Ranking:
I decided to get rid of in between numbers because it was too much work for me since I listened to 100 albums. Number five is the best and number one is the worst.
I will start with the best albums to the worst. I have also split my album list into "Metal", "Punk", and "Non-Metal." But the overall winner, comes from any of these three categories. I grade music based on: style of music, musicianship, lyrics, album art, mixing and production. I don't include eps or demos. Please note this is just my opinion and my personal taste.
Every year, I listen to bands I do not like to give them a chance. Or to see if my tastes have changed. In some ways they have. In my teens there was no way I would ever rank doom metal as high as I do now.
In my 2024 AOTY I was hopeful about 2025. Boy, was I wrong. 2025 was the year that stupidity reigned and I felt powerless. 2025 was the year of stale metal albums. Perhaps, I am reverting back to my punk roots. I found punk music when I was 11-years -old. Or maybe I am old and miss when metal made me feel excited. But this year, most of the metal albums were basic and did not stand out. That's why my top 10 are examples of how to make a great album.
Surprises:
Coroner, Sodom, and Lord Belial surprised me with how good their albums were. They're old, but they still know how to create killer tunes. Blut As Nord is another band that I never understood the hype for. But this year, I really liked their album.
On the other hand, I did not expect that one of my favorite bands in the whole world, Katatonia would write a terrible album and disappoint me. I'm about to rant in Swedish. Maybe then Jonas will hear me. VAD HAR DU GJORT!! DETTA ÄR INTE KATATONIA!!! MEN JONAS PROJEKT! VAD VAR DU TANKER! INTE KONSTIGT ANDERS NYSTRÖM LÄMNADE! And for those who don't speak Swedish. I basically said Katatonia is no longer the Katatonia that all the fans love or remember. At this point, Katatonia should break up. Jonas can make a new band with the current members. I LOVE Katatonia so much that seeing Jonas change it hurts me. I will now qoute "Follower" from The Great Cold Distance, but with my own feelings.
So when you come. I'm too unprepared to come along. I hold my Katatonia albums so hard, my knuckles turn white, when Jonas clears the streets and kills the band. Katatonia should have called it quits at "Sky Void of Stars." That was a great album.
Don't get me started on Dark Angel. What the hell was that album? It's a hot steaming bowl of diarrhea. Younger me would have been livid because Dark Angel used to be one of my favourite bands. But at 37 I just accept that some people do not grow wiser in their age, but become dumber. Honestly, Dark Angel deserve everything that happens to them for all their bad decisions. Suddenly, these people get old and they forget everything they believed in. Thrash is dead because no actual thrasher would ever choose an AI album cover. How can a person call themselves a musician and then be like, "You know what?! I have no integrity left! Let's not pay an artist. Even though artists need money, just like musicians. Let's instead, enter a prompt from my stupid brain." Gross. Someone please slap or punch me if I ever give up on my principles. But who in their right mind, would actually pay to listen to the new Dark Angel?
Winner:
But now for the moment you've all been waiting for. And it's not to hear me bitch and whine about old metal bands.
THE WINNER OF THE ALBUMS OF 2025 GOES TO...
1. CAUSTIC WOUND
As always please purchase this album or merch from the Caustic Wound Bandcamp.
Grinding Mechanism of Torment is how I would describe 2025. Music, friends, and my partners were the only things that kept me focused and stopped me from crashing out.
But I survived like I always do. Because I refuse to quit. Just like the music I listen to. Caustic Wound is one of the many bands that was born from the ashes of Cerebral Rot splitting up.
I love deathgrind and goregrind the most because it combines my love of death metal and grindcore/hardcore.
Caustic Wound is a perfect symphony of sickness. Clyle Lindstrom's vocals are gutteral and vomitrocious just the way I like it. I'm always jealous of people whose vocals sound like they're choking on bile because if I was a vocalist I would love to sound like that.
The riffs are melodic and catchy. Similar to Swedish death metal but downtuned further. The drum and bass are the proveyers of the punk sound. The drums and bass are a punch to the gut that makes a person go, "Ohh that's filthy." Every element of this album was clearly planned out and executed to perfection. I like how the two-stepping parts lead the listener further into the song. It's cute because it's like a child skipping becuase they're happy. Or maybe that's just me because d-beat fills me with so much joy.
There is a total of 16 songs, but the album goes by fast because of how well each song blended creating a chaotic flow. Grinding Mechanism of Torment left me wanting more. That was a rare feeling for me since most of the metal bands this year created mediocre albums. I am starting to think most metal bands are running out of ideas. But then again Coroner and Sodom can still kept my attention. The album art is also true to goregrind. It's gory, but also has an old school hardcore vibe to it.
And now for the rest of my rankings.
Metal
5
Everything is perfect! I LOVE THIS!
