2025 audit of the year
Well, that was a year. Got sued for a book review. Got divorced. And I think underground metal had one of its best years in quite a while.
It’s fair to say I’ve been on a journey in my attitude toward album of the year posts. From revulsion to begrudgingly participating in list mania, being quite keen to see the back of 2025 I’ve now come around to them as an important milestone in any listening journey. That’s in spite of the marketing frenzy and whatever nightmarish novelty Spotify cook up for their contrived “wrapped” feature. I don’t mind saying that on a personal level 2025 has been a tough year. To the point that I had to abandon writing in the summer and even gave up listening to metal entirely in favour of instrumental electronica and ambient. Once autumn rolled around and I started feeling more myself, I realised I was in danger of missing what has been a remarkably good year for underground metal, to the extent that I’ve struggled to cover everything with the rigour it deserves (apologies to any regulars who’ve felt bombarded by reviews of late).
From the return of old favourites such as Cóndor and Kaeck to curveball newcomers like Moonchapel and Heruvim, to familiar faces like Letalis and Thaumaturgy seriously upping their game to clear the hurdle of the difficult second album.
Now more than ever I see the benefit of pouring over material from the recent present, allowing it to reveal new facets upon each revisit. If nothing else it has reminded me that even when I was in danger of falling out of love with the music entirely, artists are still at work who are capable of pulling me back in. It’s also a neat way to close the book on a frankly shit year whilst salvaging aspects of 2025 that are worth remembering.
Historically, when drawing up an end of the year list I’ve always been tempted to issue a final verdict on metal. Alive, dead, zombified? But again I think this impulse is misguided. Music just works differently now. Years no longer have their own distinct identity, change happens more slowly if at all, and if the idea of “Metal” does still have a pulse, it’s beating at a rate too slow to be perceived within a single year. So this is just a straight up top forty list offered as supporting evidence that the last twelve months were good actually. Proudly arbitrary, shamelessly gimmicky, and needlessly hierarchical despite the fact that very little separates some of these releases. I think it shows that despite everything, metal’s heart did at least beat this year.
Thanks to everyone for sticking with it through the fallow months and false starts on other platforms.
40. Visceral: Eyes, Teeth and Bones
Out 4th April on Raging Death
Mechanical deathgrind oscillates between moments of surreal, muscular violence and industrial monotony in an oddly compelling rhythmic dance.
39. Black Chamber Music: The Nine Lands of Oblivion
Out 30th September, self-released
Reminiscent of Switzerland’s Mordor for its use of serial vignettes to piece together a larger structure, creating the impression of moving through a vast stone structure, each chamber emitting its own unique sound world.
38. Porenut: Výstup k svätej Kunde
Out 29th August, Nomad Sky Diaries
Porenut combine the playfulness of arcane Central European black metal with a Nordic frigidity, bound together with punk and folk elements, and even a touch of post rock.
37. Sodality: Benediction, Part II
Out 5th December on NoEvDia
The second instalment of the Benediction series sees this Polish entity expand on their torturous, laboured brand of black metal ritualism, pitching a mood somewhere between depressive black metal and second wave Norwegian trademarks.
36. Tempestuous Fall: The Descent of Mortals Past
Out 14th November on I, Voidhanger Records
A series of captivating, elegant, oddly haunting threnodies that – if cynicism is suspended – one cannot help but be swept away with.
35. Execrari: Desolation Manifest
Out 29th August on Hessian Firm
Jagged, technically minded symphonic black metal attempts to create a sense of vertigo in the listener through lead guitar lines defined by their steeply inclining ascents and descent.
34. Exordium Mors: Sworn to Heresy
Out 1st March on Praetorian Sword Records
Attempts to bottle the restrictive energy of Absu circa ‘Tara’ onwards, and in this regard it achieves the essence of galloping intent, lifting the high mysticism of black metal and repurposing it in a mix of intense thrash physicality and the bombastic regalia of heavy metal.
