On record, 2025 was my busiest year and it’s not even a close competition. Not gonna lie though and looking back, I loved every second of it. My listening habits were split between runs, the gym, and the windshield where I racked up quite an impressive block of time despite that being pretty much it for anything audio related. Ridiculously, I always feel like I didn’t cover enough ground come this time of year, release-wise, but who am I always kidding?! No way I’d cover every freakin’ thing that drops, ever. So, there’s that. I heard enough and wrote enough of our Initial Descent columns to know that 2025 was a killer year for metal. Even more so for death metal in particular, but I’m getting ahead of myself. While I had a good year, I know everything for a lot of folks appears to be coming apart at the seams. Trust me when I say that it’s all in how deep you burrow into the shit you’re being fed. So, stop it and enjoy life…you only get one. Anyway, let’s get after it.
Right about here is where I usually go into some lame qualification about what this list is and is not. But, I’ll spare you this time since you, dear reader, are smart and already know. While true, many albums I really enjoyed did not make this list, nine “The Best” and nine “The Honorable Mentions” is the limit because branding, as always. Included here are the albums I just could not live without. As I get older, music that makes an impact and/or makes me feel something grabs and holds my attention while everything else just falls by the wayside.
With all that said I’ll leave you with this fact and we’ll get on with it: at the end of the day the most important things in this life are family, your health, close friends, and good music. Everything else is just static and will distract you from what’s important so choose your important wisely. Alright then, my best of 2025…
The Best
1. Rwake – The Return of Magik
Cosmically atmospheric sludge metal is, I guess, the closest descriptor to what Rwake create but even that only hits half the story. I’ve had a long history with this band due in large part to their unwavering dedication to doing things their own way and being completely different than anything else out there. Each album is a moment in time with each being vastly different so in that discography, I’ve never had a favorite. I love them all, Rwake is such a special band. The Return of Magik, if anything, uncovers a more mature and patient approach with its spoken word sections and long, slow ritualistic builds to payoffs that crash the senses with gut wrenching doom and glorious post-metal. It’s about as close to a religious, otherworldly experience as can be lived by way of music. Patience, my friends, is needed though. This is not an album to grab a song or two from and definitely not a playlist album…that’s heresy. Do what I’ve done so many times: drop the needle, melt into wherever you are, and forget everything else for its nearly hour runtime. I am forever in their debt for this instant classic. Thank you Rwake.
2. Malefic Throne – The Conquering Darkness
The Conquering Darkness is the album I’d have pointed anyone to that might’ve been looking for the definition of extreme metal in 2025. Full stop. This thing is batshit crazy. Massive, relentless, merciless, nimble, nuclear, evil, dark…I could go on but it’s obvious after that word buffet what’s going on here. Honestly, I did not expect a supergroup of sorts to obliterate death metal since that kind of thing rarely happens with supergroups of any kind. Yet, this is their collective best work in ages. Hard to believe John Longstreth performs here with more energy than all his days in Origin but, he nails it. Hard to believe Gene Palubicki makes his guitar bleed harder here than anything he did in Angelcorpse but, he nails it. Hard to believe Steve Tucker sounds more ferocious and guttural than he ever did in Morbid Angel but, he nails it. This outing is already a stone cold classic for me and one that I doubt this trio will ever top. And, that’s ok. My hats off to these guys for putting out my favorite death metal album of last year and beyond. When you see what else made this list, you’ll understand how enormous that statement really is…
3. Nite – Cult of The Serpent Sun
Chris mentioned in his feature review that most of us here at 9C are over the moon on Nite. I am among that ‘most of us’ on staff that agree. Give me arena ready metal meshed with a blackened attitude and I’m ALL IN on it. But, give me this AND make it somehow better than their last album…well, you get my drift. I said this back in 2022 (in my best of list, no doubt) of Voices of the Kronian Moon: “…this is the kind of heavy I could see a band like early Emperor making if they ever got the itch to do a straight up trad metal album.” I still stand by that statement now that we’ve got Cult of the Serpent Sun to chew on. The biggest differences from then and now are just how much more epic and grand this album feels as well as how much more necessary it feels. I mean, without bands doing what Nite are doing and as well as they are doing it, we will lose what makes metal so great. And folks, we cannot have that. Thank the dark lord we’ve got Nite to carry us on to the promised land.
4. Throne – That Who Sat Upon Him, Was Death
Throne is blackened death metal for fans that are tired of blasts that go nowhere and riffs that fall flatter than a deflated colostomy bag. My mind was blown three minutes into the opening track with just how many different things I’d heard: ripping trem picks, ferocious death metal riffs, blast beats big enough to fill an NFL stadium, and some of the cleanest death growls put to tape in 2025. And, I still had the rest of the album to experience. But, rest assured, the remainder never wavers from ‘mouth hits floor’ reactions even this far removed from release date and this many listens in the bag.
5. Chaos Inception – Vengeance Evangel
Imagine prime-era Krisiun and Monstrosity sitting around wishing they were as good as Chaos Inception are on their third full length Vengeance Evangel. Deny that all you want but I challenge you to sit with nothing but this album for a few weeks and soak it all in. And until you do that, get off my lawn. The band describes it best: “its power and atmosphere come from unrestrained force and exquisite composition. Vengeance Evangel is savage death metal in its purest, most unyielding form.” Relentless death metal that exists to challenge status quo and demand more from itself than just being another shitty entry in a long line of shitty entries is my kind of death metal. THAT is what we’ve got here.