2. Lik - Necro
3. Sepulchral Curse - Crimson Moon Evocation
4. Corpus Offal - Self-Titled
5. Centinex - With Guts and Glory
6. Havukruunu - Tavastland
7. Omnium Gatherum - May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way
8. Hooded Menace - Lachymose Monuments of Obscuration
9. Blood Monolith - The Calling Fire
10. Phrenelith - Ashen Womb
11. Runemagick - Cycle of the Dying Sun (Dawn of Ashen Realms)
12. Evoken - Mendacium
13. Dysentery- Dejection Chrysalis
14. Pissgrave - Malignant Worthlessness
15. Terror Corpse - System of Apocalypse/Ash Eclipse Flesh
16. Coroner - Dissonance Theory
17. Putridity - Morbid Ataraxia
18. Primitive Man - Observance
19. Cult of Fire - The One, Who is Made of Smoke
20. Amorphis - Borderland
21. VoidCeremony - Abduction
22. In Mourning - The Immortal
23. Mephitic Corpse - Sickness Attracts Sickness
24. Paradise Lost - Ascension
25. Novembers Doom - Major Arcana
26. Drudkh - Shadow Play
27. Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons
4
Potential to be a 5 but something is missing.
28. Relics of Humanity- Absolute Dismal Domain
29. Sodom - The Arsonist
30. Lord Belial - Unholy Trinity
31. Lust of Decay - Entombed in Sewage
32. Internal Bleeding - Settle All Scores
33. Helheim - HrabnaR/ Ad vesa
34. Sanguisugabog - Hideous Aftermath
35. Ribspreader - As Gods Devour
36. Lamp of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy
37. Eluveitie- Anv
38. Vintersorg - Vattenkrafternas Spel
39. Unleashed - Fire Upon Your Lands
40. Peeling Flesh - PF Radio 2
41. Putrescent - Darkness Embraced
42. Phobocosm - Gateway
43. Cadaver - Hymns of Misanthropy
44. Degraved - Spectral Realms of Ruin
45. Disarmonia Mundi - The Dominant Stranger
46. The Halo Effect - March of the Unheard
47. Ancient Death - Ego Dissolution
48. Malefic Throne - The Conquering Darkness
49. Helloween - Giants & Monsters
50. … And Oceans - The Regeneration Itinery
51. In the Woods … - Otra
52. Gaahs Wyrd - Braiding the Stones
3
Average
53. Revenge - Violation. Strife. Abomination
54. Cancer - Inverted World
55. Ghost Bath - Rose Thorn Necklace
56. Vile Apparition - Malignity
57. Grave Infestation - Carnage Gathers
58. Cryptopsy - An Insatiable Violence
59. Malformed - Confinement of Flesh
60. Teitanblood - From the Visceral Abyss
61.Castrator - Coronation of the Grotesque
62. Crypt Sermon - Saturnian Appendices
63. Retromorphosis - Psalmus Mortis
64. Proscription - Desolate Divine
65. Avulsed - Phoenix Cryphobiosis
66. Manegarm - Edsvuren
67. Destruction - Birth of Malice
68. Sabaton - Legends
69. Imperial Triumphant - Goldstar/Imprints of Man
70. Hate - Bellum Regiis
2
A for effort. But this album does not spark joy in me.
71. Katatonia - Nightmares as Extensions of the Working State
72. Lipoma - No Cure for the Sick
73. Abraded - Ethereal Emanations from Chthonic Caries
74. Benediction - Ravage of Empires
75. Revocation - New Gods, New Masters
76. Sadist - Something to Pierce
77. Qrixkuor - The Womb of the World
78. Warbringer - Wrath & Ruin
79. The Haunted - Song of Last Resort
80. Before the Dawn - Cold Flare Eternal
1
There are no words to express how much this album sucks! Did these bands even try?!
81. Vildhjarta - Dar skogen sjunger under evighetens granar
82. Elvenking - Reader of Runes
83. Harakiri for the Sky - Scorched Earth
84. Equilibrium - Equinox
85. Dark Angel - Extinction Level Event
Punk:
86. Scalp - Not Worthy of Human Compassion (5)
87. Scrab - Burn After Listening ( 5)
88. Ingrown - Idaho (5)
89. Jivebomb - Ethereal (5)
90. Agnostic Front - Echoes in Eternity (3)
91. Biohazard - Divided We Fall
92. End it- Wrong Side of Heaven (3)
93. Pupil Slicer - Fleshwork (1)
Non-Metal:
94. Wardruna - Birna (5)
95. Ulver - Neverland (5)
96. Perturbator - Age of Aquarius (5)
97. Danheim - Heimferd (5)
98. Health - Conflict DLC (4)
99. Sowulo - NIHT (4)
100. Nytt Land - Songs of the Shaman (4)
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