Ian’s Top 10 Albums of 2025!
I suppose this is my life now. Watching increasingly insane headlines spewed forth from my government of fools scroll past my increasingly numb eyeballs, all while the material facts of day-to-day existence continue largely unabated in a comfortable yet increasingly deep rut of “I’m doing alright, I guess.” Fittingly enough, much of the year’s music felt good but not great, a sentiment shared by many of my fellow writers at the Subway to the point where some were worried that there simply wouldn’t be enough standouts to fill out a top 10 list at all.
And yet there were bright spots, both in life and in music. I went on a number of excellent trips (including a wonderful visit to Japan) while making and reforging connections with friends old and new. I continued performing with my a cappella group1 and rediscovered my passion for arranging music. There were albums, too, that broke through the fog of the year’s malaise and made my soul light up again, whether through exultant, memorable melodies, an indelible sense of vibe and atmosphere, or simply sounding different from everything else out there. The ten best of those albums shall be listed below, though not without a few additional awards and honorable mentions:
The Ghost of Listmas Past Award for Best Album I Missed Last Year:
Secret Gardens – The Impermanent Amber
If we could retroactively add albums to our previous year’s lists, then I would definitely put this incredible October 2024 release somewhere around #4 or #5. An astonishingly diverse blend of Aviations-esque “cozy metal”, virtuosic instru-prog, mathy, angsty Midwest emo, crescendo-laden post-rock, and gentle indie folk (complete with an excellent Sufjan Stevens cover), it nonetheless manages to evoke a consistent, autumnal vibe while having killer melodies throughout.
The Green Eggs and Ham Award for Best Album Outside My Usual Tastes:
Pupil Slicer – Fleshwork
Metalcore has never really been my bag, to put it mildly, but the latest Pupil Slicer record has somehow cut its way into my good graces like a LASIK surgeon’s beam through the cornea. For all its grimy, pit-ready aggression and bared-teeth vocal assaults, Fleshwork is shockingly thoughtful in its composition – it’s got proper riffs, grooves, and crumbs of melody that form a tight, engaging core structure behind all the blunt-force violence.
The Victor Frankenstein Memorial Award for Most Audacious Creation:|
Spiral Garden – Spiral Garden
Beneath this album’s lovely, somewhat quirky dream-folk facade lies a bizarre, fascinatingly overengineered web of non-Euclidean music theory so dense it must be the work of a gibbering madman, an interdimensional traveler, and/or some guy with a Ph.D. I swear, one of these days either Ben Hjertmann is going to become the first ever recipient of the newly founded Nobel Prize in Music, or they’ll implicate him in a series of elaborate, microtonality-themed murders.
The Steven He Award for Most Emotionally Damaging Album:
Arm’s Length – There’s a Whole World Out There
I would’ve put this one on our Best Non-Prog Albums list earlier had I had time to give it a proper writeup, but after a hectic holiday season it kinda slipped through the cracks. A shame, too, because this is a brilliant, bleedingly raw gut punch of an emo album, led by Allen Steinberg’s devastatingly literate lyrics that ruminate on crumbling mental health, mortality, and the fierce, uncompromising love that aims to overcome it all. Also there’s a banjo, so that’s cool.
The Short And Sweet (Please Don’t Sue Us, Sabrina Carpenter) Award for Best EP:
The Dear Hunter – North American EP
It says something about their talent that even the throwaway EP containing five songs that soundtracked The Dear Hunter‘s goofy, surreal mockumentary about their 2023 North American tour jams way harder than it has any right to, with tight, funky rhythms and expansive proggy psychedelia aplenty. Sunya can’t come soon enough.
The No Cigar Award for Closest Runner-Up:
Aephanemer – Utopie
My personal favorite “harsh vocals only” album we reviewed this year, Utopie came perilously close to making my list proper, laden as it is with fun neoclassical noodling, explosively energetic percussion, and heart-stirring symphonic melodies that effortlessly sweep the listener away into a land of fantastical adventure. Had its vocal performances been a bit more varied and less goblin-ish, it would’ve been an absolute lock for the top 10. Speaking of which…
10. Jonathan Hultén – Eyes of the Living Night
Style: Progressive rock, neofolk, ambient (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Anathema, Heilung, The Pineapple Thief, Lunatic Soul
In a year that felt like one raging tempest after another, it’s a special thing for an album to feel like a safe, cozy shelter from the rain, and that’s exactly what Eyes of the Living Night provides for any weary traveler in need. Sure, its gentle dream-folk melodies are soft and soothing while seldom slipping into the saccharine, and sure, the lyrics are lovely, cosmically motivational calls to find beauty, magic, and hope amidst darkness and chaos. But what really sets Hultén apart is his mastery of texture, from the gorgeously warm production to the immaculate, twilit vibes conjured forth by the blended folk acoustics and synths to the way his vocal timbre contorts and bends until it’s just another one of the instruments. Not something I’m always in the mood for, but when my soul felt injured or sick, this album was there like a blanket and a bowl of hot soup.
