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#PrimaryProgressiveAphasia #MentorFriend #MasterGardener #CPA
A woman who I called friend and mentor passed away very early this morning.
She was a CPA for many years, and is the only person I know who got 100% on the UConn Master Gardener exam, Latin names and all. She was a gardener, hiker, mother and wife and a kind human who taught me a lot.
She was diagnosed with this about three years ago. Different from Alzheimer's or dementia, it affected her ability to communicate verbally. I ended up spending time with her over the last year helping her keep her beautiful gardens in order, building puzzles, and looking at the gardening catalogs over the winter. She was courageous in very difficult circumstances as communication ability got less and less.
I witnessed her strong bond with her husband over and over, and he carried out her wishes for no extraordinary medical measures.
She will be missed.
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Dolphin Whisperer’s and Thus Spoke’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 By Steel DruhmDolphin Whisperer
Thus Spoke and I go way back. In fact, after our successful graduation from the same n00b class and into our first list season as full article writers, we had imagined that us two as a listing pair would produce a lethal and novel whiplash.1 So welcome to the bottom (or top) half of this eclectic endeavor that’s sure to leave you with thirty-some-odd unique albums to revisit or ignore or whatever it is you do with our strong and word-riddled opinions.
Now, the keen reader may notice I’ve had a bit of a productivity drop-off since about June. Well, that’s cause my wife gave birth to The Dolphlet, first of his name, and that’s kind of a lot of work, as I’m finding out. Baby comes first, as it goes. But I squeaked out a few important things, including a Coroner review that the unwashed masses claimed didn’t jerk Tommy Baron and co. as full of glee as it should have. I did miss other important things, like several of my list items.2. And I sincerely apologize to the following bands and offer them words of condolence or, something like that, based upon their individual situation: Bonginator, you should be glad I dropped the ball, stop it with the lame interludes; and count your blessings, Hell Ever After, thrash doesn’t need to be a musical; Species, you did thrash right though and I’m happy that others enjoyed you even more; Moths, and more specifically bassist Weslie Negron, I’m sorry that I took on your interview when my son was one month old and my brain was fried—your album rocks and you put in so much work to make Moths special. And lastly, to all the classics, I had grand plans to YMIO because I thought my brain could make that work—haha.3
Angry Metal Guy, however, remains home for me. You, dear readers, are a part of that love and drive that keep me here. Sometimes, I may only be able to conjure a half-funny joke in the comments section—you laugh (let me believe that) and give it two to five likes. Others, I may hype the heck out of a promising underground act until one of my trusted colleagues tells me “Dolph, that’s enough already, I’ll review it, sheesh.”—you liked it probably more than I did anyway. You see, for every word of bleeding hyperbole that we scribble, two sets of eyes may walk away enraptured. When you’re dealing with artists who have anywhere from sub-100 to 30004 listeners on the popularity engine of Spotify, every set counts. Every purchase on Bandcamp or Ampwall counts. Every stream on Tidal or some other competitor counts. Even your damn scrobble on last.fm counts if you’re nerdy enough for that. So sappy as it may seem, along with the herding efforts of Steel and occasionally The Big Dr. AMG Man Himself, you all give life to the bands in this wonderful modern metal scene. Hails!!
#ish. Messa // The Spin – I can’t rid myself of the power that a soaring bluesy lick and a smoky siren voice hold, no matter how I try. Burned into my head are The Spin’s glassy chorused-out chorus escalations. Drenched into the cones of my crackling car speakers are the synth throbs of certified shakers “Fire on the Roof” and “Thicker Blood.” Turn up the volume and turn down the lights, Messa has come to steal attention with yet another platter of throwback creativity.
#10. Quadvium // Tetradōm – Steve DiGiorgio and Jeroen Paul Thesseling stand at the altar of supreme metal bassists in my own personal head canon. They’d helm yours too if you were familiar with the span of their collective talents across acts like Death, Sadus, Autopsy, (DiGiorgio), and Pestilence, Obscura, Sadist (Thesseling). Knowing all this, they decided to make an album together. And in their refinement as performers, they managed to make a supergroup two-bass project more than just a thumpy wankfest. Full of diverse and rich tones, modern and proggy jitteriness, and a rounded, jazz fusion-leaning taste for exploration, Tetradōm provides an exciting notch in the weathered belt of these legends. I don’t know where Quadvium goes next after this, but I hope that it’s anything but dormant.
#9. Scardust // Souls – Every time I hear the introductory stumble of “Long Forgotten Song,” I fall immediately into the spastic and serenading world that Scardust crafts with their hypermelodic, histrionic, and confident progressive metal attitude. Central to this success remains the peerless Noa Gruman, whose every melody lands with honey-slathered tack and sing-a-long inspiration, despite my voice being a far, far cry away from the searing soprano wail that functions as a mic-drop crescendo as often as it needs to. Behind her, though, lies one of modern prog’s most nimble rhythm sections, imbuing even ballads like “Dazzling Darkness” and “Searing Echoes” with a bass-popping and hi-hat chattering clamor that places Souls in a league of its own. Also, Ross Jennings of Haken sounds better here than he has with Haken since The Mountain.
#8. Chiasma // Reaches – Chiasma possesses the unique ability to blend in with the modern paradigm of accessible melody prog in the lane of a band like Tesseract without conforming to its most djentrified tendencies. Rather, floating in its own swirl of Cynic-coded riffage and angelic, layered vocal excess, Reaches explodes with atmosphere and propulsive riff alike. In Katie Thompson’s nimble serenades rests a voice imbued with both a fluttering prowess and an aching heart. And in this sorrow—wrapped in the brightness of bleeping electronic backings, flipping virtuosic guitar runs, and singular voice—a yearning and healing takes place in fervent and fluorescent splendor.
#7. Dawnwalker // The Between – Just when I thought Dawnwalker didn’t have any more surprises left in their bag of tricks that seem tailor-made for my enjoyment,5 these sneaky Brits went and pulled out the one-long-song album. Continuing to live in the space of esoteric philosophy set forth in The Unknowing last year, Dawnwalker collects moods from all their previous works—the melancholy of isolation from In Rooms, the vocal aggression from Human Ruins, a sonic palette even grander in scope than Ages—to explore thoughts surrounding death. In lush construction, plaintive discourse, and time-bending magic, The Between breathes as a meditation bookended by heavy chiming bells—a journey that feels longer than its svelte 30-ish minute runtime but with none of the fatigue its gargantuan ask threatens. 6
#6. Gorycz // Zasypia – It’s a shame that Gorycz isn’t a household name, as their mystical, groovy approach to atmospheric and retching black metal sits among my favorites in the genre as a whole. Zasypia, as part three of a trilogy, tells a tale of despair through a warping pedalboard light on traditional distortion, shrieking throat on the edge of coherence,7 and dancing kit full of jazzy aplomb. In the space that lives between recursive and developing refrains, terror lurks. But in the Gorycz tattered exhale hangs a reverence for the beauty that can emerge from destruction and grieving. Feel every amplified string creak as you fall deeper into this devastating world.
#5. Lychgate // Precipice – You may be aware that this album was released on the 19th of December, a full two days after we were supposed to turn in these lists. Knowing that, I made sure I beat Precipice to the punch of garbage time list upheaval by listening to it, well, before that. In turn, Lychgate made sure that they’d make this late-season blooming count. With the death-thrash spirit of an early Morbid Angel crashing through low-end organ harmony and colliding with Holdsworthian alien guitar bleating, Precipice holds back neither on its urge to wander in arcane atmosphere nor on its urge to churn bodies in kinetic wonder. As another writer (whose name I can’t remember) said, Precipice ensnares by “…oscillating between Zappa’s Jazz from Hell and unearthly, pit-scorching acrobatics.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.8
#4. Barren Path // Grieving – The best grindcore album of the decade so far would come from the manic attack of Gridlink sans Jon Chang. Absent his terrifying shriek, Matsubara’s guitar scatter weighs heavier, Fajarado’s lightning snare rolls clang sharper, all against song lengths that inhabit the true short-form tradition of extreme brevity. The truth is, I’ve spent longer than the album’s length trying to convey its intensity and prowess, so just go and listen to it already. I’ll wait here. No, seriously, do it.
#3. Turian // Blood Quantum Blues – So very rare is the album that aligns like a key to a lock of a heart torn by generational angst. An eloquence exists in the disparity between Turian’s stark societal observations punctuated by raw emotional interjections of “FUCK”. I haven’t bothered to count the instances that this linguistic escalation occurs, but I guarantee that there are more fucks per stanza on Blood Quantum Blues than your favorite album this year. And, after you’ve become addicted to its overdriven noise rock-meets-hardcore-meets-industrial madness, you’ll know every single one as you shout along its contemptuous tales of cultural erasure. Indians don’t vanish, and neither will my love for every riff, every breakdown, and every tirade of Blood Quantum Blues.
#2. Changeling // Changeling – Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger poured everything into Changeling. Arranging over thirty performers across Changeling’s seems Sisyphean in scope, but Geldschläger persevered. Through peerless fretless wailings, every instrument under the sun follows well-developed motifs, and a pure love for metal, Changeling expresses nostalgia and novelty in its every loaded nook and cranny. And behind each moment of dense and exuberant songcraft, Geldschläger has tinkered to deliver an experience that feels carved over a lifetime. On top of all of that, Geldschläger is also a true guitar wizard—he zigs and zags and twists and twirls where others wear a scale to death. Like a classic novel or movie, Changeling reveals its worth both in immediate, jaw-dropping action and deep, attention-stealing detail. Geldschläger even put together a Dolby Atmos mix for the album and held listening parties in Berlin. I hear they’re wonderful. Come to California, Tom!
#1. Maud the Moth // The Distaff – When we seek art, we seek bravery and freedom of expression. And in the music that we seek in a refuge like Angry Metal guy, we often find these qualities expressed in emotional theme, in raw, sonic aggression, or in sweeping guitar-led grandeur. Woven from a different base cloth, Maud the Moth on paper does not fit that mold. Amaya López-Carromero wields, instead, a piano and scrawled diary pages. She, too, has pain, the same as any human who has encountered a world unforgiving to a life that wishes to live in a divergent path. And like the artists we value—or rather, like the artists I value—Amaya presents her vision of this struggle with focused and expanding melodic lines, crushing and crying crescendos, and an earnestness that compels its audience to surrender for a moment to a world created by these musical ideas. When your sadness comes, it won’t weep in blacks and ivories the way that The Distaff does. But you can pop it on and pretend for its run that its triumph will transfer from your ears to the very center of your tingling chest.
Honorable Mentions:
- Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness – Tempos that flow like a full sewage pipe and riffage that doesn’t let up until the steaming and warped conclusion. The Pissgrave family flows as one heaving death-fueled machine, and it’s sad to see them close shop. But they left us with a monster of a swansong.
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Pummeling and emotionally resonant—if a bit ham-fisted in some lyrical choices—Tooth and Nail represents the ideal form so far of what Dormant Ordeal can achieve with their gut-wrenching take on the Polish death metal sound.
- Sterveling // Sterveling – The backdrop of black metal on what is otherwise downcast jam music makes for a combo that is both hypnotic and uncontested in the space. It helps that the vocalist lets out some of the most demented howls I’ve heard this year.
- 夢遊病者 // РЛБ30011922 – Speaking of jam music, 夢遊病者 has, over time, morphed from a more frenetic math rock-indebted experience to this current, flowing state of progressive tone porn. 2025 was a good year for the one-song album. And much like Dawnwalker’s The Between, it takes up about thirty minutes and some change. Restraint, class, and fat bass heaven.
- Aversed // Erasure of Color – I’m not normally one for melodic death metal. But when it comes packaged with this much mic vitriol and a neoclassical sense that reminds me of the late, great Nevermore,9 I pay attention. And I spin it again and again and again—constant rotation since arrival.
- Yellow Eyes // Confusion Gate – Certain albums that come out late in the year suffer greatly because their true power lies in remaining interesting and unfolding over a long period of time. Immersion Trench Reverie is a special album, and Confusion Gate feels like its sequel. Comfy and caustic all at once.
- Moths // Septem – As the premier progressive metal band from Puerto Rico, Moths has a loaded mission to make a name for themselves. And with another album that keeps its runtime tight and its riffweight heavy, Septem deserves your attention for half an hour and then some. Hey, look, it’s on Ampwall too!
- Grayceon // Then the Darkness – Cello metal at its finest and most relatable. Despite advances in chamber inclusion throughout the metalsphere, not a single band sounds like Grayceon yet. And their songwriting quality remains so high that I don’t care that this album is just about eighty minutes.
- Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon – There’s a dragon with a jetpack on the cover. I shouldn’t need to say more than that. But note also that Chasing the Dragon comes also loaded with rollicking ’80s flair and pentatonic guitar wizardry that’s so out of fashion it’s cool again. This is metal.
Disappointments o’ the Year:
- Suffering Hour // Impelling Rebirth and Umulamahri // Learning the Secrets of Acid – You’ll see more words about these later, cause they are great. And they are EPs. That’s not enough music when this quality exists.
Songs o’ the Year:
Why give you one when I can give you twenty-seven? Why twenty-seven? That’s my secret. Now, I’ve talked enough. Go out there and enjoy some music, friends. And enjoy this photo of my dogs eating. And the Dolphlet admiring them!
Thus Spoke
I’ve been blindsided by the year’s end again, and now have to find some interesting things to say about 2025. Other than the fact that I turned 3010, my main personal Thing ov Significance is that I managed to land myself a new job, which I’ll start in the new year.11 Don’t worry, though, I won’t be girl-bossing too hard to have time for AMG.
Musically, 2025 has been a (small) step down from 2024 for me, although this could just be due to my attention deficit. I’ve had my finger less firmly on the pulse in the last six months, such that several albums, by artists I like, many on this list, either took me completely by surprise on release day, or crossed my radar barely any sooner, thanks to me actually checking Slack for once. I don’t have any well-defined excuse for this outside of plain old burnout plus terrible organization. On the other hand, the fact that I didn’t review most of my favorite records this year means that I can bat away criticisms of self-indulgence by having a year-end list mostly comprised of albums I didn’t write about. One thing I am happy to have achieved this year is running my first AMG Ranking piece on Panopticon. It might be the most verbose and least exciting of its kind for the majority of site readers, but being forced to immerse myself that extensively in the discography of an artist I love was very cool (albeit intense).
Speaking of my own erratic presence at HQ, leads me on to the hiatus (official or not) of several wonderful people among the staff, particularly my list-buddy Maddog, whom I miss very much. They all have good reasons, and I support them immensely, even if it means fewer of their excellent reviews. Fortunately, we’ve also welcomed many newcomers to our ranks who can pick up my slack in their stead, and whose reviews help me improve my own writing whilst also appending to the endless list of Things I Must Listen To.
As my extensive yapping here shows, my ability to meet a word count hasn’t improved much. Before finally moving on to the list, I’ll take the chance to reiterate my gratitude for everyone reading this, and some people who might not be. Thank you to all the staff for collectively making this all possible, and giving me the opportunity to speak about music and for people—you guys—to actually read it. Thank you for reading. Even if our tastes are completely opposed and you think I’m wrong about everything, I’m glad you’re here.
Now for the bit people actually care about.
#ish. Panopticon // Songs of Hiraeth – Quietly12 released alongside Laurentian Blue, Songs of Hiraeth is a collection of songs composed between 2009-2011 that never saw the light of day. In it, you can hear the incredible development of Panopticon’s signature emotionally swelling black metal style in this period, and this record, like virtually all of them, as I repeated in my ranking blurbs, is gorgeously, absorbingly heartfelt and powerful. Unlike you might expect, it actually increases in intensity as it progresses (for me), with the final trifecta of “The End is Drawing Near,” “A Letter,” and “The Eulogy” all gunning for my Songs o’ the Year playlist with first devastating rage and fury, then heartbroken solemnity and sublime melody throughout. I guess it’s not fully in the list purely because it’s not a ‘proper’ new release, or whatever.
#10. Grima // Nightside – It could have been easy to forget about Grima, given its dropping right on the cusp of the stacked Spring release season we had this year, and the fact that I didn’t instantly mark it down for a TYMHM as with Clouds. But I didn’t forget. Despite their wintry aesthetic, Grima’s music warms my heart with folky magic and ardent blackened blizzards. Nightside is no exception, its warmth coming this time from a renewed emphasis on the atmosphere and bayan after the higher energies of Frostbitten. I love intense, harsh, frosty black metal, and I love how Grima do it (“Impending Death Premonition,” “Where We are Lost”). But what I love most of all about Grima is how they pair that with their folky tendencies, and the way—as Sharky pointed out—Vilhelm’s rasps graze over it all. This culminates, for me, in the more mournful and urgent tone of several tracks on Nightside, where intense moments still feel dreamlike (“The Nightside”), and vocals breathe like ghostly whispers (“Mist and Fog”). It’s not my favorite Grima record (that’s probably Rotten Garden), but being a Grima record at all, given their caliber, means it’s bloody great and has to be on my list.
#9. Bianca // Bianca – Here’s an excellent example of a record I very likely would never have heard were it not for the AMG writer community. And wow, am I grateful I did. Ken‘s description alone caught my interest, let alone the tidbit that the project includes two members of another 2025 favorite of mine, Patristic.13 It takes familiar concepts from metal, both post—ethereal atmospheres and haunting singing—and extreme—sky-piercing shrieks, undulating, relentless double-bass, and tangled guitar blizzards—but sounds like nothing else. Even in combining these elements, Bianca stands alone. The coalescence of blackened, doomed, ambient layers is mesmerizing, the pitches upward into mania, and lapses back into mournful mystique, captivating. Throat-gripping furor arrests me more inextricably than almost anything else this year (“Abysmal,” “Nachthexe”), and transcendent melodies forged from this black fire lift me fully out of my body (“Abysmal,” “Todestrieb”). I’ve been in love since.
#8. Der Weg Einer Freiheit // Innern – Innern’s influence on me was subtle and insidious. I would just put it on, be absorbed—or be sucked back in periodically, if I was working and not concentrating on it—and suddenly it would end. Then I’d listen to it again. Der Weg Einer Freiheit has been developing their particular intense, dark, atmospheric kind of (post-) black over the last decade or so, and with Innern, it’s approaching an apex. Through endlessly enveloping compositions, filled with fury and urgency (“Marter”) or solemn reflection and introspection (“Eos,” “Forlorn”), that flow seamlessly out of one another, Innern folds you insidiously into its depths. Compelling melodies, dynamic rushing percussion, and here-dramatic, there-soft-spoken vocals, each taking pieces and incorporating trials from Der Weg Einer Freiheit’s career so far, drive the thematic compositional thread through irresistibly. From the anticipatory opening shudders to the ebbing chords at its close, Innern is an experience best taken whole, and one I’ve indulged in countless times to go on this magnetic journey once again.
#7. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I never thought this would land here when first announced. Sure, I like Paradise Lost, but their back-catalog is so mixed (in style, let alone quality), that ‘liking’ them for me comes down to enjoying a handful of their now 17 albums. Even the singles’ being good failed to stir anything more than curiosity, given my experience with intra-album inconsistency. But when Ascension did finally grace my ears in full, it appropriately transcended any doubts and softened my heart towards these doom icons again.14 Paradise Lost were heavy again, melancholic and mopey again—in a cool, atmospheric way—and Ascension just flowed, with grungy aggression and sadboi introspection in perfect equilibrium. This easy, natural duality that characterizes Gothic metal, and Paradise Lost themselves as genre pioneers, when they’re at the top of their game, is exemplified in Ascension. Hopefully, the group can stay on this trajectory for number 18, if that comes.
#6. Clouds // Desprins – I don’t understand how Clouds are as good as they are. I mean this as no insult to the musicians; what stuns me is the depth of pathos, and the consistency with which they deliver it, given the relatively understated and idiosyncratic manner in which they execute it. Their characteristic flute-folk-funeral doom is so ethereally, painfully sad without being overwrought, melodramatic, or crushing. It took my n00bish breath away four years ago, and this year Desprins came and took it again; this time with pieces of my soul attached. The music is just so beautiful—unrelentingly bleak, but beautiful, and Clouds’ balance of the dark and the light through the synths and acoustics, and apathetic spoken-word is exquisite and deeply affecting. These composite melodies, swelling and trilling softly, are transportive for me—particularly “Life Becomes Lifeless,” “Chain Me,” “Sorrowbound,” and “Chasing Ghosts.” Desprins is everything I want funeral doom to be: a prolonged dream-state of melancholy that paradoxically brings me joy.
#5. Deafheaven // Lonely People with Power – I have never been a Deafheaven fan. In all honesty, I’m still not. Lonely People with Power fires me up and fills my soul, while the rest of their discography continues to leave me completely cold. It seems that, briefly departing from metal entirely with Infinite Granite, has matured their sound, adding layers to their edgy blackgaze. Even when indifferent, I never understood the scorn their music generates, and now that I’ve fallen for Lonely People with Power, it makes even less sense. Not only is the way Deafheaven are combining rich, beautiful melodies with—yes—brilliant black metal simply lovely to listen to, slick, seamless, sharp, etc, it’s also distinctive and engrossing. That’s before even getting into how emotionally resonant it is. And it’s not even like this means it can’t be heavy—heck, one of these tracks is on my Heavy Moves Heavy playlist. It’s not ‘cringe’; it’s a phenomenal record and one of the best to release this year.
#4. 1914 // Viribus Unitis – I have always been most moved—emotionally and aesthetically—by 1914’s brand of WWI-themed blackened-death than any other like act. Viribus Unitis somehow outdoes Where Fear and Weapons Meet, and possibly all of the band’s previous efforts, for evocativeness and being straightforward and compelling. From the now hallmark bookends “War In/Out” to frequent samples to lyrics infused with real soldier testimony, Viribus Unitis envelops the listener in this portal to the past through 1914’s most powerful, urgently melodic compositions. Every song is heavy, dramatic, and snappy in just the right amounts, resulting in a series of back-to-back bangers that also occasionally really, really hit home emotionally. “1918 Pt 3: ADE (A duty to escape)” does all the above to perfection and has received an almost embarrassing number of replays in the short time since release. But “1919 (The Home where I Died)” did actually make me cry,15 and its fade into “War Out” is the perfect end to the monumental achievement Viribus Unitis represents.
#3. Patristic // Catechesis – It seems that every year, I review one particular atmospheric-dissonant death metal record which dominates my listening in that subgenre, and instantly secures a year-end list spot. In 2023, Serpent of Old, last year Ulcerate16, and this year Patristic. Catechesis was an immediate, visceral love for me, and not once since June has it left rotation. Sinister and dark, but irresistible in its seamlessly flowing, captivating macro-composition narrated by roars and solemn sermonizing; it ends far too soon. And in addition to being beautifully atmospheric and magnetic in melody and dissonance alike, it stands out for truly insane performances in their own right. Specifically, the drumming, which continues to blow my mind and propels Catechesis from greatness into excellence with hypnotic, intelligent rhythmic interplay. Patristic’s uncanny ability to make extreme, inaccessible music incomprehensibly engrossing and a magnificent expression of its concept are why I can’t stop listening to Catechesis, and why it’s almost the best record of 2025.
#2. Qrixkuor // The Womb of the World – Much like reviewer Kenstrosity, whereas Qrixkuor’s debut Poison Palinopsia rewired my brain with its brilliance, I found follow-up Zoetrope a tad underwhelming. When said sponge began to hint, and then gush unstoppably about the duo’s second full-length, The Womb of the World, which was in his possession, vague hope turned to giddy excitement. Not only the twisted, psychedelic horror of their signature freeform blackened death would await me, but also a full live orchestra. Yet I still don’t think anything could have adequately prepared me for how massive and mad The Womb of the World actually is. With the strings, horns, and piano swooping and crashing about in great surges and falls, Qrixkuor’s already grandiose style fully feels like some tormented classical opus, and it’s utterly magnificent. Things so small as my words can’t do justice to the way the eerie and intense lurching orchestrals, maniacal snarling voices, and cavernous extreme metal combine to create some of the best things I have ever heard, ever. Weirdly memorable and violently compelling despite its monstrosity, I’ve become completely addicted to it since. Ken himself said, it is “a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial,” when he rightfully deemed it ‘Excellent’. If I must rescind soundness of mind to so esteem The Womb of the World, I will do so gladly.
#1. Cave Sermon // Fragile Wings – Last year, Divine Laughter went from unknown to #5 on my year-end list in about 2 weeks, so when I found out there was a follow-up—thanks to my new Flippered list buddy—I dropped everything.17 My stratospheric expectations were not only met, but they were lifted into outer space. I would fear for Cave Sermon’s ability to deliver in the future, but Fragile Wings itself dismisses any trepidation. So recognizably, uniquely Cave Sermon, it displays a new, more uplifting interpretation of their sound. A commenter pointed out the lack of reference to So Hideous in my review, and in retrospect, I see their point, at least in degree: the two projects are similarly experimental and impressively novel-sounding without actually feeling avant-garde. But there is just something about Cave Sermon that puts them in an entirely different category of genius—for me. Fragile Wings is playful but not silly; it’s complex but memorable, groovy, and fun; it’s dissonant and strange, but it’s organic, harmonious, and digestible. The idea that just one person is behind this18 makes it that much more mind-blowing. At this rate, there could well be another Cave Sermon record next year, and on the current trajectory, it may finally land this fantastic artist the official Iconic status they have always deserved.
Honorable Mentions:
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Hands-down my favorite Dormant Ordeal album so far. Heavy, groovy, and eminently-listenable, it really got its claws into me—especially during gym sessions shortly after release. It did fall out of my rotation quite substantially, in favor of its rivals above, thus putting it here.
- Primitive Man // Observance – When Observance dropped, and I was listening for the first time, I badly tried to describe Primitive Man to my partner (not a metal fan) over WhatsApp as “being crushed by a big rock really slowly, but in a good way.” Obviously, they didn’t know what I was on about, but Spicie Forrest seems to with his much better analogy of “being imprisoned and forgotten in a lightless pit.” Primitive Man has always made silly-heavy, scary-huge music, but Observance clicked with me like nothing else in their discography prior. I am indeed helplessly crushed and held prisoner.
- Blut Aus Nord // Ethereal Horizons – I think if this had dropped just a tiny bit earlier, it could have ended up on my list proper. Blut Aus Nord has always been one of those artists I know I do enjoy, but for some reason has never fully clicked for me. Ethereal Horizons felt immediately more enthralling. It’s more atmospheric, more darkly melodic, more blackened in its heaviness, and through it all, possibly more frightening.
