Here’s a thought: maybe it’s not that the quality of music changes year after year, it’s how our need for music changes year after year. I was going to start this by saying it seemed impossible to write about every album that moved me and slowed my seemingly inevitable descent into depression and anxiety, despite already listing out over 60 recommendations throughout my Stoner & Psych list, my Prog Rock & Metal list, and my Honorable Mentions for 2025. But was music actually better this year? Or was it that I needed that music more than ever? Something to stop the psychic bleeding from a thousand terrors – both real and imagined – that I suspect a lot of us endured over the course of these 12 months.
Last year I wrote about how, as I approach a decade writing for Nine Circles, I do this because I love music, I love the friends I discovered through this site and community, and I love sharing the music that moves us. It felt like that tether, that connection was even more important in 2025. Writing here for metal and over at my personal site for everything else was vital for my continued existence on this rocky planet orbiting the sun.
So here we are, diving into another rambling list of 25 albums that moved me, connected with me, and gave me some respite from the fiery hell of existence. One thing remains ever constant: there is a universe of sounds to be discovered, and I continue to try and pry open enough of myself to experience it.
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The Inner Circle
My Top 25 Albums of 2024, Part I: Albums 25-10
25. Mean Mistreater – Do Or Die: I moved away from the street-tough heavy metal that was my lifeline earlier in the year, but since coming back and re-appraising the early releases I was right that Mean Mistreater would continue to float on top with the other heavy hitters. A year on and the razor-sharp riffing of Quinten Lawson and Alex Wein haven’t dulled a bit on Do Or Die, and Janiece Gonzalez’s voice is one of the best in hard rock right now. Come for rip-roaring tracks like “Nothing’s Free” and stay for the slightly longer but no less rip-roaring doom majesty of “Walk With Fire.” (reviewed here)
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24. Castle Rat – The Bestiary: There’s a reason The Bestiary, the sophomore full-length from the “don’t call it cosplay” Brooklyn band Castle Rat, is on every outlet’s end of year lists: beyond the theatrics of their costumes and fantasy-driven live sets, the band rock the trad doom vibe harder and better than practically anyone right now. This is one album that absolutely earns its ALL CAP song titles, from the galloping rush of “WOLF I” to the blowing wind that closes the adventure on “PHOENIX II”. And have I mentioned Riley Pinkerton’s voice? There’s a gravel in her howls that sounds 100 years old but, it’s the rough edge to complement her soaring clean tones, deep and resonant. The fact that it’s backed by some truly vicious arrangements courtesy of the rest of the band doesn’t hurt tracks like “The Count,” “The Plague Doctor” and “The All-Seeing Druid.” Some fantastic thick production from Randall Dunn is icing on the gelatinous cake, so to speak. (reviewed for the Sep/Oct 2025 catchup here)
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23. Leather Hearse – Burn in Heaven / Decalogue: For the longest time the two EPs from Leather Hearse were my biggest push to the community because they weren’t available for streaming and there were no physical copies. It was Bandcamp or nothin’ until Southern Lord jumped in. Now I no longer need to cheat for this list because Burn in Heaven/Decalogue is available everywhere…and on beautiful vinyl no less. But what is Leather Hearse, you ask? It’s heavy…it’s metal…it’s a molten pursuit of the almighty riff, with a changing and evolving collective (led by guitarist Tannon Penland of Loincloth) intent on laying down one twisted track after another. Ignore placement; listen to “Air In Crypt Is Thick” to understand why you need this immediately. (reviewed for the May 2025 catchup here and Chris’s mid-year review here)
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22. Cradle Of Filth – The Screaming of the Valkyries: Oh Dani Filth, what are we going to do with you, ya little scamp? Your band up and quits in fits and starts over what increasingly seems like shitty contracts and management, and yet…I cannot help but love what Cradle Of Filth (which autocorrected to Cradle of Fish for some reason – man I want to keep it) hath wrought on The Screaming of the Valkyries. Indeed, I have continued to live deliciously after initially worrying when guitarist Richard Shaw left thanks to songs like “Demagoguery” and the retro black metal fervor of “White Hellebore.” If this is your last hurrah, at least you went out in style. (reviewed here)
