Welcome to July 2025, folks. Shit’s, uh, shit’s tough out there. We get it. But the music is good, and we writing staff got our heads together and decided on a special feature to mark the midpoint of the year.
Each of the five of us (Kep, Ellis, Westin, Kirk, and Jangel) submitted albums we thought were the best in a number of categories–death, black, core, heavy/power, doom, and thrash–and then voted on which ones we thought most deserved to be recognized. We also put together a Grab Bag group at the bottom for the stuff that didn’t fit neatly into the other categories. You’ll get a few runners-up and then the winner for each…except in the heavy/power metal category, which ended up with a first place tie, so you get two for the price of one there.
Below are our joint picks for best albums of 2025 so far! Be sure to shout at us on social media if we didn’t include your faves.
DEATH
Runners-up:
Cave Sermon – Fragile Wings | Death metal for people who go to Roadburn. Fragile Wings roams boldly and freely from the savage to the sprightly and everywhere in between while remaining strikingly cohesive and mesmeric throughout. | Bandcamp
Ossuary – Abhorrent Worship | Ever wonder what it would feel like to be ground to bits in an industrial rock crusher? Ossuary provides the answer in slavering, churning spades. | Bandcamp
Phrenelith – Ashen Womb | Itโs brutal, pummeling, melt-your-face-off old school death metal that will fuck you up so bad, your mommaโs gonna ask who beat you up and stole your lunch money. | Bandcamp
Sepulchral Curse – Crimson Moon Evocations | Grand Ominous Finndeathโข๏ธ. Heavier than a dying star and darker than the void it leaves behind once itโs gone. | Bandcamp
Winner: Rothadรกs – Tรถviskert… a kรญsรฉrtรฉs รถrรถk รฉrzete… lidรฉrcharang
Kep: The Hungarian duoโs sophomore release is absolutely pummeling, old school death with just enough doom to drench the whole affair in ominous dread. The guitars are massive and crunchy plus the mix is on point top to bottom, which means that each of the immense tracks, none shorter than six minutes, is heavy enough to thump the breath right out of your chest. Big, bruising riffs and graveyard growls: itโs just gooooooood shit.
BLACK
Runners-up:
Amalekim – Shir Hashirim | Shadowy rituals of corrupted scripture, hauntingly melodic at times, incantations masterfully layered in dark atmosphere. | Bandcamp
Bloodbark – Sacred Sound of Solitude | Artwork (a real photo) tells you all you need to know: ice cold, sweeping and expansive, this is an album that will transport you to the tundra no matter where you actually happen to be listening to it. | Bandcamp
Deafheaven – Lonely People with Power | File under: โweโre so backโ. Deafheaven doing the roar (and all the other bits) again. Probably their best album since Sunbather. | Bandcamp
Tรณmarรบm – Beyond Obsidian Euphoria | A mountainous journey through the catharsis of overcoming pain and self-doubt, equal parts technical, meditative, progressive, and violent. | Bandcamp
Winner: Blood Abscission – I I
Kirk: Normally a black metal album with a cell phone tower on it would be a hard pass for me, but this record captured my attention less than two minutes into the first track and just refused to let go. Itโs raw. Itโs fierce. Itโs the kind of album that will absolutely take your breath away, so dust off your corpse paint and get your Nasty Riff Face ready.
CORE
Runners-up:
Combust – Belly of the Beast | Remember swag? Combust sure does. Unmistakable and unadulterated New York Hardcore with loads of sick riffs and features and even more style and charisma. | Bandcamp
Speedway – A Life’s Refrain | Riotous and infectious melodic hardcore. Has the same kinda heart and spirit that has marked everything from Youth of Today and the early Rev releases through to modern classics from bands like One Step Closer and Praise. | Bandcamp
Thus Spoke Zarathustra – I’m Done With Self Care, It’s Time for Others’ Harm | Will make you forget all those bands that made deathcore such a dirty word. Last 25 seconds of track eight should have you doing the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme. | Bandcamp
Winner: ByoNoiseGenerator – Subnormal Dives
Westin: As soon as I saw the term “jazzgrind” I knew this was going to be a benchmark for the year. ByoNoiseGenerator have demonstrated that the saxophone still has a place in metal without being reduced to a mere gimmick. A mindboggling blur blending grindcore ferocity with deftly intelligent and moving jazz that hammers as much as swoons. Stunningly tasteful.
HEAVY / POWER
Runners-up:
Majestica – Power Train | Cheesy as a pot of fondue and full of melodies you canโt stop humming, itโs feel-good power metal with no inhibitions. | YouTube
Owlbear – Feather and Claw | Part owl, part bear, all bangers. Epic, bombastic and super catchy heavy metal with a welcome dose of aggression and a real nice chunk to the riffs. | Bandcamp
Winner(s): Tower – Let There Be Dark
Westin: Tower‘s previous record Shock to the System stands as one of the best heavy metal albums of the decade, and luckily the band continues on a positive trajectory. The new record finds the band sounding more mature, with a wider variety of songwriting on display alongside slicker production that lends depth to their well established ferocity and energy. No third album slump here, this band has staying power.