33. Death Yell: Demons of Lust
Out 28th November on Hells Headbangers
Belated comeback from Chilean veterans delivers muscular blackened thrash interrupted by moments of tension defined by lilting, tentative rhythms reminiscent of the barbaric ritualism articulated on Adorior’s latest effort last year.
32. Devs Mortvorvm: The Oldest Crypt
Out 6th June on Apocalyptic Productions
By combining a strong melodic philosophy with the barbaric sense of purpose established by early death/doom, Devs Mortvorvm have found a novel way to reconcile the curious but often monotone flights of Esoteric with the energy-without-a-cause of latter day Asphyx, thus salvaging a genre that at times threatens to dissolve into its own mythology.
31. Vile Apparition: Malignity
Out 10th October on Me Saco Un Ojo/Dark Descent
Achieves a convincing synthesis between the cold, mechanical clarity of brutal death metal and the more organic undulations of Lovecraftian surrealism popular in modern death metal.
30. Aspaarn: Oblations in Atrocity
Out 15th February, self-released
Captures a sense of amateur possibility missing in much of the overly curated gestures to lo-fi black metal in the contemporary landscape.
29. Hersir: Hateful Draugar from the Underground
Out 28th March on Darkness Shall Rise
Whilst some tracks are perhaps a little too underdeveloped despite initially provoking intrigue, this album represents one of the stronger contenders in black metal this year for its considered understanding of the form, finding room to manoeuvre in this otherwise tightly constricted stylistic space.
28. Perdition Temple: Malign Apotheosis
Out 28th November on Hells Headbangers
The riffs may be paced out in hyperactive, impatient flows of physically demanding salvos, but knitted between this immediate impact is an array of dark, twisting melodic currents that lend an otherwise dry artefact a degree of mysticism and excitement.
27. Fryktelig Støy: Incandescent
Out 12th April on I, Voidhanger Records
The manipulation of metallic technique – chiefly the still prevalent reliance on riffs – is elegantly folded into an exploration of a unique, and at times oppressive darkness, one expanded upon and aided by an informal ambient impetus, flooding the album with ambiguity, tension, and character.
26. Precious Blood: False Prophets
Out 29th October, self-released
The music echoes pre ‘His Majesty at the Swamp’ Varathron in its ability to string out episodic developments into a larger, cohesive narrative.
25. Chaos Inception: Vengeance Evangel
Out 14th February on Lavadome Productions
For people seeking more complex experiences from their death metal before it boards the upper case Technical train (think Immolation, early Gorguts, or indeed Barnes’s own Monstrosity), this album is perhaps the most efficient delivery mechanism one could hope for.
24. Warmoon Lord: Sacrosanct Demonopathy
Out 16th May on Werewolf Records
An outrageous assemblage of complimentary material is stuffed into a dangerously restrictive space, bringing an iteration of turbocharged late black metal into sharper relief.
23. Drawn and Quartered: Lord of Two Horns
Out 27th June on Nuclear Winter Records
Drawn and Quartered flex their grandiose melodic muscles alongside a reinvigorated, primal death metal vitality. There is a frenetic, chromatic energy to a lot of the riffs that looks almost random were it not for the extent to which they are repeated, a feature that called to mind late Averse Sefira.
22. Castrater: Coronation of the Grotesque
Out 15th August on Dark Descent Records
A refreshing restatement of what I suppose we should now call “traditional” brutal death metal. One that retains the lurching, bipolar chaos of the genre at its most extravagant, but connects this back to a thrash and even heavy metal coherence, lifted into the esoteric by the unique melodic signature of the guitar leads painted atop the framework.
21. Malacath: Eternal Roar of the Thunder and Rain
Out 21st February on Eternal Death
Malacath are masters of the holistic view. The music presents a panorama of unified currents, introduced at different moments only to coalesce into a continuous flow of energetic momentum, each facet totally unremarkable but playing its part in bringing a well rounded experience to bear, quietly confident that the message of cathartic naturalism will be conveyed over and above the sum of its parts.