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21. Dormant Ordeal – Tooth And Nail: Somehow we were graced with the being of light you all know as Zyklonius who, even as he’s stepped back from writing duties to focus on spreading his divine love to an uncaring and unfeeling world, he continues to make his spectral presence known via his excellent musical tastes and recommendations. Case in point: the dynamic, atmospheric blackened death of Dormant Ordeal. The Polish duo enlisted drummer Chason Westmoreland to provide the cage-rattling pulse behind Tooth and Nail, the band’s fourth album. I specifically call out Westmoreland because hot DAMN the drumming on this album is ferocious. “Orphans” is one of the standout tracks of the year, and the rest of the album sits at the same level. (reviewed in my mid-year report here and on Zyklonius’s Best of 2025 post here)
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20. Psychonaut – World Maker: I remember being over the moon upon discovering Psychonaut, the Belgian post-progressive, post-metal group that fits right in on Pelagic Records. But where I think the band stands out is in the melodic and songwriting sense, and World Maker doubles down on those components. The opening title track is lovely, and “Endless Currents” ably shows the band can do the mathy, Tim Henson-inspired thing in a way that actually serves the song without showing off. It may take a little too long for things to get to the energy levels I want, but by the time of “And You Came With Searing Light” (godDAMN that middle section) it’s in the pole position. (reviewed here)
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19. Century – Sign Of The Storm: I still think Sweden’s trad metal duo Century ending their latest LP with “Sorceress” is one of the best overall metal moments of 2025. Oh, and Staffan Tengnér’s high-pitched yelp! in the second half of “Sacrifice” would be another. As would all the riffs, harmony vocals, solos, and reverb that envelop Sign Of The Storm like a cloak. It’s a tight no-filler record for every one of its 38 minutes, but it will forever be the way they perfectly channel Di’Anno-era Maiden on “Sorceress” that keeps this band in my heart and on this list. (reviewed for Consuming the Tangible here)
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18. Hooded Menace – Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration: Putting aside for a moment the fact that I think it would read better as …TO Obscuration, the latest from Finland’s Hooded Menace is so damn good I honestly had to check back a few times to make sure I was still listening to the same band. The growth on Lachrymose Momuments Of To Obscuration (see?) is incredible, the focus on hooks and structure in a way that reinforces the scuzzy doom distortion without diluting anything. Songs like “Portrait Without a Face” are thick and lush, massive-sounding guitars and drums, sweeping harmonic licks and pick slides all bowing in supplication to the diseased throat of vocalist Harri Kuokkanen. (reviewed for the Sep/Oct 2025 catchup here)
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17. King Witch – III: If there’s a running theme through a lot of my picks, it’s a rock and roll swagger, sometimes disguised as theatrics as in CoF, but more often than not just metaphorical (or literal) balls out, crunching and crushing in the hot, humid jungle of street-tough hard rock. “Suffer In Life,” in other words, as in the opening track of III, the latest from King Witch. Laura Donnelly is a demon, her voice pulling everything out of guitarist Jamie Gilchrist, his mammoth tone supported by Rory Lee, who puts a bottom end so heavy I’m surprised there’s as much clarity in the production as there is. This thing sat in my top 10 forever, and to be honest I can’t wait to put “Swarming Flies” on one more time… (reviewed for Consuming the Tangible here)
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16. Havukruunu – Tavastland: If there’s another theme that ran through my listening this year, it was discovering bands everyone else was on years ago, but always left me cold. In the case of Havukruunu, it helps that “Kuolematon Laulunhenki” which opens the group’s latest Tavastland might be not only the best song they’ve ever recorded, but my favorite metal track of 2025. The opening moments of this thing are a textbook lesson in metal song craft regardless of genre. A group I always admired but never connected with finally connected with me. It’s probably the more overt rock and roll elements, sometimes gleefully reaching into ’80s metal with “Kuoleman Oma” before sliding into viking metal. Whatever it is, it’s fantastic and catchy and maintains every ounce of CVLT cred. (reviewed as a Second Circle here, Chris’s mid-year report here, and Colin’s Best of 2025 here)
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15. Dessiderium – Keys To The Palace: “Grand, majestic and beautifully anthemic…” That’s precisely how I started the #15 spot last year with Borknagar, but it perfectly captures what I hear in Keys To The Palace, the decade in the making latest album from Alex Haddad, aka Dessiderium. This is gorgeous, uplifting technical progressive metal that takes the shimmering orchestrations and conceptual tapestry of power metal and the pummeling double kick and disjointed riffs of technical death and progressive metal. I can’t believe that Haddad wrote and recorded practically everything (Brody Taylor Smith handles session drums) on epics like “In the Midst of May” or the way his songwriting and vocals can jump seamlessly from one genre to the next made this my technical metal album of the year…almost. (reviewed here, Chris’s mid-year report here, Zyklonius’s Best of 2025 here)
