Life has been busy! I haven’t been able to listen to as many albums as I usually would in a year. I only did a top five list last year because I hadn’t been able to listen to a lot of albums and because lists with rounded numbers are so darn nice to look at. This year, I’ve heard seven really good albums which are definitely list-worthy. The other albums? I wouldn’t put them in my Top 15. While I have listened to more than fifteen albums this year, I feel I haven’t heard as much as I usually do (averaging 60 albums) to come up with a solid fifteen.
So to save myself the grief of looking back and saying, “That album only was in my Top 15 because it defaulted to be there,” I’m listing my seven favourite albums from 2025, followed by the usual Honourable Mentions and Most Disappointed. I’m also stepping away from album descriptions this year as I’m a busy guy, y’know?
15. Pan-Amerikan Native Front – Little Turtle’s War (United States – Independent)
Black metal with a dash of awe. Pan-Amerikan Native Front’s second full-length is intense with power and rage. It’s lo-fi production adds to the chaos. My favourite track, The Great White Beaver Lurks, is an awesome mid-paced song among the disruption.
Unlike Pan-Amerikan, Friisk bestows intense moods and atmosphere with their debut album. Similar at times to one of my favourite Icelandic black metal bands, Auðn, Friisk brilliantly showcases some blistering speed alongside their dramatic performances.
13. Fluisteraars – Gegrepen Door de Geest der Zielsontluiking (Netherlands – Eisenwald)
It’s rare to see 20+ minute black metal songs, yet Fluisteraars pieces one together and it goes by in an instant. Almost avant-garde at times, Fluisteraars’s fourth album is ambitious and rich with nuance – all-the-while still showcasing moments of insanity.
12. Drawn and Quartered – Congregation Pestilence (United States – Krucyator Productions)
A group of death metal veterans, Drawn and Quartered’s newest release features the band’s technical ability to write strong, creative music. With a solid old-school death metal sound, Congregation Pestilence is rich with pacing and riffs to make your ears bleed. Without going into the typical verse/chorus structure, D&Q’s music is filled with brilliance.
11. WODE – Burn In Many Mirrors (United Kingdom – 20 Buck Spin)
A mix of blackened/death thrash metal makes WODE’s third album an extreme journey to experience. Unrelenting and surprisingly melodic, the album comes with a great energy to it. With unexpectedly catchy riffs and crisp production, WODE’s ever-changing style serves them well.
10. Cannibal Corpse – Violence Unimagined (United States – Metal Blade)
Another group of veterans in the death metal world, Cannibal Corpse’s newest may be one of their best since Kill (although I prefer Torture). While still keeping up the same sound listeners have become accustomed to, newcomer Erik Rutan added some awesome power I’m sure no one felt the band was lacking.
9. Ŭkcheănsălâwit – Alaskan Escape EP (Canada – Les Productions Hérétiques)
My favourite EP of the year! This speedily album feels bleak and cold – which is exactly what it was going for. To showcase a song: To an Alaskan Glacier, while minimal in instruments, is huge in drama making for an incredible feat to achieve. I would surely buy a full LP of this music whenever one is made.
While Fluisteraars had a single 20-minute song, Olhava has one, plus a few more over the 10-minute mark. The Russian duo pieces beautifully intense music with a raging atmosphere and subtle soundscapes. While two of the four songs are really black metal, Olhava brings in drone and ambient elements which perfectly encapsulates the ebb and flow of the natural concept they were aiming for in Frozen Bloom.
This band just keeps impressing. Outre-Tombe’s now three for three on making my annual lists and for good reason – their music is really flipping awesome. Moments of Abysse Mortifère remind me of early-Voivod, while others standout as early-Morbid Angel. A ripping good time, Abysse Mortifère knocks it out of the park.
6. Cynic – Ascension Codes (United States –Season of Mist)
After two thirds of the band passed away in 2020, how could Cynic continue? Paul Masvidal carries on Sean Reinert’s and Sean Malone’s legacy with Ascension Codes – a strange, yet familiar feeling. While the album feels bogged down by short interludes between songs, the music is an emotional progressive journey: absolutely brilliant and constantly transcending.
Their first release since LTE2 in 1999, LTE3 brings back the brilliance of Dream Theater members John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, and Mike Portnoy, along with legendary bassist Tony Levin, to produce one of the most surprising albums for me this year. All-instrumental, LTE3 is not so much a jam session like previous albums, but a well-executed romp into prog rock and metal.
My favourite atmospheric black metal album of the year, Grima’s Rotten Garden was also the first album I picked up when it was released in January. It has been regularly spun since. It’s haunting beauty comes together with nature and grandiose scope. With the odd keyboard frill and additional accordion in certain songs, Rotten Garden is absolutely a fresh listen to every spin.
3. Koldovstvo – Ни царя, ни бога (??? – Extraconscious Records)
Not much is known about the band and their debut album: A Russian band name. Roman Numeral song titles. Signed to an American label. Is it one person or a group? What Ни царя, ни бога is though, is an experience. Was the album recorded in another room? The production is both astonishing and very entrancing. It’s albums like this one which I live for. Tracks I and IV are absolute standouts.
Also released in January, I unfortunately wasn’t able to grab a physical copy as it sold out. And it sold out fast for good reason too: it’s incredible. Immediately fast and dramatic, Calvaire is doused in both strength and agony. A rich and fast-paced album, it’s still a melodic black metal journey filled with so much emotion and heartbreak, you find yourself picking up pieces when all is said and done.
