Here is our FIFTH annual year end wrap-up curated by The Real Mister Terrific. We listened to more than 180 new albums in 2025 and went through the painstaking process of ranking our top 25. Get ready to crush your skull with 25 of the best heavy albums from 2025! The list will include only full-length albums of new material - no live albums, compilations, EPs, or reissues.
Leave a comment and tell us what albums were your favorites in 2025!
You can check out our Heavy Phucking \m/etal Best Songs of 2025 YouTube playlist at this link
We also ranked our 50 favorite songs of 2025 in case you missed it at this link
ALBUM OF THE YEAR:
Band: PUPIL SLICER
Album: FLESHWORK
2 Favorite Tracks: Innocence / Cenote
Release Date: November 7, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
Why it's my AotY: These brutalitarians from London, England have been developing their atmosphere-dense brand of dissonant heaviness for almost a decade and absolutely nailed the formula on third album FLESHWORK. This is a pulverizing set of songs which ebb and flow together brilliantly. Every track stands out with numerous little earworms emerging from the swamp and crawling into your head. Vocalist / band leader KATE DAVIES keeps her growls and screams up front while her dissonant cleans often haunt the atmosphere to great effect. The title track and SACROSANCT veer into sludge territory as GORDIAN and BLACK SCRAWL keep the beatdown going. FLESHWORK is the best work from PUPIL SLICER to date, and no other album in 2025 captivated me so entirely. 9 songs, each of them essential.
SECOND PLACE:
Band: RIVERS OF NIHIL
Album: RIVERS OF NIHIL
2 Favorite Tracks: Water & Time / House of Light
Release Date: May 30, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
Founding vocalist JAKE DIEFFENBACH is out while ANDY THOMAS of BLACK CROWN INITIATE joins the permanent roster (he's been a touring member since 2022). RIVERS OF NIHIL return with their most cohesive album since WHERE OWLS KNOW MY NAME, and some of their best songwriting yet. We are treated to a healthy mix of long-form progressive death metal (THE SUB-ORBITAL BLUES, HOUSE OF LIGHT, WATER & TIME) and violent, aggressive bangers (EVIDENCE, AMERICAN DEATH).
THIRD PLACE:
Band: ALIEN WEAPONRY
Album: TE RĀ
2 Favorite Tracks: Mau Moko / Tama-nui-te-rā
Release Date: March 28, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
This is the album I've been waiting for ALIEN WEAPONRY to make! The song arrangements are tighter, the hooks are catchier, and their blend of modern groove meets old-school thrash is perfected here. Plenty of gang vocals to shout along with, riffs that never let up, and a rhythm section perfectly locked-in. TANIWHA (featuring Randy Blythe) has an almost timeless sound to it with a song structure influenced by epic ‘80s thrash, guitar riffs of ’90s melodeath, and rhythm grooves of modern death metal. BLACKENED SKY and TE RIRI O TAWHIRIMATEA are augmented by some punk attitude and guitar heroics. With TE RĀ, ALIEN WEAPONRY have released the best album of their career so far.
FOURTH:
Band: ORBIT CULTURE
Album: DEATH ABOVE LIFE
2 Favorite Tracks: The Tales of War / The Storm
Release Date: October 3, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD [Japan Edition]
One of the most anticipated releases of 2025 and Sweden's modern melodeath darlings ORBIT CULTURE continue to scratch an itch that almost no one else can. Everything you love about their sound and songwriting style is well-represented on DEATH ABOVE LIFE as they continue to improve on production and arrangements. One of my favorite song progressions of the year is THE TALES OF WAR, HYDRA, and NERVE for 16 minutes of heavy metal perfection while BLOODHOUND is pure moshpit fodder. Oh, do yourself a favor and buy the Japan Edition CD, bonus track NUCLEAR GOD is worth the price of admission.
FIFTH:
Band: MOTHERLESS
Album: DO YOU FEEL SAFE?
2 Favorite Tracks: Reptile Dysfunction / Darling, You Don't Look Well
Release Date: September 12, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
Chicago sludge-dealers MOTHERLESS come out the gates full of piss and vinegar with a suffocating, violent, raw debut album that bludgeons you with no frills no bullshit no mercy. The production is claustrophobic making the band's performance feel like an assault from all directions while the vocals rage and scream desperately from beneath the murk. You will find hooks throughout this aural beatdown but they are sharp and jagged, digging into your ears and ripping flesh on the way out. DO YOU FEEL SAFE? is a journey through despair, fury, violence, and aggression all pushed to the extreme. Fascinating stuff.
