Is it just me, or was 2025 a much stronger year for rock and metal than last year? I had a hell of a time whittling this down to 15, to the point that I ended up making a separate list just for EPs and short albums. From swirly space rock to brutal death metal, progressive black metal to industrial doom, and everything in between, this year was a real barnstriker. So without further ado, here are my top 15 rock and metal albums of 2025.
I once read a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories while listening to Chris Poland's Return to Metalopolis, and it was a mind-altering, transformative experience. Never before had music so effortlessly transported me somewhere else. Since then I’ve tried to recreate that experience and mostly come up empty. Tyrannosaurus Dimension is the rare exception. Ross Learn writes with a sense of direction that a lot of instrumental metal lacks. The riffs are memorable, the pacing is sharp, and the album has a clear arc instead of sounding like a highlight reel. The songs move between heaviness and atmosphere in a way that stays engaging. As I wrote in my earlier review:
Pt. 3: Visions Beyond proves that Pt. 2 wasn’t a fluke. He’s got the same rare knack for making an instrumental track feel like a journey you want to go on.
Writing about a friend and neighbor's band can get weird, especially when you’re trying to be honest and not turn your hobby into an awkward encounter on your next dog walk. My general approach is to not to start none so there won’t be none. But this debut earns the exception. It’s dark and heavy, and the Tony Kiritsis concept gives it a nasty, but fascinating undercurrent of local Indianpolis lore. As I wrote in my mid-year review:
Honestly, if this album sucked, I’d have just pretended I hadn’t heard it. Fortunately, it rips… Fans of Eyehategod or Thou will eat this up, but even if this isn’t your favorite subgenre (it’s not mine), this is still worth your time
Trad metal usually leaves me cold, and I’m picky about raspy vocals outside of black and death metal. Nite got around all of that by taking classic heavy metal songwriting and giving it a blackened edge. The twin leads and galloping riffs are there, but the grit keeps it from feeling too put on. It’s fun in the way a lot of modern metal forgets to be, and seeing them live at Black Circle in Indianapolis confirmed they can actually deliver the goods. As I wrote in my mid-year review:
The music leans on classic heavy metal elements like twin leads and galloping riffs, but filters them through a black metal lens with rasped vocals and a gritty edge. You might expect corpse paint and hooded robes, but instead you get a band that shows up ready to rip and leaves you humming the riffs.
I went into this expecting another round of Khôra’s more unhinged, spacey weirdness, and Ananke isn’t that album. It’s more grounded and traditional, but it still has Khôra’s sense of texture and those subtle off-angle turns that keep the songs from feeling too straightforward. It took me a few listens to stop wishing it was weirder, but in time it became one of my most-played black metal records of the year. As I wrote in my mid-year review:
The songwriting is tight, the mood is consistent, and there is still enough off-kilter flair to keep things interesting. A slower burn than its predecessor, but well worth the time.
This is the kind of progressive black metal I’m always on the hunt for: grim, intense, and clearly written by people who care about actual songs. It avoids endless tremolo riffing and blastbeat pummeling, the bass work adds real character, and the choruses are memorable. It’s dark and intricate, but it still has momentum and replay value. As I wrote in my full review:
The album feels less like a random collection of songs and more like a single composition. ‘Perfect Slave’ might be the centerpiece, verses grim and direct, then opening into clean-vocal choruses with a big melodic lift.”
I’m a sucker for old school thrash, especially when it’s got clean vocals and an actual personality up front. I'm no prude when it comes to harsh vocals, but so much modern metal is interchangeable because the singers are all barking in the same exact style. Leave it to the old timers to show how it's done, with singer Charly Steinhauer's voice having aged like a fine wine. He sounds a bit like Hansi Kursch here, which is always a huge plus. And come to think of it, this album has big Blind Guardian energy throughout, though with more of a thrash tinge. Don't sleep on this one, it's a banger of an album.
I know it’s popular to hate Spotify these days, and I get it, but the recommendation engine still puts me onto stuff I’d never find on my own. TORSO’s Annihilation Day is one such album, chock full of killer riffs and lengthy tunes that somehow never overstay their welcome. Their bandcamp page says FFO: Nirvana, Darkthrone, Church of Misery, Uncle Acid, Satan’s Satyrs, Mastodon, and Acid Bath. That's a diverse and entirely accurate list of touchpoints. You know what to do.
A spiritual sister to Death’s classic album Human, I fully expected this to be a bit of a novelty listen that I would appreciate and then forget. But I've found myself coming back to it over and over, and a weird thing happened. When I'm listening to it, I actually forget sometimes that I'm not listening to Death. My brain starts filling in Chuck’s presence like it belongs there. I can actually see Chuck performing these songs in my head and it makes perfect sense. What a gift to Death fans and metal lovers in general. As I wrote in my mid-year review:
Silent Echoes marks Gruesome’s entry into Death’s most adventurous era, and it works. It genuinely feels like the lost sequel to Human.