Recommended tracks: Afterlife, Riverflame, The Dream Was the Cure, The Ocean’s Arms
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
9. Stereosity – New Life Will Grow
Style: Math rock, midwest emo, progressive rock (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: TTNG, Delta Sleep, toe, CHON, American Football
Perhaps no stage in one’s life engraves itself in memory quite like that first rush of adulthood from the late teens to early twenties. We start forming our own selves separate from those we grew up inhabiting, often living away from home for the first time, and life becomes an all-too-sudden rush of learning to accept the loss of the old in order to welcome the new. In many ways, young math rockers Stereosity have captured this time in the form of their excellent debut, and not just in its direct lyrical themes of death and rebirth. Time signatures bounce chaotically off one another as if reflecting the constant change and uncertainty of youth, and the sweetly sparkling angst of its Midwest emo melodies expertly bottle that time when euphoria burns hotter, heartbreak cuts deeper, and colors shine brighter than it feels like they ever will again. And though the vocals are a tad raw in spots2, this too perfectly reflects the best thing about this age – that there’s so much room left to grow.
Recommended tracks: New Life Will Grow, Ocean, (Home), Sonata in C#
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
8. Crippling Alcoholism – Camgirl
Style: Gothic rock, noise rock (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Swans, Chat Pile, The Cure, New Order
It’s interesting to hear my more… extremophile colleagues at the Subway talk about the music they like, how it can make them feel disgusted, uncomfortable, and perhaps even a bit nauseous, and that’s the point. As a comparative weakling who prefers my music to, y’know, sound good, I thought I’d never understand their perspective. Then Crippling Alcoholism hit my ears with their viscerally upsetting yet utterly magnetic tale of sex, drugs, and self-loathing, and it all became clear. Camgirl may initially present a pleasant enough facade, grounding itself in sweet, hazy synths and seductively catchy bass-baritone choruses. Yet as the vocals shift from sensual goth moans to unhinged screams to broken, weeping snarls, and the music twists itself from the soundtrack for a seedy yet luxurious nightclub to that of a raging panic attack and back again, it becomes quickly apparent just how interlinked pleasure, pain, and emptiness are in this lurid, grimy world. This is the type of album to make you feel like you need a shower after listening to it, and I mean that as the highest compliment.
Recommended tracks: bedrot, CAMGIRL, Pretty in Pink
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
7. Dim Gray – Shards
Style: Progressive rock, chamber pop, art rock, alternative rock, indie folk (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Pineapple Thief, Riverside, Porcupine Tree, The Dear Hunter, iamthemorning
I am a simple man at my core. If you give me an album chock-full of incredibly memorable, emotionally resonant melodies, delivered by a dulcet-voiced frontman and backed up by clean, catchy compositions, I’m a happy camper. And not many albums filled my tent with quite as much joy this year (might need to rephrase that) as the latest from tasteful prog tunesmiths Dim Gray. Detractors may call them “Meer at home”, and to be fair, there is plenty of commonality between these two bands of melodic Norwegian chamber-proggers, from their honey-throated lead vocalists to their lush, expansive arrangements to their absolutely genius command over dynamic and emotional peaks and valleys. By way of counterpoint, however, I present the Two Cakes Theorem, which posits that the proper response to being presented with a pair of similar-tasting but delicious cakes is to proclaim, “Holy shit, two cakes!” I mean, it’s not like we’re going to have a third melodically genius prog rock album come out of Norway anytime soon, right?3
Recommended tracks: Defiance, Myopia, Murals, Little One, Attakulla
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
6. Messa – The Spin
Style: progressive metal, doom metal, dark ambient (mixed vocals, mostly clean)
Recommended for fans of: Windhand, Chelsea Wolfe, Pijn, Latitudes
Doom metal is a fairly easy genre for folks to stereotype, often painting it as a slow-motion trudge of yawn-inducing distortion that’s only tolerable to those with sufficient levels of THC in their system. Yet with the excellent The Spin, Italian “scarlet doom” maestros Messa have flipped those tired old preconceptions on their head. This is a diverse, entrancingly tuneful album that fills its tunes with vivacious, ass-kicking energy and a refreshing willingness to include bits of other genres such as dark ambient and jazz, all without sacrificing the intoxicating atmosphere and crushing slow burns of their core style. From Sara Bianchin’s stunningly gorgeous vocal performances to some of the most downright stank-face-inducing solo work of the year (shoutout to that trumpet on “The Dress”), The Spin left me dizzy but ready to get back on for another ride each time.
