I did promise you more, and I do intend on keeping that promise.  As a way to both make it up to myself and you, since I got super behind on putting out my usual lists, I thought I would do an extra-good job on this one, which as I’ve mentioned before is rapidly becoming one of my favorites to work on.  Last year left me with no shortage of albums I missed out on, so I actually had simultaneously the easiest and hardest time picking what was going to go here.  There was simply too much that I couldn’t get to, and some of the inclusions in this column leave even me scratching my head, wondering how it could have taken me so long to get around to them.  All the same, I am starting to feel more like myself, and the part of myself that hungers for new music has been having an absolute field day picking up where circumstances left me off.  These albums stand up there with the best of what 2025 had to offer, despite my lateness, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks so.

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Gloombound – Dreaming Delusion

“Dream Unending with fretless bass” is how Colin described Gloombound to us, and from that moment I knew, no matter how late in the game, I had to find a time to check Dreaming Delusion out.  Boy, did I ever find all that and so much more.  This is the kind of death doom that is very heavy on the doom in all the best plodding, sludgy ways.  And when the death kicks in?  Brother, we’re off to the moon.  Those guitar solos are absolutely insane, and there is an intense ferocity felt in every moment on this album, especially paradoxically in their impeccable use of silence and space.  With the synths and strings being the icing on the cake, this might just be my new favorite obsession from last year.  And, since you’re wondering, the fretless bass *is* especially delicious in this context, a place you don’t often see call for such an instrument.

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Terzij de Horde – Our Breath is Not Ours Alone

It took me a long time to warm up to this album.  You’d think, with their combination of black metal, hardcore and screamo, Terzij de Horde would be an easy sell for me, but there has always been something elusive about their albums that make them slip past me without much consideration.  I had to make a conscious choice to sit with Our Breath for a while, but when I did it finally clicked for me.  This album is very heavy on the black metal, but the emotional resonance of the hardcore comes through in Joost Vervoort’s bark and rasp, and when he bellows “THEY WILL NEVER FORGET US AGAIN” I feel that shit in my bones.  The angular, weaving guitar lines go back and forth between being melodic and jarring, setting the mood perfectly for the storm that rages from moment one to close of Our Breath.

For even more, and more gooder, word on Our Breath is Not Ours Alone, check out Hera’s expectedly excellent review.

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Psychonaut – World Maker

Psychonaut was a train that it took me a while to climb aboard, but once I did, I was hooked.  Their proprietary mix of prog, sludge, and technical metal is a blend of some of my favorite genres on the planet, and the group’s brilliant songwriting chops means that everything is weaved together in a way that is more than the sum of its parts.  On World Maker, Animals as Leaders-type tapping riffs show off a modern, djent-like flair to the riffs, all while maintaining the balance of space and atmosphere against the crushing weight of the sludgy goodness.  Beyond it all, there is a really cerebral nature to Psyschonaut’s music that tickles me in a way that really only Pelagic Records bands do, and this release might just be the best thing that came out of one of my favorite labels this year.

Hera done did another one, and you can read it right gosh dang here.

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Weald and Woe – Far From the Light of Heaven

We may still be waiting for a new Obsequiae album, but castle metal is alive and very much well.  Weald and Woe capture that signature sound that started with one band and now has blossomed into a full-fledged subgenre, all while maintaining a style of their own.  All the melodicism and sensibility of older, more established bands is on full display, but Weald and Woe manage to up the “metal” part of castle metal in a way that kicks absolute ass.  The riffage here underpins the soaring melodies in a way that makes everything feel grounded and cohesive, but the songs are also allowed to ascend to the glorious heights that castle metal, by definition, naturally wants to reach.  Honestly, the whole package is so appealing it makes me want to don some plate mail and go to town on those who would dare insult the crown.

Not only did Colin write a stellar review of Far From the Light of Heaven, he also sat down with some of the rising stars of castle metal for a conversation on the state of the genre as a whole!

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Julien Baker and TORRES – Send a Prayer My Way

I told you there would be more about this album!  In a post boygenius world, we can STILL rejoice that the core members are doing their own thing, and that thing is good.  It took me a minute to get it together for Send a Prayer My Way, but I trust Julien Baker implicitly, and while I’m not overly familiar with Mackenzie Scott, aka TORRES, I’m absolutely impressed with what I’m hearing from the two of them.  Send a Prayer is a country album in a way that, blessedly, misses all tropes that make the genre the cookie-cutter shitshow it currently is, and grabs firmly onto the greats of singer-songwriter music with both hands in a white-knuckle grip.  The way Scott and Baker’s voices intertwine with each other is pure magic, and the simple arrangements allow their deft lyricism to shine through in brilliant colors.

