As cyclical as it is — the experience of being a listener of heavy metal — it is exciting, truly, how every new year brings a surprise or two or three.
And it doesn’t have to be a record. Concerts. Festivals. Friends.
Maybe I took it for granted. But that feeling of renewal is special; the one many of us get at various points throughout the year, from listening to a new record or seeing a new band or making a new metal friend.
I don’t know how many of us would keep coming back, if we were mining the same cave with the same tools for the same minerals. Some certainly do this. And hats of to you if you can listen to Reign in Blood or Bonded by Blood or Bloody Kisses on repeat. But I think the thrill of finding that new record or new experience is what keeps the vast majority of us coming back to what looks at the outset like the same familiar scene.
For me, this year’s back-to-the-fold experience was listening to records like Demonic Death Judge’s Absolutely Launched, Unbirth’s Asomatous Besmirchment, and Asymmetric Universe’s A Memory and What Came After, and attending ProgPower in Atlanta. In the larger scope of my 2025, I suppose the time spent listening to and living through these things was miniscule by comparison. But no less important. I hope your new experiences were similarly rewarding.
TAKE TEN
20. Tiktaalika – Gods of Pangaea
Gods of Pangaea is every bit the delight the debut proved to be and I remain somewhat shocked Tiktaalika isn’t a bigger name in metal press. Maybe it’s the association with prog — Charlie Griffiths is one of the two guitarists in Haken — or the odd name. But Tiktaalika mostly just plays riff-heavy metal seemingly inspired by riff-heavy thrash pillars like Metallica and Megadeth. Granted, the Griffiths-specific quirks such as the noodling, overall concept, and brief forays into progressive metal make this more than a tribute project. Yet the building blocks here are quite accessible. And those extra layers make addictive songs like “Mesozoic Mantras” what they are (beautiful chorus).
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19. Ancient Bards – Artifex
Being a fan of Ancient Bards is tortuous only in the sense that the break between albums has been increasingly long. Six years since Origine – The Black Crystal Sword Saga Part 2. Not ideal. But 2025 finally saw the release of Artifex and it didn’t disappoint.
Symphonic power metal is necessarily a bombastic exercise. And Ancient Bards have largely perfected it. Their sound is typically big—I imagine Daniele Mazza (keyboards, orchestrations, songwriting) plays a big part in that. But Sara Squadrani’s vocals, thankfully, have always been as prominent a feature in that larger sound. That’s no different here, where she finds herself in the driver’s seat for much of the trilogy of “Unending,” “Ministers of Light,” and “Proximity.”
Where Artifex will ultimately rank in the Ancient Bards discography is anyone’s guess. Personally, I’ll always favor the debut, The Alliance of the Kings. And the highs on Origine are probably peak Ancient Bards. But Artifex is its own significant achievement, six years notwithstanding.
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18. Black Sword Thunder Attack – Black Sword Thunder Attack
No surprise, another Greek band playing epic heavy metal and playing it well.
When it hit, I don’t know that Black Sword Thunder Attack’s self-titled debut had yet charmed its way into regular rotation. But there’s an honest simplicity to songs such as “Don’t Hear the Sirens” and “Evil Sorcery.” And the more reflective “Last Flight of the Eagle” and “On the Way of Acheron” keep things interesting.
Not unlike the position occupied by the Helvetets Port and Achelous records last year, Black Sword Thunder Attack was one of a few cozy listens for me this year. Throw the record on at the end of a tough day and chill out on the couch vibes. The slow seduction.
Like Out Through the Door, Chainmail Commandos was another 2025 surprise for me. A late surprise, no less. Yet it landed right here in my top twenty fairly quickly.
Last Rites’ Ryan Tysinger said it best when he called Steroid’s Chainmail Commandos an honest imperfection: “Enlightenment, it seems, is achieved somewhere in the gap between not giving a fuck and trying way too hard.” Steroid are anything but try-hards.
Nor am I, which is why I am just going to steal a bunch from Ryan, who very aptly described Chainmail Commandos as “littered with catchy riffs, soulful, star-catching leads, anthemic anthems, and a spirit of rocking away everything that sucks about whatever Your Current Situation might be.” This is just a cool record! It rocks. It rolls. It puts a smile on my face. And it’ll put a smile on yours. But don’t take my word for it. Take Ryan’s. He’s much more trustworthy.
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16. Deliquesce – Saviour / Enslaver
Another 2025 release that’s not my usual cup of tea, Saviour / Enslaver got a ton of play this year in the car. Morning school run? Saviour / Enslaver. Coffee run? Saviour / Enslaver. Driving range? Saviour / Enslaver.