1. Mannveira – Vitahríngur (Iceland – Dark Descent Records)
There’s a handful of albums that happen to be there when you need them the most. Mannveira’s debut album Vitahríngur just happened to be that album for me this year.
Doused in sludge and dreariness, Vitahríngur time-and-time again happened to be my go-to when I needed it the most. It’s raw, rather simplistic approach to music writing can keep the listener engrossed to the music and feel what they need to feel.
Rarely going into blast beats or fast speeds, the album keeps a mostly mid-paced tempo to it – its dark nature sucking you in with each kick of the bass drum. The muddied vocals give grief, anger, and sorrow, keeping with the overall tone of the album. The song, Í köldum faðmi is a perfect example of all of that.
While the title track offers a bit of optimism, the album constantly keeps you down, throwing the listener back into the cacophonous well.
While straying a slight bit from the overall sound of Icelandic black metal, Vitahríngur still defines its own sound with a nihilistic approach and gloomy dissonance.
Saudi Arabia is not well-known for black metal, yet the country is a muse for what the genre is about: religion, monarchy, paganism, and suppression – just a handful of topics which black metal relates in. Tackling these topics head-on with their seventh album, Al-Namrood’s newest release, Wala’at (“Loyalties” in English) continues stoking the flames of anger and disgust the band feels towards their government and the religion that surrounds it.
The anti-Islamic and anti-fascist themes of Al-Namrood’s music is both intense and dramatic. Mixing musical styles of both Western and Middle Eastern instruments, the band brings a familiarly dissonant style of black metal with the rather sharp contrast with harmonic Middle Eastern scales and tones. The two cultures blend together and create a hauntingly different feeling and mood to the genre.
While the band members remain anonymous due to the potential of the death penalty for performing their music, the three musicians aptly show their musical competency with melodies among the chaos and the foresight on when to change arrangements in their songs.
Standing out foremost in Wala’at is singer Humbaba, who alone brings a huge energetic performance to the music. Between the grunts, screams, and cries, Humbaba’s vocals are flexible and offer an incredible range and dynamic to the music. In fact, his enthusiasm comes together as one of the biggest triumphs on the album. Confident and devastating, his and stanzas are chilling at times while encouraging and uplifting in others. Without always understanding the lyrics, one can still get a feeling for what the band wants to portray. The pain, frustration, and demands for reform are obvious to the listener: Al-Namrood wants the listener to experience what they feel – and successfully does so with each performance.
In tracks like Kail Be Mekialain, musicians Mephisto and Ostron synchronize riffs together to create hauntingly eerie tones – even more so with the reverb cranked up on the drum samples in each song. Linked with Humbaba, there’s a common chemistry between the trio that energizes the music, elevating it beyond what most bands with decades of history are unable achieve.
In another track, Aar Al Estibad, the riffs are thrash-y and come with a punk-ish feel until the Arabian instruments join in. Those instruments ultimately change the feel of the song and move expectations from “just another black metal track” to something different. While the song itself technically doesn’t set new standards or heights in black metal, it’s still a powerful song which sticks with the listener for its almost hypnotic melodies and grinding vocal hums.
With all songs staying under the five minute mark, the near-forty minute album is an intense feast on the ears. Perhaps too overwhelming at first, the second, third, and multiple spins after will continue to bring the listener back to absorb the beauty and raw power Al-Namrood offer with Wala’at.
Havukruunu – Uinuos Syömein Sota Naturmacht Productions
With the release of their third album, the Finnish band Havukruunu prove once again why all eyes are on them on the forefront of pagan black metal.
Blasting right out of the gates, the self titled track feels like it throws everything you’d expect from the genre in one song – but it’s only the beginning. The triumphant melodies and searing guitar tones feel fresh and unique. The riffs are intense and dark, yet they are coloured with triumphant undertones. Enchanting vocal harmonies are intertwined with guitar melodies creating a brilliant, epic feeling.
The wonder of these moments can be heard in songs like Ja Vimein On Yö – where beyond the battery of the percussion, the uplifting darkness is built up during the chorus and then continues throughout. Among the call and response vocals in the song, guitar melodies shape the background and create a powerful ambiance ultimately transitioning into a impressive and moving solo. All of these efforts appear easy and natural but are certainly well thought out to achieve the presented effect.
The percussion intensity continues with Pohjolan Tytär – which is arguably the most straight-forward song on the album. Yet the beating of the drums vary enough, along with the haunting solos, and epic vocal harmonies, to create a wonderfully crafted feat. While the band may often be compared to others in the scene such as Moonsorrow and Mgła, Havukruunu manages to generate a particular feel and soundscape in their music which certainly makes them stand away from such comparisons.
In fact, Havukruunu almost makes themselves uniquely virtuoso with their guitar work. Varying guitar solos midway in the song Vähiin Päivät Käy stand out as some of the most pinnacle moments on the album. Transitions between the different solos are flawless and as the song goes back to its main riff, one cannot help but feel the chills go up their spine.
Meanwhile, the closing track features so much variation, fresh ideas, and feelings which seem somewhat unusual to pagan black metal. Havukruunu bring and transition modern concepts and technology to the genre to create an interesting final piece to the album that almost acts like a cliff hanger for their next release.
The dichotomy between Havukruunu’s pagan roots and modern concepts seam together flawlessly to create an absolute feat of an album. Uinuos Syömein Sota may be not only one of the best black metal releases this year, but one of the best albums released in 2020.
UncannyDerek 