Another month, another album of the month post. Funny how that works. Now, if you’ve been paying attention to my intros this year, you’ll have clocked the depressive note that’s reigned throughout the summer. Does August change that? Actually, yes. Some gems are beginning to surface more regularly, morale is on the rise, and some promos for later releases in the year have buoyed our spirits. As have the album picks in this month’s post! We’ve got a lovely little range for you this time: a much-anticipated djentle sophomore, your monthly injection of bread-and-butter prog death, an unholy concoction of brutal death metal with jazz fusion and prog rock, some prog stoner rock to pair with a nice autumnal strain, and some avant-garde death metal for big fuckin’ weirdos. Plus quite a bevy of non-Subway picks, highlighting what the staff are listening to outside of prog. So pull up a chair, enjoy the autumn breeze, get some last rays of summer, and peruse our picks. 

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Hexrot – Formless Ruin of Oblivion
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Death, Ulcerate, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord
Picked by: Justin

On Formless Ruin of Oblivion, Hexrot has expanded on the sound crafted on their Gloomwrought EP, continuing to explore vague tonalities and shifting rhythmic structures. A 90s avant-garde death metal conceit is married with a strikingly modern approach to songwriting and instrumentation, resulting in one of the clearest and most exciting throughlines between the old school and contemporary scenes I’ve heard in recent memory. Dizzyingly dense yet effortlessly enjoyable, Formless Ruin of Oblivion stands among the ranks of my favorite avant-garde metal releases of the decade so far, and—in my opinion—is required listening for any fan of metal’s furthest exploratory fringes.

Recommended tracks: Heavenward, Clandestine Haunt, Formless Ruin of Oblivion
Related links: Bandcamp | original review

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Ihlo – Legacy
Recommended for fans of: TesseracT, Ions, Karmanjakah, Earthside
Picked by: Doug

Like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, the process of once-underground bands maturing into community favorites is always beautiful. Ihlo’s unexpectedly strong debut Union quickly gathered a dedicated following for the band and grew into a sleeper favorite for 2019; since then, fans’ anticipation for Ihlo’s next work has only grown. While Ihlo remain devoted to the sometimes divisive genre hallmarks of djent, Legacy provides more of everything fans of Union have been waiting for. It takes a little time for the momentum to pick up, but the finale is well worth waiting for as the final four tracks ramp up the intensity to new highs. Dark, towering edifices of synth and guitar combine with Andy Robison’s strong but sweet voice to create a uniquely emotional listening experience, simultaneously grandiose and touchingly personal. While they might not be charting especially new stylistic territory, Ihlo continue to put out high quality music that deserves your attention more than ever in this underperforming year.

Recommended tracks: Empire, Cenotaph, Legacy, Signals
Related links: Bandcamp | original review

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Sallow Moth – Mossbane Lantern
Recommended for fans of: Edge of Sanity, Cynic, Wormed, Blood Incantation, Primus
Picked by: Cooper

We’ve seen death metal blended with progressive rock before, but very rarely has it been blended with such disregard for convention and tradition as it has on Sallow Moth’s most recent, Mossbane Lantern. Musical ideas are fired at the listener at a machine gun pace, and thanks to the album’s crisp production and intelligent composition, all of them hit home. The fusion of brutal death metal, progressive rock, and jazz fusion that Sallow Moth concocts here is an addictive brew and, thanks to the band’s seemingly innate sense of melodicism, an incredibly catchy one too. If you’re a prog death fan looking for a new flavor or just here for the ample MTG references, Mossbane Lantern has what you need.