Deliquesce’s follow-up to Cursed with Malevolence is a blunt and brutal blastfest. And as Last Rites’ own Zach Duvall wrote, “if Cursed with Malevolence felt mostly indebted to Suffocation, Saviour / Enslaver is a bit closer to Defeated Sanity.”
Not quite as unrelenting as the Unbirth record — there’s some slower moments here — Deliquesce’s Saviour / Enslaver nonetheless leaves a similarly cathartic impression. No doubt, I’ve reached a certain meditative state listening to both. Almost a hypnotic clickiness to this one. The trick is breaking that meditative state in a way that has replay value, doesn’t feel disjointed, and sticks the landing, which Deliquesce, thankfully, are quite adept at. Brutal tech at its best.
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15. Asymmetric Universe – A Memory And What Came After
A Memory and What Came After is pure class. Djenty, yes. But pure class nonetheless.
Asymmetric Universe’s debut leaves a dizzying but memorable impression, the first being “there’s a lot going on here.” But with repeated listens, its progressive metal meets jazz fusion sound seems almost … accessible. There’s an impressive amount of detail in its many layers. Yet there are distinguishable songs and a ton of rhythm. And it’s refreshing to hear something that’s almost more jazz than djent.
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14. Chaos Inception – Vengeance Evangel
What a fun record. Vengeance Evangel. Great name, too.
Last Rites’ own Zach Duvall described this one well—twitchy riffs, rapid blasts, dirtbag production, and smart songwriting. There’s an undeniably addictive quality to Vengeance Evangel; a “muscular syncopation of riffery,” as Zach put it.
“These guys just get it,” was my first thought. That understanding of what makes death metal great—the riffing, the blasting, the dirtbagging, the songwriting—is, unfortunately, not all that common. On paper, it’s all kind of meat-and-potatoes, I suppose. At least in the illusory way a mere non-musician writer can think of it. We have the blueprint for this stuff; Morbid Angel, Nile, Hate Eternal, etc. But in practice, I imagine it’s not as easy to execute in any sort of impressionable fashion. So when a record like Vengeance Evangel comes around, it’s a sit up and take notice moment. That’s what I did, anyway—I wriggled my way into an almost 90-degree angle and listened intently.
This and Lord of Two Horns. Addictive death metal. Satisfying similar needs.
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13. Sacred – Fire To Ice
Power metal is my comfort music — in normal years. Apparently not this year, though, because Sacred’s Fire to Ice is one of only a handful of power metal albums I devoted any real time to in 2025. And with good reason.
Fire to Ice is power metal with motor. Song titles such as “Caught in a Snowstorm,” “Tyrannical Warfare,” and “Nights of Madness” are, fortunately, dead giveaways. I see a fiery lion and a ton of ice and I am paying the price of admission. The album doesn’t disappoint.
I am favorable to the shorter, more immediate tracks such as “Gateway to the Gods” and the title track, but the whole album is a jam.
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12. Dissona – Receptor
Receptor is a beautiful record with a strong foundation. Dense. Textured. Heavy. And yes, progressive.
Receptor is also a thoughtful record. It touches on a lot of sounds. A. Lot. But it’s all quite carefully orchestrated and never goes so far afield that it doesn’t sound of one world. In defining and then pushing the boundaries of said world, Dissona have done what many similar bands fail to do.
And Receptor is both forward-thinking and traditional. If you’re at all familiar with how prog has evolved in the last twenty or thirty odd years, you’ll feel at home here. There’s a comforting rhythm to it. And I find most modern prog a bit disjointed or pieced together; Receptor is very much an album, in the traditional sense. Yet there’s plenty of danceable moments here—brief but welcome after the more melancholic passages.
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11. Species – Changelings
How I missed 2022’s To Find Deliverance, I will never know. Fortunately for me, and many others, Species’ Changelings largely improves upon the tech thrash imprint these Poles left just three years ago.
Last Rites’ own Captain quite capably described the band’s technical “fun thrash” sound, so I won’t dig too deep here; the heavy lifting has been done. If you like Coroner, Watchtower, and/or Voivod, this is required listening.
The two aspects of Changelings that left the largest impression on me were (1) the funkiness and (2) the live feel—it feels largely like three talented musicians who love metal (and funk and jazz) riffing off each other. There’s a playfulness to Species’ brand of tech thrash that gives it a particular allure. It was there in To Find a Deliverance, but it’s been given more room to breathe here.
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HEADING FOR TOP TEN
10. WEEPING SORES – THE CONVALESCENCE AGONIES
The Convalescence Agonies struck me not because of its expansiveness—though it is that; a world of its own. No, it was the distinctive guitar sound. Seriously. Just listen to “Empty Vessel Hymn.”
