Justin’s Top 10 Albums of 2025!
The end of the year is a time full of traditions: family gatherings, holiday obligations, tying up loose ends at work, and introspection (or so I’m told). Everyone has their own way of celebrating/coping with another year gone, but to me, nothing marks the end of the year quite like seeing all of the album of the year lists starting to pop up. 2025 seems to have been an especially busy one for a lot of people—myself included—so let’s not waste any time and jump right into the list (after I waste a bit of time with a few non-prog picks).
Non-Prog Picks:
Sargeist – Flame Within Flame: Sargeist have been a household name in black metal for a while now, and Flame Within Flame solidifies their deservedness of such a status. My favorite Sargeist record since Let the Devil In, Flame Within Flame is chock full of gripping melodies and satisfying harmonies, all wrapped up in the familiar atmosphere and intricate riffcraft I’ve come to know and love.
Chaos Inception – Vengeance Evangel: God damn… Kevin Paradis is a monster behind the kit. Vengeance Evangel is death metal that hits hard and fast, and boasts what is possibly my favorite drum performance of the year—as well as some of my favorite cover art/production/lead guitar performance/solos. Chaos Inception have managed to create a death metal album that is more than the sum of its parts, despite having some of the highest quality parts of the year already.
Hexecutor – …Where Spirit Withers in Its Flesh Constraint: Hexecutor are nothing if not consistent. These guys have their brand of black/thrash down to a science at this point, and …Where Spirit Withers in Its Flesh Constraint is my favorite release from them yet: a triumphant standout within the genre. If you are even remotely interested in the black/thrash scene, this one is a must listen.
Also, that band logo is awesome, isn’t it?
10. The Overmold – The Overmold
Style: Doom Metal, Drone, Experimental Metal (Clean Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Khanate, Krallice, Sunn O))), Blind Idiot God
“The Overmold” (from The Overmold by The Overmold) remains perhaps my favorite listening experience of the year. Spanning over thirty minutes, “The Overmold” is a massive track that showcases intimate chamber-esque, semi-improvisational performances from Tim Wyskida (drums/percussion) and Mick Barr (everything else), featuring slow building guitars, faint vocal harmonies, and restrained drumming that swells through massive climaxes and pensive valleys. While Barr’s unique melodic and harmonic sensibilities give The Overmold much of its character, The Overmold is ultimately defined by the interplay between Barr and Wyskida’s performances. The Overmold is unique in the sense that the content of the music itself takes on a secondary role to the physical execution of said music. The Overmold gives equal—or even more—attention to the space between notes, dynamics, pacing, timbre, and textural applications of its performances as the tonal foundations they are built from. While “The Overmold” is certainly the centerpiece of The Overmold, The Overmold follows it with three shorter vignettes, each exploring a more structured side of The Overmold, allowing the listener to come down from and reflect on the mammoth undertaking of “The Overmold”. The Overmold has countless secrets just waiting to be found by the patient listener with a decent set of headphones, and if you were able to parse my commentary of The Overmold through my abuse of the words “The Overmold” just now, you are certainly equipped to appreciate The Overmold. Congratulations! The Overmold.
Recommended tracks: The Overmold
Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram | original review
9. Between the Buried and Me – The Blue Nowhere
Style: Progressive Metalcore, Progressive Metal (Mixed Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Mr. Bungle, Omnerod, Intronaut, Rototypical
As a music reviewer who writes for a progressive rock/metal review website, I’m legally obligated to include at least one (1) progressive rock/metal album proper on my year end list. As a longtime fan of Between the Buried and Me, The Blue Nowhere seemed like a great choice with which to fill my quota. Good thing that I also genuinely enjoy the album!
With the departure of guitarist Dustie Waring, a noticeable shift has occurred in the structure of BTBAM’s compositions. The Blue Nowhere is perhaps BTBAM’s most synth-heavy work to date, and—to my ears—has more in common than ever before with vocalist Thomas Giles’ solo work (“God Terror”). The trademark “zaniness/wackiness” (aka. Mr. Bungle-isms) that BTBAM have built their career on are more prominent than ever, though seamlessly integrated into the songwriting in a way that avoids becoming campy or eye-rolling. Even twenty-five years into their career, BTBAM refuse to sit still, manically iterating on their brand of progressive metal. The Blue Nowhere is a great addition to the BTBAM catalog, one that sits closer to the top of their discography than the bottom, and is certainly one of the strongest progressive metal albums of 2025.