Songs of the Year
- Cave Sermon – “Ancient for Someone”
- Panopticon – “A Letter”
- Panopticon – “The Poppies Bloom For No King”
- Patristic – “A Vinculis Soluta II”
- Qrixkuor – “The Womb of the World”
- Bianca – “Abysmal”
- Deafheaven – “The Garden Route”
- Nephylim – “Amaranth”
- Clouds – “Sorrowbound”
- 1914 – “1918 Pt 3 A.D.E (A Duty to Escape)”
- Der Weg Einer Freiheit – “Marter”
- Primitive Man – “Natural Law”
#1914 #2025 #Aversed #BarrenPath #Bianca #BlogPosts #BlutAusNord #CaveSermon #Changeling #Chiasma #Clouds #Dawnwalker #Deafheaven #DerWegEinerFreiheit #DolphinWhisperSAndThusSpokeSTopTenIshOf2025 #DormantOrdeal #Gorycz #Grayceon #Grima #HelmsDeep #Lists #Lynchgate #MaudTheMoth #Messa #Mothers #Nephylim #Panopticon #ParadiseLost #Patristic #Pissgrave #PrimitiveMan #Qrixkuor #Quadvium #Scardust #Sterveling #SufferingHour #Turian #YellowEyes #夢遊病者 -
Dolphin Whisperer’s and Thus Spoke’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 By Steel DruhmDolphin Whisperer
Thus Spoke and I go way back. In fact, after our successful graduation from the same n00b class and into our first list season as full article writers, we had imagined that us two as a listing pair would produce a lethal and novel whiplash.1 So welcome to the bottom (or top) half of this eclectic endeavor that’s sure to leave you with thirty-some-odd unique albums to revisit or ignore or whatever it is you do with our strong and word-riddled opinions.
Now, the keen reader may notice I’ve had a bit of a productivity drop-off since about June. Well, that’s cause my wife gave birth to The Dolphlet, first of his name, and that’s kind of a lot of work, as I’m finding out. Baby comes first, as it goes. But I squeaked out a few important things, including a Coroner review that the unwashed masses claimed didn’t jerk Tommy Baron and co. as full of glee as it should have. I did miss other important things, like several of my list items.2. And I sincerely apologize to the following bands and offer them words of condolence or, something like that, based upon their individual situation: Bonginator, you should be glad I dropped the ball, stop it with the lame interludes; and count your blessings, Hell Ever After, thrash doesn’t need to be a musical; Species, you did thrash right though and I’m happy that others enjoyed you even more; Moths, and more specifically bassist Weslie Negron, I’m sorry that I took on your interview when my son was one month old and my brain was fried—your album rocks and you put in so much work to make Moths special. And lastly, to all the classics, I had grand plans to YMIO because I thought my brain could make that work—haha.3
Angry Metal Guy, however, remains home for me. You, dear readers, are a part of that love and drive that keep me here. Sometimes, I may only be able to conjure a half-funny joke in the comments section—you laugh (let me believe that) and give it two to five likes. Others, I may hype the heck out of a promising underground act until one of my trusted colleagues tells me “Dolph, that’s enough already, I’ll review it, sheesh.”—you liked it probably more than I did anyway. You see, for every word of bleeding hyperbole that we scribble, two sets of eyes may walk away enraptured. When you’re dealing with artists who have anywhere from sub-100 to 30004 listeners on the popularity engine of Spotify, every set counts. Every purchase on Bandcamp or Ampwall counts. Every stream on Tidal or some other competitor counts. Even your damn scrobble on last.fm counts if you’re nerdy enough for that. So sappy as it may seem, along with the herding efforts of Steel and occasionally The Big Dr. AMG Man Himself, you all give life to the bands in this wonderful modern metal scene. Hails!!
#ish. Messa // The Spin – I can’t rid myself of the power that a soaring bluesy lick and a smoky siren voice hold, no matter how I try. Burned into my head are The Spin’s glassy chorused-out chorus escalations. Drenched into the cones of my crackling car speakers are the synth throbs of certified shakers “Fire on the Roof” and “Thicker Blood.” Turn up the volume and turn down the lights, Messa has come to steal attention with yet another platter of throwback creativity.
#10. Quadvium // Tetradōm – Steve DiGiorgio and Jeroen Paul Thesseling stand at the altar of supreme metal bassists in my own personal head canon. They’d helm yours too if you were familiar with the span of their collective talents across acts like Death, Sadus, Autopsy, (DiGiorgio), and Pestilence, Obscura, Sadist (Thesseling). Knowing all this, they decided to make an album together. And in their refinement as performers, they managed to make a supergroup two-bass project more than just a thumpy wankfest. Full of diverse and rich tones, modern and proggy jitteriness, and a rounded, jazz fusion-leaning taste for exploration, Tetradōm provides an exciting notch in the weathered belt of these legends. I don’t know where Quadvium goes next after this, but I hope that it’s anything but dormant.
#9. Scardust // Souls – Every time I hear the introductory stumble of “Long Forgotten Song,” I fall immediately into the spastic and serenading world that Scardust crafts with their hypermelodic, histrionic, and confident progressive metal attitude. Central to this success remains the peerless Noa Gruman, whose every melody lands with honey-slathered tack and sing-a-long inspiration, despite my voice being a far, far cry away from the searing soprano wail that functions as a mic-drop crescendo as often as it needs to. Behind her, though, lies one of modern prog’s most nimble rhythm sections, imbuing even ballads like “Dazzling Darkness” and “Searing Echoes” with a bass-popping and hi-hat chattering clamor that places Souls in a league of its own. Also, Ross Jennings of Haken sounds better here than he has with Haken since The Mountain.
#8. Chiasma // Reaches – Chiasma possesses the unique ability to blend in with the modern paradigm of accessible melody prog in the lane of a band like Tesseract without conforming to its most djentrified tendencies. Rather, floating in its own swirl of Cynic-coded riffage and angelic, layered vocal excess, Reaches explodes with atmosphere and propulsive riff alike. In Katie Thompson’s nimble serenades rests a voice imbued with both a fluttering prowess and an aching heart. And in this sorrow—wrapped in the brightness of bleeping electronic backings, flipping virtuosic guitar runs, and singular voice—a yearning and healing takes place in fervent and fluorescent splendor.
#7. Dawnwalker // The Between – Just when I thought Dawnwalker didn’t have any more surprises left in their bag of tricks that seem tailor-made for my enjoyment,5 these sneaky Brits went and pulled out the one-long-song album. Continuing to live in the space of esoteric philosophy set forth in The Unknowing last year, Dawnwalker collects moods from all their previous works—the melancholy of isolation from In Rooms, the vocal aggression from Human Ruins, a sonic palette even grander in scope than Ages—to explore thoughts surrounding death. In lush construction, plaintive discourse, and time-bending magic, The Between breathes as a meditation bookended by heavy chiming bells—a journey that feels longer than its svelte 30-ish minute runtime but with none of the fatigue its gargantuan ask threatens. 6
#6. Gorycz // Zasypia – It’s a shame that Gorycz isn’t a household name, as their mystical, groovy approach to atmospheric and retching black metal sits among my favorites in the genre as a whole. Zasypia, as part three of a trilogy, tells a tale of despair through a warping pedalboard light on traditional distortion, shrieking throat on the edge of coherence,7 and dancing kit full of jazzy aplomb. In the space that lives between recursive and developing refrains, terror lurks. But in the Gorycz tattered exhale hangs a reverence for the beauty that can emerge from destruction and grieving. Feel every amplified string creak as you fall deeper into this devastating world.
#5. Lychgate // Precipice – You may be aware that this album was released on the 19th of December, a full two days after we were supposed to turn in these lists. Knowing that, I made sure I beat Precipice to the punch of garbage time list upheaval by listening to it, well, before that. In turn, Lychgate made sure that they’d make this late-season blooming count. With the death-thrash spirit of an early Morbid Angel crashing through low-end organ harmony and colliding with Holdsworthian alien guitar bleating, Precipice holds back neither on its urge to wander in arcane atmosphere nor on its urge to churn bodies in kinetic wonder. As another writer (whose name I can’t remember) said, Precipice ensnares by “…oscillating between Zappa’s Jazz from Hell and unearthly, pit-scorching acrobatics.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.8
#4. Barren Path // Grieving – The best grindcore album of the decade so far would come from the manic attack of Gridlink sans Jon Chang. Absent his terrifying shriek, Matsubara’s guitar scatter weighs heavier, Fajarado’s lightning snare rolls clang sharper, all against song lengths that inhabit the true short-form tradition of extreme brevity. The truth is, I’ve spent longer than the album’s length trying to convey its intensity and prowess, so just go and listen to it already. I’ll wait here. No, seriously, do it.
#3. Turian // Blood Quantum Blues – So very rare is the album that aligns like a key to a lock of a heart torn by generational angst. An eloquence exists in the disparity between Turian’s stark societal observations punctuated by raw emotional interjections of “FUCK”. I haven’t bothered to count the instances that this linguistic escalation occurs, but I guarantee that there are more fucks per stanza on Blood Quantum Blues than your favorite album this year. And, after you’ve become addicted to its overdriven noise rock-meets-hardcore-meets-industrial madness, you’ll know every single one as you shout along its contemptuous tales of cultural erasure. Indians don’t vanish, and neither will my love for every riff, every breakdown, and every tirade of Blood Quantum Blues.
#2. Changeling // Changeling – Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger poured everything into Changeling. Arranging over thirty performers across Changeling’s seems Sisyphean in scope, but Geldschläger persevered. Through peerless fretless wailings, every instrument under the sun follows well-developed motifs, and a pure love for metal, Changeling expresses nostalgia and novelty in its every loaded nook and cranny. And behind each moment of dense and exuberant songcraft, Geldschläger has tinkered to deliver an experience that feels carved over a lifetime. On top of all of that, Geldschläger is also a true guitar wizard—he zigs and zags and twists and twirls where others wear a scale to death. Like a classic novel or movie, Changeling reveals its worth both in immediate, jaw-dropping action and deep, attention-stealing detail. Geldschläger even put together a Dolby Atmos mix for the album and held listening parties in Berlin. I hear they’re wonderful. Come to California, Tom!
#1. Maud the Moth // The Distaff – When we seek art, we seek bravery and freedom of expression. And in the music that we seek in a refuge like Angry Metal guy, we often find these qualities expressed in emotional theme, in raw, sonic aggression, or in sweeping guitar-led grandeur. Woven from a different base cloth, Maud the Moth on paper does not fit that mold. Amaya López-Carromero wields, instead, a piano and scrawled diary pages. She, too, has pain, the same as any human who has encountered a world unforgiving to a life that wishes to live in a divergent path. And like the artists we value—or rather, like the artists I value—Amaya presents her vision of this struggle with focused and expanding melodic lines, crushing and crying crescendos, and an earnestness that compels its audience to surrender for a moment to a world created by these musical ideas. When your sadness comes, it won’t weep in blacks and ivories the way that The Distaff does. But you can pop it on and pretend for its run that its triumph will transfer from your ears to the very center of your tingling chest.
Honorable Mentions:
- Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness – Tempos that flow like a full sewage pipe and riffage that doesn’t let up until the steaming and warped conclusion. The Pissgrave family flows as one heaving death-fueled machine, and it’s sad to see them close shop. But they left us with a monster of a swansong.
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Pummeling and emotionally resonant—if a bit ham-fisted in some lyrical choices—Tooth and Nail represents the ideal form so far of what Dormant Ordeal can achieve with their gut-wrenching take on the Polish death metal sound.
- Sterveling // Sterveling – The backdrop of black metal on what is otherwise downcast jam music makes for a combo that is both hypnotic and uncontested in the space. It helps that the vocalist lets out some of the most demented howls I’ve heard this year.
- 夢遊病者 // РЛБ30011922 – Speaking of jam music, 夢遊病者 has, over time, morphed from a more frenetic math rock-indebted experience to this current, flowing state of progressive tone porn. 2025 was a good year for the one-song album. And much like Dawnwalker’s The Between, it takes up about thirty minutes and some change. Restraint, class, and fat bass heaven.
- Aversed // Erasure of Color – I’m not normally one for melodic death metal. But when it comes packaged with this much mic vitriol and a neoclassical sense that reminds me of the late, great Nevermore,9 I pay attention. And I spin it again and again and again—constant rotation since arrival.
- Yellow Eyes // Confusion Gate – Certain albums that come out late in the year suffer greatly because their true power lies in remaining interesting and unfolding over a long period of time. Immersion Trench Reverie is a special album, and Confusion Gate feels like its sequel. Comfy and caustic all at once.
- Moths // Septem – As the premier progressive metal band from Puerto Rico, Moths has a loaded mission to make a name for themselves. And with another album that keeps its runtime tight and its riffweight heavy, Septem deserves your attention for half an hour and then some. Hey, look, it’s on Ampwall too!
- Grayceon // Then the Darkness – Cello metal at its finest and most relatable. Despite advances in chamber inclusion throughout the metalsphere, not a single band sounds like Grayceon yet. And their songwriting quality remains so high that I don’t care that this album is just about eighty minutes.
- Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon – There’s a dragon with a jetpack on the cover. I shouldn’t need to say more than that. But note also that Chasing the Dragon comes also loaded with rollicking ’80s flair and pentatonic guitar wizardry that’s so out of fashion it’s cool again. This is metal.
Disappointments o’ the Year:
- Suffering Hour // Impelling Rebirth and Umulamahri // Learning the Secrets of Acid – You’ll see more words about these later, cause they are great. And they are EPs. That’s not enough music when this quality exists.
Songs o’ the Year:
Why give you one when I can give you twenty-seven? Why twenty-seven? That’s my secret. Now, I’ve talked enough. Go out there and enjoy some music, friends. And enjoy this photo of my dogs eating. And the Dolphlet admiring them!
Thus Spoke
I’ve been blindsided by the year’s end again, and now have to find some interesting things to say about 2025. Other than the fact that I turned 3010, my main personal Thing ov Significance is that I managed to land myself a new job, which I’ll start in the new year.11 Don’t worry, though, I won’t be girl-bossing too hard to have time for AMG.
Musically, 2025 has been a (small) step down from 2024 for me, although this could just be due to my attention deficit. I’ve had my finger less firmly on the pulse in the last six months, such that several albums, by artists I like, many on this list, either took me completely by surprise on release day, or crossed my radar barely any sooner, thanks to me actually checking Slack for once. I don’t have any well-defined excuse for this outside of plain old burnout plus terrible organization. On the other hand, the fact that I didn’t review most of my favorite records this year means that I can bat away criticisms of self-indulgence by having a year-end list mostly comprised of albums I didn’t write about. One thing I am happy to have achieved this year is running my first AMG Ranking piece on Panopticon. It might be the most verbose and least exciting of its kind for the majority of site readers, but being forced to immerse myself that extensively in the discography of an artist I love was very cool (albeit intense).
Speaking of my own erratic presence at HQ, leads me on to the hiatus (official or not) of several wonderful people among the staff, particularly my list-buddy Maddog, whom I miss very much. They all have good reasons, and I support them immensely, even if it means fewer of their excellent reviews. Fortunately, we’ve also welcomed many newcomers to our ranks who can pick up my slack in their stead, and whose reviews help me improve my own writing whilst also appending to the endless list of Things I Must Listen To.
As my extensive yapping here shows, my ability to meet a word count hasn’t improved much. Before finally moving on to the list, I’ll take the chance to reiterate my gratitude for everyone reading this, and some people who might not be. Thank you to all the staff for collectively making this all possible, and giving me the opportunity to speak about music and for people—you guys—to actually read it. Thank you for reading. Even if our tastes are completely opposed and you think I’m wrong about everything, I’m glad you’re here.
Now for the bit people actually care about.
#ish. Panopticon // Songs of Hiraeth – Quietly12 released alongside Laurentian Blue, Songs of Hiraeth is a collection of songs composed between 2009-2011 that never saw the light of day. In it, you can hear the incredible development of Panopticon’s signature emotionally swelling black metal style in this period, and this record, like virtually all of them, as I repeated in my ranking blurbs, is gorgeously, absorbingly heartfelt and powerful. Unlike you might expect, it actually increases in intensity as it progresses (for me), with the final trifecta of “The End is Drawing Near,” “A Letter,” and “The Eulogy” all gunning for my Songs o’ the Year playlist with first devastating rage and fury, then heartbroken solemnity and sublime melody throughout. I guess it’s not fully in the list purely because it’s not a ‘proper’ new release, or whatever.
#10. Grima // Nightside – It could have been easy to forget about Grima, given its dropping right on the cusp of the stacked Spring release season we had this year, and the fact that I didn’t instantly mark it down for a TYMHM as with Clouds. But I didn’t forget. Despite their wintry aesthetic, Grima’s music warms my heart with folky magic and ardent blackened blizzards. Nightside is no exception, its warmth coming this time from a renewed emphasis on the atmosphere and bayan after the higher energies of Frostbitten. I love intense, harsh, frosty black metal, and I love how Grima do it (“Impending Death Premonition,” “Where We are Lost”). But what I love most of all about Grima is how they pair that with their folky tendencies, and the way—as Sharky pointed out—Vilhelm’s rasps graze over it all. This culminates, for me, in the more mournful and urgent tone of several tracks on Nightside, where intense moments still feel dreamlike (“The Nightside”), and vocals breathe like ghostly whispers (“Mist and Fog”). It’s not my favorite Grima record (that’s probably Rotten Garden), but being a Grima record at all, given their caliber, means it’s bloody great and has to be on my list.
#9. Bianca // Bianca – Here’s an excellent example of a record I very likely would never have heard were it not for the AMG writer community. And wow, am I grateful I did. Ken‘s description alone caught my interest, let alone the tidbit that the project includes two members of another 2025 favorite of mine, Patristic.13 It takes familiar concepts from metal, both post—ethereal atmospheres and haunting singing—and extreme—sky-piercing shrieks, undulating, relentless double-bass, and tangled guitar blizzards—but sounds like nothing else. Even in combining these elements, Bianca stands alone. The coalescence of blackened, doomed, ambient layers is mesmerizing, the pitches upward into mania, and lapses back into mournful mystique, captivating. Throat-gripping furor arrests me more inextricably than almost anything else this year (“Abysmal,” “Nachthexe”), and transcendent melodies forged from this black fire lift me fully out of my body (“Abysmal,” “Todestrieb”). I’ve been in love since.
#8. Der Weg Einer Freiheit // Innern – Innern’s influence on me was subtle and insidious. I would just put it on, be absorbed—or be sucked back in periodically, if I was working and not concentrating on it—and suddenly it would end. Then I’d listen to it again. Der Weg Einer Freiheit has been developing their particular intense, dark, atmospheric kind of (post-) black over the last decade or so, and with Innern, it’s approaching an apex. Through endlessly enveloping compositions, filled with fury and urgency (“Marter”) or solemn reflection and introspection (“Eos,” “Forlorn”), that flow seamlessly out of one another, Innern folds you insidiously into its depths. Compelling melodies, dynamic rushing percussion, and here-dramatic, there-soft-spoken vocals, each taking pieces and incorporating trials from Der Weg Einer Freiheit’s career so far, drive the thematic compositional thread through irresistibly. From the anticipatory opening shudders to the ebbing chords at its close, Innern is an experience best taken whole, and one I’ve indulged in countless times to go on this magnetic journey once again.
#7. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I never thought this would land here when first announced. Sure, I like Paradise Lost, but their back-catalog is so mixed (in style, let alone quality), that ‘liking’ them for me comes down to enjoying a handful of their now 17 albums. Even the singles’ being good failed to stir anything more than curiosity, given my experience with intra-album inconsistency. But when Ascension did finally grace my ears in full, it appropriately transcended any doubts and softened my heart towards these doom icons again.14 Paradise Lost were heavy again, melancholic and mopey again—in a cool, atmospheric way—and Ascension just flowed, with grungy aggression and sadboi introspection in perfect equilibrium. This easy, natural duality that characterizes Gothic metal, and Paradise Lost themselves as genre pioneers, when they’re at the top of their game, is exemplified in Ascension. Hopefully, the group can stay on this trajectory for number 18, if that comes.
#6. Clouds // Desprins – I don’t understand how Clouds are as good as they are. I mean this as no insult to the musicians; what stuns me is the depth of pathos, and the consistency with which they deliver it, given the relatively understated and idiosyncratic manner in which they execute it. Their characteristic flute-folk-funeral doom is so ethereally, painfully sad without being overwrought, melodramatic, or crushing. It took my n00bish breath away four years ago, and this year Desprins came and took it again; this time with pieces of my soul attached. The music is just so beautiful—unrelentingly bleak, but beautiful, and Clouds’ balance of the dark and the light through the synths and acoustics, and apathetic spoken-word is exquisite and deeply affecting. These composite melodies, swelling and trilling softly, are transportive for me—particularly “Life Becomes Lifeless,” “Chain Me,” “Sorrowbound,” and “Chasing Ghosts.” Desprins is everything I want funeral doom to be: a prolonged dream-state of melancholy that paradoxically brings me joy.
#5. Deafheaven // Lonely People with Power – I have never been a Deafheaven fan. In all honesty, I’m still not. Lonely People with Power fires me up and fills my soul, while the rest of their discography continues to leave me completely cold. It seems that, briefly departing from metal entirely with Infinite Granite, has matured their sound, adding layers to their edgy blackgaze. Even when indifferent, I never understood the scorn their music generates, and now that I’ve fallen for Lonely People with Power, it makes even less sense. Not only is the way Deafheaven are combining rich, beautiful melodies with—yes—brilliant black metal simply lovely to listen to, slick, seamless, sharp, etc, it’s also distinctive and engrossing. That’s before even getting into how emotionally resonant it is. And it’s not even like this means it can’t be heavy—heck, one of these tracks is on my Heavy Moves Heavy playlist. It’s not ‘cringe’; it’s a phenomenal record and one of the best to release this year.
#4. 1914 // Viribus Unitis – I have always been most moved—emotionally and aesthetically—by 1914’s brand of WWI-themed blackened-death than any other like act. Viribus Unitis somehow outdoes Where Fear and Weapons Meet, and possibly all of the band’s previous efforts, for evocativeness and being straightforward and compelling. From the now hallmark bookends “War In/Out” to frequent samples to lyrics infused with real soldier testimony, Viribus Unitis envelops the listener in this portal to the past through 1914’s most powerful, urgently melodic compositions. Every song is heavy, dramatic, and snappy in just the right amounts, resulting in a series of back-to-back bangers that also occasionally really, really hit home emotionally. “1918 Pt 3: ADE (A duty to escape)” does all the above to perfection and has received an almost embarrassing number of replays in the short time since release. But “1919 (The Home where I Died)” did actually make me cry,15 and its fade into “War Out” is the perfect end to the monumental achievement Viribus Unitis represents.
#3. Patristic // Catechesis – It seems that every year, I review one particular atmospheric-dissonant death metal record which dominates my listening in that subgenre, and instantly secures a year-end list spot. In 2023, Serpent of Old, last year Ulcerate16, and this year Patristic. Catechesis was an immediate, visceral love for me, and not once since June has it left rotation. Sinister and dark, but irresistible in its seamlessly flowing, captivating macro-composition narrated by roars and solemn sermonizing; it ends far too soon. And in addition to being beautifully atmospheric and magnetic in melody and dissonance alike, it stands out for truly insane performances in their own right. Specifically, the drumming, which continues to blow my mind and propels Catechesis from greatness into excellence with hypnotic, intelligent rhythmic interplay. Patristic’s uncanny ability to make extreme, inaccessible music incomprehensibly engrossing and a magnificent expression of its concept are why I can’t stop listening to Catechesis, and why it’s almost the best record of 2025.
#2. Qrixkuor // The Womb of the World – Much like reviewer Kenstrosity, whereas Qrixkuor’s debut Poison Palinopsia rewired my brain with its brilliance, I found follow-up Zoetrope a tad underwhelming. When said sponge began to hint, and then gush unstoppably about the duo’s second full-length, The Womb of the World, which was in his possession, vague hope turned to giddy excitement. Not only the twisted, psychedelic horror of their signature freeform blackened death would await me, but also a full live orchestra. Yet I still don’t think anything could have adequately prepared me for how massive and mad The Womb of the World actually is. With the strings, horns, and piano swooping and crashing about in great surges and falls, Qrixkuor’s already grandiose style fully feels like some tormented classical opus, and it’s utterly magnificent. Things so small as my words can’t do justice to the way the eerie and intense lurching orchestrals, maniacal snarling voices, and cavernous extreme metal combine to create some of the best things I have ever heard, ever. Weirdly memorable and violently compelling despite its monstrosity, I’ve become completely addicted to it since. Ken himself said, it is “a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial,” when he rightfully deemed it ‘Excellent’. If I must rescind soundness of mind to so esteem The Womb of the World, I will do so gladly.
#1. Cave Sermon // Fragile Wings – Last year, Divine Laughter went from unknown to #5 on my year-end list in about 2 weeks, so when I found out there was a follow-up—thanks to my new Flippered list buddy—I dropped everything.17 My stratospheric expectations were not only met, but they were lifted into outer space. I would fear for Cave Sermon’s ability to deliver in the future, but Fragile Wings itself dismisses any trepidation. So recognizably, uniquely Cave Sermon, it displays a new, more uplifting interpretation of their sound. A commenter pointed out the lack of reference to So Hideous in my review, and in retrospect, I see their point, at least in degree: the two projects are similarly experimental and impressively novel-sounding without actually feeling avant-garde. But there is just something about Cave Sermon that puts them in an entirely different category of genius—for me. Fragile Wings is playful but not silly; it’s complex but memorable, groovy, and fun; it’s dissonant and strange, but it’s organic, harmonious, and digestible. The idea that just one person is behind this18 makes it that much more mind-blowing. At this rate, there could well be another Cave Sermon record next year, and on the current trajectory, it may finally land this fantastic artist the official Iconic status they have always deserved.
Honorable Mentions:
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Hands-down my favorite Dormant Ordeal album so far. Heavy, groovy, and eminently-listenable, it really got its claws into me—especially during gym sessions shortly after release. It did fall out of my rotation quite substantially, in favor of its rivals above, thus putting it here.
- Primitive Man // Observance – When Observance dropped, and I was listening for the first time, I badly tried to describe Primitive Man to my partner (not a metal fan) over WhatsApp as “being crushed by a big rock really slowly, but in a good way.” Obviously, they didn’t know what I was on about, but Spicie Forrest seems to with his much better analogy of “being imprisoned and forgotten in a lightless pit.” Primitive Man has always made silly-heavy, scary-huge music, but Observance clicked with me like nothing else in their discography prior. I am indeed helplessly crushed and held prisoner.
- Blut Aus Nord // Ethereal Horizons – I think if this had dropped just a tiny bit earlier, it could have ended up on my list proper. Blut Aus Nord has always been one of those artists I know I do enjoy, but for some reason has never fully clicked for me. Ethereal Horizons felt immediately more enthralling. It’s more atmospheric, more darkly melodic, more blackened in its heaviness, and through it all, possibly more frightening.
