Best Of 2025 – Top 10 EPs & Demos

The EP is dead!!!

Ok, EPs are not dead, but any consensus of what is or is not an EP or demo certainly is. For starters, my dumbass cast a vote for РЛБ30011922 by 夢遊病者 (Sleepwaker) for this group list. I was then politely informed that I am, in fact, as previously stated, a dumbass because that single-song, 37-minute release is actually a full-length album. My bad. Surely, all 15 minutes of Crisis Actor’s Long Live The New Flesh is only an EP, right? Wrong again, numpty, that’s damn near two full lengths in the world of grindcore. At least we can all take solace in the fact that Metal Archives is always right, so we’ll get a nice look at that weirdo Umulamahri release below. I’m sorry, what’s that now? The band says Learning The Secrets Of Acid is a full-length album? Well, fuck me then.

When it comes to what is or is not a demo or EP, the only real way to know is to ask the person or people making it. It’s totally their call and we’ll live by their preference. Quite frankly, I don’t care what a band labels any of their releases so long as the tunes are good. In the end, the delineation mostly matters here because it gives us another opportunity to talk up even more great music. If we lumped everything together, we’d only have one group list and that’s no damn fun. So, I guess, thank you, metal bands, for being pedantic and picky about labeling your wares, so we have more to chat about.

We hope you find an enjoyable little morsel of music you hadn’t heard yet, and please be sure to share some of your favorite EPs and demos with us in the comments below or on socials. We’ll be sure to vet your recommendations in case you’re as clueless about these definitions as I am. [SPENCER HOTZ]

10. NIMBIFER – VOM GIPFEL

Der böse Geist was a standout release of 2024 for this dummy, a cold blitz of riffy black metal out of Hanover. What fortune, then, when Nimbifer churned out ANOTHER release this October, a tidy barrage of an EP entitled Vom Gipfel (oder auf Englisch, From the Summit)!

Nimbifer’s stock and trade is a melodic style of BM with an emphasis on both the triumphant and the melancholic. Within the same passage, they can take you from the bloody thrill of a hard-won battle to the agony of defeat. So guess what – Vom Gipfel is more of the damn same. Two rock-solid tracks of riffs on riffs over a clattering cloud of blastbeats and buried shrieks, culminating in a quiet cooldown of an atmospheric outro in “-Rückkehr-”. Was that you I heard asking for Nimbif-more? Pick this one up for an 18-minute trip to the peak of Mt. Let’sRip.  [ISAAC HAMS]

• Bandcamp

9. SUFFERING HOUR – IMPELLING REBIRTH

There’s a whole hell of a lot of reasons to recommend Suffering Hour’s latest EP, the economically destructive 15-minute Impelling Rebirth, but what tops the list for me is just how brilliantly spidery the whole thing feels. The black/death trio certainly has a lot of Deathspell Omega in its DNA, but they chop up the needling dissonance and spidery guitar runs with tasting portions of death metal scoot and beautifully intricate drums. And, friend, if I told you that Impelling Rebirth also sounds a little bit like Gorguts’s The Erosion of Sanity, you would be well within your right to tell me I’m wrong, but… you’d have to really think about it, right? Anyway, if you don’t have time in your day for five songs / fifteen minutes of black/death metal that wants to move your body just as much as it wants to ensorcel your soul, you may as well just sock yourself in the giblets with the side-edge of a tennis racket, because things can hardly get worse. [DAN OBSTKRIEG]

• Bandcamp

8. AURIFEROUS FLAME – THE DUEL

Epic, narrative-driven, battle-worn black metal has been the name of the game for Auriferous Flame to this point, and The Duel sees no reason to change the approach. If anything, by going brief, this EP further emphasizes what makes this Ayloss project so cool: impeccable riffs and leads, and an atmosphere of distance and separation to give it all a feel of watching history unfold. The title track positively scorches. Enter the fray. [ZACH DUVALL]

