Cooper’s Top 10 Albums of 2025!
Like the past few years, 2025 was a year of plugging away at my studies and work. Now in my senior year of college, I find myself more so than ever unable to devote as much time to pure music listening, and instead find many albums as the soundtrack to tasks I deem more important. Whether or not that affected the placements of albums on the list below is unclear, but one thing is for certain: I certainly like progressive death metal.
Erebor – Infinitus Somnium: Progressive death metal texture via post-metal structure is a guaranteed way to garner my support, and the Englishmen deliver the goods on their transformative sophomore output.
Light Dweller – The Subjugate: Light Dweller continues to impress with their avant-garde and dissonant offerings, and The Subjugate only takes their sound to new heights.
Serein – Rivers of Living Water: I released my solo project’s debut EP this year. It’s melodic progressive death metal, and while I think it’s pretty good, you don’t just have to take my word for it: Andy’s Review
10. Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong
Style: post-punk, baroque pop (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Beatles, Black Midi, Keller Williams, Steve Reich, Love, The Beach Boys, The Smile
As the only non-metal album on my list this year, Forever Howlong holds a special place in my heart as the soundtrack to late nights spent studying and long drives with my girlfriend. Where Black Country, New Road’s last album threw me into a depressive spiral, Forever Howlong’s eager optimism kept me afloat this year, warding off bad vibes like a candle in the dark. The album’s baroque pop arrangements and vocal-forward songwriting provide a sense of lived-in, domestic intimacy that never grows stagnant—especially during the livelier tracks, as layers of piano, saxophone, violin, and soft percussion drift in and out with remarkable clarity and playfulness. Across Forever Howlong, there exists a remarkable emotional lightness that proves rather grounding, especially when compared to the absurd highs of Ants from Up There. Instead of chasing catharsis through grand climaxes, Black Country, New Road offers a reminder that comfort and sincerity can be just as powerful as intensity.
Recommended tracks: Two Horses, For the Cold Country, Nancy Tries to Take the Night
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
9. Psychonaut – World Maker
Style: post-metal, progressive metal, psychedelic metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mastodon, Tool, The Ocean, Dvne
In a year of disappointing releases from otherwise well-established prog bands (I’m looking at you Rivers of Nihil and An Abstract Illusion), it was nice to see a promising band actually live up to expectations. After the dual successes of Unfold the God Man and Violate Consensus Reality, Psychonaut had fans waiting for something spectacular from them and they delivered with World Maker. Eschewing their heaviest tendencies for a broadened psychedelic bent, World Maker sees the Belgians tackling the tandem issues of death and birth with their trademark sense of optimistic spirituality. That combined with a very clear injection of Adam Jones-inspired hammer-on/pull-off riffage makes World Maker a distinct yet obvious step along the young band’s journey where the dynamic interplay between the band’s softer and heavier tendencies comes into focus. If Psychonaut continues to produce albums of this quality, they will undoubtedly be counted amongst the best of all prog bands in due time.
Recommended tracks: You Are The Sky…, …Everything Else Is Just The Weather
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
8. Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar
Style: progressive black metal, avant-garde metal, dissonant death metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Charles Mingus, Oranssi Pazuzu, Blut Aus Nord, Ulcerate
It’s a testament to the quality of Imperial Triumphant that they can release what I view as their weakest album in years and still find a place on “best-of” lists come year’s end. While Goldstar doesn’t reach the same skyscraping heights as previous albums Spirit of Ecstasy and Alphaville, the band’s auditory depictions of New York City still deliver everything I want from my dissonant death/black metal. The rhythm section is adventurous, morphing between various forms of blasts and jazzy grooves on a whim, and the guitars deliver a satisfying heft with every riff, opting here for a tighter, more Meshuggah-influenced vibe on many songs. The result is a lean collection of tracks that deliver a sense of moshpit churning intensity as much as they do the sense of heady intellectualism that I’ve long associated with Imperial Triumphant’s output. While I hope IT eventually returns to their less refined sound, I was more than happy to take the trip with them to the land of Goldstar.
