Daniel’s Top 10 Albums of 2025!
I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that a bunch of both new and new-to-me artists made my top ten in the year I started writing for The Progressive Subway. But still—all but two? Damn, son. Maybe that’s the joy (and curse) of diving headfirst into a community of absurdly passionate music nerds: suddenly you’re drowning in recommendations, promos, and rabbit holes you didn’t know existed. This list isn’t based on ratings, technical merit, or the invisible rulebook we pretend not to follow. It’s built purely on return value. It’s made of the albums I put on when I needed comfort, catharsis, stimulation, or just something to blast while doing the dishes or writing code. A few of my highest-scored releases didn’t crack the list, while some things I gave a modest 6-7 wormed their way into my brain and refused to leave. These are the albums that stayed with me, that became rituals or obsessions, or rewired something upstairs. Numbers are neat, but replay value tells the truth.
Honorable Mention:
Allegaeon – The Ossuary Lens: Technical death metal with a few poppy hooks and unyielding heaviness. This is one of their stronger releases.
10. Carian – Saranhedra
Style: Post-metal, progressive metal, djent (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Cloudkicker, Scale the Summit, Pelican
The older I get, the more I am baited by things that are nostalgic to me. Saranhedra comes out of the town where I went to college, and it also sounds like a lot of the music I was discovering in that era of my life. That one-two nostalgia punch makes it overcome a lot of the things I critiqued about it (I still can’t hear the drums), and the soaring guitar melodies and rhythmic riffing have stuck with me since its release. That opening refrain on “Katalepsis,” for me, is the sound of the mountains I walked next to on my way to classes every morning, sun cresting the peaks as I breathe in the crisp highland air. “Crissaegrim’s” upbeat tempo yet drifting vibe mimic many a drive through the nearby canyons, windows down, landscape unfolding in low light. In these ways, Saranhedra doesn’t just sound familiar—it feels like a point in time being with me again.
Recommended tracks: Crissaegrim, Legion, Sardis, Magog
Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram | original review
9. Belnejoum – Dark Tales of Zarathustra
Style: Symphonic black metal, symphonic death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Fleshgod Apocalypse, Nile, Ne Obliviscaris, Septicflesh
Far and away my favorite symphonic death metal album I’ve heard in the past few years, Dark Tales of Zarathustra blends blistering death metal intensity with riffy black metal and organic orchestral passages to concoct a Zoroastrian myth of epic proportions. The dark lyrical content and evil melodies are the stuff of nightmares (in the best way), yet the album’s keen sense of pacing and sequencing will keep you from becoming worn out from the sonic onslaught of its heaviest tracks. When the choirs swell or the strings slice through the mix, the gates of an ancient world open before you. Belnejoum aren’t just writing metal—they’re conjuring massive, theatrical, and immersive visions.
Recommended tracks: On Aeshmas Wings, Tower of Silence, Elegie
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
8. Obiymy Doschu – Vidrada
Style: Progressive rock, post-rock, folk (clean vocals, Ukrainian lyrics)
Recommended for fans of: Riverside, Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief
My year-end lists are predominantly made up of things that are loud and brash to some degree, but sometimes there’s an outlier, and this year it’s Vidrada. The album is a quietly powerful prog rock record (with a few moments that provide exception to that standard) that rewards patience and thoughtful listening. Coming from a Kyiv-based band creating music amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the album naturally carries a lot of emotional weight. Lyrically and thematically, Vidrada seeks to offer hope and empathy where others in the same situation might opt for protest and anger. Не опускати руки.
Recommended tracks: Refuge, Don’t Give Up, At a Distance, Truths
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
7. Crown of Madness – Memories Fragmented
Style: Dissonant death metal, death metal, black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Obscura, Ulcerate, Gorguts
Memories Fragmented was one of the first reviews I completed for The Progressive Subway, and I’m still floored by the way that Crown of Madness strangles so much melody out of dissonance. Sunshine Schneider’s riffs and motifs coil around the senses, marking passages with a strange, hypnotic beauty. Driving the songs forward are Connor Graham’s drums, which lay waste to the aural landscape with mythic force, pummeling you into submission on each and every track. Brutal, yet vexing; technical, yet emotive—these paradoxes made Memories Fragmented one of my most replayed albums of the year.
Recommended tracks: The Grand Design, Ashes of Mine, Sovereign Blood, When I Don’t Remember You
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
6. Abigail Williams – A Void Within Existence
Style: Black metal, atmospheric black metal, post-black metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Emperor, The Black Dahlia Murder, Carach Angren
A Void Within Existence marked one of 2025’s most unexpectedly captivating black metal releases—an album that pulled me back into the band’s orbit with surprising force. The closing track “No Less Than Death” first hooked me with its moody, resonant harmonies, and that initial spark only grew stronger through repeated listens. Technically dazzling and emotionally intelligent, Abigail Williams’ willingness to blend crushing heaviness with thoughtful melodic contrast keeps this album spinning on my record player and in my mind. Tracks like “Talk To Your Sleep” juxtapose punk-charged riffing with soaring bridges, while “Embrace the Chasm” shifts from snarling black metal to haunting introspection that is almost hopeful. These muddy landscapes of despair are consistently met with moments of release, and it’s that balance between brutality and beauty that elevates A Void Within Existence into one of the year’s most rewarding listens and an easy inclusion on my year-end list.