Songs of the Year
- Cave Sermon – “Ancient for Someone”
- Panopticon – “A Letter”
- Panopticon – “The Poppies Bloom For No King”
- Patristic – “A Vinculis Soluta II”
- Qrixkuor – “The Womb of the World”
- Bianca – “Abysmal”
- Deafheaven – “The Garden Route”
- Nephylim – “Amaranth”
- Clouds – “Sorrowbound”
- 1914 – “1918 Pt 3 A.D.E (A Duty to Escape)”
- Der Weg Einer Freiheit – “Marter”
- Primitive Man – “Natural Law”
#1914 #2025 #Aversed #BarrenPath #Bianca #BlogPosts #BlutAusNord #CaveSermon #Changeling #Chiasma #Clouds #Dawnwalker #Deafheaven #DerWegEinerFreiheit #DolphinWhisperSAndThusSpokeSTopTenIshOf2025 #DormantOrdeal #Gorycz #Grayceon #Grima #HelmsDeep #Lists #Lynchgate #MaudTheMoth #Messa #Mothers #Nephylim #Panopticon #ParadiseLost #Patristic #Pissgrave #PrimitiveMan #Qrixkuor #Quadvium #Scardust #Sterveling #SufferingHour #Turian #YellowEyes #夢遊病者 -
Dolphin Whisperer’s and Thus Spoke’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 By Steel DruhmDolphin Whisperer
Thus Spoke and I go way back. In fact, after our successful graduation from the same n00b class and into our first list season as full article writers, we had imagined that us two as a listing pair would produce a lethal and novel whiplash.1 So welcome to the bottom (or top) half of this eclectic endeavor that’s sure to leave you with thirty-some-odd unique albums to revisit or ignore or whatever it is you do with our strong and word-riddled opinions.
Now, the keen reader may notice I’ve had a bit of a productivity drop-off since about June. Well, that’s cause my wife gave birth to The Dolphlet, first of his name, and that’s kind of a lot of work, as I’m finding out. Baby comes first, as it goes. But I squeaked out a few important things, including a Coroner review that the unwashed masses claimed didn’t jerk Tommy Baron and co. as full of glee as it should have. I did miss other important things, like several of my list items.2. And I sincerely apologize to the following bands and offer them words of condolence or, something like that, based upon their individual situation: Bonginator, you should be glad I dropped the ball, stop it with the lame interludes; and count your blessings, Hell Ever After, thrash doesn’t need to be a musical; Species, you did thrash right though and I’m happy that others enjoyed you even more; Moths, and more specifically bassist Weslie Negron, I’m sorry that I took on your interview when my son was one month old and my brain was fried—your album rocks and you put in so much work to make Moths special. And lastly, to all the classics, I had grand plans to YMIO because I thought my brain could make that work—haha.3
Angry Metal Guy, however, remains home for me. You, dear readers, are a part of that love and drive that keep me here. Sometimes, I may only be able to conjure a half-funny joke in the comments section—you laugh (let me believe that) and give it two to five likes. Others, I may hype the heck out of a promising underground act until one of my trusted colleagues tells me “Dolph, that’s enough already, I’ll review it, sheesh.”—you liked it probably more than I did anyway. You see, for every word of bleeding hyperbole that we scribble, two sets of eyes may walk away enraptured. When you’re dealing with artists who have anywhere from sub-100 to 30004 listeners on the popularity engine of Spotify, every set counts. Every purchase on Bandcamp or Ampwall counts. Every stream on Tidal or some other competitor counts. Even your damn scrobble on last.fm counts if you’re nerdy enough for that. So sappy as it may seem, along with the herding efforts of Steel and occasionally The Big Dr. AMG Man Himself, you all give life to the bands in this wonderful modern metal scene. Hails!!
#ish. Messa // The Spin – I can’t rid myself of the power that a soaring bluesy lick and a smoky siren voice hold, no matter how I try. Burned into my head are The Spin’s glassy chorused-out chorus escalations. Drenched into the cones of my crackling car speakers are the synth throbs of certified shakers “Fire on the Roof” and “Thicker Blood.” Turn up the volume and turn down the lights, Messa has come to steal attention with yet another platter of throwback creativity.
#10. Quadvium // Tetradōm – Steve DiGiorgio and Jeroen Paul Thesseling stand at the altar of supreme metal bassists in my own personal head canon. They’d helm yours too if you were familiar with the span of their collective talents across acts like Death, Sadus, Autopsy, (DiGiorgio), and Pestilence, Obscura, Sadist (Thesseling). Knowing all this, they decided to make an album together. And in their refinement as performers, they managed to make a supergroup two-bass project more than just a thumpy wankfest. Full of diverse and rich tones, modern and proggy jitteriness, and a rounded, jazz fusion-leaning taste for exploration, Tetradōm provides an exciting notch in the weathered belt of these legends. I don’t know where Quadvium goes next after this, but I hope that it’s anything but dormant.
#9. Scardust // Souls – Every time I hear the introductory stumble of “Long Forgotten Song,” I fall immediately into the spastic and serenading world that Scardust crafts with their hypermelodic, histrionic, and confident progressive metal attitude. Central to this success remains the peerless Noa Gruman, whose every melody lands with honey-slathered tack and sing-a-long inspiration, despite my voice being a far, far cry away from the searing soprano wail that functions as a mic-drop crescendo as often as it needs to. Behind her, though, lies one of modern prog’s most nimble rhythm sections, imbuing even ballads like “Dazzling Darkness” and “Searing Echoes” with a bass-popping and hi-hat chattering clamor that places Souls in a league of its own. Also, Ross Jennings of Haken sounds better here than he has with Haken since The Mountain.
#8. Chiasma // Reaches – Chiasma possesses the unique ability to blend in with the modern paradigm of accessible melody prog in the lane of a band like Tesseract without conforming to its most djentrified tendencies. Rather, floating in its own swirl of Cynic-coded riffage and angelic, layered vocal excess, Reaches explodes with atmosphere and propulsive riff alike. In Katie Thompson’s nimble serenades rests a voice imbued with both a fluttering prowess and an aching heart. And in this sorrow—wrapped in the brightness of bleeping electronic backings, flipping virtuosic guitar runs, and singular voice—a yearning and healing takes place in fervent and fluorescent splendor.
#7. Dawnwalker // The Between – Just when I thought Dawnwalker didn’t have any more surprises left in their bag of tricks that seem tailor-made for my enjoyment,5 these sneaky Brits went and pulled out the one-long-song album. Continuing to live in the space of esoteric philosophy set forth in The Unknowing last year, Dawnwalker collects moods from all their previous works—the melancholy of isolation from In Rooms, the vocal aggression from Human Ruins, a sonic palette even grander in scope than Ages—to explore thoughts surrounding death. In lush construction, plaintive discourse, and time-bending magic, The Between breathes as a meditation bookended by heavy chiming bells—a journey that feels longer than its svelte 30-ish minute runtime but with none of the fatigue its gargantuan ask threatens. 6
#6. Gorycz // Zasypia – It’s a shame that Gorycz isn’t a household name, as their mystical, groovy approach to atmospheric and retching black metal sits among my favorites in the genre as a whole. Zasypia, as part three of a trilogy, tells a tale of despair through a warping pedalboard light on traditional distortion, shrieking throat on the edge of coherence,7 and dancing kit full of jazzy aplomb. In the space that lives between recursive and developing refrains, terror lurks. But in the Gorycz tattered exhale hangs a reverence for the beauty that can emerge from destruction and grieving. Feel every amplified string creak as you fall deeper into this devastating world.
#5. Lychgate // Precipice – You may be aware that this album was released on the 19th of December, a full two days after we were supposed to turn in these lists. Knowing that, I made sure I beat Precipice to the punch of garbage time list upheaval by listening to it, well, before that. In turn, Lychgate made sure that they’d make this late-season blooming count. With the death-thrash spirit of an early Morbid Angel crashing through low-end organ harmony and colliding with Holdsworthian alien guitar bleating, Precipice holds back neither on its urge to wander in arcane atmosphere nor on its urge to churn bodies in kinetic wonder. As another writer (whose name I can’t remember) said, Precipice ensnares by “…oscillating between Zappa’s Jazz from Hell and unearthly, pit-scorching acrobatics.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.8
#4. Barren Path // Grieving – The best grindcore album of the decade so far would come from the manic attack of Gridlink sans Jon Chang. Absent his terrifying shriek, Matsubara’s guitar scatter weighs heavier, Fajarado’s lightning snare rolls clang sharper, all against song lengths that inhabit the true short-form tradition of extreme brevity. The truth is, I’ve spent longer than the album’s length trying to convey its intensity and prowess, so just go and listen to it already. I’ll wait here. No, seriously, do it.
#3. Turian // Blood Quantum Blues – So very rare is the album that aligns like a key to a lock of a heart torn by generational angst. An eloquence exists in the disparity between Turian’s stark societal observations punctuated by raw emotional interjections of “FUCK”. I haven’t bothered to count the instances that this linguistic escalation occurs, but I guarantee that there are more fucks per stanza on Blood Quantum Blues than your favorite album this year. And, after you’ve become addicted to its overdriven noise rock-meets-hardcore-meets-industrial madness, you’ll know every single one as you shout along its contemptuous tales of cultural erasure. Indians don’t vanish, and neither will my love for every riff, every breakdown, and every tirade of Blood Quantum Blues.
#2. Changeling // Changeling – Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger poured everything into Changeling. Arranging over thirty performers across Changeling’s seems Sisyphean in scope, but Geldschläger persevered. Through peerless fretless wailings, every instrument under the sun follows well-developed motifs, and a pure love for metal, Changeling expresses nostalgia and novelty in its every loaded nook and cranny. And behind each moment of dense and exuberant songcraft, Geldschläger has tinkered to deliver an experience that feels carved over a lifetime. On top of all of that, Geldschläger is also a true guitar wizard—he zigs and zags and twists and twirls where others wear a scale to death. Like a classic novel or movie, Changeling reveals its worth both in immediate, jaw-dropping action and deep, attention-stealing detail. Geldschläger even put together a Dolby Atmos mix for the album and held listening parties in Berlin. I hear they’re wonderful. Come to California, Tom!
#1. Maud the Moth // The Distaff – When we seek art, we seek bravery and freedom of expression. And in the music that we seek in a refuge like Angry Metal guy, we often find these qualities expressed in emotional theme, in raw, sonic aggression, or in sweeping guitar-led grandeur. Woven from a different base cloth, Maud the Moth on paper does not fit that mold. Amaya López-Carromero wields, instead, a piano and scrawled diary pages. She, too, has pain, the same as any human who has encountered a world unforgiving to a life that wishes to live in a divergent path. And like the artists we value—or rather, like the artists I value—Amaya presents her vision of this struggle with focused and expanding melodic lines, crushing and crying crescendos, and an earnestness that compels its audience to surrender for a moment to a world created by these musical ideas. When your sadness comes, it won’t weep in blacks and ivories the way that The Distaff does. But you can pop it on and pretend for its run that its triumph will transfer from your ears to the very center of your tingling chest.
Honorable Mentions:
- Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness – Tempos that flow like a full sewage pipe and riffage that doesn’t let up until the steaming and warped conclusion. The Pissgrave family flows as one heaving death-fueled machine, and it’s sad to see them close shop. But they left us with a monster of a swansong.
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Pummeling and emotionally resonant—if a bit ham-fisted in some lyrical choices—Tooth and Nail represents the ideal form so far of what Dormant Ordeal can achieve with their gut-wrenching take on the Polish death metal sound.
- Sterveling // Sterveling – The backdrop of black metal on what is otherwise downcast jam music makes for a combo that is both hypnotic and uncontested in the space. It helps that the vocalist lets out some of the most demented howls I’ve heard this year.
- 夢遊病者 // РЛБ30011922 – Speaking of jam music, 夢遊病者 has, over time, morphed from a more frenetic math rock-indebted experience to this current, flowing state of progressive tone porn. 2025 was a good year for the one-song album. And much like Dawnwalker’s The Between, it takes up about thirty minutes and some change. Restraint, class, and fat bass heaven.
- Aversed // Erasure of Color – I’m not normally one for melodic death metal. But when it comes packaged with this much mic vitriol and a neoclassical sense that reminds me of the late, great Nevermore,9 I pay attention. And I spin it again and again and again—constant rotation since arrival.
- Yellow Eyes // Confusion Gate – Certain albums that come out late in the year suffer greatly because their true power lies in remaining interesting and unfolding over a long period of time. Immersion Trench Reverie is a special album, and Confusion Gate feels like its sequel. Comfy and caustic all at once.
- Moths // Septem – As the premier progressive metal band from Puerto Rico, Moths has a loaded mission to make a name for themselves. And with another album that keeps its runtime tight and its riffweight heavy, Septem deserves your attention for half an hour and then some. Hey, look, it’s on Ampwall too!
- Grayceon // Then the Darkness – Cello metal at its finest and most relatable. Despite advances in chamber inclusion throughout the metalsphere, not a single band sounds like Grayceon yet. And their songwriting quality remains so high that I don’t care that this album is just about eighty minutes.
- Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon – There’s a dragon with a jetpack on the cover. I shouldn’t need to say more than that. But note also that Chasing the Dragon comes also loaded with rollicking ’80s flair and pentatonic guitar wizardry that’s so out of fashion it’s cool again. This is metal.
Disappointments o’ the Year:
- Suffering Hour // Impelling Rebirth and Umulamahri // Learning the Secrets of Acid – You’ll see more words about these later, cause they are great. And they are EPs. That’s not enough music when this quality exists.
Songs o’ the Year:
Why give you one when I can give you twenty-seven? Why twenty-seven? That’s my secret. Now, I’ve talked enough. Go out there and enjoy some music, friends. And enjoy this photo of my dogs eating. And the Dolphlet admiring them!
Thus Spoke
I’ve been blindsided by the year’s end again, and now have to find some interesting things to say about 2025. Other than the fact that I turned 3010, my main personal Thing ov Significance is that I managed to land myself a new job, which I’ll start in the new year.11 Don’t worry, though, I won’t be girl-bossing too hard to have time for AMG.
Musically, 2025 has been a (small) step down from 2024 for me, although this could just be due to my attention deficit. I’ve had my finger less firmly on the pulse in the last six months, such that several albums, by artists I like, many on this list, either took me completely by surprise on release day, or crossed my radar barely any sooner, thanks to me actually checking Slack for once. I don’t have any well-defined excuse for this outside of plain old burnout plus terrible organization. On the other hand, the fact that I didn’t review most of my favorite records this year means that I can bat away criticisms of self-indulgence by having a year-end list mostly comprised of albums I didn’t write about. One thing I am happy to have achieved this year is running my first AMG Ranking piece on Panopticon. It might be the most verbose and least exciting of its kind for the majority of site readers, but being forced to immerse myself that extensively in the discography of an artist I love was very cool (albeit intense).
Speaking of my own erratic presence at HQ, leads me on to the hiatus (official or not) of several wonderful people among the staff, particularly my list-buddy Maddog, whom I miss very much. They all have good reasons, and I support them immensely, even if it means fewer of their excellent reviews. Fortunately, we’ve also welcomed many newcomers to our ranks who can pick up my slack in their stead, and whose reviews help me improve my own writing whilst also appending to the endless list of Things I Must Listen To.
As my extensive yapping here shows, my ability to meet a word count hasn’t improved much. Before finally moving on to the list, I’ll take the chance to reiterate my gratitude for everyone reading this, and some people who might not be. Thank you to all the staff for collectively making this all possible, and giving me the opportunity to speak about music and for people—you guys—to actually read it. Thank you for reading. Even if our tastes are completely opposed and you think I’m wrong about everything, I’m glad you’re here.
Now for the bit people actually care about.
#ish. Panopticon // Songs of Hiraeth – Quietly12 released alongside Laurentian Blue, Songs of Hiraeth is a collection of songs composed between 2009-2011 that never saw the light of day. In it, you can hear the incredible development of Panopticon’s signature emotionally swelling black metal style in this period, and this record, like virtually all of them, as I repeated in my ranking blurbs, is gorgeously, absorbingly heartfelt and powerful. Unlike you might expect, it actually increases in intensity as it progresses (for me), with the final trifecta of “The End is Drawing Near,” “A Letter,” and “The Eulogy” all gunning for my Songs o’ the Year playlist with first devastating rage and fury, then heartbroken solemnity and sublime melody throughout. I guess it’s not fully in the list purely because it’s not a ‘proper’ new release, or whatever.
#10. Grima // Nightside – It could have been easy to forget about Grima, given its dropping right on the cusp of the stacked Spring release season we had this year, and the fact that I didn’t instantly mark it down for a TYMHM as with Clouds. But I didn’t forget. Despite their wintry aesthetic, Grima’s music warms my heart with folky magic and ardent blackened blizzards. Nightside is no exception, its warmth coming this time from a renewed emphasis on the atmosphere and bayan after the higher energies of Frostbitten. I love intense, harsh, frosty black metal, and I love how Grima do it (“Impending Death Premonition,” “Where We are Lost”). But what I love most of all about Grima is how they pair that with their folky tendencies, and the way—as Sharky pointed out—Vilhelm’s rasps graze over it all. This culminates, for me, in the more mournful and urgent tone of several tracks on Nightside, where intense moments still feel dreamlike (“The Nightside”), and vocals breathe like ghostly whispers (“Mist and Fog”). It’s not my favorite Grima record (that’s probably Rotten Garden), but being a Grima record at all, given their caliber, means it’s bloody great and has to be on my list.
#9. Bianca // Bianca – Here’s an excellent example of a record I very likely would never have heard were it not for the AMG writer community. And wow, am I grateful I did. Ken‘s description alone caught my interest, let alone the tidbit that the project includes two members of another 2025 favorite of mine, Patristic.13 It takes familiar concepts from metal, both post—ethereal atmospheres and haunting singing—and extreme—sky-piercing shrieks, undulating, relentless double-bass, and tangled guitar blizzards—but sounds like nothing else. Even in combining these elements, Bianca stands alone. The coalescence of blackened, doomed, ambient layers is mesmerizing, the pitches upward into mania, and lapses back into mournful mystique, captivating. Throat-gripping furor arrests me more inextricably than almost anything else this year (“Abysmal,” “Nachthexe”), and transcendent melodies forged from this black fire lift me fully out of my body (“Abysmal,” “Todestrieb”). I’ve been in love since.
#8. Der Weg Einer Freiheit // Innern – Innern’s influence on me was subtle and insidious. I would just put it on, be absorbed—or be sucked back in periodically, if I was working and not concentrating on it—and suddenly it would end. Then I’d listen to it again. Der Weg Einer Freiheit has been developing their particular intense, dark, atmospheric kind of (post-) black over the last decade or so, and with Innern, it’s approaching an apex. Through endlessly enveloping compositions, filled with fury and urgency (“Marter”) or solemn reflection and introspection (“Eos,” “Forlorn”), that flow seamlessly out of one another, Innern folds you insidiously into its depths. Compelling melodies, dynamic rushing percussion, and here-dramatic, there-soft-spoken vocals, each taking pieces and incorporating trials from Der Weg Einer Freiheit’s career so far, drive the thematic compositional thread through irresistibly. From the anticipatory opening shudders to the ebbing chords at its close, Innern is an experience best taken whole, and one I’ve indulged in countless times to go on this magnetic journey once again.
#7. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I never thought this would land here when first announced. Sure, I like Paradise Lost, but their back-catalog is so mixed (in style, let alone quality), that ‘liking’ them for me comes down to enjoying a handful of their now 17 albums. Even the singles’ being good failed to stir anything more than curiosity, given my experience with intra-album inconsistency. But when Ascension did finally grace my ears in full, it appropriately transcended any doubts and softened my heart towards these doom icons again.14 Paradise Lost were heavy again, melancholic and mopey again—in a cool, atmospheric way—and Ascension just flowed, with grungy aggression and sadboi introspection in perfect equilibrium. This easy, natural duality that characterizes Gothic metal, and Paradise Lost themselves as genre pioneers, when they’re at the top of their game, is exemplified in Ascension. Hopefully, the group can stay on this trajectory for number 18, if that comes.
#6. Clouds // Desprins – I don’t understand how Clouds are as good as they are. I mean this as no insult to the musicians; what stuns me is the depth of pathos, and the consistency with which they deliver it, given the relatively understated and idiosyncratic manner in which they execute it. Their characteristic flute-folk-funeral doom is so ethereally, painfully sad without being overwrought, melodramatic, or crushing. It took my n00bish breath away four years ago, and this year Desprins came and took it again; this time with pieces of my soul attached. The music is just so beautiful—unrelentingly bleak, but beautiful, and Clouds’ balance of the dark and the light through the synths and acoustics, and apathetic spoken-word is exquisite and deeply affecting. These composite melodies, swelling and trilling softly, are transportive for me—particularly “Life Becomes Lifeless,” “Chain Me,” “Sorrowbound,” and “Chasing Ghosts.” Desprins is everything I want funeral doom to be: a prolonged dream-state of melancholy that paradoxically brings me joy.
#5. Deafheaven // Lonely People with Power – I have never been a Deafheaven fan. In all honesty, I’m still not. Lonely People with Power fires me up and fills my soul, while the rest of their discography continues to leave me completely cold. It seems that, briefly departing from metal entirely with Infinite Granite, has matured their sound, adding layers to their edgy blackgaze. Even when indifferent, I never understood the scorn their music generates, and now that I’ve fallen for Lonely People with Power, it makes even less sense. Not only is the way Deafheaven are combining rich, beautiful melodies with—yes—brilliant black metal simply lovely to listen to, slick, seamless, sharp, etc, it’s also distinctive and engrossing. That’s before even getting into how emotionally resonant it is. And it’s not even like this means it can’t be heavy—heck, one of these tracks is on my Heavy Moves Heavy playlist. It’s not ‘cringe’; it’s a phenomenal record and one of the best to release this year.
#4. 1914 // Viribus Unitis – I have always been most moved—emotionally and aesthetically—by 1914’s brand of WWI-themed blackened-death than any other like act. Viribus Unitis somehow outdoes Where Fear and Weapons Meet, and possibly all of the band’s previous efforts, for evocativeness and being straightforward and compelling. From the now hallmark bookends “War In/Out” to frequent samples to lyrics infused with real soldier testimony, Viribus Unitis envelops the listener in this portal to the past through 1914’s most powerful, urgently melodic compositions. Every song is heavy, dramatic, and snappy in just the right amounts, resulting in a series of back-to-back bangers that also occasionally really, really hit home emotionally. “1918 Pt 3: ADE (A duty to escape)” does all the above to perfection and has received an almost embarrassing number of replays in the short time since release. But “1919 (The Home where I Died)” did actually make me cry,15 and its fade into “War Out” is the perfect end to the monumental achievement Viribus Unitis represents.
#3. Patristic // Catechesis – It seems that every year, I review one particular atmospheric-dissonant death metal record which dominates my listening in that subgenre, and instantly secures a year-end list spot. In 2023, Serpent of Old, last year Ulcerate16, and this year Patristic. Catechesis was an immediate, visceral love for me, and not once since June has it left rotation. Sinister and dark, but irresistible in its seamlessly flowing, captivating macro-composition narrated by roars and solemn sermonizing; it ends far too soon. And in addition to being beautifully atmospheric and magnetic in melody and dissonance alike, it stands out for truly insane performances in their own right. Specifically, the drumming, which continues to blow my mind and propels Catechesis from greatness into excellence with hypnotic, intelligent rhythmic interplay. Patristic’s uncanny ability to make extreme, inaccessible music incomprehensibly engrossing and a magnificent expression of its concept are why I can’t stop listening to Catechesis, and why it’s almost the best record of 2025.
#2. Qrixkuor // The Womb of the World – Much like reviewer Kenstrosity, whereas Qrixkuor’s debut Poison Palinopsia rewired my brain with its brilliance, I found follow-up Zoetrope a tad underwhelming. When said sponge began to hint, and then gush unstoppably about the duo’s second full-length, The Womb of the World, which was in his possession, vague hope turned to giddy excitement. Not only the twisted, psychedelic horror of their signature freeform blackened death would await me, but also a full live orchestra. Yet I still don’t think anything could have adequately prepared me for how massive and mad The Womb of the World actually is. With the strings, horns, and piano swooping and crashing about in great surges and falls, Qrixkuor’s already grandiose style fully feels like some tormented classical opus, and it’s utterly magnificent. Things so small as my words can’t do justice to the way the eerie and intense lurching orchestrals, maniacal snarling voices, and cavernous extreme metal combine to create some of the best things I have ever heard, ever. Weirdly memorable and violently compelling despite its monstrosity, I’ve become completely addicted to it since. Ken himself said, it is “a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial,” when he rightfully deemed it ‘Excellent’. If I must rescind soundness of mind to so esteem The Womb of the World, I will do so gladly.
#1. Cave Sermon // Fragile Wings – Last year, Divine Laughter went from unknown to #5 on my year-end list in about 2 weeks, so when I found out there was a follow-up—thanks to my new Flippered list buddy—I dropped everything.17 My stratospheric expectations were not only met, but they were lifted into outer space. I would fear for Cave Sermon’s ability to deliver in the future, but Fragile Wings itself dismisses any trepidation. So recognizably, uniquely Cave Sermon, it displays a new, more uplifting interpretation of their sound. A commenter pointed out the lack of reference to So Hideous in my review, and in retrospect, I see their point, at least in degree: the two projects are similarly experimental and impressively novel-sounding without actually feeling avant-garde. But there is just something about Cave Sermon that puts them in an entirely different category of genius—for me. Fragile Wings is playful but not silly; it’s complex but memorable, groovy, and fun; it’s dissonant and strange, but it’s organic, harmonious, and digestible. The idea that just one person is behind this18 makes it that much more mind-blowing. At this rate, there could well be another Cave Sermon record next year, and on the current trajectory, it may finally land this fantastic artist the official Iconic status they have always deserved.
Honorable Mentions:
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Hands-down my favorite Dormant Ordeal album so far. Heavy, groovy, and eminently-listenable, it really got its claws into me—especially during gym sessions shortly after release. It did fall out of my rotation quite substantially, in favor of its rivals above, thus putting it here.
- Primitive Man // Observance – When Observance dropped, and I was listening for the first time, I badly tried to describe Primitive Man to my partner (not a metal fan) over WhatsApp as “being crushed by a big rock really slowly, but in a good way.” Obviously, they didn’t know what I was on about, but Spicie Forrest seems to with his much better analogy of “being imprisoned and forgotten in a lightless pit.” Primitive Man has always made silly-heavy, scary-huge music, but Observance clicked with me like nothing else in their discography prior. I am indeed helplessly crushed and held prisoner.
- Blut Aus Nord // Ethereal Horizons – I think if this had dropped just a tiny bit earlier, it could have ended up on my list proper. Blut Aus Nord has always been one of those artists I know I do enjoy, but for some reason has never fully clicked for me. Ethereal Horizons felt immediately more enthralling. It’s more atmospheric, more darkly melodic, more blackened in its heaviness, and through it all, possibly more frightening.
