Anti-Peat’s Favorite Albums of 2025

There are a few albums here that aren’t really metal except by the most generous definition. Those picks however all possess an intensity of spirit, a taste in unsettling melody, and a penchant for unconventional dramatics that make them very much of interest to most metalheads. The Infinity Ring’s Ataraxia is no exception. Yes, the short form review of this album is folksy darkwave with a singer like old Leonard Cohen, but from a metal perspective they sound like a particularly brooding Inter Arma acoustic section. Over the course of a full album the songs blend together into a heavy, comforting blanket to slip under, only one made up of painful memories and bleak futures. It’s like the aural equivalent of a whiskey nightcap. If you can’t get metalheads interested in that, nothing makes sense any more.

You can set your watch by the inclusion of melodic black metal on my list. Somehow, most of it didn’t click with me this year, so praise be to Ymir for Istapp keeping things as they should be. Sól Tér Sortna has a folksy, triumphant sound to it like Istapp have just finished a grim battle (what creative process isn’t) and are proud to still be standing. That sort of metal always resonates with me (see Windir, see Fellwarden, see Hollenthon) and Istapp do it as well as anyone. In a year where I was in a less ruminative state of mind this might have landed far higher on the list as there’s some great hooks here. The problem with that idea though is while Sól Tér Sortna deserves to be higher, there’s nothing above this I’d want to move down.

One of my regrets about how 2025 went down at the Goat Review is nobody wrote a full review about how good Dormant Ordeal’s Tooth and Nail is. It’s an album I’ve cooled on a bit over the year but it’s still an excellent example of blackened death metal. Where as some people treat that combination as a cue for dramatic, melodic death metal, Dormant Ordeal chose violence. They’ve produced an album full of stripped down, snarling aggression that lives up to the name of Tooth and Nail. That’s not to say there’s no melody there, but it is entirely a by product of Dormant Ordeal’s full frontal attack. I don’t usually go much for the more brutal and uncompromising end of extreme metal but when I’ve wanted that flavor, Tooth and Nail has been there for me.

Habak’s Mil orquídeas en medio del desierto is a fantastic piece of crust that is very well named. You see, Habak have produced something that has all the unusual beauty of a thousand orchids in the middle of a desert, and all the harshness and expansiveness you’d expect from a desert too. A lot of that comes from the emo, post, and melodeath sensibilities that Habak incorporate in their work. That mix comes together to form shimmering melodies that contrast with the abrasive crust, and combines to form moments of grandeur like on "Dejemos hablar al viento" and the title track itself. This is powerful stuff, well balanced between anger at the world and life-affirming energy, and it deserves a big audience. Crust might be Habak’s home, but there are so many elements here that fans of every extreme music genre can find something that makes them happy here. So venture into the desert and see the flowers bloom.

If there are two metal sub-genres meant to be friends, it is black metal and post metal. Their shared appreciation for lengthy, repetitive passages of music aimed at creating dark atmospheres and thunderous conclusions makes for a fertile common ground. So why is the best post-black album of the year a trim thirty minutes, full of short snappy songs and gorgeous soundscapes? It makes no sense to me but that’s what Besna have done on Krásno. Somehow they’ve made post-black that’s almost poppy without sacrificing any heaviness. Besna still understands the power of tremolos and blastbeats on songs like "Bezhviezdna Obloha", creating epic moments out of the ferocious power it lends to the melody. The restraint they show in using these elements adds to their impact. All in all, Krásno is as different as it is good, and the bear didn’t oversell it at all.

I didn’t like Der Weg einer Freiheit’s Innern as much as Cosmo. I don’t think anyone, including the band themselves, liked Innern as much as Cosmo. I still liked it a lot. There’s a school of black metal today that takes the basic sound of 90s Norway and makes it full and dark rather than cold and thin, and Innern is the perfect example of it. It has all the fury and majesty, but it just sounds better. The post-metal and post-punk experiments that Der Weg einer Freiheit bought to the party here land less well for me, but they’re incorporated well, stop Innern from getting samey, and are at times beautiful. I particularly appreciate the Anathema-esque swell of “Forlorn”. Der Weg einer Freiheit are about the best thing going in straight-forward black metal today, and Innern is proof of that.

My list usually belongs to the moody and the weird, so pay attention when I tell you an album made it because it’s simply too much fun to leave off. Granted, my idea of fun is a kinda lo-fi black metal album with song titles like “The Horrors Persist But So Does Steel”, but trust me. Fell Omen bring big drunken party energy with their mix of Greek black metal and punk on Caelid Dog Summer, like early Iron Maiden after a bad trip. It’s music to mosh and flail around to, or to grab some foam swords and pretend you’re some nerd in Elden Ring doing whatever they do there (paging Dr Cosmo). Maybe that sounds like an album that should be a fun novelty but months later, the dog days of summer still aren't done.