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Igorrr – Amen

“Blastbeat Falafel” might take the cake as the best song title from 2025, and you know what?  The song itself isn’t too shabby either.  If you’re stuck on the question of how to define what Igorrr does, you’re missing out on the fun along the way.  Amen is zany and grandiose in all the ways that an Igorrr album should be, with just-barely a hint of serious underpinning that keeps it all together, between the folk, industrial, opera, breakbeat electronics and more.  There really isn’t anything that Igorrr can’t do, and Amen sees the collective operating at the same high standard of execution they are known for.  All that said, Amen is just a pleasure to listen to, and I find myself literally laughing out loud at some of the more outlandish aspects of these songs, because they are goofy and unexpected, but also because of how well they just plain work.

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Author and Punisher – Nocturnal Birding

The entire ethos of Author and Punisher is astounding.  There is DIY, and then there is Tristan Shone, and the made-from-scratch electronics that dominate the musical landscape of Author and Punisher are consistently a delight to listen to.  Nocturnal Birding is also an album that, on a surface level, lets me flex my Biology degree in a very satisfying way before giving in to deeper, darker themes, all while pummeling you with some of the harshest harsh noise I’ve heard in a while.  The key is, as always, balance, and there are some moments of real, tender contemplation that pepper Nocturnal Birding, often accompanied by real and imitated bird calls, that make this album come alive and ground the moments of unbridled chaos.  Nocturnal Birding is as much a musical marvel as it is an engineering one.

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Jonathan Hultén – Eyes of the Living Night

After going his own path and separating from Tribulation, Jonathan Hultén is making perhaps the last kind of music anyone but him would expect.  But then again, it’s great that he has the opportunity to be true to himself, and Eyes of the Living Night is another notch in his already accomplished belt.  More dynamic and with a wider variety of instrumentation than Chants From Another Place, it still leans on the folk and singer-songwriter influences that typify his current musical endeavors, albeit now with a lot of the rock flair thrown back in.  It’s at once more experimental and more fleshed out, but still retaining the gentle easy quality that makes his solo work feel dreamlike and ethereal.  Hultén’s sultry croon is like no other, and this set of songs showcase his chameleonic prowess and his music’s ability to weave into my brain and my heart.

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Castle Rat – The Bestiary

Admittedly, I am no stranger to Castle Rat, but getting around to listening to The Bestiary took more time than I would like.  Silly me, because this album kicks absolute ass in all the ways you would expect and hope for it to.  An album themed around magical creatures and a wizard shooting spells all over the place?  Sludgy trad-metal riffs and ripping guitar solos?  Riley Pinkerton wailing about said wizard and creatures clad in chain mail?  There is literally nothing about The Bestiary that isn’t instantly enjoyable.  It is just goofy enough that it doesn’t take itself seriously, it is serious enough that the insane chops of the quartet are on full display, it is effortlessly cool in the way that classic metal from the 70’s is, it is sleek and modern in the presentation and execution.  It is all things to all people, and the amount of hype that The Bestiary has gotten is so well deserved that I just had to be the one to glaze it one more time.

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King Vatra – Bells From the Deep

As always, we close with an EP, and this is one that I discovered, not because of the band, but because of the label.  In looking back on last year, I knew there would be at least one Fiadh Productions release I should have checked out but didn’t, and it turns out that I am right and Bells from the Deep is that release.  The self-described “vapor cave” release is composed primarily of analogue synthesizers under deconstructed French and Romanian poetry, chanted “with zero-phonetic awareness but primordial conviction”.  It is a supremely compelling listen, and it is just the thing that I find myself getting sucked into for a little meditation session.  This is as chill as chill gets while still having a premise that is so interesting and unconventional that I can’t help but go digging for more under the surface.

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It literally just dawned on me while I was writing this exact piece that I have passed the six year mark of writing for this site.  What initially began as a fun hobby turned into a new way to connect with my sibling and now-wife, which turned into a method of survival during the pandemic, which blossomed into a genuine love and appreciation of our little corner of the internet over here.  If you’ll allow me to get sentimental for a moment, my life is infinitely better because I get to do this, and while every day or week or month might not come up roses, at the very least I still get to do this, and I will hold on to that.  We’ve already got a STRONG start to 2026, so there is no time to waste now.  We’re so back.

-Ian