Let’s be real - 2025 sucked for a multitude of reasons. There’s fascists in positions of power, the Earth is burning, there’s an ongoing genocide, and AI is encroaching on everything we love. But at the very least, it was a great year for new music. I’m usually able to create a top 25 list without too much hassle, but this year I had to bump it up to 30. As much as I wish to keep the list small for once, there were just too many great releases this year.

After months and months of re-listens, lyrical analysis, and wracking my brain, I’m happy to finally share my top 5 albums of the year, followed by rest.

Messa made waves in 2022 with their album Close, and I was one of many caught in it. It was heavy, it was slow, and it was delightfully weird. The Spin took me by surprise, and in all honesty left me disappointed on my first listen. It’s poppy at times, leagues more accessible than its predecessor, and leans far more toward an 80’s goth sound rather than the doom metal I was expecting.

Eventually I decided to give it another try and it clicked. I remembered that I actually enjoy the fun goth-rock of the 80’s, and that none of these aforementioned qualities have ever really been a negative in my book. So why would they be now?

Messa has never made the same album twice, and that rings true with The Spin. It’s a much more approachable take on doom that draws from post-punk - like if Sonja were trapped at the bottom of a well. Sara’s haunting, echo-y vocals paint a dark atmosphere that envelopes the whole length of the album. Lead guitarist Alberto Piccolo really shines, embracing his blues side and crafting a brilliant rock ‘n’ roll solo on each song.

The third track, Fire on the Roof is where the real fun begins for me, as this is where The Spin starts to feel more metallic. The traditional doom metal chorus feels colossal, with Sara’s mesmerizing howls ringing like a ghost. The Reveal and Thicker Blood also get real heavy, with doomy grooves that make you move your whole body and the latter literally ending with pained screams.

The height of the album by far is the one-two punch of Immolation and The Dress. The first half of Immolation is a bluesy piano ballad with quiet, somber vocals, while the backend is a blistering guitar solo, leading beautifully into the next track. The Dress is a monolith - a power ballad at over 8 minutes long that recalls the experimentation of Close. It’s dramatic, it’s velvety, and those loud, doomy guitars are back for the chorus. The song sways between soft and heavy, with an epic trumpet solo in the middle before its grand conclusion. The Dress makes sure to go out with a bang.

The Spin may have been a swerve in the opposite direction, but Messa still continues to put out hit after hit. Even though it’s shorter, more palatable, and much less exploratory than previous releases, it’s a fantastic album that elicits repeats.

Favourite track: The Dress

I hadn’t heard of Unreqvited before this album, and I’ve never had a first impression leave me this awestruck.

Unreqvited has mastered the art of combining glimmering cleans and petrifying screams with this progressive black metal/blackgaze masterpiece, A Pathway to the Moon. The album begins with a beautiful 2 and a half minute ballad, lulling listeners into the skies above before being thrown into the monstrous void that is the beginning of The Antimatter. It’s hard to even pick apart this album because I keep finding myself completely swept away by this point - or off in another world as the saying goes. Just know there’s angelic soundscapes, synth passages, and some dreamy guitar playing. This perfect blend of ethereality and heaviness has earned its rightful place on the AOTY list.

The Starforger is without a doubt the uncontended prettiest song of 2025. An 8 minute epitome of “opposites attract”, where 鬼 (Ghost)’s tender singing meets his powerful screams, dreamy guitar tones meet punishing drums, and euphoria meets doom. The track beautifully narrates the phenomena of a star’s birth, and for 8 minutes I completely forget the chaos of the world and am wholly surrounded by the universe’s natural beauty that we all tend to forget about.

A Pathway to the Moon is an incredible work of art, beaming with self-expression. I tend to be real picky with both black metal and anything prog, but Unreqvited has brilliantly united the two in an unholy matrimony that will wisp you away into the darkness, and through the beauty of the galaxy.

“Beautiful” doesn’t look like a real word anymore.

Favourite track: The Starforger

I’m admittedly not as well-versed in hip-hop as I’d like to be, but I love when it’s absolutely unforgiving, and Let God Sort Em Out by Clipse hits you like you’ve just killed a boss and they’ve stood up again with a second health bar.

The heart-wrenching track, The Birds Don’t Sing opens this album - a tribute to the duo’s late parents with an emotional chorus by John Legend. You’re then whiplashed in the complete opposite direction with Chains and Whips, which pulls no punches and really prepares you for how ice cold the rest of the album is. 

Pusha T starts each track, setting the tone with that smooth hostility that he’s known for. Then Malice comes in and his verses are more clever and vicious than they’ve ever been, with his delivery making every bar sound like a personal attack. Pharell’s beats are more tame this album which some may find underwhelming, but I’d say this combined with the ghostly synth and boosted bass work so well to amplify the Thornton brothers’ sneering and create this overall eerie feeling of the entire record. Let God Sort Em Out is an album overflowing with venom, with an impressive roster of features with Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator, Ab Liva, and Nas to name a few.

An incredible comeback. Let this be a lesson that you’re never too old to make something incredible and impactful, ‘cause Pusha T and Malice are here at the top of their game here at 48 and 52 respectively. Plus, I have yet to hear lyrics that top “Penne alla vodka [...] All of you impasta”.