Songs of the Year
- Cave Sermon – “Ancient for Someone”
- Panopticon – “A Letter”
- Panopticon – “The Poppies Bloom For No King”
- Patristic – “A Vinculis Soluta II”
- Qrixkuor – “The Womb of the World”
- Bianca – “Abysmal”
- Deafheaven – “The Garden Route”
- Nephylim – “Amaranth”
- Clouds – “Sorrowbound”
- 1914 – “1918 Pt 3 A.D.E (A Duty to Escape)”
- Der Weg Einer Freiheit – “Marter”
- Primitive Man – “Natural Law”
#1914 #2025 #Aversed #BarrenPath #Bianca #BlogPosts #BlutAusNord #CaveSermon #Changeling #Chiasma #Clouds #Dawnwalker #Deafheaven #DerWegEinerFreiheit #DolphinWhisperSAndThusSpokeSTopTenIshOf2025 #DormantOrdeal #Gorycz #Grayceon #Grima #HelmsDeep #Lists #Lynchgate #MaudTheMoth #Messa #Mothers #Nephylim #Panopticon #ParadiseLost #Patristic #Pissgrave #PrimitiveMan #Qrixkuor #Quadvium #Scardust #Sterveling #SufferingHour #Turian #YellowEyes #夢遊病者 -
Dolphin Whisperer’s and Thus Spoke’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 By Steel DruhmDolphin Whisperer
Thus Spoke and I go way back. In fact, after our successful graduation from the same n00b class and into our first list season as full article writers, we had imagined that us two as a listing pair would produce a lethal and novel whiplash.1 So welcome to the bottom (or top) half of this eclectic endeavor that’s sure to leave you with thirty-some-odd unique albums to revisit or ignore or whatever it is you do with our strong and word-riddled opinions.
Now, the keen reader may notice I’ve had a bit of a productivity drop-off since about June. Well, that’s cause my wife gave birth to The Dolphlet, first of his name, and that’s kind of a lot of work, as I’m finding out. Baby comes first, as it goes. But I squeaked out a few important things, including a Coroner review that the unwashed masses claimed didn’t jerk Tommy Baron and co. as full of glee as it should have. I did miss other important things, like several of my list items.2. And I sincerely apologize to the following bands and offer them words of condolence or, something like that, based upon their individual situation: Bonginator, you should be glad I dropped the ball, stop it with the lame interludes; and count your blessings, Hell Ever After, thrash doesn’t need to be a musical; Species, you did thrash right though and I’m happy that others enjoyed you even more; Moths, and more specifically bassist Weslie Negron, I’m sorry that I took on your interview when my son was one month old and my brain was fried—your album rocks and you put in so much work to make Moths special. And lastly, to all the classics, I had grand plans to YMIO because I thought my brain could make that work—haha.3
Angry Metal Guy, however, remains home for me. You, dear readers, are a part of that love and drive that keep me here. Sometimes, I may only be able to conjure a half-funny joke in the comments section—you laugh (let me believe that) and give it two to five likes. Others, I may hype the heck out of a promising underground act until one of my trusted colleagues tells me “Dolph, that’s enough already, I’ll review it, sheesh.”—you liked it probably more than I did anyway. You see, for every word of bleeding hyperbole that we scribble, two sets of eyes may walk away enraptured. When you’re dealing with artists who have anywhere from sub-100 to 30004 listeners on the popularity engine of Spotify, every set counts. Every purchase on Bandcamp or Ampwall counts. Every stream on Tidal or some other competitor counts. Even your damn scrobble on last.fm counts if you’re nerdy enough for that. So sappy as it may seem, along with the herding efforts of Steel and occasionally The Big Dr. AMG Man Himself, you all give life to the bands in this wonderful modern metal scene. Hails!!
#ish. Messa // The Spin – I can’t rid myself of the power that a soaring bluesy lick and a smoky siren voice hold, no matter how I try. Burned into my head are The Spin’s glassy chorused-out chorus escalations. Drenched into the cones of my crackling car speakers are the synth throbs of certified shakers “Fire on the Roof” and “Thicker Blood.” Turn up the volume and turn down the lights, Messa has come to steal attention with yet another platter of throwback creativity.
#10. Quadvium // Tetradōm – Steve DiGiorgio and Jeroen Paul Thesseling stand at the altar of supreme metal bassists in my own personal head canon. They’d helm yours too if you were familiar with the span of their collective talents across acts like Death, Sadus, Autopsy, (DiGiorgio), and Pestilence, Obscura, Sadist (Thesseling). Knowing all this, they decided to make an album together. And in their refinement as performers, they managed to make a supergroup two-bass project more than just a thumpy wankfest. Full of diverse and rich tones, modern and proggy jitteriness, and a rounded, jazz fusion-leaning taste for exploration, Tetradōm provides an exciting notch in the weathered belt of these legends. I don’t know where Quadvium goes next after this, but I hope that it’s anything but dormant.
#9. Scardust // Souls – Every time I hear the introductory stumble of “Long Forgotten Song,” I fall immediately into the spastic and serenading world that Scardust crafts with their hypermelodic, histrionic, and confident progressive metal attitude. Central to this success remains the peerless Noa Gruman, whose every melody lands with honey-slathered tack and sing-a-long inspiration, despite my voice being a far, far cry away from the searing soprano wail that functions as a mic-drop crescendo as often as it needs to. Behind her, though, lies one of modern prog’s most nimble rhythm sections, imbuing even ballads like “Dazzling Darkness” and “Searing Echoes” with a bass-popping and hi-hat chattering clamor that places Souls in a league of its own. Also, Ross Jennings of Haken sounds better here than he has with Haken since The Mountain.
#8. Chiasma // Reaches – Chiasma possesses the unique ability to blend in with the modern paradigm of accessible melody prog in the lane of a band like Tesseract without conforming to its most djentrified tendencies. Rather, floating in its own swirl of Cynic-coded riffage and angelic, layered vocal excess, Reaches explodes with atmosphere and propulsive riff alike. In Katie Thompson’s nimble serenades rests a voice imbued with both a fluttering prowess and an aching heart. And in this sorrow—wrapped in the brightness of bleeping electronic backings, flipping virtuosic guitar runs, and singular voice—a yearning and healing takes place in fervent and fluorescent splendor.
#7. Dawnwalker // The Between – Just when I thought Dawnwalker didn’t have any more surprises left in their bag of tricks that seem tailor-made for my enjoyment,5 these sneaky Brits went and pulled out the one-long-song album. Continuing to live in the space of esoteric philosophy set forth in The Unknowing last year, Dawnwalker collects moods from all their previous works—the melancholy of isolation from In Rooms, the vocal aggression from Human Ruins, a sonic palette even grander in scope than Ages—to explore thoughts surrounding death. In lush construction, plaintive discourse, and time-bending magic, The Between breathes as a meditation bookended by heavy chiming bells—a journey that feels longer than its svelte 30-ish minute runtime but with none of the fatigue its gargantuan ask threatens. 6
#6. Gorycz // Zasypia – It’s a shame that Gorycz isn’t a household name, as their mystical, groovy approach to atmospheric and retching black metal sits among my favorites in the genre as a whole. Zasypia, as part three of a trilogy, tells a tale of despair through a warping pedalboard light on traditional distortion, shrieking throat on the edge of coherence,7 and dancing kit full of jazzy aplomb. In the space that lives between recursive and developing refrains, terror lurks. But in the Gorycz tattered exhale hangs a reverence for the beauty that can emerge from destruction and grieving. Feel every amplified string creak as you fall deeper into this devastating world.
#5. Lychgate // Precipice – You may be aware that this album was released on the 19th of December, a full two days after we were supposed to turn in these lists. Knowing that, I made sure I beat Precipice to the punch of garbage time list upheaval by listening to it, well, before that. In turn, Lychgate made sure that they’d make this late-season blooming count. With the death-thrash spirit of an early Morbid Angel crashing through low-end organ harmony and colliding with Holdsworthian alien guitar bleating, Precipice holds back neither on its urge to wander in arcane atmosphere nor on its urge to churn bodies in kinetic wonder. As another writer (whose name I can’t remember) said, Precipice ensnares by “…oscillating between Zappa’s Jazz from Hell and unearthly, pit-scorching acrobatics.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.8
#4. Barren Path // Grieving – The best grindcore album of the decade so far would come from the manic attack of Gridlink sans Jon Chang. Absent his terrifying shriek, Matsubara’s guitar scatter weighs heavier, Fajarado’s lightning snare rolls clang sharper, all against song lengths that inhabit the true short-form tradition of extreme brevity. The truth is, I’ve spent longer than the album’s length trying to convey its intensity and prowess, so just go and listen to it already. I’ll wait here. No, seriously, do it.
#3. Turian // Blood Quantum Blues – So very rare is the album that aligns like a key to a lock of a heart torn by generational angst. An eloquence exists in the disparity between Turian’s stark societal observations punctuated by raw emotional interjections of “FUCK”. I haven’t bothered to count the instances that this linguistic escalation occurs, but I guarantee that there are more fucks per stanza on Blood Quantum Blues than your favorite album this year. And, after you’ve become addicted to its overdriven noise rock-meets-hardcore-meets-industrial madness, you’ll know every single one as you shout along its contemptuous tales of cultural erasure. Indians don’t vanish, and neither will my love for every riff, every breakdown, and every tirade of Blood Quantum Blues.
#2. Changeling // Changeling – Tom “Fountainhead” Geldschläger poured everything into Changeling. Arranging over thirty performers across Changeling’s seems Sisyphean in scope, but Geldschläger persevered. Through peerless fretless wailings, every instrument under the sun follows well-developed motifs, and a pure love for metal, Changeling expresses nostalgia and novelty in its every loaded nook and cranny. And behind each moment of dense and exuberant songcraft, Geldschläger has tinkered to deliver an experience that feels carved over a lifetime. On top of all of that, Geldschläger is also a true guitar wizard—he zigs and zags and twists and twirls where others wear a scale to death. Like a classic novel or movie, Changeling reveals its worth both in immediate, jaw-dropping action and deep, attention-stealing detail. Geldschläger even put together a Dolby Atmos mix for the album and held listening parties in Berlin. I hear they’re wonderful. Come to California, Tom!
#1. Maud the Moth // The Distaff – When we seek art, we seek bravery and freedom of expression. And in the music that we seek in a refuge like Angry Metal guy, we often find these qualities expressed in emotional theme, in raw, sonic aggression, or in sweeping guitar-led grandeur. Woven from a different base cloth, Maud the Moth on paper does not fit that mold. Amaya López-Carromero wields, instead, a piano and scrawled diary pages. She, too, has pain, the same as any human who has encountered a world unforgiving to a life that wishes to live in a divergent path. And like the artists we value—or rather, like the artists I value—Amaya presents her vision of this struggle with focused and expanding melodic lines, crushing and crying crescendos, and an earnestness that compels its audience to surrender for a moment to a world created by these musical ideas. When your sadness comes, it won’t weep in blacks and ivories the way that The Distaff does. But you can pop it on and pretend for its run that its triumph will transfer from your ears to the very center of your tingling chest.
Honorable Mentions:
- Pissgrave // Malignant Worthlessness – Tempos that flow like a full sewage pipe and riffage that doesn’t let up until the steaming and warped conclusion. The Pissgrave family flows as one heaving death-fueled machine, and it’s sad to see them close shop. But they left us with a monster of a swansong.
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Pummeling and emotionally resonant—if a bit ham-fisted in some lyrical choices—Tooth and Nail represents the ideal form so far of what Dormant Ordeal can achieve with their gut-wrenching take on the Polish death metal sound.
- Sterveling // Sterveling – The backdrop of black metal on what is otherwise downcast jam music makes for a combo that is both hypnotic and uncontested in the space. It helps that the vocalist lets out some of the most demented howls I’ve heard this year.
- 夢遊病者 // РЛБ30011922 – Speaking of jam music, 夢遊病者 has, over time, morphed from a more frenetic math rock-indebted experience to this current, flowing state of progressive tone porn. 2025 was a good year for the one-song album. And much like Dawnwalker’s The Between, it takes up about thirty minutes and some change. Restraint, class, and fat bass heaven.
- Aversed // Erasure of Color – I’m not normally one for melodic death metal. But when it comes packaged with this much mic vitriol and a neoclassical sense that reminds me of the late, great Nevermore,9 I pay attention. And I spin it again and again and again—constant rotation since arrival.
- Yellow Eyes // Confusion Gate – Certain albums that come out late in the year suffer greatly because their true power lies in remaining interesting and unfolding over a long period of time. Immersion Trench Reverie is a special album, and Confusion Gate feels like its sequel. Comfy and caustic all at once.
- Moths // Septem – As the premier progressive metal band from Puerto Rico, Moths has a loaded mission to make a name for themselves. And with another album that keeps its runtime tight and its riffweight heavy, Septem deserves your attention for half an hour and then some. Hey, look, it’s on Ampwall too!
- Grayceon // Then the Darkness – Cello metal at its finest and most relatable. Despite advances in chamber inclusion throughout the metalsphere, not a single band sounds like Grayceon yet. And their songwriting quality remains so high that I don’t care that this album is just about eighty minutes.
- Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon – There’s a dragon with a jetpack on the cover. I shouldn’t need to say more than that. But note also that Chasing the Dragon comes also loaded with rollicking ’80s flair and pentatonic guitar wizardry that’s so out of fashion it’s cool again. This is metal.
Disappointments o’ the Year:
- Suffering Hour // Impelling Rebirth and Umulamahri // Learning the Secrets of Acid – You’ll see more words about these later, cause they are great. And they are EPs. That’s not enough music when this quality exists.
Songs o’ the Year:
Why give you one when I can give you twenty-seven? Why twenty-seven? That’s my secret. Now, I’ve talked enough. Go out there and enjoy some music, friends. And enjoy this photo of my dogs eating. And the Dolphlet admiring them!
Thus Spoke
I’ve been blindsided by the year’s end again, and now have to find some interesting things to say about 2025. Other than the fact that I turned 3010, my main personal Thing ov Significance is that I managed to land myself a new job, which I’ll start in the new year.11 Don’t worry, though, I won’t be girl-bossing too hard to have time for AMG.
Musically, 2025 has been a (small) step down from 2024 for me, although this could just be due to my attention deficit. I’ve had my finger less firmly on the pulse in the last six months, such that several albums, by artists I like, many on this list, either took me completely by surprise on release day, or crossed my radar barely any sooner, thanks to me actually checking Slack for once. I don’t have any well-defined excuse for this outside of plain old burnout plus terrible organization. On the other hand, the fact that I didn’t review most of my favorite records this year means that I can bat away criticisms of self-indulgence by having a year-end list mostly comprised of albums I didn’t write about. One thing I am happy to have achieved this year is running my first AMG Ranking piece on Panopticon. It might be the most verbose and least exciting of its kind for the majority of site readers, but being forced to immerse myself that extensively in the discography of an artist I love was very cool (albeit intense).
Speaking of my own erratic presence at HQ, leads me on to the hiatus (official or not) of several wonderful people among the staff, particularly my list-buddy Maddog, whom I miss very much. They all have good reasons, and I support them immensely, even if it means fewer of their excellent reviews. Fortunately, we’ve also welcomed many newcomers to our ranks who can pick up my slack in their stead, and whose reviews help me improve my own writing whilst also appending to the endless list of Things I Must Listen To.
As my extensive yapping here shows, my ability to meet a word count hasn’t improved much. Before finally moving on to the list, I’ll take the chance to reiterate my gratitude for everyone reading this, and some people who might not be. Thank you to all the staff for collectively making this all possible, and giving me the opportunity to speak about music and for people—you guys—to actually read it. Thank you for reading. Even if our tastes are completely opposed and you think I’m wrong about everything, I’m glad you’re here.
Now for the bit people actually care about.
#ish. Panopticon // Songs of Hiraeth – Quietly12 released alongside Laurentian Blue, Songs of Hiraeth is a collection of songs composed between 2009-2011 that never saw the light of day. In it, you can hear the incredible development of Panopticon’s signature emotionally swelling black metal style in this period, and this record, like virtually all of them, as I repeated in my ranking blurbs, is gorgeously, absorbingly heartfelt and powerful. Unlike you might expect, it actually increases in intensity as it progresses (for me), with the final trifecta of “The End is Drawing Near,” “A Letter,” and “The Eulogy” all gunning for my Songs o’ the Year playlist with first devastating rage and fury, then heartbroken solemnity and sublime melody throughout. I guess it’s not fully in the list purely because it’s not a ‘proper’ new release, or whatever.
#10. Grima // Nightside – It could have been easy to forget about Grima, given its dropping right on the cusp of the stacked Spring release season we had this year, and the fact that I didn’t instantly mark it down for a TYMHM as with Clouds. But I didn’t forget. Despite their wintry aesthetic, Grima’s music warms my heart with folky magic and ardent blackened blizzards. Nightside is no exception, its warmth coming this time from a renewed emphasis on the atmosphere and bayan after the higher energies of Frostbitten. I love intense, harsh, frosty black metal, and I love how Grima do it (“Impending Death Premonition,” “Where We are Lost”). But what I love most of all about Grima is how they pair that with their folky tendencies, and the way—as Sharky pointed out—Vilhelm’s rasps graze over it all. This culminates, for me, in the more mournful and urgent tone of several tracks on Nightside, where intense moments still feel dreamlike (“The Nightside”), and vocals breathe like ghostly whispers (“Mist and Fog”). It’s not my favorite Grima record (that’s probably Rotten Garden), but being a Grima record at all, given their caliber, means it’s bloody great and has to be on my list.
#9. Bianca // Bianca – Here’s an excellent example of a record I very likely would never have heard were it not for the AMG writer community. And wow, am I grateful I did. Ken‘s description alone caught my interest, let alone the tidbit that the project includes two members of another 2025 favorite of mine, Patristic.13 It takes familiar concepts from metal, both post—ethereal atmospheres and haunting singing—and extreme—sky-piercing shrieks, undulating, relentless double-bass, and tangled guitar blizzards—but sounds like nothing else. Even in combining these elements, Bianca stands alone. The coalescence of blackened, doomed, ambient layers is mesmerizing, the pitches upward into mania, and lapses back into mournful mystique, captivating. Throat-gripping furor arrests me more inextricably than almost anything else this year (“Abysmal,” “Nachthexe”), and transcendent melodies forged from this black fire lift me fully out of my body (“Abysmal,” “Todestrieb”). I’ve been in love since.
#8. Der Weg Einer Freiheit // Innern – Innern’s influence on me was subtle and insidious. I would just put it on, be absorbed—or be sucked back in periodically, if I was working and not concentrating on it—and suddenly it would end. Then I’d listen to it again. Der Weg Einer Freiheit has been developing their particular intense, dark, atmospheric kind of (post-) black over the last decade or so, and with Innern, it’s approaching an apex. Through endlessly enveloping compositions, filled with fury and urgency (“Marter”) or solemn reflection and introspection (“Eos,” “Forlorn”), that flow seamlessly out of one another, Innern folds you insidiously into its depths. Compelling melodies, dynamic rushing percussion, and here-dramatic, there-soft-spoken vocals, each taking pieces and incorporating trials from Der Weg Einer Freiheit’s career so far, drive the thematic compositional thread through irresistibly. From the anticipatory opening shudders to the ebbing chords at its close, Innern is an experience best taken whole, and one I’ve indulged in countless times to go on this magnetic journey once again.
#7. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I never thought this would land here when first announced. Sure, I like Paradise Lost, but their back-catalog is so mixed (in style, let alone quality), that ‘liking’ them for me comes down to enjoying a handful of their now 17 albums. Even the singles’ being good failed to stir anything more than curiosity, given my experience with intra-album inconsistency. But when Ascension did finally grace my ears in full, it appropriately transcended any doubts and softened my heart towards these doom icons again.14 Paradise Lost were heavy again, melancholic and mopey again—in a cool, atmospheric way—and Ascension just flowed, with grungy aggression and sadboi introspection in perfect equilibrium. This easy, natural duality that characterizes Gothic metal, and Paradise Lost themselves as genre pioneers, when they’re at the top of their game, is exemplified in Ascension. Hopefully, the group can stay on this trajectory for number 18, if that comes.
#6. Clouds // Desprins – I don’t understand how Clouds are as good as they are. I mean this as no insult to the musicians; what stuns me is the depth of pathos, and the consistency with which they deliver it, given the relatively understated and idiosyncratic manner in which they execute it. Their characteristic flute-folk-funeral doom is so ethereally, painfully sad without being overwrought, melodramatic, or crushing. It took my n00bish breath away four years ago, and this year Desprins came and took it again; this time with pieces of my soul attached. The music is just so beautiful—unrelentingly bleak, but beautiful, and Clouds’ balance of the dark and the light through the synths and acoustics, and apathetic spoken-word is exquisite and deeply affecting. These composite melodies, swelling and trilling softly, are transportive for me—particularly “Life Becomes Lifeless,” “Chain Me,” “Sorrowbound,” and “Chasing Ghosts.” Desprins is everything I want funeral doom to be: a prolonged dream-state of melancholy that paradoxically brings me joy.
#5. Deafheaven // Lonely People with Power – I have never been a Deafheaven fan. In all honesty, I’m still not. Lonely People with Power fires me up and fills my soul, while the rest of their discography continues to leave me completely cold. It seems that, briefly departing from metal entirely with Infinite Granite, has matured their sound, adding layers to their edgy blackgaze. Even when indifferent, I never understood the scorn their music generates, and now that I’ve fallen for Lonely People with Power, it makes even less sense. Not only is the way Deafheaven are combining rich, beautiful melodies with—yes—brilliant black metal simply lovely to listen to, slick, seamless, sharp, etc, it’s also distinctive and engrossing. That’s before even getting into how emotionally resonant it is. And it’s not even like this means it can’t be heavy—heck, one of these tracks is on my Heavy Moves Heavy playlist. It’s not ‘cringe’; it’s a phenomenal record and one of the best to release this year.
#4. 1914 // Viribus Unitis – I have always been most moved—emotionally and aesthetically—by 1914’s brand of WWI-themed blackened-death than any other like act. Viribus Unitis somehow outdoes Where Fear and Weapons Meet, and possibly all of the band’s previous efforts, for evocativeness and being straightforward and compelling. From the now hallmark bookends “War In/Out” to frequent samples to lyrics infused with real soldier testimony, Viribus Unitis envelops the listener in this portal to the past through 1914’s most powerful, urgently melodic compositions. Every song is heavy, dramatic, and snappy in just the right amounts, resulting in a series of back-to-back bangers that also occasionally really, really hit home emotionally. “1918 Pt 3: ADE (A duty to escape)” does all the above to perfection and has received an almost embarrassing number of replays in the short time since release. But “1919 (The Home where I Died)” did actually make me cry,15 and its fade into “War Out” is the perfect end to the monumental achievement Viribus Unitis represents.
#3. Patristic // Catechesis – It seems that every year, I review one particular atmospheric-dissonant death metal record which dominates my listening in that subgenre, and instantly secures a year-end list spot. In 2023, Serpent of Old, last year Ulcerate16, and this year Patristic. Catechesis was an immediate, visceral love for me, and not once since June has it left rotation. Sinister and dark, but irresistible in its seamlessly flowing, captivating macro-composition narrated by roars and solemn sermonizing; it ends far too soon. And in addition to being beautifully atmospheric and magnetic in melody and dissonance alike, it stands out for truly insane performances in their own right. Specifically, the drumming, which continues to blow my mind and propels Catechesis from greatness into excellence with hypnotic, intelligent rhythmic interplay. Patristic’s uncanny ability to make extreme, inaccessible music incomprehensibly engrossing and a magnificent expression of its concept are why I can’t stop listening to Catechesis, and why it’s almost the best record of 2025.
#2. Qrixkuor // The Womb of the World – Much like reviewer Kenstrosity, whereas Qrixkuor’s debut Poison Palinopsia rewired my brain with its brilliance, I found follow-up Zoetrope a tad underwhelming. When said sponge began to hint, and then gush unstoppably about the duo’s second full-length, The Womb of the World, which was in his possession, vague hope turned to giddy excitement. Not only the twisted, psychedelic horror of their signature freeform blackened death would await me, but also a full live orchestra. Yet I still don’t think anything could have adequately prepared me for how massive and mad The Womb of the World actually is. With the strings, horns, and piano swooping and crashing about in great surges and falls, Qrixkuor’s already grandiose style fully feels like some tormented classical opus, and it’s utterly magnificent. Things so small as my words can’t do justice to the way the eerie and intense lurching orchestrals, maniacal snarling voices, and cavernous extreme metal combine to create some of the best things I have ever heard, ever. Weirdly memorable and violently compelling despite its monstrosity, I’ve become completely addicted to it since. Ken himself said, it is “a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial,” when he rightfully deemed it ‘Excellent’. If I must rescind soundness of mind to so esteem The Womb of the World, I will do so gladly.
#1. Cave Sermon // Fragile Wings – Last year, Divine Laughter went from unknown to #5 on my year-end list in about 2 weeks, so when I found out there was a follow-up—thanks to my new Flippered list buddy—I dropped everything.17 My stratospheric expectations were not only met, but they were lifted into outer space. I would fear for Cave Sermon’s ability to deliver in the future, but Fragile Wings itself dismisses any trepidation. So recognizably, uniquely Cave Sermon, it displays a new, more uplifting interpretation of their sound. A commenter pointed out the lack of reference to So Hideous in my review, and in retrospect, I see their point, at least in degree: the two projects are similarly experimental and impressively novel-sounding without actually feeling avant-garde. But there is just something about Cave Sermon that puts them in an entirely different category of genius—for me. Fragile Wings is playful but not silly; it’s complex but memorable, groovy, and fun; it’s dissonant and strange, but it’s organic, harmonious, and digestible. The idea that just one person is behind this18 makes it that much more mind-blowing. At this rate, there could well be another Cave Sermon record next year, and on the current trajectory, it may finally land this fantastic artist the official Iconic status they have always deserved.
Honorable Mentions:
- Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail – Hands-down my favorite Dormant Ordeal album so far. Heavy, groovy, and eminently-listenable, it really got its claws into me—especially during gym sessions shortly after release. It did fall out of my rotation quite substantially, in favor of its rivals above, thus putting it here.
- Primitive Man // Observance – When Observance dropped, and I was listening for the first time, I badly tried to describe Primitive Man to my partner (not a metal fan) over WhatsApp as “being crushed by a big rock really slowly, but in a good way.” Obviously, they didn’t know what I was on about, but Spicie Forrest seems to with his much better analogy of “being imprisoned and forgotten in a lightless pit.” Primitive Man has always made silly-heavy, scary-huge music, but Observance clicked with me like nothing else in their discography prior. I am indeed helplessly crushed and held prisoner.