6. Lipoma – No Cure For The Sick
No Cure For The Sick is the album I didn’t know I needed until I did. This thing impressed the hell out of me with its melodic-death-goregrind-classical-cookiemonster attack on the senses and man, what a one-of-a-kind RUSH! I can’t think of one band to compare this to or throw out a RIYL sequence for, but if extreme goregrind meets classical medieval tones meets power metal meets riffcentric death metal seems like a good time then this is THE album to put on and throw a party with. The riffs alone are worth the price of admission but hearing the rest of this genre-fluid salad just makes me happy, time after time after time. Kudos.
7. Qrixkuor – The Womb of The World
On paper, the complete wall of inexplicably terrifying and ferocious sounds that emanate from The Womb Of The World should not work. Nor should it be as thrilling and mesmerizing as it is either. Yet, here we are. The more I sampled, the more I felt like Frank Cotton opening the Hellraiser puzzle box…I just couldn’t take it all in fast enough or completely understand what I was opening but knew it was destiny. It’s four tracks of deliriously psychotic deconstruction and reconstruction of death and black metal into an altogether different and sinister beast.
8. Despised Icon – Shadow Work
If all deathcore was done as brilliantly violent and beautifully sounding as Shadow Work, it would be the only thing I ever listen to. If only. The melodic solos were the biggest surprise here and something you just don’t hear from this type of record, or genre for that matter. The band’s control of sneering death metal, wonderfully brutal grindcore, melody, and super catchy rhythms all combine to make this Despised Icon’s best album to date and a total ‘from left field’ moment for me. I’m not a ‘make a part 2’ person but damn, let’s do it sometime in the future, guys.
9. Slôdder – Narcissist
Sludge metal makes bedfellows with the worst side of the human experience better than all the varied branches of extreme metal combined. It’s like taking a trip down skid row and seeing the devastation first hand; the sights of humanity bleeding out, the smells of human decay, and the sounds of mankind slipping into oblivion—all set to agonizingly slow riffs and feedback that could pierce a vault. Eyehategod were the first, and best, to do it and over time many have tried to stand atop their mighty mountain. In comes Slôdder to summit that peak and stand triumphantly. Yes, they are THAT good.
The Honorable Mentions
Cryptopsy – An Insatiable Violence
Cryptopsy have had so many opportunities to fold over the years and no one would’ve blamed them but here they are for album nine and better than ever. The classics are untouchable but this album comes damn close.
Ghost – Skeletá
I fully believe this is “THE” penultimate version of Ghost we’ve ever been given. Bigger, better, more hooks, more glitz and glam, more of everything that makes this diamond shine its brightest.
Killswitch Engage – This Consequence
Soaring, uplifting, catchy…all the things apply to This Consequence, which consequently is KsE’s best album ever. There. I said it.
Inhuman Condition – Mind Trap
More bounce to the ounce of Floridian death metal is what Inhuman Condition have to offer and I’m buying every ounce of it, again.
Castle Rat – The Bestiary
Heavy metal that’s exactly as it should be: traditional and classic yet fresh, exuberant, and necessary all at the same time. Plus, those VOKILLS!
-(16)- – Guides For The Misguided
Abrasive as sandpaper to the skin and dirty as a bloody needle, this one continues a long legacy of killer sludge.
Bleed From Within – Zenith
Zenith was a late find for me but made an enormous impact. It’s metalcore with a heart and soul in lieu of the half-assed, and way too processed, trash that’s typical from anything with the word ‘core’ in it.
Bronson Arm – Casket Schwagg
Love this band and on this, their sophomore effort, they bared fangs for a more aggressive, hard-hitting attack on the senses. While noise rock, as a genre tag, can’t contain them anymore they are still 100% grounded to it, in the best of ways.
Dax Riggs – 7 Songs For Spiders
Inescapable darkness set to a beautifully quiet and contemplative soundtrack. Dax could sing the phonebook and make it hurt so good.
The Playlist
A small but ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY thank you list:
- Thank you to our family of writers for another year together. You guys really do rock. Even though I wasn’t present as much in 2025 as in the past, you guys killed it again and need to know how much we appreciate it. Love all y’all!
- All the PR folk who keep us smothered in stuff to cover and keep us in mind for some great opportunities. Even though we may not jump at all of it, we take it all to heart.
- All the bands that reach out and trust us with their material, we take it very seriously and are very appreciative. We do in fact read every email and/or DM over socials and trust me when I say we make every effort to cover it all, even if it’s just a mention in Initial Descent.
- The Top Brass here who are not only the BEST but also are the brothers I never had. Much love from me to you. BROYTERS!
- And YOU, yes you, for coming back time and time again to read all our stuff and see what we’ve been up to. It helps knowing there’s at least a handful of you out there that read more than one post a year. Thank you!
And with that, I’m out. 2026 holds my hope to review a few more albums, squeeze more life out of my human experience, and continue experiencing that outstanding Rwake album that sits atop this list and post.
— Josh