Favourite track: So Be It

Much to the elation of their fans, in 2022 Allegaeon announced that their original vocalist, Ezra Haynes, is back on the frontlines after his departure seven years ago. While I have nothing negative to say about now-former vocalist Riley McShane, Hayne’s presence on The Ossuary Lens is felt immediately, and was undoubtedly the correct decision to make for a triumphant return.

Lately, Allegaeon have been known to indulge in long, progressive epics, which in my own opinion was often to their detriment. The Ossuary Lens cuts out the excess and leaves us with a Goldilocks tale of technical melodeath with just enough progginess. With a 45 minute runtime, it’s also Allegaeon’s shortest album - it’s lean and it’s mean, it’s just right.

The minute-long intro track Refraction is a deceptively soothing siren song - a peaceful acoustic melody that blooms right as the listener is dragged into the depths with the much less forgiving Chaos Theory. The two perfectly foreshadow the rest of the album’s composition of gnarly, technical aggression with some beautiful melodic interludes in between. There’s sprinkles of clean vocals throughout the album that transition ever so seamlessly with Hayne’s gravelly screams. The bass, as always, is pronounced and celebrated, and of course, it wouldn’t be an Allegaeon album without its abundance of guitar solos.

It was difficult to choose just one favourite track from this album, as so many of them shine for so many different reasons. Driftwood’s soaring clean chorus and catchy hooks get stuck in my head for days. The Swarm fits into its title like a glove - it’s so speedy and hectic it’s anxiety inducing, and I can see the circle pit forming as it starts. Wake Circling Above takes an epic turn towards black metal, starting off slow and building up as the song progresses. Haynes also really shows off his impressive vocal range, from his snarls, to his gutturals, to his extraordinary clean vocals on the chorus. Dark Matter Dynamics is such an interesting track, I’ve never heard anything like it. It begins with exuberant fingerstyle acoustic guitar by Adrian Bellue that somehow manages to continuously blend and transition oh so harmoniously with Allegaeon’s intense death metal melodies in a strange, beautiful marriage of guitars.

Needless to say, bringing Ezra back paid off tremendously, and I hope he’s here to stay this time. The Ossuary Lens is such a uniquely diverse yet harmonious album, and a masterful composition of crushing shreds and gorgeous melodies. Plus, how perfect is it to have an album with an overarching theme of death on the list for 2025? It’s almost poetic.

Favourite track: Tie between Wake Circling Above / Dark Matter Dynamics

Páthos was one of my favourite albums of 2022, and to no surprise Conjurer has made the top of the list once again - now in first place! Unself is heavy as hell musically, lyrically, and emotionally, and melts the best parts of sludge, death, and black metal into pure gold.

Unself reflects on the oppression of the most vulnerable and tears it wide open, with inspirations from vocalist/guitarist Dani Nightingale’s discovery of being autistic and nonbinary. It’s emotionally raw and unapologetic, and completely drowns whoever’s willing in its themes of ostracism, isolation, and the struggles of not fitting into society’s rigid, capitalistic cages which punish neurodiversity and gender-nonconformity. Musically, the album gets heavier as it progresses - with the exception of the Pallbearer-esque closer - with small breaks of tranquility amongst the intensity. The musical and emotional shifts perfectly reflect the complexity that comes with self-discovery, making Unself a flawlessly executed masterpiece.

The titular first track, which is a twist on an old gospel song, is one of the most successful intro tracks I’ve heard when it comes to setting the tone for the rest of the record. It lures you in with gentle acoustic strums and delicate, melancholic vocals. Halfway through, the electronic feedback slowly creeps in, growing louder and louder, dragging you into this doomy, claustrophobic environment. It finally closes with painful screams, low guitars, and slow drum beats crashing in hard, inviting you into this emotional typhoon of an album. The closing track, This World Is Not My Home, calls back to this intro piece in a louder, much more anguishing tone, and gives the album a story-like conclusion.

As a trans person, Let Us Live is the hardest hitting track for me, to the point where it’s difficult to listen to at times (which, rest assured, is a huge compliment). The past few years have been an extremely difficult time for transgender people, with anti-trans bills sweeping all across the UK, the US, and Canada. If the title wasn’t self-explanatory enough, the track is a vehement call for society to finally accept that trans people have always been here and we always will be, and that we’re as deserving of respect as anyone else. It ends with the line “LET US LIVE” being screamed repetitively, which I think is safe to say how we’ve all been feeling this whole year. Just an insanely powerful track.

Conjurer gave us Unself as a means to reach out to those who feel alone and out of place, and they were greatly successful in their mission. They’re brutally direct in both their musical assault and in their lyrics; it’s made for an immensely inspiring and empowering album. Thank you Conjurer for another incredible record, for giving trans people a voice, and for speaking out against injustice.

Favourite track: Let Us Live

And now, without further ado, here’s the full top 30! Albums 6 through 30 are not in any order. We’d be here until 2027 if I made any attempt to do so.

If you made it this far - thanks so much for reading! Here’s to an even better 2026!