- Blut Aus Nord // Ethereal Horizons – I think if this had dropped just a tiny bit earlier, it could have ended up on my list proper. Blut Aus Nord has always been one of those artists I know I do enjoy, but for some reason has never fully clicked for me. Ethereal Horizons felt immediately more enthralling. It’s more atmospheric, more darkly melodic, more blackened in its heaviness, and through it all, possibly more frightening.
Songs of the Year
- Cave Sermon – “Ancient for Someone”
- Panopticon – “A Letter”
- Panopticon – “The Poppies Bloom For No King”
- Patristic – “A Vinculis Soluta II”
- Qrixkuor – “The Womb of the World”
- Bianca – “Abysmal”
- Deafheaven – “The Garden Route”
- Nephylim – “Amaranth”
- Clouds – “Sorrowbound”
- 1914 – “1918 Pt 3 A.D.E (A Duty to Escape)”
- Der Weg Einer Freiheit – “Marter”
- Primitive Man – “Natural Law”
Show 18 footnotes
- That said, since reverb dampens bite, it’s actually impossible to experience “whiplash” while listening to the music you two like. – AMG ↩
- Which by the time of publication, you’ll discover I either did it in time enough to run before this or… you’ll get them when you get them ↩
- Also, if I forgot that I dropped the ball on reviewing your album, well, you wouldn’t know anyway, would you? Sorry. ↩
- Every #1 artist, including now Maud the Moth, I’ve had for the past few years, falls in this range currently, with the lowest being Vvon Dogma I at 87 monthly listeners. Each and every one of you can make a difference. ↩
- OK, I never doubted them. ↩
- Seems like a 4.0 innit. ilu Twelve. <3 ↩
- If you speak Polish, anyway. ↩
- ilu2 Grinny. <3 ↩
- Loomis, mind telling us what’s going on here?? ↩
- rip ↩
- It’s especially exciting given I’ve been a team of one for a few months now, following job cuts and resignations. ↩
- Or not-so-quietly, if you’re not an idiot like me who doesn’t read their Bandcamp emails and so may as well not be on these bands’/labels’ email lists. ↩
- Whom you’ll see here a bit later. ↩
- I actually ended up going to see them live shortly after, where they essentially ‘played the hits’ from across their career—which was fun—and generally seemed like nice blokes. ↩
- I’ll reiterate here that I do cry quite easily, but still! ↩
- That was a good year. ↩
- I was at work, and I think I audibly gasped, prompting my neighbour to ask me what was going on. ↩
- Composition, performances, programming, mixing, and mastering were all done by Charlie Park, with the cover art courtesy of artist Al Lane. ↩
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What is greenwashing?
Over the course of the 20th century, capitalism preserved its momentum by moulding the ordinary person into a consumer. Using advertising to encourage in people the ravenous hunger for purchasing more stuff and the accompanying feeling of hollowness and a need for more and more.
At the end of the 20th century, environmental problems began to arise from unchecked capitalist growth
Ever-expanding growth and the over-exploitation of land, water and animals continued at pace. Even despite its immense cost to animals, ecosystems and people in the developing world.
Even despite predictions by scientists that the world would be destroyed.
Out of-control global corporates needed strong storytelling and PR to support their continued exponential growth.
This insane need for economic/corporate growth gave rise to the ‘Green Growth’ and ‘Sustainability’ movements. The marketing and PR tactics employed to justify the continued growth of these brands and products despite their destruction, is known as:
Greenwashing
https://twitter.com/esm_magazine/status/1448197400879943680?s=20
https://twitter.com/Context_Group/status/1126528027402203138?s=20
Original Tweet
https://twitter.com/FoodNavigator/status/872467048009486336?s=20
https://twitter.com/RubenBrunsveld/status/1448552977665507330?s=20
https://twitter.com/Morgante_Fra/status/1191550867561836544?s=20
https://twitter.com/Context_Group/status/1271130962089381888?s=20
The origins of greenwashing can be found in the origins of consumerism, advertising and marketing itself
This is most powerfully illustrated by one of the original source about marketing from between the world wars by Edward Bernays, a landmark book called Propaganda published in 1928. This book would be instrumental for setting in train the agenda for economic growth in the West in the 20th Century.
Propaganda by Edward Bernays (1928)
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.… It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world”
Mass production is profitable only if its rhythm can be maintained—that is if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity.… Today supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand … [and] cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda … to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable.
WHO considers marketing by the palm oil industry to be akin to tobacco and alcohol marketing
Marketing of palm oil does not occur in the traditional sense. Responding to a backlash against accusations of poor environmental and labour practices, the industry has sought to portray its products as sustainable, while highlighting the contribution to poverty alleviation.
There is also a mutual benefit for the palm oil and processed food industry, with the latter targeting advertisements for ultra-processed foods towards children (similar to efforts by the tobacco and alcohol industries in targeting children and adolescents) and the palm oil refining industry benefiting from the corresponding increase in sales of foods containing palm oil.The palm oil industry and noncommunicable diseases, (2019),
Sowmya Kadandale, a Robert Martenb & Richard Smith.
World Health Organisation Bulletin.A 2019 World Health Organisation (WHO) report into the palm oil industry and RSPO finds extensive greenwashing of palm oil deforestation and the murder of endangered animals (i.e. biodiversity loss)
Read moreWorld Organisation of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) Guide for promoting sustainable palm oil
https://twitter.com/FoodNavigator/status/872467048009486336?s=20
Sustainability is meaningless, it’s time for a new enlightenment
Effectively, sustainability became the main ingredient of a “having your cake and eating it” ideology. The environment, and its ecological systems, were deemed to be sustained while equally economic development could continue apace.
But if sustainable development had delivered on its promise, humanity would now not be facing the crisis we call climate change.
Greenwashing solves nothing.
What was, and is, actually needed is the opposite of what has been promoted in order to try to maintain the economic status quo.
Dr Toni Fry, Griffith University ‘Sustainability is meaningless, it’s time for a new enlightenment, The Conversation.
Research into how to influence voluntary standards using expert knowledge
“The ability of developing countries, especially small-scale actors within them, to shape standard setting and management to their advantage depends not only on overcoming important structural differences…but also on more subtle games. These include promoting the enrolment of one expert group or kind of expert knowledge over another, using specific formats of negotiation, and legitimating particular modes of engagement over others.”
Voluntary standards, expert knowledge and the governance of sustainability networks. (2013), Ponte, S. & Cheyns, E. Glob. Netw. 13, 459–477
The Vice President of the European Parliament Heidi Hautala does not trust the RSPO’s false and weak promise of “sustainable” palm oil
She replies to my conversation on Twitter to advise of this…
Heidi Hautala, Vice-President of the European Parliament and part of the the Human Rights and Democracy panel and Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)“No voluntary standards or industry schemes have done the job fully [of eliminating deforestation or human rights abuses]. That is why the game-changing EU CSDDD [Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive] is mandatory. Certification is a useful tool but will not liberate the company from its duty of due diligence”
~ Heidi Hautala, Vice-President of the European Parliament and part of the the Human Rights and Democracy panel and Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)
https://twitter.com/HeidiHautala/status/1671422744683225088?s=20
Is it possible to design an eco-label without greenwashing?
In his book ‘Beyond Greenwash’ Hamish Van Der Ven somewhat naively sets out to answer that question.
Naive because embedded within capitalism is the drive towards exponential growth and the ecosystems and resources of our planet are finite – which makes it naive to think that we can continue to labour under the same system, yet expect a different result.
Still Van Der Ven has some valid insights to share here about how a eco-label could theoretically be designed to be free from greenwashing.
An eco-label without greenwashing has yet to materialise. This is because our current economic system does not consider ‘value’ to include: human rights, animal rights, the beauty of unspoiled nature and forests left intact – the only way the current system quantifies ‘value’ is financial growth. The virtue-signalling about doing the right thing and improving human rights, animal rights, environmental sustainability is greenwashing. If businesses DID care, these issues would have been sorted. Instead, they provide consumers with empty words and promises.
Is it transparent?
Dubious eco-labels keep everything offline or hidden behind pay walls; credible eco-labels make their information freely available online, including information around breaches of rules and regulations and their resolutions, governance and funding.
Is it independent?
- Consumers and procurement professionals should be wary of self-awarded ecolabels. Instead seek out ecolabels from a credible third-party organisation.
- There should also be independence between the organisation that sets the standard and the organization that audits compliance against its criteria. This is important for preventing a conflict of interest.
- Standard-setters generally receive revenues based on how widely their eco-labels are used. An eco-labeling organization that checks compliance against its own standard has an incentive to overlook non-compliances and set a lower bar for achievement.
Is it inclusive?
Do all stakeholders get a say in decision-making? If an eco-label promotes sustainable coffee production, then it should involve coffee farmers, scientists, processers, NGOs, and community members (amongst others) in standard-setting.
10 Tactics of Sustainable Palm Oil Greenwashing
Greenwashing Tactic #1: Hidden Trade Off
When a brand makes token changes while continuing with deforestation, ecocide or human rights abuses in another part of their business – this is ‘Hidden Trade Off’
For example, Nestle talks up satellite monitoring to stop palm oil deforestation. Yet…
Greenwashing Tactic #2: No Proof
Claiming a brand or commodity is green without any supporting evidence The RSPO promises to deliver this with their certification: 1. Improves the livelihoods of small holder farmers 2. Stops illegal indigenous land-grabbing and human rights abuses 3. Stops deforestation…
Greenwashing Tactic #3: Vagueness
Claiming a brand or commodity is ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ based on broad generalisations, unclear language or vague statements Jump to section Greenwashing: Vagueness in Language Greenwashing: Vagueness in certification standards Reality: Auditing of RSPO a failure Quote: EIA: Who Watches…
Greenwashing Tactic #4: Fake Labels
Claiming a brand or commodity is green based on unreliable, ineffective endorsements or eco-labels such as the RSPO, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or FairTrade coffee and cocoa. Greenwashing: Fake Labels and fake certifications Ecolabels are designed to reassure consumers that…
Greenwashing Tactic #5: Irrelevance and Deflection
Claiming a brand, commodity or industry is green based on irrelevant information Jump to section Greenwashing: Irrelevant Topics Greenwashing: Colonial Racism Research: Palm oil greenwashing and its link to climate denialism Reality: RSPO Certification Doesn’t Stop Deforestation, Human Rights Abuses…
Greenwashing Tactic #6: The Lesser of Two Evils
Claiming that a brand, commodity or industry is greener than others in the same category, in order to excuse ecocide, deforestation, human rights and animal rights abuses. Jump to section Greenwashing: Lesser of Two Evils: Palm Oil Uses Less Land…
Telling outright lies over and over again to consumers until they are believed as truth Jump to section Greenwashing: Endangered species Reality: Endangered species Greenwashing: Human rights, land-grabbing and livelihoods for workers Reality: Human rights, land-grabbing and livelihoods for workers…
Greenwashing Tactic #8: Design & Words
Using design principles and greenwashing language in order to trigger emotional and unconscious responses in consumers Jump to section Greenwashing: Design Principles Greenwashing Design Example: Palm Done Right Greenwashing Design Example: WWF Palm Oil Scorecard 2021 Greenwashing with Words: Vegan…
Greenwashing Tactic #9: Partnerships, Sponsorships and Research Funding
Jump to section Orangutan Land Trust funded by rainforest destroying palm oil co. Kulim Malaysia Berhad Orangutan Land Trust funded by Agropalma: during decades-long destruction of the Amazon for palm oil Orangutan Land Trust and New Britain Palm Oil (NBPOL):…
Greenwashing Tactic #10: Gaslighting, Harassment, Stalking and Attempting to Discredit Critics
Attempting to humiliate, gaslight, discredit, harass and stalk any vocal critics of a brand, commodity or industry certification in order to scare individuals into silence and stop them from revealing corruption Greenwashing’s most insidious and darkest form is the attempt…
Ten Tactics of ‘Sustainable’ Palm Oil Greenwashing
There has never been a more urgent time for consumers to wake up to the devastation wrought by global supermarket brands for palm oil Jump to section 1. Greenwashing with Hidden Trade-Off 2. Greenwashing with No Proof 3. Greenwashing with…
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Find out moreFurther reading on palm oil ecocide, greenwashing and deceptive marketing
- A Brief History of Consumer Culture, Dr. Kerryn Higgs, The MIT Press Reader. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/a-brief-history-of-consumer-culture/
- A Deluge of Double-Speak (2017), Jason Bagley. Truth in Advertising. https://truthinadvertising.org/blog/a-deluge-of-doublespeak/
- Aggarwal, P. (2011). Greenwashing: The darker side of CSR. Indian Journal of Applied Research, 4(3), 61-66. https://www.worldwidejournals.com/indian-journal-of-applied-research-(IJAR)/article/greenwashing-the-darker-side-of-csr/MzMxMQ==/?is=1
- Anti-Corporate Activism and Collusion: The Contentious Politics of Palm Oil Expansion in Indonesia, (2022). Ward Berenschot, et. al., Geoforum, Volume 131, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.03.002
- Armour, C. (2021). Green Clean. Company Director Magazine. https://www.aicd.com.au/regulatory-compliance/regulations/investigation/green-clean.html
- Balanced Growth (2020), In: Leal Filho W., Azul A.M., Brandli L., özuyar P.G., Wall T. (eds) Responsible Consumption and Production. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham
- Berenschot, W., Hospes, O., & Afrizal, A. (2023). Unequal access to justice: An evaluation of RSPO’s capacity to resolve palm oil conflicts in Indonesia. Agriculture and Human Values, 40, 291-304. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10360-z
- Carlson, K. M., Heilmayr, R., Gibbs, H. K., Noojipady, P., et al. (2018). Effect of oil palm sustainability certification on deforestation and fire in Indonesia. PNAS, 115(1), 121-126. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704728114
- Cazzolla Gatti, R., Liang, J., Velichevskaya, A., & Zhou, M. (2018). Sustainable palm oil may not be so sustainable. Science of The Total Environment, 652, 48-51. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30359800/
- Changing Times Media. (2019). Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is ‘greenwashing’ labelled products, environmental investigation agency says. Changing Times Media. https://changingtimes.media/2019/11/03/roundtable-on-sustainable-palm-oil-is-greenwashing-labelled-products-environmental-protection-agency-says/
- Client Earth: The Greenwashing Files. https://www.clientearth.org/projects/the-greenwashing-files/
- Commodifying sustainability: Development, nature and politics in the palm oil industry (2019). World Development, Volume 121, September 2019, Pages 218-228. https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v121y2019icp218-228.html
- Contrasting communications of sustainability science in the media coverage of palm oil agriculture on tropical peatlands in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (2020). Liu, F. H. M., Ganesan, V., Smith, T. E. L. Environmental Science & Policy, 114. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343772443_Contrasting_communications_of_sustainability_science_in_the_media_coverage_of_palm_oil_agriculture_on_tropical_peatlands_in_Indonesia_Malaysia_and_Singapore
- Cosimo, L. H. E., Masiero, M., Mammadova, A., & Pettenella, D. (2024). Voluntary sustainability standards to cope with the new European Union regulation on deforestation-free products: A gap analysis. Forest Policy and Economics, 164, 103235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103235
- Dalton, J. (2018). No such thing as sustainable palm oil – ‘certified’ can destroy even more wildlife, say scientists. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/palm-oil-sustainable-certified-plantations-orangutans-indonesia-southeast-asia-greenwashing-purdue-a8674681.html
- Davis, S. J., Alexander, K., Moreno-Cruz, J., et al. (2023). Food without agriculture. Nature Sustainability. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01241-2
- EIA International. (2022). Will palm oil watchdog rid itself of deforestation or continue to pretend its products are sustainable? EIA International. https://eia-international.org/news/will-palm-oil-watchdog-rid-itself-of-deforestation-or-continue-to-pretend-its-products-are-sustainable/
- Environmental Investigation Agency. (2019). Palm oil watchdog’s sustainability guarantee is still a destructive con. EIA International. https://eia-international.org/news/palm-oil-watchdogs-sustainability-guarantee-is-still-a-destructive-con/
- Federal Trade Commission. (n.d.). Green Guides. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising/green-guides
- Fifteen environmental NGOs demand that sustainable palm oil watchdog does its job (2019). Rainforest Action Network. https://www.ran.org/press-releases/fifteen-environmental-ngos-demand-that-sustainable-palm-oil-watchdog-does-its-job/
- Friends of the Earth International. (2018). RSPO: 14 years of failure to eliminate violence and destruction from the industrial palm oil sector. Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/rspo-14-years-of-failure-to-eliminate-violence-and-destruction-from-the-industrial-palm-oil-sector/
- Lang, Chris and REDD Monitor. Sustainable palm oil? RSPO’s greenwashing and fraudulent audits exposed. The Ecologist. https://theecologist.org/2015/nov/19/sustainable-palm-oil-rspos-greenwashing-and-fraudulent-audits-exposed
- Gatti, L., Pizzetti, M., & Seele, P. (2021). Green lies and their effect on intention to invest. Journal of Business Research, 127, 376-387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.01.028
- Global Witness. (2023). Amazon palm: Ecocide and human rights abuses. Global Witness. https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/amazon-palm/
- Global Witness. (2021). The True Price of Palm Oil. Global Witness. https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/forests/true-price-palm-oil/
- Grain. (2021). Ten reasons why certification should not be promoted in the EU anti-deforestation regulation. Grain. https://grain.org/en/article/6856-ten-reasons-why-certification-should-not-be-promoted-in-the-eu-anti-deforestation-regulation
- Green Clean (2021). Armour, C. Company Director Magazine.
- Green marketing and the Australian Consumer Law (2011). Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Green%20marketing%20and%20the%20ACL.pdf
- Greenwash and spin: palm oil lobby targets its critics (2011). Helan, A. Ecologist: Informed by Nature. https://theecologist.org/2011/jul/08/greenwash-and-spin-palm-oil-lobby-targets-its-critics
- Greenwashing: definition and examples. Selectra https://climate.selectra.com/en/environment/greenwashing#:~:text=Greenwashing%20is%20the%20practice%20of,its%20activities%20pollute%20the%20environment.
- Greenwashing of the Palm Oil Industry (2007). Mongabay. https://news.mongabay.com/2007/11/greenwashing-the-palm-oil-industry/
- Group Challenges Rainforest Alliance Earth-Friendly Seal of Approval (2015). Truth in Advertising. https://www.truthinadvertising.org/group-challenges-rainforest-alliance-earth-friendly-seal-of-approval
- Helan, A. (2011). Greenwash and spin: palm oil lobby targets its critics. Ecologist: Informed by Nature. https://theecologist.org/2011/feb/15/greenwash-and-spin-palm-oil-lobby-targets-its-critics
- Hewlett Packard. (2021). What is Greenwashing and How to Tell Which Companies are Truly Environmentally Responsible. Hewlett Packard. https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/tech-takes/what-is-greenwashing-environmentally-responsible-companies
- Holzner, A., Rameli, N. I. A. M., Ruppert, N., & Widdig, A. (2024). Agricultural habitat use affects infant survivorship in an endangered macaque species. Current Biology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38194972/
- How Cause-washing Deceives Consumers (2021). Truth in Advertising. https://truthinadvertising.org/resource/how-causewashing-deceives-consumers/
- International Labour Organization. (2020). Forced labor in the palm oil industry. ILO. https://www.ilo.org/topics/forced-labour-modern-slavery-and-human-trafficking
- Jauernig, J., Uhl, M., & Valentinov, V. (2021). The ethics of corporate hypocrisy: An experimental approach. Futures, 129, 102757. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2021.102757
- Kirby, D. (2015). Sustainable Palm Oil? Who Knows, Thanks to Derelict Auditors. Take Part. https://www.yahoo.com/news/sustainable-palm-oil-knows-thanks-derelict-auditors-200643980.html
- Li, T. M., & Semedi, P. (2021). Plantation life: Corporate occupation in Indonesia’s oil palm zone. Duke University Press. https://www.dukeupress.edu/plantation-life
- Liu, F. H. M., Ganesan, V., & Smith, T. E. L. (2020). Contrasting communications of sustainability science in the media coverage of palm oil agriculture on tropical peatlands in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Environmental Science & Policy, 114. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343772443_Contrasting_communications_of_sustainability_science_in_the_media_coverage_of_palm_oil_agriculture_on_tropical_peatlands_in_Indonesia_Malaysia_and_Singapore
- Meemken, E. M., Barrett, C. B., Michelson, H. C., et al. (2021). Sustainability standards in global agrifood supply chains. Nature Food. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00299-2
- Miles, T. (2019). Study in WHO journal likens palm oil lobbying to tobacco and alcohol industries. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1P21ZR/
- Nygaard, A. (2023). Is sustainable certification’s ability to combat greenwashing trustworthy? Frontiers in Sustainability, 4, Article 1188069. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2023.1188069
- Oppong-Tawiah D, Webster J. Corporate Sustainability Communication as ‘Fake News’: Firms’ Greenwashing on Twitter. Sustainability. 2023; 15(8):6683. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6683
- Pabon, J. (2024). The great greenwashing: How brands, governments, and influencers are lying to you. Anansi International. https://www.vitalsource.com/products/the-great-greenwashing-john-pabon-v9781487012878
- Podnar, K., & Golob, U. (2024). Brands and activism: Ecosystem and paradoxes. Journal of Brand Management, 31, 95–107. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-024-00355-y
- Rainforest Action Network. (2019). Fifteen environmental NGOs demand that sustainable palm oil watchdog does its job. RAN. https://www.ran.org/press-releases/fifteen-environmental-ngos-demand-that-sustainable-palm-oil-watchdog-does-its-job/
- Renner, A., Zellweger, C., & Skinner, B. (2021). ‘Is there such a thing as sustainable palm oil? Satellite images show protected rainforest on fire’. Neue Zürcher Zeitung. https://www.nzz.ch/english/palm-oil-boom-threatens-protected-rainforest-in-indonesia-ld.1625490
- Saager, E. S., Iwamura, T., Jucker, T., & Murray, K. A. (2023). Deforestation for oil palm increases microclimate suitability for the development of the disease vector Aedes albopictus. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 9514. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35452-6
- Southey, F. (2021). What do Millennials think of palm oil? Nestlé investigates. Food Navigator. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/08/12/What-do-Millennials-think-of-palm-oil-Nestle-investigates
- Transparency International. (2023). Transparency international report: Corruption and corporate capture in Indonesia’s top 50 palm oil companies. Transparency International. https://palmoildetectives.com/2023/05/14/transparency-international-report-corruption-and-corporate-capture-in-indonesias-top-50-palm-oil-companies/
- Truth in Advertising. (2022). Companies accused of greenwashing. https://truthinadvertising.org/articles/companies-accused-greenwashing/
- Truth in Advertising. (n.d.). How causewashing deceives consumers. https://truthinadvertising.org/resource/how-causewashing-deceives-consumers/
- Tybout, A. M., & Calkins, T. (Eds.). (2019). Kellogg on Branding in a Hyper-Connected World. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Kellogg+on+Branding+in+a+Hyper-Connected+World-p-9781119533184
- Wicke, J. (2019). Sustainable palm oil or certified dispossession? NGOs within scalar struggles over the RSPO private governance standard. Bioeconomy & Inequalities: Working Paper No. 8. https://www.bioinequalities.uni-jena.de/sozbemedia/WorkingPaper8.pdf
- World Health Organisation. (2019). The palm oil industry and noncommunicable diseases. World Health Organisation Bulletin, 97, 118-128. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30728618/
- World Rainforest Movement. (2021, November 22). Why the RSPO facilitates land grabs for palm oil. https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/why-the-rspo-facilitates-land-grabs-for-palm-oil/
- Zuckerman, J. (2021). The Time Has Come to Rein In the Global Scourge of Palm Oil. Yale Environment 360, Yale School of Environment. https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-time-has-come-to-rein-in-the-global-scourge-of-palm-oil
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Holdeneye’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023
By Holdeneye
I’m happy to report that I don’t have much to say on the personal front this year. I’m happier and healthier than I have been in quite some time. Sure, raising a teenage daughter is no easy feat these days, but at least I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to restructure my life to better prepare for this foreseeable occurrence. On balance, my work was way less stressful in 2023—even if I did take part in the single-most frustrating and complicated incident of my entire career this year—and it’s amazing how much that has improved my life. I genuinely wish everyone could be so lucky.
But as good as things were generally this year, I went through an extended rough patch when it came to enjoying and writing about new music. A lot of factors contributed to this rough patch, but it all left me wanting to seek solace in the company of some of my all-time favorite records instead of any current assignments. So, a couple of times this year, I dumped all of my promos and took a break. Now, I’m the kind of person that doesn’t commit to many things, because if I commit to something, I want to do it well. And when I can’t do that, it fills me with guilt. This accumulating guilt left me questioning whether or not I deserved to hang around these parts any longer; in fact, I started writing up my resignation letter multiple times. Fortunately, I never put any of these on Steel‘s desk, because I now know that I want to stick around this place in whatever way I can. I work with a great cast of characters here, and I’d miss them terribly. But ultimately, it was the music that saved me. A few of the records on the following list hit me at just the right time, reminding me of who I am and why I’m here.
I want to thank all of my fellow writers and editors for the many hours they devote to the cause of great music. Thanks to Steel Druhm for the indomitable will with which he rules this realm. How he does everything he does here never ceases to amaze me. Finally, thanks to you, the reader, for being such an integral part of this place. It’s always fun to hear from you, whether you’re heaping praise upon, or throwing tomatoes at, what I’ve written. So, without any further ado, I present to you a clumsily curated list of obscure oddities. It is designed with one purpose: to have as little overlap with my colleagues as possible. Behold, the List of Trvth!