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14. Weft – The Splintered Oar: Let’s talk about the biggest surprise jumper of the year. It’s entirely possible that The Splintered Oar by Charlie Anderson, the multi-faceted violinist and musician who has been such a great presence on Panopticon’s last few releases, here strikes out on his own (with an assist by Lunn who plays drums) as Weft. To continue the surprising (from me) baseball terms, let’s call this a home run. It took some time to get to it after a late release date change, but the lovely progressive metal elements (that bass!) expertly blended in with atmospheric black metal on tracks like “False Kingdoms” and “The Hull” instantly drew me in. On the list it went. The real surprise came a few listens later, each spin moving Weft further up the rankings until, well…here we are. Given another week of listening it probably would have made the Top 9. Excellent debut. (reviewed here)
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13. Messa – The Spin: My biggest complaint when it comes to Messa and their best album since their inception is that it is SO DAMN HARD TO FIND A VINYL COPY IN THE U.S. without paying an exorbitant price. Thanks, tariffs! In the meantime, I have The Spin on CD, and the spinning indeed has not stopped. The heavy distortion has been dialed back from 2022’s Close, the heaviness coming instead from the amped post-punk and gothic new-wave pulses, and on tracks like “Void Meridian” and the epic “Thicker Blood” vocalist Sara Bianchin expertly demonstrates why Messa’s self categorization of playing “Scarlet Doom” is so apt. (reviewed in the Sep/Oct 2024 catchup here, and covered in Chris’s mid-year report here)
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12. An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City: To once again emphasize how little ranking matters when it comes to lists like this, An Abstract Illusion was originally in the #4 spot. The move of The Sleeping City down to #12 has nothing to do with the quality of the release – if anything, each listen has made this monster of a progressive metal album better and better, as the band move away from the straight Opeth worship into something a little more left-of-center, and a whole lot more engaging. Right now I’m convinced “Emmett” is the best song due to the phenomenal second half of its 11-minute runtime, but I’m sure that will change on the next listen. (reviewed in the Apr 2024 catchup here, and Zyklonius’s Best of 2025 here)
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11. Howling Giant – Crucible and Ruin: Even if one of my favorite modern metal bands didn’t make the Top Nine, Howling Giant have still put out one of my favorite records of the year with Crucible and Ruin. An expanded group brings more dynamics and more shredding to the band’s perfect blend of stoner, progressive, and straight up anthemic rock, but I was surprised this time by how much I gravitated to the more aggressive tracks like the mammoth two-part “Beholder” – easily one of the heaviest things the band have ever put out. Did I grab the big swag package with the shirt, koozie, and autographed lyric book? You bet, and that vinyl sounds fabulous on my setup. (reviewed here)
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10. -(16)- – Guides For The Misguided: We’ve hit that part of the review where I second-guess every choice I make. I’m listening to “After All” from Guides For The Misguided, the latest from sludge lords -(16)- and it’s still a rock revelation to my ears. When Josh and I decide to jointly cover an album, you know it’s one to check out ASAP. I love when a band finds ways to stay as heavy and brutal as ever while simultaneously expanding their sonic scope. -(16)- do just that on “Blood Atonement Blues” and the I-can’t-believe-this-isn’t-a-Corrosion-of-Conformity-track in the stellar “Fortress of Hate.” (reviewed by Josh and Chris here)
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The Ninth Circle
My Top 25 Albums of 2025, Part II: Albums 9-1
9. Yellow Eyes – Confusion Gate: Is this the biggest and best surprise of the year? We knew to expect another album from Yellow Eyes, one that was more aligned to their earlier efforts than the minimal murk of this year’s “prelude” album Master’s Murmur. And it was fine; I listened a few times and then went back to my life. And then, out of nowhere, the Skarstad brothers, along with Alex DeMaria on bass and Michael Rekevics on drums, drop Confusion Gate, the perfect realization of Yellow Eyes’ take on feral roar of USBM, translated through their unique perspective on the natural wonders of the planet.