Venator – Psychodrome
Westin: Opening on a moody synth straight out of an 80’s movie score, Psychodrome is unapologetically awash in the aesthetic worship of Judas Priest, Heavy Load and Riot. While their debut was strong, this new album finds the band sounding tighter and firing on all cylinders. Guitars are huge, songs are catchy and the rhythm section keeps it all moving like a motorcycle down a dystopian highway. Venator’s rose tinted sunglasses keep firmly on the heavy metal horizon.
DOOM
Runners-up:
Buzzard – Mean Bone | Nestled (un)comfortably between dark Americana and lo-fi doom metal, this is the kind of listening experience that will chill you to the bone. Quite possibly literally. | Bandcamp
Conan – Violence Dimension | Honestly just unfathomably crushing whether theyโre doing it for 45 seconds (the D-beat-inflected โWarpswordโ) or a good 9+ minutes (no less than five others). Conan have earned their reputation for a reason. | Bandcamp
Messa – The Spin | A band already enjoying a close-to-untouchable reputation for making nearly flawless albums despite a steadily evolving style creates another hypnotic masterpiece. | Bandcamp
Structure – Heritage | Enormous death/doom that feels every bit as profoundly beautiful as it is crushing. Wallow in melancholy and despair while daydreaming about glimpses of light. | Bandcamp
Winner: Pagan Altar – Never Quite Dead
Westin: Ten years after the passing of Terry Jones, Pagan Altar finally release a record with their new vocalist Brendan Radigan of Sumerlands fame. Aptly titled, Never Quite Dead is huge and teeming with life. The band’s signature mix of bluesy doom, English folk and stunning leadwork feels as vigorous as their debut, having lost nothing in the passage of time and circumstance.
THRASH
Runners-up:
Doomsday – Never Known Peace | Some of these things just write themselves: Bay Area thrash with a pronounced hardcore/crossover influence as a bonus. “Taste my blade you motherfuckerrr!” | Bandcamp
Executionist – Sacrament of the Sick | Two West Virginian brothers playing vicious, multifaceted deathened thrash. This record punches way above its weight class. | Bandcamp
Inhuman Nature – Greater than Death | Every bit as rad and ripping as the artwork promises. Riffs everywhere, obviously, with some tasty lashings of death metal and hardcore in the mix to spice things up. | Bandcamp
Phantom – Tyrants of Wrath | Grind your axe, sharpen your sword, and shotgun a beer (or two) before listening to this record. If you think thrash peaked in the โ80s, prepare to get educated, because this album FUCKS. | Bandcamp
Warfield – With the Old Breed | Modern day supporting evidence for the (valid) argument that Teutonic thrash has always had a bit of a nastier streak than its American cousin. | Bandcamp
Winner: Warbringer – Wrath and Ruin
Kep: Warbringer need no introduction and are 100% deserving of their sterling reputation, so perhaps it’s no surprise that they’ve managed to fight off all the younger upstarts here. Still, there’s something to be said for how hard Wrath and Ruin rips, with razor-sharp riffage, punchy songwriting that knows when to be epic and when to shred your face off, and top-notch production. Every album in this category is a testament to bringing the old school thrash swagger into 2025, and Warbringer continues to spearhead the movement.
GRAB BAG
Runners-up:
Backxwash – Only Dust Remains | Backxwash trades most of the oppressive industrial vibes of her last few albums for something altogether livelier and more vibrant, while still retaining all the emotional heft that has marked everything sheโs ever done. | Bandcamp
Propagandhi – At Peace | With age comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes the clarity of knowing what you can change in order to change the world. And the world needs to change now more than everโฆ. | Bandcamp
Snooze – I Know How You Will Die | Definitely the most maximalist release in the bandโs catalog, expanding the core elements of their sound while adding more textures and styles. Happy, heavy riffs paired with densely layered vocals, moshier and heavier than ever. | Bandcamp
Stateside – Where You Found Me | Music to stare out of bus windows to, especially if they havenโt texted back in a while. | Bandcamp
Sumac and Moor Mother – The Film | This album shouldnโt work. Sludgy, experimental post-rock mixed with free jazz and hip-hop? But it actually works REALLY well, an immensely emotional listening experience. | Bandcamp
Winner: clipping. – Dead Channel Sky
Kep: Another absolute stunner from the masters of experimental industrial hip hop, and it’s a legit contender for best record of the year in any category. Leaning into a futuristic, cyberpunk-y technological soundscape, Dead Channel Sky is quite different sonically from their previous horrorcore-influenced material, but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What does matter is that Daveed Diggs’ rhymes and flow still have the English language in a chokehold, the producer team of William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes still creates some of the most uniquely arresting beats you’ll ever hear, and the album is a cohesive masterpiece of music, ambiance, field recordings, and flawless vibes.