What I like most about Weeping Sores’ sophomore effort, though, is the continued commitment to playing to emotion more than genre. The band’s sound is diverse, but it also feels self-serving in the best way. It’s clearly well thought out; not instinctive. More importantly, perhaps, it feels uncompromised. Inevitably, a record is the product of choices. The choices here feel less muddied, offering a more intelligible point of view.
The Convalescence Agonies is as ambitious as it is confident; somewhat dangerous in less capable hands. Consequently, it’s one of the year’s richest and most rewarding listens.
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9. BLAZE – OUT THROUGH THE DOOR
Out Through the Door is equal parts heavy metal and hard rock and sounds not unlike Scorpions, early 1980s Saxon, and High Spirits. That and the fact that I had zero prior familiarity with Blaze makes Out Through the Door one of the better, if not the best, surprise of 2025.
Built from the basics but played with charm, the album’s eight full songs (and two instrumental interludes) are a tribute to riff-driven, time-tested heavy metal. Whether true or not, I don’t know, but they also sound as if they were recorded live. All good things. And vocalist Wataru Shiota is as important to the band’s sound as the guitars. There’s a world-weary quality to his voice that lends that time-tested element creedence. His vocals on “Thrilled to Pieces” is likely the best example of that impact.
Above all, Out Through the Door is a marriage of all the things that I love about heavy music. And that is as true for me as it will be to many. Give it a shot.
8. DRAWN AND QUARTERED – LORD OF TWO HORNS
Lord of Two Horns is — as anyone familiar with Drawn and Quartered’s sound might expect — dark and dense. But in its freneticism it’s also quite melodic. And that deft weaving of melody throughout made it one of my more listened to albums this year.
Since at least 2018’s The One Who Lurks, when Simon Dorfman joined on drums, Drawn and Quartered has had this super tight and hypnotic chaos thing going on. Of the three releases, including this one, some have hit harder than others, sure, but they’ve all been very good (Congregation Pestilence) to great (The One Who Lurks and, now, Lord of Two Horns).
What separates Lord of Two Horns from those prior two records is the aforementioned interspersed melody. No bit player, it’s a consistent feature; in leads, groove, and otherwise. Not that Drawn and Quartered are now a melodic death metal band or anything — far from it — but it does give the band’s sound a pleasantly hypnotic hook.
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7. A-Z – A2Z2
As individually talented as the musicians in A-Z are, it is stunning that they sound this smooth as a collective.
And A2Z2 is not just a follow-up to their self-titled debut. Though not a sharp turn in any direction, there is a noticeably warmer embrace of their metallic tendencies and, in turn, a subtle move away from the AOR sound that felt at times like the more dominant element on the debut. Most will find this slight change an improvement, as I did.
Revivalism of this sort—a near equal blending of prog, metal, and AOR—is neither commonplace nor rare. But there isn’t a band out there that does it better than A-Z. That they’re sounding slightly more metal (and like Fates Warning, really) only makes them a more compelling listen.
Mind you, the source of said metal is in the leads more than anything. But you won’t find many better ones in 2025. And the placement on songs such as, say “Nothing Is Over,” is so seamless that it’s almost an accent on an otherwise.
There are very few, if any, bands that hit this sweet spot for me. A-Z is a special band making memorable, thoughtful, and emotive music. A band better heard than described.
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6. VULTURES VENGEANCE – DUST AGE
Vultures Vengeance, like a few other traditional-minded bands this year, improved upon their debut by expanding every so slightly on their sound. Maintenance and a slight expansion. When your debut is that good, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
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5. FER DE LANCE – FIRES ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE
Deservedly so, Fer de Lance’s Fires on the Mountainside is, was, and will be on many an end-of-year list in 2025. There are many things to like about this album. Countless others have pointed those many things out. But what pulled me in was its grand scale; its cinematic scope.
More than anything, the film-like quality of Fires on the Mountainside is a narrative device; a tool Fer de Lance uses to deliver music that is as rich as it is direct. Granted, it feels odd to describe this band’s sound as “rich”, given that the raw and live feel from Fer de Lance’s debut, The Hyperborean, remains largely intact. Yet that duality—rich and direct—defines the band’s sound here. Perhaps rich in scope, more specifically.
Lest readers think Fires on the Mountainside represents a seismic shift, Fer de Lance still work from a niche corner of lower fi Atlantean Kodex meets Bathory.
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4. UNBIRTH – ASOMATOUS BESMIRCHMENT
By no means is brutal tech death my cozy corner of metaldom. Yet Unbirth’s Asomatous Besmirchment won me and many others over with some of the riffiest riffs that riffed this year.