20. Serpent Rider: The Ichor of Chimera
Out 28th March on No Remorse Records
Serpent Rider dispense with the pageantry and pomp so often associated with modern heavy metal’s memefied form, instead adopting a darker, sober, yet no less optimistic interpretation of the genre, updating its technical language through its consciousness of extreme metal technique.
19. Putred: Megalit al Putrefacției
Out 20th January on Memento Mori
Autopsy, early Death, and Obituary all feature as returning characters. But Putred display an overarching consciousness all their own, marshalling these elements together into a curious selection of semi-melodic semi-primitivist selections that undulate and unfold in teasingly ponderous yet persistent waves.
18. Imprecation: Vomitum Tempestas
Out 30th June on Nuclear War Now Productions
An immersive, complete cinematic picture underwritten by an undeniable sense of power and overwhelming force, juxtaposed with a nuanced, near mystical will to conjure forces beyond the rational self.
17. Draculum: Poems of Spellcraft
Out 24th October on Chaos Records
The debut album from this German entity draws on a thread of UK black metal (such as it is) most infamously expressed by Cradle of Filth and Hecate Enthroned, later by Old Corpse Road and A Forest of Stars. Histrionic, gothic, and unconcerned with what the listener may regard as “good taste”. Which is basically a roundabout way of saying it’s a bit silly. But silliness is a state of mind, and whilst ‘Poems of Spellcraft’ is not short on eyebrow raisers, if you approach it from a certain angle it’s a subtle, refined, and creative work of gothic infused black metal.
16. Cryoxyd: This World we Live in…
Out 12th December on Dolorem Records
Cryoxyd leverage repetition as an important compositional tool, creating a meditative, almost hyper fixated flow, only to lurch into soaring waves of melodic euphoria. This creates a sense of risk and reward within the music, as it morphs from the unpredictable to the oddly familiar.
15. Infrahumano: Depths of Suffering
Out 31st October on Lavadome Productions
The immediacy and brute physicality of the experience gives way to the feeling of connecting with an older, arcane presence, tapping into aged forms and mores, broadcast through the ponderous eddies defining the flow of this music. Detailed at the molecular level, but rich and totalising at the macro.
14. Letalis: Verdadero Poder
Out 19th November, self-released
An utterly un-curated experience of classic metal furnishings, placing demands on the listener over and above merely servicing them with preselected genre tropes as is so often the case with modern iterations of classic metal styles coming out of the Northern hemisphere.
13. Tenebro: Una Lama d’Argento
Out 12th December on Time to Kill Records
The power of atmosphere, arrangement, and a clear sense of balance allows Tenebro to get far more mileage from even the most germinal idea, restating the virtues of minimalist death metal in defiance of the genre’s increasingly unwieldy statements of maximalism.
12. Liminal Spirit: Unwell
Out 31st October, self-released
Somewhere between jazz, industrial, progressive doom, and ambient comes this concept EP preoccupied with the theme of mental degradation. The narrative follows an elderly dementia patient in a nursing home, “haunted by the spirits of two children who claim he murdered them decades ago”. In keeping with the artist’s moniker, the music reflects this non-space, between sanity and insanity, rationality and irrationality.
11. Muad the Moth: The Distaff
Out 21st February on The Larvarium
Whilst the previous effort ‘Orphnē’ created worlds within worlds predominantly through ethereal vocalisations carried along by unfurling piano lines borrowing from neoclassical, jazz, blues, and late romanticism, here the universe grows as the instrumental framing is expanded, bringing everything from ambient percussion, strings, saxophone, and guitar to the fore.
10. Medieval Demon: All Powers of Darkness
Out 22nd August on Hells Headbangers
‘All Powers of Darkness’ is a much broader commentary on the activities of their peers. It metabolises many features common to modern Greek black metal, but marshals them into a more coherent, and therefore expressive, statement of histrionic metal.