Recommended tracks: Industry of Misery, Lexington Delirium
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
7. Tómarúm – Beyond Obsidian Euphoria
Style: progressive death metal, black metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, An Abstract Illusion, Fallujah, Wilderun
In the genre of progressive death metal, it’s often easy to tell when a band is really swinging for the fences, giving an album every ounce of creative output they can muster and then some. More than doubling the length of their debut, Tómarúm’s Beyond Obsidian Euphoria is one such album, a testament to the grandeur of progressive metal and the sublimity of human triumph over despair. Across the album’s extensive runtime, Tómarúm explore the depths of knotty tech death, the heights of atmospheric black metal, and the rolling fields of Opethian acoustic passages, but it’s in the melodically driven moments that Beyond Obsidian Euphoria is at its best. From the indomitable clean vocals scattered throughout the album to the solos taken by both guitar and bass alike, the moments of melody on this album are epic in the truest sense of the word. Albums of this sheer scope are rare, and Tómarúm proves they are more than fit to handle such an undertaking.
Recommended tracks: Shed This Erroneous Skin, Halcyon Memory: Dreamscapes Across the Blue
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
6. Smiqra – Rɡyaɡ̇dźé!
Style: avant-garde black metal, hardcore (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ὁπλίτης, Car Bomb, Blut Aus Nord, Plebeian Grandstand, Frontierer
The inclusion of Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! on this list marks the second year in a row in which J.L., the lone mastermind behind Smiqra and Ὁπλίτης, has made an appearance in my top ten. Emerging under a new moniker after the breakthrough of Παραμαινομένη, J.L. once again proves himself one of the most creative auteurs of the avant-garde black metal scene, delivering an album that channels unrelenting intensity and endless invention. Rɡyaɡ̇dźé! fuses black metal and hardcore into an ultrakinetic assault where drums dominate the mix, tempos constantly mutate, and riffs flash by. To keep the momentum going, jazz-inflected bursts of saxophone, warped synthesizer passages, and fleeting breakcore interruptions are added to the mix, keeping the album playful even at its most punishing. The deluge culminates in the sprawling epic “qa-si-re-u!”, a hypnotic journey through tribal rhythms and incessant vocal patterns (“Is music for oxen?”) to crushing breakdowns that feel genuinely cathartic by the album’s close.
Recommended tracks: qa-si-re-u!, I am the broken generation, Peer review by oxen
Related links: Bandcamp | original review
5. Between the Buried and Me – The Blue Nowhere
Style: progressive metalcore, 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 has been one of my favorite bands of all time ever since I first heard Colors and The Great Misdirect back in middle school, and with each release since they’ve more or less maintained that status. But as I continued to listen to The Blue Nowhere, I was surprised to find it slowly climbing up my personal ranking of BTBAM albums. With each spin, I found myself singing along to the surprisingly melodic choruses and humming along to the meaty riffs and jazz-inflected solos, and with a few months between the release and now, I can confidently say The Blue Nowhere is one of the best BTBAM albums, simultaneously a panoramic view of the band’s sound across their stages of evolution and a new jazzy thing itself. The Blue Nowhere proves that prog bands can still release amazing albums 20+ years into their career, and that any fans doubting BTBAM simply lack imagination.