Recommended tracks: Things We Tell Ourselves in the Dark, Absent Thereafter, Psychomanteum
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
8. Changeling – Changeling
Style: Progressive Death Metal, Technical Death Metal (Mixed Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Alkaloid, Obscura, Obsidious
As the latest brainchild from mastermind Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger, Changeling had high expectations from The Progressive Subway from the start. I was skeptical, figuring that this project would probably just be a decent alternative to Obscura. Thankfully, I was wrong! Changeling is certainly an album that takes inspiration from the Obscura material (especially the first few tracks), but slowly blooms into a massive exploratory progressive death metal undertaking of its own. Morean’s vocals are great as always; Fountainhead’s riffs are energetic and memorable; and the entire experience is full of the borderline excessive songwriting conceit that I always seem to gravitate towards. “Abdication” and “Anathema” are certainly the highlights of Changeling for my tastes: creative instrumentation adds further depth to these compositions, and Fountainhead expertly mixes his guitar within the swirling textures and harmonies. “Anathema” in particular has perhaps my favorite climax of the year, one that you need to hear to believe. Really, Changeling is a prog nerd’s wet dream.
Thank you, Fountainhead. I drink deep. From your head.
Recommended tracks: Instant Results, World? What World?, Abdication, Anathema
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
7. Fleshvessel – Obstinacy: Sisyphean Dreams Unfolded
Style: Avant-Garde Metal, Progressive Death Metal, Modern Classical (Mixed Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blood Incantation, Atvm, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Septicflesh, Qrixkuor
Perhaps the weirdest album of the year, Obstinacy: Sisyphean Dreams Unfolded is a massive undertaking featuring eccentric instrumentation, sprawling compositions, and uncompromising performances. Fleshvessel have been the underdogs of underground weirdo-death metal since their debut in 2020, but Obstinacy firmly cements their status as leaders in the scene. A live drum performance courtesy of Colin MacAndrew injects a new level of dynamics and a more fluid time-feel, which greatly benefit the compositions. Troll Hart’s newfound love for insane King Diamond-esque belted falsettos adds an unhinged theatricality, elevating Obstinacy past its death metal foundations. But the real magic is how Fleshvessel manage to merge all of their influences and instrumentation into a single, cohesive package. Electric guitar, viola, flute, clarinet, piano, Puerto Rican cuatro/tres, maracas, sleigh bells, electronic elements, and more are all utilized to benefit Obstinacy’s overall atmosphere and compositional cohesiveness. The entire experience is pervaded by a renewed sense of bold audaciousness, diving headfirst into novel structures, textures, and techniques while wrapping the entire presentation in a shameless theatricality that threatens to tear the sound apart at the seams. Yet Obstinacy deftly manages all of its idiosyncrasies, merging them into a strikingly cohesive package that is miraculously recognizable, first and foremost, as Fleshvessel.
Recommended tracks: Am, It Lurched From A Chasm In the Sky
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
6. Yellow Eyes – Confusion Gate
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal, Dissonant Black Metal (Harsh Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, Urfaust, Vanum, Ustalost, Sunrise Patriot Motion
On the right day, Yellow Eyes are my favorite black metal band of all time, largely due to the unique guitar voicings of the Skarstad brothers. Sick With Bloom introduced me to Yellow Eyes‘ densely meandering style of atmospheric black metal, then Immersion Trench Reverie and Rare Field Ceiling cemented the group at the pinnacle of the genre for my tastes. Now, Confusion Gate strips back some of the more overtly labyrinthine structure and harmonies that have defined the Skarstad brothers’ style over the past decade, searching further inward toward the core of their songwriting conceit. Acting as a sister album to 2023’s Master’s Murmur—an exploratory foray into folky, atmospheric dungeon synth—Confusion Gate reimagines and recontextualizes the same themes in the band’s more traditional atmo-black styling. Familiar melodies are flipped on their heads, picked apart and put back together, and stretched out over Yellow Eyes’ more traditional seven-plus minute song lengths. A renewed focus on atmosphere and pacing keeps the riffs from ever approaching the dizzying intricacies of albums past, but the Skarstad brothers’ trademark harmonic language and distinguishing technique are ever-present, keeping the heart of their sound alive. Confusion Gate is the perfect introduction to the Yellow Eyes brand, proudly displaying all of the group’s distinguishing features while never losing the listener in the rabbit holes of sound found on previous releases. For a longtime fan like myself, the comparative lack of depth was paradoxically somewhat of a barrier to entry, but repeated listens proved that Yellow Eyes need not rely on constant winding ornamentation; the core of their sound is more than enough to maintain their status among the best of the genre—and the year.