Recommended tracks: Void Meridian, Immolation, The Dress, Thicker Blood
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
5. Changeling – Changeling
Style: Progressive death metal, technical death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alkaloid, Obscura, Devin Townsend, Morbid Angel, Yes
At the end of each list-making season, we at the Subway compile all of our lists into one final, consensus Top 10 to cap things off. To top the list and become the overall #1 is quite the honor, if I do say so myself, so if any musicians are reading and happen to be interested, here’s a foolproof way to make it to the top of the Prog Subway’s Overall Year-End List:
1: Be a progressive death metal band. For whatever reason, that specific subgenre sits at the intersection of most of our writers’ tastes.
2: Write a massive, ambitious, ridiculously well-composed album that incorporates vitriolic aggression, dramatic melody, and lovingly orchestrated arrangements capable of towering sublimity and delightfully unexpected left turns alike.
3: Execute on said compositions with absurd technical verve and panache, packing the record full of jaw-dropping solos, powerhouse vocal performances, and crystal-clear-production.
4: Bask in adulation!
And as it so happens, 2025 has brought us another album that follows this playbook flawlessly in the form of Changeling, the monstrous self-titled opus from Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger and the veritable legion of prog and tech death luminaries backing him up. NDAs from my higher-ups forbid me from disclosing its exact placement, but we’ve seen it on enough lists by now that it’s probably gonna be pretty damn high – and deservingly so.
Recommended tracks: Instant Results, World? What World?, Falling in Circles, Abyss, Changeling, Anathema, Abdication
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
4. We Lost the Sea – A Single Flower
Style: Post-rock, post-metal (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, This Will Destroy You, Explosions in the Sky
Sometimes I worry that my attention span is atrophying in the age of social media, that instant gratification has rendered me a zombie incapable of focusing on anything for so much as a few minutes without another check of the ol’ phone. And then I sit transfixed for seventy whole minutes of slow-burn, instrumental crescendos courtesy of Aussie post-rock institution We Lost the Sea, and suddenly I’m reassured that maybe my focus isn’t quite so shot after all. A Single Flower is a devastating masterclass in dynamically growing sonic textures, building and building its explosive arrangements to the point of near-suffocation. Then it abruptly lets off, allowing listeners to let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding as a gentle softness grows amidst the cracks that the cataclysmic devastation left in its wake. It’s definitely not the sort of album that immediately hooks you in, but given enough time wandering around its glacial soundscapes, it eventually reveals itself as one of the most breathtakingly powerful albums of the year.
Recommended tracks: A Dance With Death, Bloom (Murmurations at First Light), Blood Will Have Blood
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
3. Cascadent – Telemetry
Style: Swancore, progressive metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Hail the Sun, Good Tiger, Makari, I Met a Yeti
One of the most insidious occupational hazards of being a music critic, particularly one focusing on progressive music, is an ever-growing jadedness towards any sounds that are insufficiently novel. After long enough, it feels as though it isn’t enough for an album to just be really fun or incredibly well-executed – it needs to move the art form forward by making incisive social commentary or artfully incorporating dissonant noise or whatever else pretentious people enjoy. Late in the year, though, Cascadent‘s debut album walked straight up to my own calcifying walls of anhedonia, shattered them with a right hook made of melody, groove, and effortless charm, and strolled all the way up to #3 on my year-end list like it owned the place. For this isn’t some uncategorizable, avant-garde band of visionaries crafting their own genre – this is fuckin’ swancore, baby, and it is unapologetic about that fact. The guitars are noodly and tappy, the rhythm section is bouncy and overcaffeinated, and the clean vocals ascend to the requisite keening castrato register, accompanied by a big ol’ Mess™ of guttural screams.4 But it’s so utterly fun, infectious, and impeccably performed, sprinkling in just the right amount of surprises in the form of explosive trumpets and electronica interludes, that it just makes me grin like an idiot and bounce along every single time I listen to it, which is very often. And at the end of the day, isn’t that primal happiness part of what we have music for?
