluesy, doomy songwriting and vivid riffs of Never Quite Dead and it’s led me to a slow journey of discovering their classic releases. This album feels both fresh and timeless at the same time, and new frontman Brendan Radigan (Sumerlands, Savage Oath) lays down the perfect vocal performance to match. A true gem of modern British heavy metal.
Non-metal AOTY
Winner: clipping. – Dead Channel Sky
I’ve sung this album’s praises before and I’ll damn sure do it again. clipping. took the experimental industrial horrorcore sound of their previous releases it and delved into glitchy digital futurism and old school takes on technology, a glorious cyberpunk amalgamation. This half-flesh half-tech monster ranges widely from energetic 80s sci-fi to pumping dance club beats to the group’s signature noise and field recording elements. Daveed Diggs’ flow is as precise and intricate as ever, and the words fly out fast enough to make your head spin. This is absolutely top notch hip hop.
And your 2025 Album of the Year is:
An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City
I’ve already said many things about this wonderful record—you can read my review here, if you want—so I’ll just say that The Sleeping City has continued to grow on me and at this point I can’t imagine any other album holding the Album of the Year title. It’s magnificent and stands side by side with their outstanding previous record Woe rather than in its considerable shadow.