Recommended tracks: Brush the Frozen Horse, I Fear the Master’s Murmur, Confusion Gate
Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram | original review
5. Scimitar – Scimitarium I
Style: Heavy Metal, Black Metal, Progressive Metal (Mixed Vocals, Mostly Clean)
Recommended for fans of: Hammers of Misfortune, Negative Plane, Slægt, Molten Chains
Hammerfel—er—Copenhagen-based quintet Scimitar was perhaps the biggest surprise of the year for me. Blackened heavy metal has always been one of my favorite genre mashups, but outside of a select few groups (Negative Plane, Predatory Light, Molten Chains), I’ve always struggled to find artists that scratch my itch. With the release of Scimitarium I in February, though, my itch has been scratched for the majority of 2025! Scimitar plays a particularly arcane form of heavy metal, one that is injected with plenty of black metal technique and aesthetic. Twisting, longform riff structures tunnel their way through each song, building branching narratives, yet Scimitar maintains cohesion through strong songwriting fundamentals and a focused melodic identity. Each performance is raw and energetic, but never sloppy, though Shaam Larein’s vocal performance in particular is the highlight of Scimitarium I for my tastes. Larein often uses her voice in more of a textural manner than as a vehicle for delivering melody, but rarely does she flip fully into a distorted vocal delivery. Lilting switches between falsetto and head voice, rhythmic syllable placement that is often more in line with a harsh vocal delivery, and a paradoxically spectral yet physically aggressive delivery muddies the waters between Scimtar’s black metal edge and heavy metal spirit, compounded further by the similar stylistic merging of the instrumentals. Intelligently sparse use of goth and pop elements (“Hungry Hallucinations”) rounds off the entire experience with an addictive catchiness, and launches Scimitar’s sound into the stratosphere, allowing Scimitarium I to retain its spot among the best of 2025 despite its release so early in the year.
Recommended tracks: Aconitum, Hungry Hallucinations, Ophidia
Related links: Bandcamp | Instagram | original review
4. Hexrot – Formless Ruin of Oblivion
Style: Avant-Garde Metal, Progressive Death Metal, Technical Thrash Metal (Harsh Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Gorguts, Death, Diskord, Castevet, Krallice
Hexrot acts as a sort of musical bridge between the worlds of old school death metal and the more avant-garde modern scene, and while Formless Ruin of Oblivion is an album that is largely defined by this relationship, Hexrot has much more to offer than “modernized OSDM”. In a sense, …Oblivion is two albums in one. While one listener could float through …Oblivion’s thirty-five-minute runtime, simply enjoying the textures and performances, another could fall down the rabbit hole of near-endless complexities arising from its maddening structural conceit. Each aspect of Hexrot’s sound has been calculated and deliberately placed nearly to the point of prescience, and I really do mean each and every aspect. From the tonal language to the rhythmic foundation; the structure and pacing to each instrument’s textural application; nothing Hexrot does is without purpose or planning. The result is a maze whose solution is seemingly only known by Hexrot, though taking a step back and viewing the maze from a bird’s-eye view reveals an inherent beauty not unlike the full painting from which the album art is taken. The magic of Hexrot’s sound lies in how thoroughly they succeed at marrying a decidedly old school ethos to such a brazen modernity, and how each and every aspect of …Oblivion is fully controlled and shaped toward this will. Formless Ruin of Oblivion is one of my favorite avant-garde metal releases not only of 2025, but the decade so far, and with it Hexrot have secured their seats among the pantheon of progressive death metal weirdos for my tastes.