I’d never really got on with Blut Aus Nord before trying out Ethereal Horizons on a whim, but I knew within seconds that this time would be different. For once, the album artwork is dead on, as Ethereal Horizons feels like the music I’d expect to hear if I was lost in the fog around great glowing space obelisks. It’s black metal with a soft, luminous atmosphere and vocals that sound like they’re coming from somewhere else in time and space. That is frequently the start of a very short path to boring me, but Blut Aus Nord show a superior sense of songwriting and melody, making what could be a dull exercise in atmosphere straight-up catchy. The result is that Ethereal Horizons has dominated my playlists through much of December and will stay in the rotation for some time.

Now for the least metal album on the list, stylistically talking. There are a few noisy, crashing guitar moments on The Distaff but for the most part, Maud the Moth is neoclassical darkwave centered around the haunting, powerful voice of Amaya López-Carromero. The core of it though, the emotion that winds the thread, is an embrace of darkness and otherness as salve and weapon against alienation and that’s as metal as it gets. Listening to The Distaff is like getting to overhear a therapy session as López-Carromero deals with grief - rejecting it, accepting it, leaving it behind, carrying it always - only framed in beautiful, vibrant music of crystalline clarity. Nothing else I’ve listened to this year sounds quite like Maud the Moth, and nothing has embraced the darkness more powerfully either.

On a list full of unusual, Uulliata Digir might be the most unusual. The best summary I can offer of their self-titled album is it’s a blend of extreme metal with downbeat jazz aimed at creating a chaotic, psychedelic soundscape. It’s like White Ward with no restraint, or a metal Dead Can Dance. Compared to the albums above it, all of which share elements of weirdness and psychadelia, Uulliata Digir lacks some polish and cohesiveness. It doesn’t quite have the same impact once you get used to what’s happening. That said, I still vibe with what’s going on a lot and if I think Uulliata Digir show some unfulfilled potential, that’s because I’m hyped for what they could be. Long live weirdo metal!

The very first album that started me thinking about end of year lists in 2025 was Zamāru Ultu Qereb Ziqquratu Part 1, dropping a mere 10 days into January. Is that a rational response? No, but neither is hitting play on an album the moment you’ve finished listening to it again. That’s exactly what I did with Wyatt E’s ode to ruins in the desert, though. The mix of droning rhythms, spaghetti western guitars, and soaring vocals transports me to the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, to the pitiless sun and mysteries of ages gone by. That mesmeric quality in Wyatt E’s doom metal means this could have very easily been my album of the year and I’ll be shilling it for a long time to come, even if I don’t think I’ll ever be able to remember its full name unaided.

A single word review of Mar da Deriva would be sinuous. The word has many implications - graceful movement, a meandering river, a complex shape - and all of them fit Vauruvã’s third album. Their take on black metal consists of long songs full of constant progression from idea to idea, all held together by a pensive, uneasy, almost violent atmosphere that comes from the guitars as much as the folk instrumentation. That sentence probably lost a lot of readers but for those remaining, Vauruvã’s brand of melody makes it work. Mar da Deriva may be a somewhat psychedelic experience with lots of little details to explore, but it’s also just straight up catchy and beautiful. So come for the beauty of Vauruvã’s journey through uncertainty and see where it takes you.

Many of us in the old listing game gnash their teeth and utter foul curses when a gem drops late in December. Much as I like interesting music being released all the time, I am gnashing and cursing over Lychgate’s Precipice. The album’s density and intricacy means I’d like a lot longer than a week to decipher it all. What I can tell you is that it’s a certified banger, one drenched in grand cosmic atmosphere like Arcturus or Blood Incantation but in a way that actually supports the ominous, scornful aggression and twisted Morbid Angel-does-black-metal melodies that Lychgate are reveling in. While the album is dense, the production lets every instrument come through, dark and vibrant. In time, I might find Precipice wasn’t only the best album of 2025, but a classic to be spun again and again. Right now though, I just think it’s downright cruel to us reviewers to release Precipice so late.

By and large my reaction to music consists of reactions you can have sitting down. It’s based on emotions and aesthetics, and sometimes technical appreciation. Arkhaaik’s Uihtis is a rare exception. Whenever I hear its powerful, stomping rhythms, I feel the need to pound my fists and bang my head. To dance around like I’m some tribesman of long ago circling the fire, shambling like the bear whose meat will give life to the tribe (only I’m a worse dancer like that). The combination of black and sludgy doom metal here is just a dynamic masterpiece, I am completely on board with the emotional and aesthetic aspects of Uihtis, but I’m even more hooked by the primal aspects of this album. I just like the way Uihtis grooves and I can’t wait to see how Arkhaaik follow this one up.

I knew early on in the end of year process that Contemplation’s Au Bord Du Precipice was my winner. It was the way I’d stare at the longlist working out what to play next and instead just reach for this album again and again. The winning formula on Au Bord Du Precipice is the way the jagged violins and moody clean melodies create this meditative state, and then a big old anvil of death doom riffdom drops right on you. The songwriting chops needed to make sure that balance works right are considerable and sole band member Matthieu Ducheine has them in plenty. He brings all those elements - and lets not forget the touches of dub - together seamlessly in a deeply impressive way. The result is a beautiful, cleansing experience that at its best, as on my undoubted song of the year "Dust to Dust", achieves a state of mind that genuinely feels otherworldly.