Apropos of nothing, including any real depth of knowledge and experience, my standards for an above average tech death release are exacting. Above all, sharp and discernably violent riffs are a must. Specifically, whatever shell exists between brutal tech and meat-and-potatoes death metal must be pierced with said sharp and discernably violent riffs. And Asomatous Beschirchment makes mincemeat of that shell in short order.
No combination of words can truly do this album justice. But the attempts here at Last Rites have come as close as humankind is likely to get, I think: “grand leveler of an album”; “guitars … strung so tightly they could literally explode at any moment[]”; “riffs that scythe and stuffer and leap and shuck and jive and hammer an slice, slice, slice[]”; “smart and – yes – sophisticated[.]” Poetic, sure. But no less true.
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3. ARAPHEL – THE ENDCHANTER
Araphel’s rapid ascent in 2025 is equal parts surprising and unsurprising. The band’s 2024 EP Old Comet Transition was, after all, not all that different from the riff-heavy black metal mysticism of The Endchanter. However, where the former was in part a victim of its short form, the latter benefits from the breathing room a longplayer affords; with enough space and time, the atmosphere intensifies and the riffs become the structural building blocks with which these more orthodox endeavors thrive.
The wider appeal here, of course, is the riffs; though Araphel’s sound is steeped in the atmosphere endemic to the Greek black metal tradition, there’s no denying that The Endchanter owes its infectiousness to the almighty riff. And the album accomplishes more in its rough 38 minutes than most do at twice the length.
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2. PHANTOM SPELL – HEATHER & HEARTH
Phantom Spell pick-axed their way into a seemingly impossible musical sweet spot; as if the combined musical tastes of Last Rites were fed into a woodchipper. There’s an organic earthiness to the Phantom Spell sound that feels bespoke to those with an equal love for prog rock, proto-metal, and the NWOBHM. And the not-so-subtle embrace of the folkier side of all that weighs even heavier in the “curated for Last Rites” direction.
If there were one record to own on vinyl in 2025, Heather & Hearth was it. The bells and whistles will bell and whistle, regardless, but they sure do bell and whistle more in LP form. The fact that the two longest, bellsiest and whistliest songs (“The Autumn Citadel” and “Heather & Hearth”) bookend the whole thing kind of cements the deal. With as much regard for subtlety as possible, given the degree here, Phantom Spell leaned in super hard on their folk tendencies. And we, fortunate listeners, are all the better for it.
Folk leanings aside, Heather & Hearth is a fulsome record. The proto-metal and NWOBHM faction of Phantom Spell fans will likely find as much to like here as the folk faction. No doubt, Immortal’s Requiem is the heavier record of the two, but (song 1) and (song 2) speak as directly to them as anything on the debut. Ultimately, Heather & Hearth is a significant step forward, particularly because they carved themselves their own little cozy corner—a hell of an achievement.
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1. DEMONIC DEATH JUDGE – ABSOLUTELY LAUNCHED
The name was vaguely familiar. I had heard maybe two or three or four songs? Expansive, but still quite heavy, stoner metal—from what I could recall. But it was the cover art that caught my eye. An armed surfer firing away at villains, or villain, unknown. Parental advisory sticker in the lower left corner. “Absolutely Launched” in bold black letters. Alright, gentlemen. I am in.
Fortunately, the back-to-back of openers “90’s Violence” and “Natural Wine Guy” deliver. Having now gone back through the band’s discography with fresh ears, it’s clear this release is markedly different from The Descent, Skygods, Seaweed, and The Trail. Though the heavy stoner metal imprint of records past remains, the more immediate bludgeoning and groove makes this one oddly accessible. And with that uniquely caustic feel, Absolutely Launched sounds not quite like a new Demonic Death Punch so much as one in an excitingly distilled form.
And Demonic Death Punch’s excitingly distilled form, as it turns out, sounds best in a car, where I first listened to Absolutely Launched. It sounds very much like a car record. Not that I haven’t enjoyed it outside of my car; but in the same way that one might enjoy a Fu Manchu record just slightly more in the car—well, this one works similarly. There’s no way to oversell this feature of Absolutely Launched; HD mode fully activated in a car. Preferably a winding, semi-country road. Ideally in a muscle car. Though any car, really, will do.
As you can probably infer from the rest of my list, Absolutely Launched is a bit of an anomaly here. The mid-late 2000s burnt me out completely on anything remotely stoner or sludge. And that may be why I appreciate Absolutely Launched specifically, and Demonic Death Judge, more generally. Comfort music sells it short, but it was something akin to that for me. Fun, with layers. Heavy. Atmospheric (at times). Epic in its own charming way.
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