This is the band’s most melodic album to date, and the field recordings work seamlessly to haunt around the edges of the guitars and drums. Sax makes a beautiful forlorn appearance on “The Thought of Death” and the overall instrumentation helps make Confusion Gate not only one of the best black metal releases of the year, but also one of the best produced – a longstanding critique of mine, both for the band and the genre as a whole. But this right here? This is how you do it right. (reviewed in the Jan 2024 catchup here and discussed in the mid-year round-up podcast here)
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8. Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound: No other band on this list has made as great a jump in my level of enjoyment than Agriculture. I can only say that they went from an “I can’t stand this” debut to “holy crap how is this even the same BAND?!” on the city-leveling The Spiritual Sound. Now, I’m sure even the most ardent Agriculture fans will agree the group have expanded and grown into their sound, but that doesn’t explain the cosmic leap in quality I’m hearing. I can only chalk that up to my own spiritual growth…meaning I got my head out of my ass and realized the band were this good all along, I just needed to get on their wavelength.
And oh, what a wavelength. Where do you even start? With the rumbling bass and guitar vortex that announces opener “My Garden” like Slipknot falling into a pit of snakes with black metal in their fangs? Or the INSANE guitar tone on the solo in “Flea?” Or the perfect d-beat rhythm adoring the blackgaze punk vibe of “Micah (5:15am)?” And those are only the first three songs on The Spiritual Sound. I could keep going for every song on this career highlight. (reviewed for Consuming the Tangible here)
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7. Between The Buried And Me – The Blue Nowhere: Look, I know Between The Buried And Me were around and doing stuff. Hell, I still fondly recall cheating back in 2018 when I put the combined Automata EPs together as #23 on my list that year. But I’ll be honest: I didn’t like the Colors II album for a myriad of reasons, only one of which was the weird taste of the whole “album sequel” thing. It kinda felt like the band were running out of steam, and then all the guitarist crap went down, the band signed with aging prog rock label InsideOut (a label I love, BTW), and I thought maybe that was about it.
Oh, how wrong I was. The Blue Nowhere is the band’s most exciting album in forever, its experiments more successful, its tried and true formula honed to a fine blade and just as capable of a killing blow as a four-piece as they were with two guitarists, a huge credit to Paul Waggoner who slays on every track. But damn if I’m still not utterly captivated by Tommy Giles Rogers and the way he contorts his voice. I’m still over the moon on the fury of tracks like “God Terror” and suspect things will stay that way for a time to come… (reviewed here)
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6. Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power: Do I even need to write anything? I mean, four of the staff members have it as their #1 album of the year. I wrote up a full review as well, focusing on the trajectory Deafheaven plotted with each album since the debut. In many ways Lonely People With Power feels like the culmination of everything the band have been striving for, and it’s strangely given me more respect for Infinite Granite. It’s still not a favorite of mine, but I can now see how it needed to be made to get the band to this point.
“This point” being the best album of Deafheaven’s career. Yes, that includes Sunbather, which might have been more innovative and game-changing as an album, but if I’m being honest I often find an exhausting listen. Not so here: once the brief intro ends and we enter the majestic full-chord noise blast of “Doberman”, I am completely hooked until the final moments of “The Marvelous Orange Tree” whispers away. (reviewed for Consuming the Tangible here)
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5. Nite – Cult Of The Serpent Sun: Merriam-Webster defines “riff” as “an ostinato phrase (as in jazz) typically supporting a solo improvisation; also: a piece based on such a phrase”. Below that (trust me) it further defines “Almighty Riff” as what it’s called when Nite play a riff. Many of us were onboard with 2022’s Voices Of The Kronian Moon, pushing it all the way to #2 on the staff’s combined list that year, and I suspect something similar will happen with Cult Of The Serpent Sun.
The San Francisco band churn out some of the best full-throated heavy metal this side of Paradise. Songs like “Crow (Fear The Night)” and the title track never forget how to get the crowd throwing fists, and “Carry On” carries the weight and awe of the best Smith/Murray songs. IYKYK. (reviewed for Consuming The Tangible here)
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4. Ancient Death – Ego Dissolution: I get woozy thinking about those woozy guitars and universe-wandering bass that wends their way to technical grind before lumbering back to old school DEEP in the pocket death metal throughout the entirety of Ego Dissolution, the debut full-length from Ancient Death. I’m glad these looks were deceiving, because with the “is Michael Whelan suing?” cover art I was thinking this was going to be an Obituary rip-off. Nope! Underneath the death metal murk there’s a wildly precise progressive thrash band gleaming its circuitry every so often. I haven’t been this enamored of a death metal record in forever.