Recommended tracks: Icegorger Gauntlets, Psionic Battery, Aethercave Boots
Related links: Bandcamp | original review

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Centuries of Decay – A Monument to Oblivion
Recommended for fans of: Rivers of Nihil, Ulcerate, Gojira
Picked by: Cory

At this point, it seems almost mandatory for at least one heavy-hitting, prog-death record to make our monthly list. The style has been bustling in 2025, producing gems from artists acclaimed and obscure alike. Sitting on the lesser-known side of the scale, Canada’s Centuries of Decay has conjured up an absolute behemoth of an album with A Monument to Oblivion. This album’s the real deal—seven crushing tracks run the course of an hour, offering some of the strongest songwriting this year and a sterling production to match. Blending a dense, Ulcerate-like sonic weight with an accessibility reminiscent of Gojira, the band serve up a slab of progressive death metal that’s as massive as it is deftly composed and performed.

Recommended tracks: Cauterize, Between the Waves of Grief, The Great Divide
Related links: Bandcamp | original review

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Bask – The Turning
For fans of: Elder, Witchcraft, Baroness
Picked by: Cory

Autumn isn’t much of a thing in Southern California. Sure, our Starbucks still make a killing on pumpkin spice lattes, and folks still bring out fall clothes they don’t need, but it may as well be perpetual summer down here. However, for those of you beginning to experience changing leaves and cooling air, I have the early fall album for you: Bask’s aptly titled The Turning. 

North Carolina’s Bask play an Appalachian-influenced, relatively progressive blend of stoner metal and Southern rock. With The Turning, the band strike a near-perfect balance of accessible yet diverse songwriting, morphing textures, and varied pacing. The album plays like a fluid, dreamy—but never stagnant—trip from late North Carolina summer into autumn, backed by compelling instrumentation and lush production. The second half of The Turning, in particular, holds some of the most broadly appealing, immediately enjoyable songs I’ve heard this year. Just like the other Southern Californians bringing out their flannels despite our 90-degree weather, I’ll be taking in The Turning’s fall aura while staring at sunny skies and palm trees. 

Recommended tracks: Dig My Heels, Unwound, Long Lost Light, The Turning
Related links: Bandcamp | original review coming soon

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Non-Subway Picks

Spilly Cave – Sixty-Four (indie rock)
Viral TikTok sensation (or so I’m told) Spilly Cave is back with another helping of spaced-out, off-kilter frutiger aero indie rock. Come for the chill vibes, stay for “Ass 2”.
Picked by: Claire

Ali Sethi – Love Language (art pop)
In a world plagued by borders and a lot of hate, Ali Sethi creates borderless, unifying music. Taking from reggaetón and Bollywood to art rock, Love Language is an eclectic mix, but Ali Sethi ties it all together cohesively.
Picked by: Andy

Wisp – If Not Winter (shoegaze, dream pop)
While Wisp‘s most unique feature may be Natalie Lu’s distinctively ethereal whisper-singing, even non-ASMR enthusiasts can appreciate the way her floaty, dreamlike melodies combine with waves of shoegazey noise to form a sound that’s as heavy as a ton of feathers.
Picked by: Ian

Castrator – Coronation of the Grotesque (death metal)
Old-school death metal worship doesn’t get more simple—or effective—as Castrator. Like Crypta with 2023’s Shades of Sorrow, Castrator have boiled down to the core of what they are: vicious, unrelenting, and gearing up to take a place beside the titans of OSDM.
Picked by: Vince

Hayley Williams – Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party (pop rock)
Williams returns with a solid collection of indelibly depressed millennial songs ranging from soft rock to bouncy pop to trip-hop. Not everything hits, but the dreamy noughties nostalgia of “Discovery Channel”, the summery melancholy of “Whim”, and the noisy lament of “Parachute”, to name a few, more than earn a place in regular listening rotation.
Picked by: Christopher

Chevelle – Bright as Blasphemy (alternative metal)
Chevelle have come a long way since “The Red” twenty-three years ago, riding a consistent arc of increasingly textured, hefty riff-forward alternative metal flecked with splinters of progressive tendencies. Bright as Blasphemy doesn’t move the needle much on the band’s overall sound, but when they’re writing albums as crunchy and passionate as this, who’d want them to?
Picked by: Vince