Man, what a year for thrash! Another Spotify discovery that absolutely slayed for me this year. Hostilia nail that late 80's Bay Area thrash sound, leaning heavily on Exodus and Testament. One thing they bring that most modern thrash bands are sorely lacking is the vocal hooks. These are some catchy-as-fuck songs and the dudes make it sound easy. Check out 'Face the Fire', 'P.T.D.' or the mid-tempo stomper 'Bone Collector' that sounds like it was plucked straight out of Chuck Billy's brain. GREAT album! And mixed by Division of Laura Lee's Per Stålberg, for whom I am a card-carrying fan club member.
Talk about an emotional arc. From mild disappointment to increasing appreciation to non-stop listening, my emotions ran the gamut for Tremonti's latest. It’s not the thrash-leaning Tremonti record I hoped for, and it’s heavier on ballads than I expected. But Tremonti’s songwriting ultimately won me over. If you only try a couple songs, 'The Bottom' and the title track are solid entry points. As I wrote in my mid-year review:
Somewhere along the way I stopped skipping the slow songs and started craving them. The title track is another slow-burn with Tremonti sounding genuinely vulnerable, damn near heartbreaking.
Man, I really wanted to do a track-by-track review of BELIEVEYOUME this year, and I just never got around to it. This album is a huge leap forward after 2020's Schadenfreude, which I enjoyed, but also found a bit lacking in the energy department. Fortunately the band is back with a fully intact sense of purpose. The highest compliment I can pay is that when we saw Shiner live at Black Circle this year and they mostly played songs off this album, I was not mad at all. In fact, I kind of forgot I was listening to newer songs, as the band sounded so confident playing the material. As they should. BELIEVEYOUME is one of their best.
Not only was 2025 a great year for thrash, it was an exceptional year for death metal too, and Landkrieg would have been a death metal AOTY winner in plenty of other years. It opens with an unexpectedly moody, almost Opeth-like intro, then gets right to pummeling you for 40+ minutes. While a casual listen might paint Scalpture as a simple death metal band in the vein of Bolt Thrower, the deeper you go, the more you hear the band exploring different textures inside the songs instead of leaning on one blunt-force approach. If you want heavy death metal that’s as satisfying to dig into as it is to headbang to, this one delivers.
This was definitely a welcome surprise. Seeing Coroner live in a small club with a few hundred other nerds felt like a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and then getting a new release a few months later felt even more unreal. I went in with low expectations given how long it’s been since their last album, but Dissonance Theory doesn’t sound like a legacy band dusting off old moves. It sounds like Coroner spent all of those decades rehearsing and writing, preparing for this one epic thrash album. That said, it is something of a slow grower. There aren't a lot of stand out hooks. But what it lacks in accessibility, it more than makes up for in precision, with each note feeling like it was obsessed over. The final result is as proficient a demonstration of top tier thrash as you are likely to hear in 2025.
Did I say 2025 was an exceptional year for death metal? I was wrong. It was a BANGER of a year for brootal death metal, and no band did it better than Ashen in my book. The production on this album is about as modern, clean, and accessible as you can get without losing that brutal edge. For those craving cavernous or super filthy death metal, Ashen may be a little too polished. But for me, this is the perfect match of crushing heaviness and a production that lets you hear exactly what the band is doing. Great songs here too, from start to finish, with just enough variety and dynamics to keep things interesting. Check out 'Aeon', 'Blood Offering', or the excellent title track for evidence that this is your new favorite death metal band.
It took me a while to come around to Author & Punisher. A friend raved about the live show years ago, so I checked it out, respected it, and still found it a little too abrasive for my day-to-day listening. Then I finally saw the band live at Black Circle last year and everything fell into place. That show reframed the whole project for me, with the material off Krüller in particular hitting me as this layered, dreamy, industrial wall of sound. Now here we are with Nocturnal Birding, which is a bit of a bridge between the old and the new. It's angrier, shoutier than Krüller was, but remains surprisingly accessible. Almost too accessible at times.
My first reaction was that it sounded like a sharper, meaner Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson, and it took a few spins to shake that comparison. Over time it’s proven to be a lot more than that, with songs that really get under the skin. It’s got layers of gnarly guitar and industrial noise, but with enough atmosphere to make the heaviness feel emotional instead of just punishing. I may still slightly prefer the gentler, dreamier pull of Krüller, but this balance is really cool too. And seriously, if you ever get the chance to see Author & Punisher live, do it.