Recommended tracks: Absent Thereafter, God Terror
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
4. Sallow Moth – Mossbane Lantern
Style: brutal death metal, progressive metal, progressive rock, jazz fusion (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Cynic, Wormed, Edge of Sanity, Primus, Blood Incantation
In my review for Mossbane Lantern, I all but promised that Sallow Moth would make an appearance on my year-end list, and here it is! Ever since I first heard the fusion of burping brutal death metal, jazz fusion, and OSDM riffage that inhabits the eight tracks across this record, I’ve been enamored, each listen taking me on a new journey as I focus on different instruments and elements each time. To say this album rewards repeat listens would be an understatement; every moment is bursting with sticky riffs, frenetic fills, or effect-laden vocal layers in a way that speaks to multi-instrumentalist Garry Brent’s creative fervor. Yet, despite the sheer density of ideas on display, no section feels overstuffed. There is a rare level of compositional talent here underpinning the chaos, an understanding of when to push forward and when to settle and breathe. It’s this balance that elevates Mossbane Lantern above its peers, and makes it a shining beacon in the brutal death metal genre.
Recommended tracks: Icegorger Gauntlets, Psionic Battery, Aethercave Boots
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
3. Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World
Style: cavernous death metal, symphonic death metal, experimental death metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Immolation, Teitanblood, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Stravinsky
When I first started listening to metal, I quickly dismissed symphonic metal on the basis of its most common, repellent tropes: simplistic, cheesy, and often saccharine. In the years since, there have been only a handful of exceptions to that initial snap judgement. Aquilus blends black metal textures with masterful compositions to great effect, Wilderun employs the grandeur of a symphony to bolster their progressive death metal crescendos, and now Qrixkuor—perhaps more skillfully than all—has crafted something entirely new: a fusion of Stravinsky-esque Modernist composition and cavernous death metal. The resulting mixture is viscous and black, suffocating yet meticulously ordered. Sprawling compositions unfold with a ritualistic logic; riffs are traded for vast, shifting masses of sound; and brass, strings, piano, and voice all coil tightly around the churning death metal core, amplifying its dread. As such, The Womb of the World stands as one of the most psychologically intense and compositionally daring records of the year.
Recommended tracks: The Womb of the Word, Slithering Serendipity
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
2. Dessiderium – Keys to the Palace
Style: progressive death metal, black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Insomnium, Disillusion, Kardashev, Wintersun, Wilderun
If, in fairy dream land, I had been allowed to craft Dessiderium’s followup to 2021’s moody and introspective Aria, it would have sounded nothing like Keys to the Palace with its brightness and genuine joviality. If I’m being completely honest, the intensely major sound of Keys to the Palace in conjunction with its non-traditional-for-metal earnest lyricism was offputting to me at first. But, despite my initial trepidation, I kept returning to the palace gates. Be it through the technical and melodic riffage, the vast and meandering song structures, or the general sense of maximalism that pervades every track, Keys to the Palace consistently kept me coming back for more. Over time, its optimism revealed itself to me not as naïveté, but as a deliberate thematic choice, where childhood wonder and adult apprehension coexist. It’s an album that challenges the listener to immerse themselves in its themes of introspection and in doing so delivers one of the most emotionally complex progressive metal records of the year.
Recommended tracks: Pollen for the Bees, Keys to the Palace, A Dream that Wants Me Dead
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
1. Changeling – Changeling
Style: progressive death metal, technical death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alkaloid, Obscura, Devin Townsend, Morbid Angel, Yes
Ever since I first heard “Weltseele”, the fifteen-minute closing epic to Obscura’s Akroasis masterminded by Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger, I’ve wanted more of its symphonic and nigh-alien ambition. Unfortunately, Fountainhead left Obscura just as fast as he joined, but thankfully for us, he has been busy in the time since working on something to make “Weltseele” feel like a mere proof of concept. Changeling is the product of nearly a decade of fervent creative devotion, and its scale is immediately apparent. Every element of Changeling from the compositions to the performances and production is masterfully executed. Themes shift and evolve over time as orchestral textures and fretless virtuosity meld in a way that never feels overindulgent. The result is an album that feels monumental without ever collapsing under its own mass. Changeling is not just a technical triumph, but one of the most forward-thinking and fully realized progressive metal records in a long time.
Recommended tracks: Abyss, Abdication, Anathema
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
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