Recommended tracks: Collision Hymn, Playground Parachute, Sunset In a Sense, Carousel Spin
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
2. Dissona – Receptor
Style: Progressive metal, symphonic metal, cyber metal (Mixed vocals, mostly clean)
Recommended for fans of: Devin Townsend, Celldweller, Sybreed, Leprous (Bilateral), Symphony X
Back in 2011, before they forgot what the concept of a “recording studio” was, progressive metal legends Symphony X put out their eighth record, the techno-conceptual Iconoclast. Meant to meld the band’s well-proven neoclassical virtuosity with the gritty, industrial sounds of the robot apocalypse, the album wound up as a bit of a disappointment for many – not without its bright spots, but a little too straightforwardly meatheaded at points. I bring this up because Receptor feels like the album Iconoclast should have been. Dissona have spent nine years crafting the perfect progressive metal machine – massive yet streamlined, sharp yet smooth, violent yet refined. It’s a huge, maximalist, and somehow seamless alloy of several styles, fusing deliciously crunchy riffs, neoclassical grandiosity, glitched-out dancefloor synths, and a vocal performance that bridges Russell Allen-esque tough-guy grit and soaring tenor power with a distinctively deranged showmanship all its own. To listen to Receptor is to be absolutely overwhelmed by an unstoppable show of force that takes visceral pleasure in leaping from strength to strength, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Witness, and be consumed.
Recommended tracks: Incisor, Receptor, Suffuse, Red Mist
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
1. Moron Police – Pachinko
Style: Progressive rock, pop rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Haken, Thank You Scientist, Closure in Moscow, The Dear Hunter, Bear Ghost
Sometimes, when I’m scrolling the comments section of a particularly ingenious or quirky video online, I find a three-word phrase that makes me smile without fail: “Alive Internet Theory”5. Meant to contradict the “Dead Internet Theory” of everyone you see online being a bot, to be part of Alive Internet Theory is to have created such a unique piece of art, something so utterly specific to your own lived truth, so suffused with the eccentric joy of living, breathing existence, that no mere token-generating AI could ever hope to come up with it. Moron Police‘s long awaited masterpiece Pachinko feels like the Alive Internet Theory of music, ironic for an album whose concept partially revolves around transforming into a pachinko machine and surrendering one’s agency to the powers that be. There’s just something about the sheer vivacity of its every immaculately catchy melody, the joy it finds in its every intricate arrangement and musical left turn, the way it isn’t afraid to blend absurdism into its heartfelt tributes to the fallen, crises of self-identity, and critiques of art amidst late capitalism, that convinces me that no glorified predictive text machine, no matter how advanced, will ever come close to creating something this transcendent. I’ve heard people call out the notion of “soul” in human art as a needlessly vague argument against AI, yet when Pachinko finale “Giving Up the Ghost” hits its reprise-laden climax, with the protagonist facing down mortality with a smile while urging those who come after to both remember how they were loved and hold those near to them close, as a tear streams softly down my face… “soul” feels like the only word that works. In a year that was so dark and callous to so many, one where unfeeling mechanisms both literal and figurative ate away at our shared humanity, no album made me feel as powerfully, painfully, and joyously alive as Pachinko did, and that’s something worth its weight in gold. No matter where the whirlwind of 2026 blows, I hope we can all stay in the eye.
Recommended tracks: Nothing Breaks (A Port of Call), Cormorant, Pachinko Pt. 1, Take Me To the City, The Apathy of Kings, Giving Up the Ghost
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
- Yes, I am in an a cappella group at the big old age of 29. I suppose that explains a fair bit of my music taste, to be honest. ↩︎
- A version of this album with better vocals would probably rank around fourth or fifth place on the list, for those curious. It’s that good. ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreshadowing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony ↩︎
- I’ll forgive them this bit of infringement this time; it’s not like Dance Gavin Dance are doing anything interesting with the trademark nowadays after all. ↩︎
- Most recently under this delightful video of an old man showing off his 15 pound red cabbage. ↩︎
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