#ish. All for Metal // Legends – As I said in my Heavy Moves Heavy entry for “Mountain of Power,” this one is pure Holdeneye-bait. Living within the same realm as Manowar, Sabaton, and Brothers of Metal, some of my all-time favorite acts, All for Metal’s debut Legends was a wonderful surprise. When it released this past summer, it was just the shot in the arm I needed, its bouncy, cheese-filled anthems plastering a big, dumb smile on my big, dumb face. The songwriting is great, and the powerful vocals from Antonio Calanna nudge the album towards true greatness. Like Brothers of Metal before them, All for Metal quickly became a Holdeneye Family road trip soundtrack staple. Sample: “Goddess of War”
#10. Lord Mountain // The Oath – Lord Mountain may have struck early this year, but The Oath has stayed by my side since its release back in January. A gloriously olde-timey mixture of Sabbath and Manilla Road, The Oath is a scrumptious platter of doomy traditional metal. The riffs are big, and the fantasy storytelling is bigger, as Lord Mountain hands us a war hammer and sends us on a danger-fraught quest. Everything here, from the style, to the production and Ozzy-like vocals screams ‘old,’ and the tight 36-minute package is so well balanced that it is equally qualified for a short, chill-out session or a tough grind in the gym. Sample: “The Oath”
#9. Mystic Prophecy // Hellriot – Ever since I first heard the singles for Mystic Prophecy’s 2007 album Satanic Curses, these guys have been my personal archetype for guitar-centric heavy metal with a power metal bent. The band’s beefy (I simply cannot talk about these guys without using ‘beefy’ as an adjective) guitar sound is matched by the raspy croon of R.D. Liapakis, a man whose voice seems as strong as ever after decades of wailing at the mic. Hellriot is the sound of Mystic Prophecy releasing their best material in sixteen years, and it easily attained the status of one of my most-listened-to albums of 2023. Sample: “Revenge and Fire”
#8. Frozen Crown // Call of the North – It’s been quite a while since a power metal album really grabbed me, but Call of the North rekindled my love for the cheesiest of metals when it released back in March. Where many bands of this style lose me with vocals and guitar work that sound too sugary for these ears, Frozen Crown puts the power in power metal with their extremely heavy riffing and with the incredible vocals of Giada Etro. As Eldritch Elitist said in his review of Call of the North, ‘Frozen Crown operates best with the pedal welded to the metal,’ and rarely does that pedal leave the floor here. The band’s successful use of melo-death stylings on Call of the North confirms a suspicion that I’ve had for quite some time: the vast majority of melodic death metal would work better with clean vocals. Yeah, I said it. Come at me. Sample: “Call of the North”
#7. Gatekeeper // From Western Shores – Last year, Ironflame was my tried-and-true, straightforward traditional metal year-end list entrant, and this year’s spot goes to Gatekeeper. From Western Shores sounded good on my first listen, but I didn’t fully grasp how well-wrought these songs were until I returned at a later date; suddenly, it clicked. Traditional metal and fantasy stories go together like a Kirkland can o’ chicken mixed into Cup Noodles, and the results here are no less savory. Tale after tale is told to the tumultuous tune of titanic riffs and twisted-testicle wails, and I simply can’t get enough of it. I’ve been rereading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in over a decade, and this record has been an excellent musical pairing for such an occasion. Sample: “Shadow and Stone”
#6. Disguised Malignance // Entering the Gateways – It’s about time some brutality showed up on this list! Landing just two short weeks after an insanely hyped and equally lauded release from Tomb Mold, the teenagers in Disguised Malignance quietly released an album in the same vein. Drawing on old-school death mechanics and adding a spritz of proggy technicality, Entering the Gateways blew me away with its scope and execution. It’s almost like these youngsters don’t know how rude it is to kick in the door and outdo many of the scene’s heavyweights with your debut record. As I alluded to in my review for Entering the Gateways, Disguised Malignance didn’t overdo the progginess here; they found ‘the right balance between thinking-man’s and stinking-man’s death metal.’ Damn, that’s a good line. Sample: “Beyond (Entering the Gateways)”
#5. Frozen Soul // Glacial Domination – The phrase ‘glacial domination’ perfectly describes how this album won me over: slowly, and with devastation. Like many other critics around these parts, I initially dismissed Glacial Domination as just another one-note death metal beatdown, but because something kept drawing me back, I eventually realized something: I really like this one note. Groovy death metal is my favorite death metal, and Glacial Domination is all groove, all the time. The way these Texans combined earth-churning Bolt Thrower rhythms with a bit of Swede-death, some hardcore-style breakdowns, and the occasional creepy synth passage put this record firmly within my wheelhouse, and like the titular glacier, it was been carving my valley ever since. I could have kept things simple and just used all ten proper tracks here to form my entire Heavy Moves Heavy list. Yes, it’s that good. Sample: “Arsenal of War”
#4. Legendry // Time Immortal Wept – At the risk of falling prey to recency bias, I’m including Time Immortal Wept at #4 because it has utterly bewitched me since I discovered it a few short weeks ago. Legendry’s prog-infused traditional metal is simply magical, and its 43-minute runtime feels like half of that. With a great balance of heavier metal parts and psychedelic prog elements, these songs have achieved legendary status in my heart in very short order. I honestly feel like I’ve been listening to some of these tracks on classic rock radio for my entire life; that’s how much they resonate with me. My first listen of Time Immortal Wept was on the treadmill, and when it finished, I wanted to keep training so I wouldn’t have to stop listening, even for a minute—this is no small feat considering my lifelong hatred of cardio. I just wish I’d discovered this record before the vinyl was sold out. Sample: “Chariots of Bedlam”
#3. Enforced // War Remains – What can I say that I haven’t already said about Enforced? These guys fucking rule; it’s as simple as that. War Remains may not be my favorite Enforced record, but it’s not much of a step down either. These guys sound more pissed-off than ever, and the half-hour runtime makes repeat listens almost a necessity. War Remains is truly an album of all occasions for me. If I’m happy, I put it on and bounce around with joy. If I’m angry, I put in on and exorcise my rage. If I’m sad, I put it on to give myself an energizing slap across the face (after I properly acknowledge and give space to my sadness, of course. It’s 2023 for heaven’s sake). If my kids are being too loud, it put it on and crank it until I can no longer hear them. War Remains is just another piece of evidence confirming that Enforced is the most consistently awesome thrash band running at this point in history. Sample: “Hanged by My Hand”
#2. By Fire and Sword // Glory – Steel Druhm dodged a huge, yuuuge bullet with this one. Glory lay unclaimed in the promo bin when I happened upon it one day, and if I’d taken enough time to realize that the band’s overtly religious themes were satire (read: if I’d listened to “Leave a Little Room” all the way through until the part where its satirical nature is obvious), I would have claimed it and done terrible, score counter-violating things to it. Musically, Glory is heavy in all the right ways, and honestly, this is what I wish Ghost sounded like. The preachy spoken word parts and the beautiful singing combine with the music to add just the right amount of creepy, cringe-inducing irony to the experience. This is such a bizarre album, and I love every single moment of it. Sample: “The Feast”
#1. Sacred Outcry // Towers of Gold – I can be relatively brief here since I slobbered all over this record fairly recently. Towers of Gold is the kind of record that made heavy metal so attractive to me in the first place; it’s big, bold, and filled to the brim with electric energy. Founder and bassist George Apalodimas outdid himself with these compositions, and landing a godlike vocal talent like Daniel Heiman helped the record achieve perfection. Not a single note is wasted; there’s not one moment of this album that doesn’t push forward its powerful fantasy tale. I can say without hesitation that if I hadn’t encountered this album in 2023, I probably wouldn’t be writing this list. Towers of Gold reminded me just how much heavy metal means to me, and it reminded me how much of an honor it is to be able to share great music with you all. Thanks, Sacred Outcry. Sample: “The Voyage”
Honorable Mentions
- Warcrab // The Howling Silence
- Valdrin // Throne of the Lunar Soul
- Helms Deep // Treacherous Ways
- Finality // Technocracy
- Cruel Force // Dawn of the Axe
- Owlbear // Chaos to the Realm
Non-Metal Record o’ the Year
Bards of Skaði // Glysisvallur: Musick from the Frozen Atlantis – Thomas von Wachenfeldt is no stranger to my year-end lists, but he’s never earned a spot quite like this before. Bards of Skaði finds the Swedish death metal maestro leaving his growls at home and performing all strings, keys and programming as he teams up with fellow music professor Göran Månsson on flutes and percussion to provide an enthralling journey through the fallen kingdoms of history. Drawing upon Nordic folk, classical, film score, and ambient styles, Glysisvallur is one beautiful track after another. Whether enchanting (“Yxdans”) or haunting (“Nifelhel”), this music has been the perfect soundtrack for my recent walks and drives throughout the moist and misty Pacific Northwest winter. My love of this record just further cements Wachenfeldt as one of my favorite musicians on earth, regardless of style.
Olde Record o’ the Year
Amon Amarth // With Oden on Our Side – When I was having a hard time wanting to listen to new music early on this year, no record from my past made an appearance more often than this one. With Oden on Our Side is a perfect record, a bona fide 5.0/5.0, and its crushing force was a soothing balm to my aching soul this year. According to my streaming service’s year-end summary, I listened to “Gods of War Arise” 56 times; I like to pretend to be a Viking by taking cold showers and ice baths, and nothing gives my simple mind power over my substantial matter like that track does. This was the first death metal album I ever purchased, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.1
Disappointment (and Amusing Anecdote) o’ the Year
Project: Roenwolfe // Project: Roenwolfe – This one hurt. I really liked Project: Roenwolfe’s previous album, Edge of Saturn, but this one just fell completely flat for me. I found the music pretty uninteresting overall, and my review highlighted the strained vocals of singer Patrick Parris as one of the record’s flaws. This is where the story should probably end, but an entertaining event occurred that made things a little more interesting. Shortly after my review went live, I saw a post on Project: Roenwolfe’s now-defunct Facebook page—yes, I follow the band and support them. I even bought this record even though I didn’t care for it—where Parris announced his retirement from music. He noted that his voice may not be what it used to be, and that he doesn’t make music to have it compared ‘to the Iced Earths and Cages of the world or get slandered for not sounding enough like them in some cases.’ I said to myself, ‘Huh. It kinda sounds like he’s talking to me.’ He then went on, saying that words spouted by random internet people ‘are a powerful motivator, but….can do as much harm as good, (While I’m on that topic AMG I love you, but Holdeneye can hold a kiss for my rear-end.) At that point I said to myself, ‘Oh. He’s definitely talking about me.’ In another paragraph, he said that his post was not made towards any specific people, but color me skeptical after he mentioned his butt, my name, and my lips in the same sentence. In truth, I found this all pretty amusing, but I do feel bad for the guy. I’m grateful for the great music that he’s been a part of, and I really do wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.
Song o’ the Year
Sacred Outcry // “Towers of Gold” – A labyrinth with as many twists, turns, and surprises as the cursed structure it describes, “Towers of Gold” does pretty much everything. It has fast-paced riffing, stratospheric vocals, and blistering leads, but it also knows how to play things slow, throwing in theatricality and atmosphere aplenty. The song puts us right in the shoes of the story’s main character as he navigates an impossible maze, and in the end, we get to share in his grisly fate. The story is a powerful warning of what can happen when we seek anything—riches, power, success, certainty, peace, even happiness—at any cost. It’s a warning that we’d be remiss not to heed.
#AllForMetal #AngryMetalList #BardsOfSkadi #ByFireAndSword #CruelForce #DisguisedMalignance #Enforced #Finality #FrozenCrown #FrozenSoul #Gatekeeper #HelmsDeep #Legendry #Listurnalia #LordMountain #MysticProphecy #Owlbear #SacredOutcry #Valdrin #Warcrab
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Holdeneye’s Top Ten(ish) of 2023
By Holdeneye
I’m happy to report that I don’t have much to say on the personal front this year. I’m happier and healthier than I have been in quite some time. Sure, raising a teenage daughter is no easy feat these days, but at least I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to restructure my life to better prepare for this foreseeable occurrence. On balance, my work was way less stressful in 2023—even if I did take part in the single-most frustrating and complicated incident of my entire career this year—and it’s amazing how much that has improved my life. I genuinely wish everyone could be so lucky.
But as good as things were generally this year, I went through an extended rough patch when it came to enjoying and writing about new music. A lot of factors contributed to this rough patch, but it all left me wanting to seek solace in the company of some of my all-time favorite records instead of any current assignments. So, a couple of times this year, I dumped all of my promos and took a break. Now, I’m the kind of person that doesn’t commit to many things, because if I commit to something, I want to do it well. And when I can’t do that, it fills me with guilt. This accumulating guilt left me questioning whether or not I deserved to hang around these parts any longer; in fact, I started writing up my resignation letter multiple times. Fortunately, I never put any of these on Steel‘s desk, because I now know that I want to stick around this place in whatever way I can. I work with a great cast of characters here, and I’d miss them terribly. But ultimately, it was the music that saved me. A few of the records on the following list hit me at just the right time, reminding me of who I am and why I’m here.
I want to thank all of my fellow writers and editors for the many hours they devote to the cause of great music. Thanks to Steel Druhm for the indomitable will with which he rules this realm. How he does everything he does here never ceases to amaze me. Finally, thanks to you, the reader, for being such an integral part of this place. It’s always fun to hear from you, whether you’re heaping praise upon, or throwing tomatoes at, what I’ve written. So, without any further ado, I present to you a clumsily curated list of obscure oddities. It is designed with one purpose: to have as little overlap with my colleagues as possible. Behold, the List of Trvth!
#ish. All for Metal // Legends – As I said in my Heavy Moves Heavy entry for “Mountain of Power,” this one is pure Holdeneye-bait. Living within the same realm as Manowar, Sabaton, and Brothers of Metal, some of my all-time favorite acts, All for Metal’s debut Legends was a wonderful surprise. When it released this past summer, it was just the shot in the arm I needed, its bouncy, cheese-filled anthems plastering a big, dumb smile on my big, dumb face. The songwriting is great, and the powerful vocals from Antonio Calanna nudge the album towards true greatness. Like Brothers of Metal before them, All for Metal quickly became a Holdeneye Family road trip soundtrack staple. Sample: “Goddess of War”
#10. Lord Mountain // The Oath – Lord Mountain may have struck early this year, but The Oath has stayed by my side since its release back in January. A gloriously olde-timey mixture of Sabbath and Manilla Road, The Oath is a scrumptious platter of doomy traditional metal. The riffs are big, and the fantasy storytelling is bigger, as Lord Mountain hands us a war hammer and sends us on a danger-fraught quest. Everything here, from the style, to the production and Ozzy-like vocals screams ‘old,’ and the tight 36-minute package is so well balanced that it is equally qualified for a short, chill-out session or a tough grind in the gym. Sample: “The Oath”
#9. Mystic Prophecy // Hellriot – Ever since I first heard the singles for Mystic Prophecy’s 2007 album Satanic Curses, these guys have been my personal archetype for guitar-centric heavy metal with a power metal bent. The band’s beefy (I simply cannot talk about these guys without using ‘beefy’ as an adjective) guitar sound is matched by the raspy croon of R.D. Liapakis, a man whose voice seems as strong as ever after decades of wailing at the mic. Hellriot is the sound of Mystic Prophecy releasing their best material in sixteen years, and it easily attained the status of one of my most-listened-to albums of 2023. Sample: “Revenge and Fire”
#8. Frozen Crown // Call of the North – It’s been quite a while since a power metal album really grabbed me, but Call of the North rekindled my love for the cheesiest of metals when it released back in March. Where many bands of this style lose me with vocals and guitar work that sound too sugary for these ears, Frozen Crown puts the power in power metal with their extremely heavy riffing and with the incredible vocals of Giada Etro. As Eldritch Elitist said in his review of Call of the North, ‘Frozen Crown operates best with the pedal welded to the metal,’ and rarely does that pedal leave the floor here. The band’s successful use of melo-death stylings on Call of the North confirms a suspicion that I’ve had for quite some time: the vast majority of melodic death metal would work better with clean vocals. Yeah, I said it. Come at me. Sample: “Call of the North”
#7. Gatekeeper // From Western Shores – Last year, Ironflame was my tried-and-true, straightforward traditional metal year-end list entrant, and this year’s spot goes to Gatekeeper. From Western Shores sounded good on my first listen, but I didn’t fully grasp how well-wrought these songs were until I returned at a later date; suddenly, it clicked. Traditional metal and fantasy stories go together like a Kirkland can o’ chicken mixed into Cup Noodles, and the results here are no less savory. Tale after tale is told to the tumultuous tune of titanic riffs and twisted-testicle wails, and I simply can’t get enough of it. I’ve been rereading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in over a decade, and this record has been an excellent musical pairing for such an occasion. Sample: “Shadow and Stone”
#6. Disguised Malignance // Entering the Gateways – It’s about time some brutality showed up on this list! Landing just two short weeks after an insanely hyped and equally lauded release from Tomb Mold, the teenagers in Disguised Malignance quietly released an album in the same vein. Drawing on old-school death mechanics and adding a spritz of proggy technicality, Entering the Gateways blew me away with its scope and execution. It’s almost like these youngsters don’t know how rude it is to kick in the door and outdo many of the scene’s heavyweights with your debut record. As I alluded to in my review for Entering the Gateways, Disguised Malignance didn’t overdo the progginess here; they found ‘the right balance between thinking-man’s and stinking-man’s death metal.’ Damn, that’s a good line. Sample: “Beyond (Entering the Gateways)”
#5. Frozen Soul // Glacial Domination – The phrase ‘glacial domination’ perfectly describes how this album won me over: slowly, and with devastation. Like many other critics around these parts, I initially dismissed Glacial Domination as just another one-note death metal beatdown, but because something kept drawing me back, I eventually realized something: I really like this one note. Groovy death metal is my favorite death metal, and Glacial Domination is all groove, all the time. The way these Texans combined earth-churning Bolt Thrower rhythms with a bit of Swede-death, some hardcore-style breakdowns, and the occasional creepy synth passage put this record firmly within my wheelhouse, and like the titular glacier, it was been carving my valley ever since. I could have kept things simple and just used all ten proper tracks here to form my entire Heavy Moves Heavy list. Yes, it’s that good. Sample: “Arsenal of War”
#4. Legendry // Time Immortal Wept – At the risk of falling prey to recency bias, I’m including Time Immortal Wept at #4 because it has utterly bewitched me since I discovered it a few short weeks ago. Legendry’s prog-infused traditional metal is simply magical, and its 43-minute runtime feels like half of that. With a great balance of heavier metal parts and psychedelic prog elements, these songs have achieved legendary status in my heart in very short order. I honestly feel like I’ve been listening to some of these tracks on classic rock radio for my entire life; that’s how much they resonate with me. My first listen of Time Immortal Wept was on the treadmill, and when it finished, I wanted to keep training so I wouldn’t have to stop listening, even for a minute—this is no small feat considering my lifelong hatred of cardio. I just wish I’d discovered this record before the vinyl was sold out. Sample: “Chariots of Bedlam”
#3. Enforced // War Remains – What can I say that I haven’t already said about Enforced? These guys fucking rule; it’s as simple as that. War Remains may not be my favorite Enforced record, but it’s not much of a step down either. These guys sound more pissed-off than ever, and the half-hour runtime makes repeat listens almost a necessity. War Remains is truly an album of all occasions for me. If I’m happy, I put it on and bounce around with joy. If I’m angry, I put in on and exorcise my rage. If I’m sad, I put it on to give myself an energizing slap across the face (after I properly acknowledge and give space to my sadness, of course. It’s 2023 for heaven’s sake). If my kids are being too loud, it put it on and crank it until I can no longer hear them. War Remains is just another piece of evidence confirming that Enforced is the most consistently awesome thrash band running at this point in history. Sample: “Hanged by My Hand”
#2. By Fire and Sword // Glory – Steel Druhm dodged a huge, yuuuge bullet with this one. Glory lay unclaimed in the promo bin when I happened upon it one day, and if I’d taken enough time to realize that the band’s overtly religious themes were satire (read: if I’d listened to “Leave a Little Room” all the way through until the part where its satirical nature is obvious), I would have claimed it and done terrible, score counter-violating things to it. Musically, Glory is heavy in all the right ways, and honestly, this is what I wish Ghost sounded like. The preachy spoken word parts and the beautiful singing combine with the music to add just the right amount of creepy, cringe-inducing irony to the experience. This is such a bizarre album, and I love every single moment of it. Sample: “The Feast”
#1. Sacred Outcry // Towers of Gold – I can be relatively brief here since I slobbered all over this record fairly recently. Towers of Gold is the kind of record that made heavy metal so attractive to me in the first place; it’s big, bold, and filled to the brim with electric energy. Founder and bassist George Apalodimas outdid himself with these compositions, and landing a godlike vocal talent like Daniel Heiman helped the record achieve perfection. Not a single note is wasted; there’s not one moment of this album that doesn’t push forward its powerful fantasy tale. I can say without hesitation that if I hadn’t encountered this album in 2023, I probably wouldn’t be writing this list. Towers of Gold reminded me just how much heavy metal means to me, and it reminded me how much of an honor it is to be able to share great music with you all. Thanks, Sacred Outcry. Sample: “The Voyage”
Honorable Mentions
- Warcrab // The Howling Silence
- Valdrin // Throne of the Lunar Soul
- Helms Deep // Treacherous Ways
- Finality // Technocracy
- Cruel Force // Dawn of the Axe
- Owlbear // Chaos to the Realm
Non-Metal Record o’ the Year
Bards of Skaði // Glysisvallur: Musick from the Frozen Atlantis – Thomas von Wachenfeldt is no stranger to my year-end lists, but he’s never earned a spot quite like this before. Bards of Skaði finds the Swedish death metal maestro leaving his growls at home and performing all strings, keys and programming as he teams up with fellow music professor Göran Månsson on flutes and percussion to provide an enthralling journey through the fallen kingdoms of history. Drawing upon Nordic folk, classical, film score, and ambient styles, Glysisvallur is one beautiful track after another. Whether enchanting (“Yxdans”) or haunting (“Nifelhel”), this music has been the perfect soundtrack for my recent walks and drives throughout the moist and misty Pacific Northwest winter. My love of this record just further cements Wachenfeldt as one of my favorite musicians on earth, regardless of style.
Olde Record o’ the Year
Amon Amarth // With Oden on Our Side – When I was having a hard time wanting to listen to new music early on this year, no record from my past made an appearance more often than this one. With Oden on Our Side is a perfect record, a bona fide 5.0/5.0, and its crushing force was a soothing balm to my aching soul this year. According to my streaming service’s year-end summary, I listened to “Gods of War Arise” 56 times; I like to pretend to be a Viking by taking cold showers and ice baths, and nothing gives my simple mind power over my substantial matter like that track does. This was the first death metal album I ever purchased, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.1
Disappointment (and Amusing Anecdote) o’ the Year
Project: Roenwolfe // Project: Roenwolfe – This one hurt. I really liked Project: Roenwolfe’s previous album, Edge of Saturn, but this one just fell completely flat for me. I found the music pretty uninteresting overall, and my review highlighted the strained vocals of singer Patrick Parris as one of the record’s flaws. This is where the story should probably end, but an entertaining event occurred that made things a little more interesting. Shortly after my review went live, I saw a post on Project: Roenwolfe’s now-defunct Facebook page—yes, I follow the band and support them. I even bought this record even though I didn’t care for it—where Parris announced his retirement from music. He noted that his voice may not be what it used to be, and that he doesn’t make music to have it compared ‘to the Iced Earths and Cages of the world or get slandered for not sounding enough like them in some cases.’ I said to myself, ‘Huh. It kinda sounds like he’s talking to me.’ He then went on, saying that words spouted by random internet people ‘are a powerful motivator, but….can do as much harm as good, (While I’m on that topic AMG I love you, but Holdeneye can hold a kiss for my rear-end.) At that point I said to myself, ‘Oh. He’s definitely talking about me.’ In another paragraph, he said that his post was not made towards any specific people, but color me skeptical after he mentioned his butt, my name, and my lips in the same sentence. In truth, I found this all pretty amusing, but I do feel bad for the guy. I’m grateful for the great music that he’s been a part of, and I really do wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.
Song o’ the Year
Sacred Outcry // “Towers of Gold” – A labyrinth with as many twists, turns, and surprises as the cursed structure it describes, “Towers of Gold” does pretty much everything. It has fast-paced riffing, stratospheric vocals, and blistering leads, but it also knows how to play things slow, throwing in theatricality and atmosphere aplenty. The song puts us right in the shoes of the story’s main character as he navigates an impossible maze, and in the end, we get to share in his grisly fate. The story is a powerful warning of what can happen when we seek anything—riches, power, success, certainty, peace, even happiness—at any cost. It’s a warning that we’d be remiss not to heed.
#AllForMetal #AngryMetalList #BardsOfSkadi #ByFireAndSword #CruelForce #DisguisedMalignance #Enforced #Finality #FrozenCrown #FrozenSoul #Gatekeeper #HelmsDeep #Legendry #Listurnalia #LordMountain #MysticProphecy #Owlbear #SacredOutcry #Valdrin #Warcrab
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This map of designated "Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty" (AONBs) makes it looknlikebl the Midlands must be less beautiful than the rest of the country. Come on Midlanders, prove me wrong? What areas are beautiful enough to be designated? If they're really good you could suggest them to National England!
I'll share any suggestions with nice pictures and ALT text!
#AONB #UK #Nature #Conservation #Midlands #Birmingham #Coventry #Leicester #Nottingham
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Walkers are Welcome Towns - Wolsingham, County Durham
Wolsingham is the gateway of Weardale, one of County Durham’s rural country Dales. The area is north of the well know Yorkshire Dales, between Teesdale and Tynedale, but it is less well known and is largely undiscovered! Weardale is part of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
https://walkersarewelcome.org.uk/waw-towns-o-z/waw/280
#WalkersAreWelcome #Wolsingham #WearDale #CountyDurham #Durham #Teesdale #Tynedale #NorthPennines #AONB #Dales #Yorkshire
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On our route towards #AGI in this #TechnologicalSingularity trajectory we are accelerating on the most burning question is what the tomorrow looks like.
It is becoming more and more difficult to forecast shorter and shorter futures, but now we still have some visibility. What I believe will happen:
- We will experience a huge growth in appetite for #compute, specifically #chips, #data and conveniently encoded #knowledge.
- While we can introduce #AI to our existing industries, businesses and militaries, we will experience the bottleneck where we cannot quite do what we'd like to do as we have too few robots everywhere. We'll probably start building robots like there's no tomorrow, and renting them to be controlled by AIs to construct new factories, logistical centers, military bases and all sorts of things more streamlined for an AI-based society.
- Many people will cede control of their lives and any decisions within their power to AIs. Those who do might do well or less well, but definitely better and better over time as the systems become more powerful. Delegating day-to-day control to machines means that there is less reason for humans to even be informed of the day-to-day operational details.
- Some companies will get boosted by not having to hire so much labor in the first place. I think this will be a stronger dynamic than layoffs, and it will eventually causally drive layoffs as companies with more traditional structures will lose in competition to these new challengers.
- Prices of lots of things will fall, but at least initially, everything that bottlenecks further AI adoption will become scarce. Digital design becomes practically free which means our world will fill up with beauty and purpose. -
By Dr. A.N. Grier
After a much-needed vacation,1 and being sick as fuck for weeks, ole Grier is back with something you might not want in your life but you need it. In 2016, AMG Himself reviewed the third record from Bombus, a little-known Swedish outfit. Like AMG, I was surprised that something so simple could plant a seed in my ear and keep me returning for more. But, I suppose it’s no surprise when surrounded by endless extreme metal that a palate cleanser like Repeat Until Death would find a home in my regular rotation. The band basically plays metalized rock with predictable song structures and hooking choruses, where nothing overstays its welcome. Three years later, we appeared to have missed the release of Vulture Culture. But maybe that was for the best considering it only contained a handful of new ideas and struggled to come together as a complete album. I was hesitant when I saw this year’s Your Blood in the bin. Though one spin in, I knew something magical was happening to Bombus and Your Blood turned out to be their most ambitious record to date.