9. Svartsyn: Vortex of the Destroyer
Out 28th March on NoEvDi Records
The reason Burzum and Darkthrone remain the most copied of the Norwegian crop is the ease with which their formula can be simulated (but never bettered apparently). In eschewing this low hanging fruit Svartsan land in an intriguing place. One that moves a step beyond the tyranny of the riff whilst still parlaying with it as an efficacious technique. By anchoring it to a confident yet direct rhythm section it gains the freedom to explore beyond the limitations of metal guitar playing whilst still delivering a raw, visceral, and highly physical experience in direct contrast to the usual passivity of ambient black metal.
8. Heruvim: Mercator
Out 12th September on Redefining Darkness Records
Despite the frequent churn and rearrangement of material throughout, Heruvim never squander their momentum, transferring energy and themes from one passage to the next, thus crafting a supervenient unity atop the apparent disorder. Although the music is constantly buffeted by an atonal physicality, one is left with an overarching impression of illogical tragedy, a mournful lamentation rendered all the more impactful for its latent weird and eerie riff signatures.
7. Infernal Thorns: Christus Venari
Out 12th September on Personal Records
Initially dense and frantic, Infernal Thorns burrow beneath the high energy freneticism common to Chilean death metal to eke out fluid passages of high drama defined by a swirling siren call of guitar leads and black metal derived melodic content. In this manner they mirror Plague Bearer for their ability to render death metal with the darker aesthetic of its sister genre via a strong integration of riff languages rather than leaning on superficial aesthetic gestures.
6. Moonchapel: Chasms of Ash and Inequity
Out 9th March on Blackened Label Records
Moonchapel is a reminder that it is not the genres that are flawed, but our application of them. It is black metal in the tradition of the Finnish or early North American style. In this sense it builds worlds within this rather modest remit. It sets clear boundaries on its own aesthetic and stylistic intention. From this place of clear limitation grows a cornucopia of artistic currency. Dark passages, ritual intoxication, studied meditation, and striking barbarism.
5. Cultic: Lore
Out 3rd October on Eleventh Key
Cultic regress in the literal sense that their music is primitive, but throughout this filtration process they add a plethora of supplementary ingredients that populate an otherwise sparse framework, resulting in a work that rises above the sum of its parts, provoking the listener’s imagination into action without force feeding them with surplus information.
4. Thaumaturgy: Pestilential Hymns
Out 20th October on Memento Mori
Thaumatrugy upgrade themselves from the competent but commonplace chasmic death/doom of the debut into a more holistic statement of extreme metal. Reinvigorating the increasingly murky territory between black and death metal with a clarity that can only come from a rigorous riff discipline.
3. Kaeck: Gruwelijk Onthaal
Out 18th September on Folter Records
The early endeavours of Northern European black metal are bent back to their original grounding in minimalism. But far from this being a simple case of stripping the music back to its rudiments, a self-imposed creative limitation is seized upon as an opportunity to reacquaint this genre with its ability to convey size, scope, and mystery within its limited material confines. Just as chess creates a world of possibility through the very limitations it imposes on each piece, the borders Kaeck impose on themselves grants them access to expressive possibilities shut off to more excessively elaborate artists.
2. Cóndor: Aurë Entuluva
Out 27th November on La Caverna Records
Cóndor have cemented their position within the lexicon of “deep” metal, artists that leverage its language and norms at a more profound level, transcending the limitations of genre in the process.
1 . Lethal Prayer: Sacrilege Infernus
Out 25th July, self-released
Lethal Prayer insert a wealth of influences into this album, but all are fully digested, understood, and integrated into the final statement. A triumph of knowledge and experience alongside a willingness to take risks when it matters. Random prog gestures sit happily alongside the blunt axe of caveman death metal. You will be humming some of these riffs days later, only to forget that, despite their catchiness, they are embedded within a plethora of self generating complexity.
Lethal Prayer are underground in the truest sense, meaning that acquiring their music requires a modicum of effort. The full album cannot be found on any of the usual platforms. The below track was shared by Jason aka Lonegoat with the kind permission of Belial Koblak. Email lethalprayer@hotmail.com if you would like to acquire a CD copy of the full album.
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