And they have no fear when it comes to mixing in a little gothic death/doom as they do on the magnificent “Breathe – Transcend (Into the Glowing Streams of Forever)” with some sublime dual vocal work, or the more punishing aspects of “Echoing Chambers Within the Dismal Mind.” I can’t praise the production on Ego Dissolution enough: the guitars and bass somehow have this incredible clarity despite also carrying more fuzz than a cat under a couch. It allows you to get into the nooks and crannies of their dense arrangements and complex ideas. (profiled here, covered in the Apr 2025 catch-up here, and Chris’s mid-year review here)
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3. Rwake – The Return Of Magik: I can’t tell you what it was that made Fearless Editor Josh™ place it as his #1 Album of 2025 (I’m sure he can), but I can tell you the exact moment I knew The Return Of Magik signaled the return of Rwake to my life and to my own list: the introduction of that gorgeous pedal steel on opener “You Swore We’d Always Be Together.” That brief, fragile moment of grace in a maelstrom of distortion and rage awakened a moment of divine bullet-belt clarity within me.
Five massive slabs of sludge that mesmerize with the sheen of toxicity, averaging around 10 minutes (the final outro is a gentle, acoustic goodbye at under two minutes) apiece. The title track is another great example of why 14 years between albums was worth the wait, but the coup de grace is “Distant Constellations and the Psychedelic Incarceration.” It’s the center that binds the entire album together, a progressive epic hidden in the filth and mud. (reviewed in the Oct 2024 catchup here, and reviewed in full at Consuming the Tangible here)
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2. Bask – The Turning: I wish I could be the kind of person that discovers a band that connects with them in such a way they instantly accept it. Me? I hear Bask for the first time by way of their amazing new album The Turning and I was galvanized. For like 30 seconds. And then I spent about a week berating myself for not discovering the band earlier. As if the ability to discover a band is bound by such petty constraints as time, you know?
It was similar to the first time I discovered the music of Howling Giant and Sergeant Thunderhoof…and what do you know? When I discovered them, they landed in the #2 spot that year, too. So yeah, a lot of similarities in style, but what sets Bask apart to my ears is their incredible grasp of Americana and folk, and how those styles (even a little country) can concoct a wonderful amalgam of sounds that is distinctly about place, and culture. I absolutely adore the varied instrumentation of strings, horns, and synths that pushes tracks like “In The Heat of The Dying Sun” and the haunting “Long Lost Life” over the edge of what everyone else is doing and charting untrod musical paths. (reviewed here)
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1. Turnstile – Never Enough: How do I even start explaining the impact this album has had on me? Prior to Never Enough, I really had no connection to Turnstile; I read about it and saw clips when the community at large fell for the hardcore/emo/punk/rock/pop hybrid, but 2021’s Glow On left me cold. At the time the music felt proprietary to a much younger crowd; I listened but couldn’t connect to the sound, the thematic intent…I was happy to chalk it up as “not for me” and move on.
But then 2025 hit, and it’s hard to put into words how the madness of the world (as I see it) married and blew up the already present mental and emotional issues I was dealing with. And then one of my closest friends died – suddenly, tragically, and way, way too young. And I got angry – I’m still angry, and I suddenly found myself listening to “Sole” and “Dull” and finding a cathartic outlet for my rage, anger, and feelings of helplessness. I would dance, I would slam, but most importantly I would sing as loud as I could all the dozens of hooks each song offered up.
I think that’s the real trick of Turnstile, at least from my perspective. Sure, they’re all incredibly tight and professional musicians: drummer Daniel Fang is such a great drummer and timekeeper it’s hard not to single him out as the MVP, but his effectiveness is only as good as his fellow band members ability to lock in with him. Between the twin-guitar attack of Pat McCrory and Meg Mills, not to mention Franz Lyons on bass, they do just that. The mental telepathy at play here is phenomenal, and I’d put them against any other band right now in the rock arena with the odds being Turnstile blows them out of the water.
I mean, have you SEEN their Tiny Desk Concert?
Now that you have, you can see why I’m saving vocalist Brendan Yates for last. His knack for melody, for hooks, and for keeping everything anthemic and heavy even as he incorporates more and more pop and electronic elements is incredible. That he can fuse pop into these songs without them sounding at all “soft” or “poppy” is a revelation I am still coming to terms with. All I know is that when I listen to Never Enough, it finds the hole in my heart and mind and begins the long and arduous process of making repairs. (reviewed for Consuming the Tangible here)
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The ink has dried. Candles are nothing more than wax impressions, the only light blue and struggling for breath on the end of a dead wick. It’s time to turn over, close our eyes, and dream of the world as we wish it would be.
I hope whatever your soundtrack is, it keeps you heavy, and keeps you safe.
— Chris