Recommended tracks: No Less Than Death, Embrace the Chasm, Talk to Your Sleep, Void Within
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
5. Between the Buried and Me – The Blue Nowhere
Style: Progressive metalcore, progressive metal, jazz fusion (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mr. Bungle, Intronaut, Protest the Hero, The Human Abstract, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Thank You Scientist
BTBAM are a staple in my prog diet, and The Blue Nowhere continues a sound that they began shaping on Automata—not concerned with reinvention, but tightening down the bolts on the machine. It’s chaotic and heavy in a way only they can be, yet surprisingly fluid, with transitions that glide where they’d typically rupture. Emotionally, it’s a dream journal of an album: surreal, intense, funny, beautiful, sometimes all within a minute. Tracks like “Psychomanteum” and “Absent Thereafter” are distilled bottles of the band’s lifeblood, while the title track might be their most uncharacteristic song yet—making it, in a strange way, quintessentially BTBAM.
Recommended tracks: The Blue Nowhere, Psychomanteum, Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
4. Joviac – Autofiction, Pt. 1 – Shards
Style: Progressive metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Haken, Circus Maximus, Threshold, Voyager
These Finns wear their influences—Dream Theater, Circus Maximus, Haken—openly, but balance that reverence with a melodic pop instinct that is confident and creative, not cynical nor calculated. On Autofiction, Pt. 1 – Shards, the hooks are purposeful, the refrains linger, and even the occasional cliché is embraced with enough self-awareness that cheese becomes charm. Instrumentals like “Level 1” and “Level 7” balance staccato prog energy with airy textures, while more vocal-centric tracks like “B.O.M.B.” and “Open Eyes and Mind” lean into layered vocal harmonies and earworm melodies that win me over each and every time. Rhythmic riffing and soaring solos carry enough progressive credibility to satisfy traditional fans, while moments of djenty modern flair push Autofiction, Pt. 1 – Shards into something distinctly Joviac.
Recommended tracks: Shine, Level 7, Once, B.O.M.B.
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
3. Changeling – Changeling
Style: Progressive death metal, technical death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alkaloid, Obscura, Devin Townsend, Morbid Angel, Yes
I can’t possibly say anything here that Zach didn’t state eloquently in his full review, but I will drive one point home even further: Changeling is catnip for prog-death lifers. It hums along fusing jazz, orchestral, and world music elements into its death metal framework without gimmickry, excess, or any loss of brutality. The experimentation is organic, like these sounds were always meant to live together. And one song in particular has been my personal mental reset button all year. When some awful jingle or irritating melody worms its way into my brain, “Abdication” scrubs it clean. That textured, creeping intro, followed by a sledgehammer transition that caves in one’s ribcage, is pure auditory disinfectant—a power-wash for the mind. The song’s adventurous composition, volatility, and wicked fun remind me why Changeling stuck with me long after other tech-death releases blurred together.
Recommended tracks: Abdication, Instant Results, Changeling
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | original review
2. Havukruunu – Tavastland
Style: Black metal, folk metal (Mixed vocals, mostly harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Moonsorrow, Saor, Dissection, Immortal
Few and far between are the albums that create a summons—a ritualistic call that makes you want to beat your chest and wander into the forest, shedding modern life at the treeline. Tavastland was that album for me in 2025. It took root on first listen, and became a weekly sacrament this year. From the very first choral invocation of “Kuolematon Laulunhenki,” something ancient stirred; the riffs like lumbering giants, the melodies like wind through pine trees. Crisp without sacrificing black metal grit, the production gives every instrument its own branch and leaf, while each vocal chant is at once solemn, resplendent, and holy.
Recommended tracks: Kuolematon Laulunhenki, Kuoleman Oma, Yönsynty
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
1. Dessiderium – Keys to the Palace
Style: Progressive death metal, progressive black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium, Devin Townsend, Kardashev, Wintersun, Wilderun
Plenty of albums move me. Very few somehow know me, as if the music were eavesdropping on my thoughts and translating them to melody; Keys to the Palace is one of them. Reflective of the past, mindful of the present, and hopeful for the future, the album is a package of maximalist compositions that scratch every emotional itch, from grief to determination and onward to triumph. Each song and their building blocks paint a blooming, flowering auditory kaleidoscope in my mind like in the glorious outro of “Dover Hendrix,” or the repeatedly resolving melodies of “A Dream That Wants Me Dead.” Keys to the Palace isn’t just on the soundtrack to my year, it changed and shaped the way 2025 felt.
Recommended tracks: Dover Hendrix, Magenta, In the Midst of May, A Dream That Wants Me Dead
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
0 Comments