SIXTH:
Band: CABAL
Album: EVERYTHING ROTS
2 Favorite Tracks: Everything Rots / Still Cursed
Release Date: March 21, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
EVERYTHING ROTS is my favorite deathcore / hardcore album of the year. Every track is a Certified Beatdown™ and I may or may not have blown a speaker in my truck courtesy of SNAKE TONGUES.
SEVENTH:
Band: BLEED FROM WITHIN
Album: ZENITH
2 Favorite Tracks: In Place of Your Halo / A Hope in Hell
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
Glasgow's BLEED FROM WITHIN continue their run of metalcore excellence and "drop the noose" with some of the heaviest tunes they've ever recorded.
EIGHTH:
Band: ALLEGAEON
Album: THE OSSUARY LENS
2 Favorite Tracks: Carried by Delusion / Wake Circling Above
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
NINTH:
Band: DORMANT ORDEAL
Album: TOOTH AND NAIL
2 Favorite Tracks: Halo of Bones / Horse Eater
Release Date: April 18, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
TENTH:
Band: MORAST
Album: FENTANYL
2 Favorite Tracks: Aratron / On Pyre
Release Date: February 7, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
ELEVENTH:
Band: WHITECHAPEL
Album: HYMNS IN DISSONANCE
2 Favorite Tracks: Prisoner 666 / Nothing is Coming for Any of Us
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
TWELFTH:
Band: COLD STEEL
Album: DISCIPLINE & PUNISH
2 Favorite Tracks: No Escape / Fever Dreaming
Release Date: November 7, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
THIRTEENTH:
Band: AN ABSTRACT ILLUSION
Album: THE SLEEPING CITY
2 Favorite Tracks: Blackmurmur / Emmett
Release Date: October 17, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
FOURTEENTH:
Band: -(16)-
Album: GUIDES FOR THE MISGUIDED
2 Favorite Tracks: Blood Atonement Blues / Kick Out the Chair
Release Date: February 7, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
FIFTEENTH:
Band: LACUNA COIL
Album: SLEEPLESS EMPIRE
2 Favorite Tracks: The Siege / Oxygen
Release Date: February 14, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
SIXTEENTH:
Band: CRYPTOSIS
Album: CELESTIAL DEATH
2 Favorite Tracks: Faceless Matter / In Between Realities
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
SEVENTEENTH:
Band: GRIMA
Album: NIGHTSIDE
2 Favorite Tracks: Beyond the Dark Horizon / Where We Are Lost
Release Date: February 28, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
EIGHTEENTH:
Band: DEATH WHORE
Album: BLOOD WASHES EVERYTHING AWAY
2 Favorite Tracks: Infernal Terror Machine / Motorthroat '79
Release Date: May 16, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
NINETEENTH:
Band: CRYPTOPSY
Album: AN INSATIABLE VIOLENCE
2 Favorite Tracks: Until There's Nothing Left / The Art of Emptiness
Release Date: June 20, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
TWENTIETH:
Band: IGORRR
Album: AMEN
2 Favorite Tracks: Infestis / Pure Disproportionate Black and White Nihilism
Release Date: September 19, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
TWENTY FIRST:
Band: ANGELMAKER
Album: THIS USED TO BE HEAVEN
2 Favorite Tracks: Silken Hands / This Used To Be Heaven
Release Date: November 20, 2025
Format Reviewed: Digital Album
TWENTY SECOND:
Band: BYZANTINE
Album: HARBINGERS
2 Favorite Tracks: A Place We Cannot Go / Floating Chrysanthema
Release Date: June 13, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
BYZANTINE provide some of the year's most exquisite guitar tones and melodies throughout HARBINGERS.
TWENTY THIRD:
Band: UPON A BURNING BODY
Album: BLOOD OF THE BULL
2 Favorite Tracks: Hand of God / Dragged Through Glass
Release Date: December 5, 2025
Format Reviewed: Digital Album
TWENTY FOURTH:
Band: FROSTHYMN
Album: FROSTHYMN
2 Favorite Tracks: That's How the Circle Closes / Arangas
Release Date: March 27, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
Frigid black metal transplanted from Siberia to Canada, FROSTHYMN are here to crack spines and brutalize moshpits.
TWENTY FIFTH:
Band: GUILTLESS
Album: TEETH TO SKY
2 Favorite Tracks: In Starless Reign / Teeth To Sky
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Format Reviewed: CD
Members of A STORM OF LIGHT, INTRONAUT, GENERATION OF VIPERS, and BATTLE OF MICE do what they do best - crush us all under the weight of oppressive, ugly, dense noise-sludge-doom with an apocalyptic atmosphere smothering the whole thing. On TEETH TO SKY, their debut full-length, GUILTLESS will remind you why you fell in love with sludge in the first place.
What do you think of our selection for top 25 albums of 2025? Check out our YouTube playlist featuring the year's best songs!