After spending years with Century Media Records, Bombus has penned a new deal with Black Lodge Records. Not only that but co-founding vocalist and guitarist Matte Säker left the band. In his stead, not only was another vocalist/guitarist recruited (they have two), but a third guitarist was added to the mix to bring the band from a four-piece to a five-piece. With these newfound axes, the band traveled a new road that brought soaring solos, intricate leads, and harmonizing soundscapes. Your Blood also offers the most melodic collection of pieces the band has ever accumulated. The result is far less predictable than previous albums, introducing new twists that’ll pull at your heartstrings, bob your head, and raise an eyebrow (or two). If you know the band’s previous output, nothing will prepare you for what’s to come.
While one of the more straightforward ditties on the record, “Killer” does a decent job introducing you to the new Bombus direction. After opening with all three guitars lending their strings to soaring leads, the song settles into a melodic groove. As the song builds, the passion and sadness of the track intensifies, sucking you into its mere three-and-a-half-minute runtime. With an accessible piece setting the mood, things get real weird, real fast. The follow-up track, “The One,” zaps you into a time warp that introduces a slow-moving vocal style akin to Nick Cave and a poppy drum beat that could have come from The White Stripes. I know, it’s a couple of odd descriptors, but the song is absolutely hypnotizing as it weaves in and out of intense moments and drum-led spoken-word interludes. But, the weirdest track of them all is the title track. Like so many other bands these days, Bombus reaches into Spaghetti-Western influences. With cawing crows and more sinister Ghoultown vibes, this track slithers around like a sidewinder, erupting into the catchy chorus while passing through cold, dark desert nights.
Between these oddities, Hellhammer-esque nastiness, Motörhead beauty, speed metal licks, Pain-like psychedelics, and Volbeaty clapping segments,2 a couple tracks truly crawl to the top. “Carmina” is one of the most interesting tracks on the album, showing how much time the band spent to improve and diversify their sound. Probably one of the heavier tracks on the album, much like their style of old, this track uses a combination of hammering vocals, bass, and drums to set up the chorus. The chorus is interesting because it passes through two phases: first, punching Rob Zombie-ish shouts, and then low, overlapping vocals. After passing the midway point, the band settles into Chug Land, pounding away on a riff as the guitar leads swirl around the background chants. The best song on the album immediately triggered me in the strangest way possible. The simple riff of “Take Your Down” is almost identical to the soundtrack of one of my favorite revenge scenes in television history: when Frank Castle finally gets his hands on William Rawlins. It’s a powerful song with a fantastic chorus that punches on those revenge qualities and puts goosebumps on my arms.
Outside of the weirdly cool (but also still weird), synthy guitar work of “No Rules” and the howling wolf at the beginning of “The Beast,” which had me spitting out my coffee in laughter, Your Blood is a great new direction for Bombus. The songs are painstakingly structured for a style like this, the choruses are some of the best they’ve ever written, and the diversity makes it exciting on repeat listens. The album flow is also well done vocally. As the album plays out, the vocals get nastier and more pained. After introducing some cleans toward the beginning of the album, the back half finds them more and more raucous, concluding the record with the most desperate performance. Your Blood might not be the vicious metal record you want, but if you take a minute to explore the band’s discog, you’ll be surprised by the results of this new record. Everywhere I look on the interwebz, people ask, “Why are these guys not more popular.” And you know what? I have no idea.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 267 kb/s mp3
Label: Black Lodge Records
Websites: bombusmusic.com | facebook.com/bombusmusic
Releases Worldwide: November 1st, 2024Show 2 footnotes
- A real one. Not just a vacation from all you fuckheads. ↩
- Yeah, this album is wild. ↩
#2024 #35 #BlackLodgeRecords #Bombus #Ghoultown #HardRock #HeavyMetal #Hellhammer #Motörhead #NickCave #Nov24 #Pain #Review #Reviews #RobZombie #SwedishMetal #TheWhiteStripes #Volbeat #YourBlood
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The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H.R. 1), passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22, 2025, includes a provision imposing a 10-year moratorium on state and local governments from enacting or enforcing laws regulating artificial intelligence (AI) models, systems, or automated decision systems.
I think this is one of the most insidious things the new budget bill is going to do being in this tech industry this is dangerous on so many levels
I am calling my senators tomorrow even if they don’t listen and don’t care I’m going to call them I live in Florida and I know that they think that would be smart but more regulation is needed on AI not less
Here is the link to bill it’s in the text
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1
Platforms from the fringe to mainstream have no discernible way to identify deepfakes and other ai generated content if not initially tagged by the user. The platforms do not review content and enforce their content moderation they leave it to sometimes the echo chambers to either amplify or silence it so it’s never really addressed
Regulations matter
#republican #negativeimpact #newsPSA the fediverse and particularly the mastodon I’m on is good at reporting AI slop I just feel like it’s not enough we need global regulations limiting and setting up protections for humans not to be exploited or damaged by the impacts of AI
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I haven’t done many parkruns (just prefer longer distances) but they are useful for convincing less confident friends that they can do it. Today’s was a warm, sunny, flat run at Seaford beach with Alex. Crowded at the start but a lovely, straightforward out and back, passing the Martello tower and beautiful views. #running #parkrun #Seaford
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Inconsistent yet persistent
TK is an all-around mover, a dancer, rock climber, traceusse and earned her degree in athletic training. In addition to her movement practices, TK is a certified authentic Tantra instructor, teaching holistic healing of body, mind, spirit and sex. TK considers herself a sex activist and is the founder of LoveCraft, a sexual coaching and empowerment collective.
Tantra was the obvious place to begin since we were surely going to end up talking about tantric sex. My fear was that most people’s—myself included—knowledge of Tantra would be something to do with the artist, Sting. We immediately agreed that leaving the world only knowing about “men in linen pants” would be a disservice. “Tantra means, literally, to weave light and sound with form, the light being visualizations of your chakras in your body, sound being chants that you’re making, and then the form being your body, your physical body. That’s it, in a nutshell. The way that often looks is meditating. The way a lot of people do that is they’ll meditate and then have sex; they’ll meditate during sex; they’ll meditate on their own without any sex. Yeah, that’s kind of that, which means nothing, right? It’s like a, ‘Cool, and then what?’ which is what got me into having a coach.” — ~ TK from, ~4’40”
But, what drew TK to Tantra, and how does she use Tantra as part of her work with others?
TK: In the introduction to Lovecraft Collective, we say, in addition to the movement practice, I practice Tantra, as well. And movement is inherently part of everything humans do, for the most part, so there’s a movement aspect of Tantra, as well.
I got into Tantra when I was 18 because I wasn’t having what I considered orgasms despite a pretty full sex life from a rather young age, what most people would probably consider a young age. My mom had this book called Urban Tantra by Barbara Carrellas, amazing. I later learned she wrote this book during the AIDS crisis and was trying to find ways that were sexy for people to connect that wouldn’t transmit the virus, and it was like, “We don’t have time to hang out on this mountain and get enlightened, but, what’s hot? What’s not, and how do we practice connection using these methods?”
That was around 18. I read some of the book and then, on and off, had partners that were more or less — mostly less — interested in practicing it with me, and, finally met someone who was like my Tantra teacher. We were playing music together and he mentioned his Tantra coach. I’m like, “Wait, there’s coaches?” I had just been reading books and trying to find drawings. I’m like, “What is here, there?” Turns out there was a coach, and I met her. She had a coaching program, and I found the website and I started crying. I was like, “This is what I want to do.” I had read this article, I guess a couple years before about how to find your passion, and the article was basically saying, “You know your passion. It’s what you think about all the time. Whether or not you get paid for it …”
I was like, “Oh, I want to help people with sex and I want to heal sex.” One of my friends when I was really young had made her sexual debut through the form of being raped, and that made me really sad for her because I was having really great sex in high school and really loving it and feeling really empowered in it. We couldn’t share that experience, so I had known then.
Then, it kind of kept popping up in all these different ways of, “Oh, now I can have orgasms. Oh, I’m not broken. Oh, how do I show other people that they’re not broken?” The way it looks now is integrated into a life where it’s not just about sex and orgasm. Although, that’s a huge driver because sexuality is a huge component of being a human, but it’s integrated into fully embodied experiences.
That’s the way that’s looked. It continues to ebb and flow and transform as I imagine it to. That’s the lifework, right?
I’m always curious to know how someone turns a passion from something they simply find themselves doing, into something organized or purposeful. Organizing one’s ideas, vision, and mission into a clear structure multiples the effect one can have on the world. What do TK’s efforts look like today?
TK: The reason why I called LoveCraft Collective… LoveCraft Collective is because I have this idea that once I teach or coach or work with somebody, that they’re a part of the collective. Not that, then, they will be able to offer services under the name, but that, if we’re bringing this healing to people, then they’re a part of the mission. I want to create more harmony and people that are embodied and loving themselves, and so, I do it for money. That makes me a professional although I feel rather amateur most of the time.
For too many people, the topics of sex, pleasure, and intimacy make for awkward conversations. But it’s my opinion that those topics shouldn’t be treated exceptionally. It’s one thing to have an intimate conversation—as TK and I had—but it’s another to figure out how to share with people, so they are then enabled to have those conversations with others.
TK: Couples are my favorite because they are with a friend, and I get to coach them through practices with each other. I also take individuals: male, female, womxn, any gender, trans, vagina owners, penis owners, whatever they call themselves.
Craig Constantine: My first reaction is, “Okay, that’s pretty progressive.” But then, I’m thinking: Well, suppose one was transgendered, or one had recently realized that you were trying to live the gender that didn’t fit who you really felt that you were. Where’s the manual for that? How do I make the transition? Being able to go talk to someone, to spend time with someone, to interact with someone, to be sexual with someone who maybe understands, “Oh, here’s the role that you’re missing.” It seems like it’s really not just about sex. It’s about helping them understand who they are or could be?
TK: Yeah, and just about being embodied like, “Here, sit with this and develop a pleasure practice.” I don’t know if you’re intending this, but I don’t ever claim to know left or right, female or masculine or anything like that. Tantra is about balancing those energies. However they show up for people is how they show up for people, but I just think it’s important to … we call it yoni massage and Lingam massage. I still like the word pussy. Nothing is sacred; everything is sacred.
I find the more interested I become in conversation, the more interested I become with etymology. Initially, we each simply use language as we attempt to convey our ideas to others. Some people get good at that. But some people experiment with language, and then go farther to use language very intentionally. TK struck me as such a person.
Craig: There are certain words in English that have a visceral energy to them, and that, if the word is overused, then it would lose that. But, being able to trot a word out intentionally— “I really mean to convey this energy to this other person.”
TK: Totally, yeah. And, vagina means sheath for a sword, which is very male-centric, whereas yoni means sacred space. Some people are really drawn to that language. I’m a real straight shooter. I love the idea of Tantra and buddhism that it stems from. And the lineage, the Shangpa Kagyu lineage that authentic Tantra taught me from. And I’m into kink and I’m into BDSM, and I enjoy the whole range of — is it phenomenological — what’s actually happening here and now, and our brains doing things. Metabolites are happening. Neurons are firing. You can call it energy. As woo-woo as you like, however you want to go.
Craig: Energy can just be a shorthand for all this stuff we discovered, actually makes it real.
TK: Speaking of working with people of all different gender identities, the idea is really to work with people to develop a pleasure practice because our lives are so full of shit, all of us. The human experience is this shitty ball of burning gas and also this beautiful sunset.
I like the blueberry analogy: If you’re eating a bowl of blueberries, they’re next to you and you’re not looking at them. And you’re going: blueberries in your mouth, blueberries in your mouth. All of a sudden, you pick a roach up and you put it in your mouth. Next time you go to the blueberry bowl, you’re like, “Holy fuck, I don’t know what it’s going to be!” There might only be one roach in the whole bowl, but what does your brain go to every time now when you think blueberries? It’s terrifying.
That’s kind of the way we treat all our negative experiences. The idea of Tantra, in the weaving light and sound with form, is to develop this blissful counterbalance.
The glorious sunset we were experiencing as we were recording, led me to take a detour to movie-land. Such detours happen a lot, if you have a long conversation with me. But the dance of distraction, humor, delight and serendipity is always worth the effort. That’s a major part of what makes us Human. We joking started discussing magic powers, before I got specific and asked what her friends would say her super-power is. “I guess if I were to list the thing that I like the most about myself: I bring a sort of comfort to the room as being rather authentically expressed and unafraid to share things about myself that I hope inspires other people to do the same thing, and I consider that a societal superpower.” — ~ TK from, ~18′
When recording conversations for podcasts, there’s a balance to be searched for: How much of oneself should be present? If there’s too little of me—if I’m too quiet, if I don’t share stories and be vulnerable—then the guest is left hung-out on the stage with a spot light on them. On the other hand, if there’s too much of me— well, then you get what we have here in the recording with TK. I broke into a series of stories as TK and I played with the conversation. If you want to get that experience, you’ll have to go listen.
Here, I’m going to try to present the stories that TK shared. Just remember that there’s a lot that’s been edited out in the following stories which came from TK generously rolling with what I was interjecting. I’ve added […] where I’ve made large elisions.
Craig: What’s the most interesting story that comes to mind when I ask you about eye contact?
TK: I was at what I jokingly and lovingly call Tantra Camp, which was our first retreat while I was in the authentic Tantra certification program, and I was meditating with my teacher. We were practicing this thing called microcosmic orbit, and I get lost. Some people call it the void, but it just felt like swirling dark colors making eye contact with this person kind of in this forever place of being and being okay both simultaneously of like, everything is perfect and everything is right and I am right here and you are there, but also, where are we? What’s even happening? And, beyond the story, my theory around it is that human beings experience themselves through experiencing others relativity. Thanks, Einstein, or maybe Einstein’s late wife … unclear who actually … women rolling their eyes.
[…]
And so, there’s something kind of magical that happens when you … we’re making eye contact right now, and it’s kind of silly, but if we allowed ourselves to continue to make eye contact-
Craig: Well, yeah, there’s definitely an awkward zone here, people. We’re now at about six or seven seconds and it’s like, “I really need to look away, now.”
TK: Right, right, right, and like, why is that?
Craig: Well, because eye contact is extremely intimate, like the old … The metaphor of the eyes being windows to the soul— I think that … humans are really good at detecting eye contact.
[…]
TK: It continues to be all about eye contact in my experience.
Craig: Anyway, off on a tangent, Craig. Eye contact: so, I think that because we are so good at detecting eye contact, and compared to other senses, we’re not nearly as sensitive. Even just eye contact is a thing. So, when you spot that eye contact, it’s inherently electrifying in your deep brain. So, I don’t know, that’s just, how could you ignore a sense that was that hooked up?
TK: Totally.
[…]
TK: That actually reminds me of a different story about eye contact. This weekend, I was at the Folsom Street Fair down in San Francisco, and there’s a lot of leather, sex and kinky activities and people doing them in public and people watching. There was a moment I was partaking in a scene with someone and I looked up and made eye contact with somebody else in the crowd and immediately lightened the mood. It was like I was in this kind of intense space and feeling somewhat humiliated, which is fine, because that’s what we go for, sometimes. That’s okay.
And, they looked at me and they kind of giggled. And then, all of a sudden, it was this goofy not-so-serious thing that was happening, anymore. They saw through what I might have been experiencing as shame and it became: when I’m being seen in something that I think is shameful and this person isn’t turning away but is celebrating it and enjoying it, it allows me to then fall into more of a, “Oh, this is okay.” And, I think that being seen by people creates a lot of that for-
Our conversation danced over a number of topics as TK and I simply followed whatever thoughts bubbled up. We flirted briefly with discussing radical honesty as it feels nearby to eye contact and intimacy.
Craig: I was just talking to someone who was talking about radical honesty. What would happen if, when someone asked you for money on the street, instead of saying, “Sorry,” and moving on— What if you said, “I’m choosing not to give you money.” What would you have to do to be able to be that radically honest to them. That might be the right thing to say to them. They might be like, “Well, thank you for being honest.” I don’t know. I’ve never tried that.
Maybe part of what is uncomfortable about the interaction with somebody who asks you something, which would really be a small task for you to do, is you literally don’t want to see them. You’re like, “I don’t want to be seen by you, so I’m going to turn my head and say I’m sorry.” I’m not suggesting everybody give every dollar they have to every person who asks…
TK: …but, sometimes, it’s just about making eye contact with them and saying, “Hey, I see that you’re living on the street. You’re not totally invisible to me. I don’t think giving you money will solve the problem, but also, I see you as a human.”
“That’s one of the other things inside of Tantra, inside of movement, inside of … right, why do we go move our bodies? Why do we sit with our bodies? Why do we intentionally breathe? And, so much of it comes down to stress relief, relief from — I’m looking around the room — all this shit.” — ~ TK from, ~28’30”
Mindful of the time, it occurred to me to return to the main avenue of our conversation. We’d had a terrific conversation exploring Tantra and intimacy, and I thought we might next turn to talking about movement. TK, ever the good sport, started to follow that lead, before I interrupted here to launch us into a huge nerd-gasm about rock climbing. She got exactly this far:
Craig: This is nice. Have a bite of chocolate while I look at the time. We haven’t really touched your movement background. I’m not sure if you think, at this point, that would rise to a level of even being interesting, but if you do, we could talk about maybe how you got into Parkour and what your thoughts are on that.
TK: Parkour is a shorter story than my movement practice in general. I had been interested in parkour for a while and was really scared to go into Parkour Visions. Then, by the time I looked it up, I saw that the gym had closed, unfortunately. And then, I am a climber. I’ve been climbing for … God, that’s a hard thing to say, I’m a climber.
Craig: Oh my God, I fancy myself a climber…
…and then followed a long segment with me geeking out about climbing. TK was super into it, but I think she was mostly having fun watching me geek out about climbing. It became a two person show with her adding color, jokes, and little digs. Super fun—I thought anyway—but not something that makes much sense in a written transcript.
But some of our exchanges gave a sublime insight into TK’s style and sense of humor. This section in particular, conveys the warmth and playfulness of an intimate conversation with TK:
TK: Well, I climb at Index, Washington, which, don’t publish that because nobody go there; it’s horrible. It sucks. Don’t go. Index sucks, now.
Craig: Why does it suck?
TK: …so that people don’t go, mostly.
Craig: Oh, okay. So, basically, gear blows out. It’s all sandstone.
TK: It’s just choss. It’s horrible. The rock falls apart in your hands.
This summer, I went out to Washington Pass, which isn’t far from here, a bunch of alpine climbing with my sweetie. We did the South Arete of South Early Winters Spire. It’s a 5.6. It’s super mellow. We pitched out the first couple pitches and then just soloed the rest, and it was such a good time, just movement over rocks. I don’t tell people I solo often because they usually say-
Craig: …people freak out…
TK: Like Alex Honnold. Yeah, “Climbing without a rope?”
Craig: Like that?
TK: Yes, free solo.
Craig: …exactly like that?
TK: Not at all like that. It’s mostly scrambling over pretty chill rocks, but you don’t have to deal with the rope and all the gear. I brought up climbing because I was talking about my movement practice. I’ve been climbing for four-and-a-half years. I said I was a climber and then I got sheepish because, like it’s hard for me to say I’m a singer, I also still have imposter syndrome about climbing.
Eventually, I stopped talking long enough for her to get to her climbing origins.
TK: When I first got taken out climbing, I didn’t realize that the people I was climbing with were very, very strong climbers because, as a total Gumby, right, you just don’t know what’s going on. They’re telling you to do these things and you’re like, “This is normal,” because you don’t know any better. Within my first year of climbing, I was climbing trad with folks, mostly following. I was climbing at an ability level that I could do on top rope that I still have a hard time leading.
This year, I was putting the ego aside and really wanting to do the thing, to know that I could do the thing. A lot of 5.8 and 5.7 and 5.9 and a lot of crying and being scared and allowing that to happen. Inside of dating somebody, I was surprised how many emotions came out in ways that didn’t when I climb with other people because it’s a whole ‘nother level of being vulnerable and intimate with somebody.
Large scale, outdoor rock climbing is spectacular and can be—it should be, but sometimes things go sideways—a wonderful experience. I’ve found rock climbers earlier in their journey start to pick apart the different aspects of climbing as they learn what calls most to them. Some pursue the huge, heady experiences outdoors, and some look inward searching for small problems that they can learn through solving. There’s a type of climbing called bouldering, named for climbing on boulders. Done generally low to the ground so that falling off is low consequence, it brings the same mental aspect as with the large scale challenges of other types of outdoor climbing. But since bouldering is done without any safety equipment, (often with just a small crash pad tossed on the ground below the climber,) reality and danger can set in very quickly.
Our conversation about outdoor, large-scale climbing transitioned to small-scale, but very mental, bouldering:
TK: And bouldering — you mentioned bouldering earlier — I feel like is the most similar to parkour in the realm of the fear about falling off of stuff and the zero margin for error at a certain point, at a certain height.
It’s a totally different story. I don’t like bouldering outside so much because of that, and it’s been a heady thing for me to develop. It hasn’t been something that I’ve been that interested in, partially because the go game, and I see some people that are really good at capturing that mind space, doing these big descents. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful, and I have done my best this year, too, as being on the sharp end of just trying to enjoy the movement, just wanting to enjoy moving on rocks. I mentioned kink, earlier. I think rock climbing fits in some of the same realms of masochism of, “I’m going to jam my hand in this crack and I’m going to crank on it and it’s going to fuckin’ hurt, and then I’m going to cram a crank on and stick my other hand in this crack, and then I’m going to shove my ankle in there and twist on it and stand up and just … I’ve done a lot of climbing shirtless and naked because I love the way my body feels on the rocks and the movements of being outdoors and-
Craig: Rocks are so tactile, yeah. There’s definitely a … I’m not going to say it’s erotic, but I guess, okay, if you want to go there.
TK: Yeah, it could be. But, feeling rock on skin, it’s like being out in nature. I know there’s this whole group of people called eco-sexuals. They really get off on being out in nature. I wouldn’t identify as an eco-sexual, I think, mostly because I have a hard time with labels, a lot of labels, but yeah, just getting your … I think men have an easier time with being shirtless in public in our world in general.
Craig: Just because of how it’s socially constructed?
TK: Yeah, but being wedged between rocks or climbing trees and feeling … I think it’s another level of Tantra, another part of Tantra […]
The guests on the Movers Mindset podcast are mostly chosen simply because I want to have a conversation with them. But some people, TK for example, are mentioned by my friends. TK’s passion for movement also includes parkour. Our shared interest in rock climbing was a surprise, but it was some parkour friends who said, “You should talk to TK.”
Here again, I had the distinct pleasure of being led by the guest to the next interesting thread.
TK: I got into parkour because I met Caitlin Pontrella at Seattle Bouldering Project. That’s the answer to that question.
Craig: Okay, honestly, you’re really good at pulling us all the way back to there.
TK: Thank you.
We were hanging out at the bar in West Wall Café [ed. inside the Seattle Bouldering Project’s facility], and a friend was like, “You should meet this person. She’s really cool.” We became friends, and then I met Brandee Laird. What was really cool, I think, about developing those friendships, is that I didn’t know who they were in the parkour community, and they said, “Come out and play with us.”
Just like my climbing experience, I started climbing with these people that were developing at Index and climbing really fucking hard, like 5.12+ climbers, and I just didn’t realize because how would I know? It wasn’t until … I think it was Art of Retreat maybe by the time that Brandi was teaching at American Rendezvous or something, and I saw some internet stuff and I was like, “Holy shit, this person is a very respected, well-known, world-renowned coach, and she’s my friend and I know her as a friend before coach.” I think if I had stepped into [Parkour Visions] before that, our relationships would have been different, which is just an aside about friendships and how they develop and what you know about people or what you think you know about people and the way we treat folks that are at certain levels of pedestal or no pedestal or-
Just to be sure the level of respect she’s conveying for Caitlin and Brandee is clear, I’ll unpack her climbing jargon: “developing at Index” — Index is a place to rock climb, which we discussed it earlier. “like 5.12+ climbers” — that’s world-class level climbing, few ever achieve 5.13.
TK: That was really cool, seeing that side of people that I had become to know as friends and not as coaches, but as peers. Now, I do parkour, and I see the world very, very differently in terms of what I can play on or how I can … I think parkour changed my life in the greatest way.
I have two nieces and a nephew. My niece last year had bacterial meningitis. I know she almost died at three weeks old … five weeks old? Three or five weeks old. And, I went down after she got out of the hospital. My sister had to go back for some followup appointment, and my sister left me outside of the hospital in the parking lot with a four-and-a-half-year-old and a three-year-old and I was like, “Oh, fuck.” We were talking about kids earlier and I was like, “Shit, I don’t know what to do with these. How am I supposed to entertain the little people in a fucking parking lot?”
Craig: I think if you stand on them, then they don’t run away…
TK: And, that would have been my answer, before, but I had just been learning about parkour, and there were rails and there were benches, and I was like, “Okay, it’s superhero practice time. Do y’all want to be ninjas or what?” I was able to Auntie TK my way into entertaining them for almost as long as it took for my sister to come back outside, almost an hour.
Craig: And now, of course, she hates you because her kids want to know where they can go learn parkour. Way to go, TK.
TK: Oh, no. And, I think that’s some of the magic of parkour and movement and changing the mindset.
From parkour, our discussion meandered touching on the intimacy of audio with headphones on, audio exhibitionists and conversations, free-styling vocal improv…
Craig: I always like to say I turn my ADD into Art du Déplacement— my Attention Deficit Disorder into Art du Déplacement. I wasn’t diagnosed as a kid, because I’m old enough to be before they invented the cool thing— what is it, the DSM thing. We were probably on DSM [version] negative 2 at that time.
TK: I have a thing about that.
Craig: Go ahead, go. Go, go, go.
TK: Well, just coping mechanisms. We talk about the DSM and that it’s disorder, disorder, disorder, disorder. It’s a potentially useful discourse, I suppose, for talking about a wide array of symptoms that people maybe share. Like all the people that have, air quote, “ADD,” share this kind of, “This happens in my brain when I’m doing this X thing.” But it’s potentially just a coping mechanism you developed when you were young to survive in the world.
My personal experience, the coping mechanisms that I’ve developed that people maybe have names for in the DSM is more about discovering the awareness of, and not being a victim to. So, when I turn disorder into coping mechanism, I am able then to have agency and power around it. So, you were talking about your hand thing. You turned your ADD into ADD, and that’s your power. That’s your art, yeah.
I’m continuously fascinated by the unique aspects of experiencing conversations in audio-only. I regularly find I’m drawing my guests down this side street.
Craig: People who are listening with headphones, you get a certain kind of experience. I’m hoping if you’re listening on headphones, you’ve noticed that podcasts in general suck you in, and it’s because, I think that your ears work … because they’re connected to an older part of your brain, so when you hear something, it draws your attention, and when you hear people talk to you and they’re in your ears as opposed to hearing it across the room, it’s like you can’t help but be drawn to that.