• Bandcamp

7. EXORBITANT PRICES MUST DIMINISH/
SHITBRAINS – SPLIT

This year, I saw Switzerland’s Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish (henceforth EPMD, apologies to Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith’s SEO) and Los Angeles’s Shitbrains play a show behind a gas station. No, there wasn’t a venue behind the gas station. The bands were outside, braving the elements, running electrical cords from an abutting tattoo parlor to power amps sharing the same terrain as ants. So, yeah, this was pure DIY, ask-a-punk, no-tanks sonic frontierism in action. EPMD’s singer, Alessia Mercado, said the band, after watching many videos over the years, was excited to play a real, genuine American backyard grind show. And then the cops showed up because I don’t think anyone told the gas station attendant that there was a show happening behind the gas station. C’est la grind. Anyway, all of this is to say that if you didn’t make it out to that particular chaotic-good show, you can just buy this 12″ and be aurally transported there via the wormhole created by this split’s high-speed manic mayhem. EPMD’s contribution is an even more frenzied extension of last year’s For a Limited Time, unifying a punky, near-powerviolence spirit with a more exacting metallic technical ability. Shitbrains’s side feels like hundreds of stop/start grinding minatures welded together into whirlwind blasts of ferocious fastcore, as if a band in the Nasum mold decided to go full Yacøpsæ. (The duo also lost their homes in the fire this year, so, you know, buy the record.) Taken as a whole, this meeting of grind minds is a real live wire, just like a wire run through a tattoo parlor window to a PA in the back of a gas station. Hope you have better luck with the police. [SETH BUTTNAM]

• Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish Bandcamp
• Shitbrains Bandcamp

6. PALSIED – LEGENDARY HATREDS

Rick Legitimate, you’ve done it again. I think. Because, well, what does anyone know about Rick Legitimate? What we do know is baffling. Deep in the heart of New Jersey, where battle-hardened warriors will put your head on a pike depending on where you fall on the Taylor Ham/pork roll civil war, lives the enigmatic Legitimate, a death metal shredder whose day job is in Slam420, which, thus far, has released less material than their Palsied solo side project. If that doesn’t fulfill your mysteriousness quota for the day, please note that Legendary Hatreds, release number three for Palsied, is categorized as an EP despite being five minutes longer than the 2021 LP. I don’t know, man. Is all of Jersey as mysterious as this? Can someone ask Chris Gethard? What I do know is that Legendary Hatreds rips, a set of fleet, technically inclined death metal bangers that sounds like good-era Cryptopsy getting chased by a calculator armed with a bass-hit bazooka. Ah, but that’s not the whole shebang. Definitely not. After all, this is the eternally perplexing Rick Legitimate we’re talking about. As soon as you start grooving to Palsied’s death metal, you notice all of the strangeness seeping in like LSD from Jimi Hendrix’s sweatband. The circular riffs sound like a scuzzy math rock record stuck in a loop. The vocals are like a black metal vocalist trying to be heard from behind the veil of time. And, oh yeah, Legendary Hatreds ends with a faithful Hatebreed cover “dedicated to the CT Brotherhood,” and it just so happens to be “Severed,” one of the great beat-em-ups from before Hatebreed’s ‘divorced dad chugging an energy drink’ period. What a weird, wild ride. Never change, Rick. I think. [SETH BUTTNAM]

• Bandcamp

5. PRIMITIVE RAGE – VISIONS OF ECSTASY

This Missouri quartet has done a wonderful job naming themselves because Primitive Rage’s music is raw and thoroughly pissed off. I’d be inclined to believe you if you told me the band warms up before a show by going to a batting cage and taking several 90-mile-an-hour balls to the head and chest like Happy Gilmore. They probably glue razor blades to those old rubber dodgeballs and chuck them into the pit at their shows just to see what will happen. Visions of Ecstasy is roughly eight minutes of bliss, so long as your definition of bliss is vicious grind cut with plenty of hideous noise.