Recommended tracks:
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
3. Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World
Style: Cavernous Death Metal, Dissonant Death Metal, Symphonic Black Metal (Mixed Vocals, Mostly Harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Teitanblood, Immolation, Grave Miasma, Portal, Ad Nauseam
To a certain extent, it’s hard to imagine how the music held within The Womb of the World can even exist. Qrixkuor have been pushing the boundaries of cavernous death metal since 2016, each successive release building upon itself to add compositional and textural depth. The Zoetrope EP released in 2022 seemed like the band’s final evolution, incorporating orchestral elements and impossibly dense metal songcraft, but it was only a harbinger of things to come. With The Womb of the World, Qrixkuor not only fully deliver on the brand of cavernous death metal they have been building up to Zoetrope, they transcend it completely, essentially perfecting the style. As Andy wrote in his full review: “It is an apotheosis of style”. Qrixkuor have isolated all of caverncore’s strengths and enhanced them through expanded instrumentation (a full live orchestra accompanies the music this time around) and utterly superior compositional prowess, while covering up or removing its deficiencies completely. Very rarely does an album come along that clears its entire genre so thoroughly; we are truly blessed to exist during a time where a piece of art such as The Womb of the World can be appreciated. To quote Andy once again: “It’s time for cavernous death metal to close shop. It has been completed”.
Recommended tracks: Slithering Serendipity, The Womb of the World
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
2. Vildhjarta – + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +
Style: Thall, Djent, Progressive Metal (Mixed Vocals, Mostly Harsh)
Recommended for fans of: Meshuggah, Frontierer, Humanity’s Last Breath, Car Bomb
Hey, remember how I just mentioned how rare it is for an album to clear its entire genre so thoroughly? Well, it happened twice in 2025. With Vildhjarta, though, making this claim kind of feels like cheating; in truth, no one has really caught up with them since they created and coined the style of Thall back in 2009. Certainly, no one has made any meaningful progress within the style besides Vildhjarta themselves. Many have tried, though their efforts range from “pretty decent” (Allt, Indistinct) to “YouTube reaction slop” (Mirar). Any artist that has even come close to matching Vildhjarta’s quality ends up sharing members (Humanity’s Last Breath, Reflections, Stoort Neer). All this to say, hopes were high with the announcement of + Där skogen sjunger under evighetens granar +, and even so, Vildhjarta exceeded all expectations. I honestly have too much good to say about this album to even start to explain what makes me love it so much here—it did inspire the single longest review I’ve ever written. So, I urge you just to check it out yourself, and read the review if you’d like. All I’ll say here is that Vildhjarta have once again taken a leaping stride of innovation, dragging the entirety of thall behind them.
Recommended tracks: + Två vackra svanar +, + Sargasso +, + Den spanska känslan +
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | original review
1. Felgrave – Otherlike Darknesses
Style: Progressive Death Metal, Avant-Garde Black Metal, Death-Doom Metal (Mixed Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Ruins of Beverast, Stargazer, Timeghoul, Tomb Mold, Warforged
Sprawlingly ambitious and truly singular, Otherlike Darknesses transcends the boundaries of death-doom metal, bringing to life a breathtaking vision of longform progressive songwriting, ever-evolving motifs, gripping textural soundscaping, and the most satisfying full-album experience of the year for my tastes. I absolutely adore the types of albums that have such overly massive ambitions, and the artists who are brave enough to attempt to put them to record. Even if such records end up falling short (they almost always do), the pure conceit behind the vision is such an awe-inspiring experience that any shortcomings end up not really mattering, or even become singular quirks that turn into strengths over a long enough period of time. Felgrave has produced one such record here: composed of three sprawling tracks ranging from twelve to eighteen minutes, Otherlike Darknesses is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before, to the point where my recommended artists above are just kind of stabs in the dark. Glacial, atmospheric doom metal blossoms into whirling progressive death, and each track evolves and iterates upon itself so perfectly and so thoroughly that it’s nigh-impossible to imagine them going any differently. Felgrave has seemingly looked into my mind and created an album tailor-made specifically for my niche preferences, and the result is that Otherlike Darknesses is one of those albums where my only gripe is “there’s not enough of it”. At the same time, I can’t imagine adding anything would improve it. Upon listening, I’m left with both a feeling of complete and utter satisfaction and an insatiable yearning for more. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the next Felgrave album, or at least the next time I can get an uninterrupted spin of Otherlike Darknesses again.
Recommended tracks: Winds Batter My Keep, Pale Flowers Under an Empty Sky, Otherlike Darknesses (yes that’s all of them, so what).
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | original review
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