Whether a song is flailing in chaos, dropping the bottom out into a slow crush, or simply howling into the void, the hostility oozes from every note. If you want to get the full experience, put this on, don your favorite version of Lady Gaga’s meat dress and take a run through a wolf sanctuary. You might be surprised when you survive, as Primitive Rage turns you into the Hulk. At least, that’s what Ang Lee told me anyway. [SPENCER HOTZ]

• Bandcamp

4. LUCERNE HAMMER – VERMILLION PYRE

Like the cover that adorns the EP, Vermilion Pyre possesses an undeniable grayness that speaks to its influences and intentions. Lucerne Hammer wants this EP to be sad, but also uplifting in its way, fitting as the most notable influence is Wolves in the Throne Room. But it’s an efficient, direct version of WitTR; there are no 20-minute songs here, or any that surpass even six. Between the more overt black metal moments are also droning, soundscape interludes that ought to remind listeners more than a little of Urfaust’s atmospheric tendencies, and like the nods to WitTR, Lucerne Hammer already has a great knack for weaving it all together into a concise, rather stunning whole. Vermillion Pyre is incessant in how it worms its way into your mind, almost insidious, even, and you’ll be more than happy to repeatedly give into its aura. [ZACH DUVALL]

• Bandcamp

3. THE LORD WEIRD SLOUGH FEG –
TRAVELLER SUPPLEMENT 1:
THE EPHEMERAL GLADES

“…the immediately good news is that nothing in these 23 minutes reflects poorly on the original album. Quite the contrary actually, as The Ephemeral Glades largely finds Slough Feg being Slough Feg. They gallop and wail and trill and play Maidenesque harmonies all over the place, while Mike Scalzi’s vocals remain as appealing as ever, despite having a touch more gravel than in the past. In other words, you won’t be surprised, but you’ll be rocked… …a worthy (half?) sequel that finds the band to be in very good form 35 years after their formation.” [ZACH DUVALL]

• Last Rites Review
• Bandcamp

2. ELDER – LIMINALITY / DREAM STATE RETURN

Elder is a band I’ve admired for quite some time. Dead Roots Stirring still gets a few plays on the ol’ turntable yearly. But in all honesty, I’ve really enjoyed each of their releases — and while certainly some more than others — they’re a rather consistent band. Atmospheric, at-times super heavy and downright catchy, Elder’s tunes are pretty timeless. They’d fit well in any psychedelic/prog/rock/metal era.

Their first studio release since 2022’s Innate Passage, the band’s latest EP, Liminality / Dream State Return, lives up to its name. “Liminality” is 12 minutes of floating somewhere far beyond. In just 18 minutes, Elder’s kaleidoscope of colors, built upon layers of psychedelic guitar tones, beautiful vocal melodies and otherworldly keys that really take Elder’s sound to another level. Again, Nick DiSalvo’s vocals have progressed exponentially, and for Elder in 2025, his voice fits the bill perfectly. And while this might be a hot take, “Liminality” may just be a top five Elder track. “Dream State Return” functions more as a long outro — no vocals — and wouldn’t feel too out of place in an ‘80s galactic fantasy flick.

Nonetheless, it’s no surprise this ended up on our list of favorite EPs. We’re a bunch of nerds. [BLIZZARD OF JOZZSH]

• Bandcamp

1. RIGOROUS INSTITUTION – TORMENTOR

“The real reason Rigorous Institution’s stenchcrust stands out is because of all the additional influences and ingredients sprinkled into their creative potion. Anarcho-punk, cranked psychedelia, and bleak post-punk add extra dimensions to Rigorous Institution’s fearsome sound. Even better, while Rigorous Institution are more artistically adventurous than some of their peers, they always hold fast to those feral fundamentals that make stenchcore such a pummelling treat… …The world is full of untold horrors, and Rigorous Institution’s latest tracks aren’t a whirlwind of joie de vie either. But then, that’s kind of the point.” [CRAIG HAYES]

• Last Rites In Crust We Trust Review
• Bandcamp

Posted by Last Rites

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