So, I think part of my the reason why podcasting works so sell is that humans are really fixated, are really interested in audio. There’s one experience, people who are listening. And then, there’s another experience for people who are listening to each other and making awkward eye contact again.
TK: It’s only awkward if you make it that way.
Craig: I think you would kill me in a staring contest every time. Please, I’m just going to close my eyes, now. I’m not challenging you to a staring contest. But, there’s something about …
[…]
If we were any closer together, it would be awkward. So, the headphones bring us closer together. You are literally in my head and I’m literally-
Here we drifted off into having more fun. My interest in any particular topic, doesn’t necessarily mean I can stay on that topic for long. But as I’d learned, give TK enough time and space and she’ll bring us back. We drifted back to talking about headphones and then about creating spaces.
TK: I think it’s similar to the way I feel bed is sacred space, being in bed with somebody else. I guess I call it pillow talk, and it sounds so cliché to me, but having this space with someone else like I wake up in the morning and, “Let’s share some coffee together,” and then it’s kind of talk and giggle and be silly and, “Please pet my head and we’ll feel really close in this way that, once we’re out of bed, we don’t feel this way anymore because it’s time to go back to real life and I have to go to work, now, and you’re going to go do this thing.” I think that creating space … headphones create a space.
Craig: Yeah, a new space. It actually takes away a lot of space and creates…
TK: Right, totally arranges a bubble in the same way that maybe a bed arranges a bubble, or, if you’re meditating with somebody and you’re making this eye contact with them, you’re arranging this bubble, right, of, “It’s just me and you and we’re right here and the outside world can get kind of squirrelly and you’re not focused on it.”
[…]
There’s the four-minute thing. It was a questionnaire. It was 36 Questions to Make Anyone Fall In Love. I don’t know if you saw that. It was going around the internet for a while. I did the questions with somebody. We dated for three months.
Craig: It’s total BS.
TK: Sure. I mean, they were great and I love them, but it wasn’t going to last. Then, there’s a four minutes of eye contact thing you’re supposed to do at the end of it, and I think, fuck all the questions. Maybe it’s just the eye contact.
Craig: Just four minutes of eye contact, right.
TK: We were doing it via video chat, but, maybe it’s just about sitting down with someone and being seen. I find eye contact, to go back to eye contact, as … you know you’re talking to somebody and they’re kind of looking all around and they won’t look at you or settle down and they seem highly anxious and you’re just like, “Whoa, can you chill and be here with me? It’s okay. I’m safe.”
And, a lot of that, I know, comes from trauma, so that’s not to dis anybody who has a hard time making eye contact with people, because I can also understand that neuro-atypical people … eye contact can actually feel physically painful. To the degree that eye contact creates connection for neuro-typical people, it can create disconnection for atypical people.
So, that’s something, when I first started practicing Tantra, I came across this article written by a woman who was autistic. And I was very, very grateful for finding it because I was like, “Eye contact,” right, just fresh out the gate. I’m like, “Eye contact is a thing.” And then, you can’t just stare … that’s why you’re like, “You’re staring at me.” I’m like, “Wait, no, I’m actually seeing you and trying to be here with you,” and I try to make a distinction, there because I have played from the ego place before of, “I’m big and strong and, yeah, you’re going to look away from me,” and that’s not a place of compassion and connection. So, having played in the realm of darkness, as you called it earlier, I think it’s an important distinction to make.
By this point, we were well over an hour into our conversation. The sun had set, and the room had grown dark leaving us with just a single light over our table. The energy of the entire conversation had been very different from others, and apparently I wanted to be sure that was recognized as a good thing.
Craig: Maybe, this is like, every hundred episodes or so we have to do one [of] these [to] blow-off-steam. I know this is weird.
TK: That’s good. Are we blowing off steam, right now?
Craig: I may be. So, I came from Art of Retreat before this, and I did something like 24, 45-minute interviews in two days.
TK: Whoa.
Craig: Whoa, that may have been a mistake.
[…]
It was good because it’s really … it forces me to hone my skills to be able to read [people] as fast as I can and figure out whether they want to talk about it. And, there’re different kinds of interviews. Maybe this would be fun to unpack…
So, this interview that we’re doing, sometimes I just say I let the guest off-leash and I try to keep up. I don’t mean in a derogatory way, although maybe you would really enjoy that.
But, when we let the guest off-leash and let them run, then it’s up to me to just try and not mess up what you’re doing, and it can be really fun, but it can also go really weird like if the guest is expecting a certain role from me and then I’m just like, “Let’s go have fun,” and they’re like, “I thought you were going to ask questions.” Or, if I ask a question, it’s [too] open-ended. They’re like, “I thought you were going to give me some context.”
TK: Okay, well, off-leash, I was at Folsom this past weekend. I grew up in San Francisco and left when I was 17. Growing up with such an open, I mean, really gay environment, topless people in parades waving at me from a young age and seeing my teachers in elementary school were gay and married couples and it was just part of life. It wasn’t something I thought so much about until I moved to Montana where people were meeting their first gay person in college.
So, coming back to Folsom as an adult, my first time going to the fair as an adult and participating and being … it was almost like a homecoming where, having grown up in such an open place, I took it for granted, and then have been out in the world in different places and kind of forgot. So, coming back and being able to experience this whole thing that feels like it’s been an inherent part of me for so long that yet maybe hasn’t been expressed to its full capacity as I had appreciate was really, really cool.
And, what I find really interesting about … so I performed at something called Twisted Windows, which is put on by a lovely person named Shay Tiziano, and it is a subversive performance art on Friday night. It’s all night long. There’s bondage performances and… wow, a plethora. There’s someone on trapeze and just all kinds of cool shit, people self-suspending and puppy play. That’s where people dress up like pups and play with stuffed animals and bark at each other. It’s fucking the cutest thing. It’s just great. Yeah, yeah. Two thoughts: the performance we did, I was holding something heavy over my head for half an hour while taking on a lot of impact, whips, heavy floggers, bites, this whole realm of sexual-
Craig: Things that would make you want to use your arms to defend yourself, right?
TK: Right, and, well, by choice as a sensual experience. I am a masochist. I think that climbing plays into that very well. And, holding something heavy overhead for half an hour straight is really intense.
Craig: Just that.
TK: Yeah, right, just like, can you imagine holding 20 pounds over your head for half an hour? I was just pouring sweat. So, meditation and Tantra bring on this space of presence and can get you really high, especially and more so, generally, in my experience, with somebody else. And, what I’ve found really cool about kink and why I’m open to talking about it here, I have this idea that Tantra is supposed to be spiritual and it’s serious, and it’s the right way to do things. Then, having some more experience in kink and realizing that there’s this level of connection and negotiation and all these things that need to be present, trust, in order to let somebody, to ask somebody to please hit you-
Craig: Yeah, play this role.
TK: Yeah. And then, they’re trusting you that you really want that and that they’re not hurting you, and that they’re doing something that might be seen from the outside as awful is a beautiful expression of something that I had been experiencing inside of Tantra. And then, I brought up Barbara Carrellas, earlier. She talks about that inside of Urban Tantra. I think some people call it dark Tantra where they interplay the two things, and the integration of that just into life.
It’s not just like, “I’m going to sit here and meditate and breathe.” It’s like, “I’m going to hold this heavy weight over my head and meditate and breathe and get into this space while getting hit,” and that can also bring me to this level of heightened … but, there’s something about the movement. That’s why I want to talk about it. I’m watching this person move around me. I’m unable to move. What happens when I shift my weight to this side or I get hit here versus there, and how can I breathe and move the energy to become something that feels really good instead of, “Ow, that was sharp.” Or, you’re trying to knock me off balance. How do I reel it in to be present? It was just fascinating.
When recording conversations I sometimes find I drift up from the depth of the conversation and remember that there will eventually be people listening. I have a sudden urge to see if there’s some kernel of wisdom, or constructive take-away, that I can find with just the right question.
Craig: I’ll just close my eyes. What I was thinking was there’s something that we can, I’m going to say challenge, something that we can challenge people to think about that might help them find places or ideas or spaces where they have an unknown bias. […] I’m wondering if there are places where people might have biases that they aren’t aware of, and if there’s any thoughts you have on how to help people find those. I’m really reaching here for like an, “Ooh.” What if we went meta meta?
[…]
TK: That’s a hard one to dig up. I think so much of … here’s a great one. So, when you watch somebody … how many times have you practiced something, or you’re telling someone about what you do, and they say, “I could never do that.”
Craig: All the time.
TK: All the time. Climbing, “I could never do that.” “Oh, what do you do? I could never do that.” For some people, I don’t want to say everyone, because all movement is valuable. Sometimes, it’s a small jump and something that people that I look up to, I would think, “Oh, this is nothing and cake for them. It’s big for me.” And then, somebody else is like, “Wow, that’s amazing. I could never do that.” And, I think, “Just try it. Just go try it.”
You asked what my superpower was, earlier, and I mentioned being inspiring and wanting people to go past what they think is possible or break down barriers, and that’s why I consider myself a sex activist because I’m into the idea that sexuality is a part of everything we do, including movement. And, I find it a really interesting line that we choose to draw. We say, “Sex is this,” and it’s an incredibly transgressive idea to say, “Sex is everything,” right, because then it’s like, “Oh, I’m hanging out with my friends, and I love them. Is that sexual? Oh my God, I’m gay.” Whatever that brings up for people, it’s a huge world of triggers. I’m eating this apple or this peach and it’s so good, and it’s dripping down my face.
Craig: Sensual, right?
TK: It’s so sensual, and sensual is a bad word, right? All of a sudden, sensual is like, “Don’t.”
Craig: It describes that it has senses involved.
TK: Exactly. And then, so, what degree do we sexualize that? I don’t have answers for any of that. I just find it fascinating to ruminate on, and I think that the answer, to a degree, is to just go try it. So, BDSM or kink is a lot harder to watch than it is to partake in. To watch somebody get hit for half an hour is a lot harder than being the person getting hit for half an hour because something else is happening. And, I think in the same way that watching … I don’t know a ton of parkour athletes, but Bryan Riggins is a friend of mine, and we’ve had some conversations about performance and mindset.
Then, I’ll watch some of his stuff and I’m just like, “Holy shit, dude, how do you do that? How do you keep it together? I could never do that.” I find myself in the same space, and so it’s like, “Okay, where do I start? How do I break that down and how do I know that I feel a certain way about it until I go try and do it?” and I think that’s the best way to find your unknown biases, is to try things that interest you or try things that don’t interest you because maybe they will or maybe the thing you thought you were going to be into isn’t the thing you’re into, and that’s how you meet people that expose you to new things that will then get you to discover you had a bias.
On the other hand, sometimes one finds the right question by not trying too hard to find the right question. After some more random thinking, out loud, I arrived at:
Craig: There’s a ratchet involved that we’ve been ratcheting up the conversation to a point where it’s like, “Well, we only have a limited amount of time to do this on mic,” and I’m like, “Well, I probably have one or two more questions, so what should I ask?” I just wasted 30 seconds.
What I wanted to say first was: what’s a story that you can tell me about somebody that you admire?
TK: Wow. Whoa. My first thought is my mom, and then I’m like, “What story is there to tell?” I could even relate one to movement. My grandfather passed away in February, and my grandma and him lived together. They were married, basically married for 50 years. They lived in Edmonds, which isn’t that far north of where we are right now. And, I live here in Washington, Seattle area, and I work here. My mom came up from San Francisco, where she lives, to handle stuff. Some of her siblings came out, but were the East Coast people … we’re the West Coast [people]. West Coast, best coast. I can’t say that to you, can I? We’re the West Coast people, and so there’s all these expectations about, “Who should be taking care of things?” and all the kind of shit that happens, and you realize that we-
[…]
TK: This is an aside: I didn’t realize how dysfunctional our family was until that happened. And then, the coping mechanisms my grandfather had developed and his neuroses is evident because you’re going through all their shit because they no longer can.
My mom came in and, at first, wanted all this help because it’s hard to be the person to take things on. But then, at a certain point, when you know that you’re the one that’s going to be doing it and you seem to have the way figured out and it’s just too much anxiety for anyone else to help out, then she just stepped into this role. We moved my grandma down to Sacramento. She’s in assisted living, now. She broke her ankle earlier this week.
Craig: wow…
TK: I know. There’s just shit on shit, but my mom has been … she’s the one. She stepped into the role and has put her life … she’s not serving on my grandma hand and foot, and she’s going up to check on her at the expense of her own movement practice. That really was like when my mom was in Edmonds emptying out the condo and going through 50 years of photos, all this stuff that life puts on people.
I’m like, “Ma, I got to go to the gym. I’m not helping you with this, I got to go climb or I got to go work out.” I got to go move or I go crazy because I need … my movement practice is whatever. I’ll go dance at the gym or I’ll go twerk. Whatever I need to shake the shit out of my body, and she didn’t have that ability. She had a timeline. She had to get the thing done, and I admire the shit out of her for it for putting her mother’s wellbeing in her hands and choosing to be that rock for her. I think it’s incredibly admirable. Love you, mom.
Craig: Thank you for sharing.
And sometimes my conversation partners do all of the work themselves:
TK: Oh, you commented on everything is sexual, now, and I had a bit about that. Do you remember saying that?
Craig: I do remember saying that.
TK: Cool, I couldn’t tell from your eyes.
Craig: I’m wondering whether I should be regretting saying that, but go ahead.
TK: I don’t think so. I’m poly. Do you know what that means?
Craig: No.
TK: I date more than one person at a time.
There’s a lot of ideas I have that I think, to a degree, are dangerous because ideas can be really dangerous. I think if we were all just more open about everything being sexual all the time.
I think that, in schools, we need a consent and boundaries class of how to set … and, I think that’s part of what parkour and mixed martial arts teaches people. I used to box, right, of tapping out, or, “This is my limit.” I think if we equipped people with the ability to say, “You know what, it’s this point I’m going to remove myself from the room,” or, “Please don’t say that to me, again,” or, “I really don’t appreciate that kind of language in X, Y context.”
I realize it’s a big, complicated world and it’s not as easy to just say, “Yeah, give people the tools and they’ll use them,” but, I think for the most part if we’re able to just talk about it and say … yeah, I fall in love with my friends. This is personal. I fall in love with my friends all the time, and, being poly, it’s kind of problematic. You’re like, “Wait, I could actually date all of you. I mean, you don’t necessarily want to date me, but like, that’s part of my personal way of living.”
Because love is so big, and when I’ve had conversations with people that are like, “Hey, I’m attracted to you. I don’t necessarily want to date you. I just kind of need to get this off my chest because it would make hanging out with you easier for me to just share with you this.” It’s like intimacy and vulnerability of, “I have this thing happening that every time I see you, these chemicals are going on in my body,” and if I don’t address it as a disorder, and it’s just like, “This is what arises in this context, and now let’s deal with it.”
I think if we were all equipped with a little bit more of that, however we would learn that — I’m not entirely sure how we would spread that to the people — I think that could go a long, long way. I think that’s interesting.
The end of every conversation is bitter-sweet. There’s always the moment, in any conversation, when we know it’s time to drift toward the door; Things are as good as they’re going to get. But the moment is more jarring when recording. At some point, we have to stop. At some point, I have to take the lead and say, “thank you, that was awesome.”
Craig: I don’t know if you’ve listened to the podcast at all, but there’s this thing that I always ask at the end.
TK: Is it about a word?
Craig: It’s about three words.
TK: Three words…
Craig: So, I’ll just throw it at you and see what you do with it. It’s…
And of course, the final question: three words to describe your practice.
TK: Inconsistent yet persistent.
Craig: That’s a terrific answer.
Well, thank you very much, TK. It has been … to say it’s been a pleasure is not quite the right … it’s been pleasurable and fun and energizing and exhausting. I mean, exhausting is good.
TK: Thanks.
Craig: It’s been a wild ride, a fun ride, a very different chance to get to talk to someone who challenges me and pushes me in different ways during an interview. Thank you for that. It’s been a pleasure.
TK: Thanks so much for having me.
ɕ
This written-to-be-read article is based on a transcript, my recollection and my opinions. Any mistakes or mis-representations are my own—but I’d love to have them pointed out so I can correct them. All of the quotations here are edited lightly for readability and clarity. Delivering insight in realtime, while being recorded in a single take is difficult, so I’ve edited only with the intention of highlighting the awesome parts.
slip:2io1.
#MoversMindset #Writing -
Can I code on a Raspberry Pi?
💻 From Raspberry Pi Dreams to Coding Nightmares 🧠I recently migrated all my native Java executables from a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 to my home server. One machine to rule them all. With the Pi now free, I dared to ask: "Could it serve as a desktop?"
Spoiler: No. Not even close.After soldering proper connectors (because micro USB is now the tech version of a fossil), I powered it up. Not to code. Just to open a browser.
It failed. Spectacularly.
Apparently, launching a modern browser now requires a minimum of 1GB RAM and the will of a dying star. Dear frontend framework fans: maybe stop shipping entire JS ecosystems just to render a button. You're not curing cancer. Less is more.
Irony? The Pi still serves as a server, solid, silent, reliable. But opening a single webpage? That’s where it draws the line. My other Pi models are bulkier veterans. They used to work as desktop machines. Now? They drown in memory and I/O demands like kittens in a tsunami of bloated software.
Speaking of I/O, let’s talk coding:
Tools like Gradle will kill your SD card faster than you will to debug XML.
IDE's and all the modern crap survives long enough to say goodbye as they are bloatware, not software. If I had time, I would rewrite all the tools.I tried expensive SD cards. They all broke. Modern tools have no mercy.
And the shiny new Raspberry Pi 500? Still runs off an SD card.
Beautiful concept. Terrible choice for our terrible software performance.Yet, I admire it. The idea that a computer fits in a keyboard, Keyboard computers are cyberpunk incarnate.
Imagine cramming a MacBook Air's logic board into a mechanical shell.
No fan. No nonsense. Just cool, portable silicon nirvana and a clean desk everywhere.If only our software wasn't a bloated mass of lazy abstractions, we could actually use these machines. But AI's coming for us and it was trained on this mess.
So here I am, dreaming of turning my old MacBook Air into a keyboard-only cyberdeck. Who needs a screen when you’ve got a home office? Who needs a webcam when your phone stalks you from five angles?
Apple take notes: Give us something like a Pi.
#RaspberryPi #Coding #SoftwareBloat #EdgeComputing #DevLife #Minimalism #FrontendMadness
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I’m Shopping Amazon’s Big Spring Sale on a Tight Budget, so I Found the 15 Best Deals for $25 or Less
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I’m Shopping Amazon’s Big Spring Sale on a Tight Budget, so I Found the 15 Best Deals for $25 or Less
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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#NatureJournal: A walk in the woods, stumbling upon nothing less than this beautiful little … #OrangeTip, Anthocharis cardamines. 🙌
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A marvellous male Reed #Bunting, photographed on Sunday at Upton Warren nature reserve. I can hardly believe it myself now, but many years ago these handsome birds (along with the less striking but still beautiful females of the species) used to visit the small-town garden of the Jackson family home during the Winter months.
#ReedBunting #Emberiza #Bird #Birds #Vogels #oiseaux #BirdPhotography #VogelFotografie #Nature #NaturePhotography #Natuur #NatuurFotografie #Wildlife #WildlifePhotography
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Spring is coming - 41 -
Third excerpt from my work on the city of Dinard.
When the sun is less shy.- 📷 Leica MP
- 🎞️ Kodak Portra 400
- #summicron 50 IVEven #rust is more beautiful in the #sun.
#filmphotography #leicafilm #leica #kodak #portra400 #filmisnotdead #cron50 #leicam #analogphotography #dinard #bretagne
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Is Resin Printing Worth the Mess? Brutally Honest Breakdown for First-Timers
1,526 words, 8 minutes read time.
If you’ve been lurking in the shadows of 3D printing forums or scanning YouTube for the next big step in your printing game, chances are you’ve stumbled on resin printing. It’s that tantalizing tech that promises jaw-dropping detail, surfaces so smooth they make FDM prints look like sandpaper, and the kind of precision that makes miniatures and prototypes scream quality. But here’s the real talk: resin printing comes with a mess and a handful of headaches that many first-timers don’t see coming. So, is it worth diving into the resin pool, or should you stick to good ol’ filament? Let’s rip off the band-aid and get gritty on the truth of resin printing.
What Is Resin Printing? A Quick Overview
Before we dissect the good, the bad, and the ugly, it’s important to get clear on what resin printing actually is. Unlike FDM printers that melt and extrude plastic filament layer by layer, resin printers use a vat of liquid photopolymer resin cured by light. The most common types you’ll hear about are SLA (Stereolithography), MSLA (Masked Stereolithography), and DLP (Digital Light Processing). All use UV light to harden the resin in very thin, precise layers, which is why the level of detail you get is miles ahead of filament printing.
Resin printing is a fundamentally different beast—it’s more about light chemistry than hot plastic. That difference brings massive rewards in detail and finish, but also a totally different workflow that can feel like stepping into an alien lab if you’re used to FDM.
The Good: Why Resin Printing Rocks
Let’s start with the shine—resin printing delivers insane detail and surface smoothness that filament printers can’t touch. For guys who are into tabletop gaming, collectibles, or prototyping tiny mechanical parts, resin prints can capture the crisp edges and subtle curves you thought only existed in CAD renders. The resolution is typically measured in microns, not millimeters, which means you can pick out textures on a miniature’s armor or the intricate lattice on a prototype bracket with pinpoint accuracy.
Beyond beauty, resin prints can be incredibly strong and functional, depending on the resin you use. There are tough engineering resins, flexible ones, and even biocompatible varieties for dental or medical applications. This versatility means resin printing is carving out a solid place not just with hobbyists, but with businesses looking for rapid, high-fidelity prototyping without resorting to expensive CNC or injection molding.
Another bonus is how fast resin printers can spit out parts. Sure, you’re still building layer by layer, but curing a whole layer at once rather than tracing it with a nozzle often means speedier prints for small, detailed objects. When you want quality and speed in the same package, resin printing has your back.
The Bad: The Mess and Headaches of Resin Printing
Here’s where things get real. The downside to resin printing is all about the mess and the safety headaches that come with working with liquid resin. This stuff isn’t your run-of-the-mill filament spool you toss in and forget. Resin is a toxic, smelly chemical cocktail that demands respect and careful handling. Direct skin contact can cause irritation or allergic reactions, and the fumes aren’t something you want lingering in your man cave.
The post-processing is a chore you won’t escape. Once your print is done, you need to wash it, usually in isopropyl alcohol, to strip off uncured resin. Then, you have to cure it under UV light to harden it fully. This washing and curing routine isn’t just another step; it can take as long as the print itself and involves dealing with flammable liquids and sticky resin sludge.
Disposal is another headache. You can’t just pour leftover resin or used alcohol down the drain without risking environmental damage and local code violations. You’ll need to research how to properly cure and dispose of waste resin, which adds another layer of complexity for the newbie.
On top of that, the resin printer itself demands careful cleaning and maintenance. The vats and FEP films (the thin transparent layers at the bottom of resin trays) wear out and need replacing, and any spills can quickly turn your workspace into a nightmare. Without proper ventilation and protective gear like nitrile gloves and safety glasses, you’re flirting with respiratory irritation and skin problems.
Equipment and Setup: What You’ll Need to Manage the Mess
If you’re thinking resin printing sounds awesome but want to avoid turning your garage into a toxic swamp, prepping the right setup is non-negotiable. First up, safety gear isn’t optional — gloves, a respirator or mask rated for organic vapors, and eye protection are your frontline defense. You’ll also want a well-ventilated space or ideally, a dedicated room with a fume extractor. Trust me, the resin smell sticks around and gets old fast.
Next, post-processing tools like an ultrasonic cleaner or a good wash station can save you time and hassle. UV curing stations are essential to finish prints properly—while sunlight can do the job, it’s slow and inconsistent. Some budget printers come with UV lights built-in, but many require a separate device.
Your workspace should be easy to clean and resistant to resin spills. Plastic trays, disposable paper towels, and dedicated resin containers will save your sanity. The resin itself can be messy—be prepared for drips and splashes, especially when pouring and cleaning.
Maintenance and Ongoing Costs
Unlike filament printers where the ongoing costs are mostly filament and maybe a new nozzle now and then, resin printing carries a heavier price tag over time. Resin is more expensive per liter than filament, and waste from failed prints or washing can add up quickly. Consumables like replacement vats, FEP films, gloves, and isopropyl alcohol add to the tally.
Plus, the time cost isn’t trivial. Post-processing can double your total print time, especially if you’re meticulous about cleaning and curing. And neglecting maintenance or safety can lead to poor print quality or health issues.
First-Timer Tips: How to Survive and Thrive
If you’re still here and seriously thinking about dipping your toes into resin printing, here’s some hard-earned advice. Start small with cheap resins and basic printers before dropping serious cash. Never skip safety protocols—those gloves and goggles exist for a reason.
Plan your post-processing workflow before your first print. Set up a dedicated cleaning area, and always have proper waste disposal methods ready. Expect a learning curve; don’t get discouraged by early fails or messy spills. Clean resin off your tools and surfaces immediately; once it cures, it’s a nightmare to remove.
One of the biggest rookie mistakes is rushing prints or post-processing to save time. Resin printing rewards patience and precision. Follow manufacturer instructions closely, experiment with settings gradually, and join forums or communities to swap tips.
Is It Worth It? The Final Verdict
So, is resin printing worth the mess? The honest answer is: it depends. If you crave ultra-high detail, smooth surfaces, and can handle a bit of chemistry lab discipline, resin printing opens doors that filament can’t. Miniature painters, jewelers, model makers, and prototype developers will appreciate the leaps in quality and speed.
However, if you’re sensitive to chemicals, don’t want to invest in extra gear or spend significant time on post-processing, resin might not be your best first choice. FDM printing still rocks for durability, ease, and low cost.
The tech is evolving, and newer resins and machines are getting safer and less messy, but it’s still a commitment. Understanding the risks, costs, and workflow upfront will help you decide if this next-level tech deserves a spot in your printing arsenal.
Conclusion
Resin printing isn’t just a step up from filament; it’s a whole new game with different rules. It demands respect for the chemicals, time for cleanup, and patience to master. But the payoff—mind-blowing detail and finish—makes it an addiction for those who love pushing 3D printing’s limits.
If you’re ready to take the plunge or want to share your resin printing war stories, drop a comment below or reach out directly. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for more raw, honest 3D printing insights. This community’s all about keeping it real and getting the most out of our gear.
D. Bryan King
Sources
- All3DP: Resin 3D Printing Pros and Cons
- 3D Insider: What Is Resin 3D Printing?
- Formlabs: Resin vs FDM 3D Printing
- MakerBot: Resin 3D Printing Guide
- Creality: How to Clean a Resin 3D Printer
- MatterHackers: Safely Using Resin 3D Printers
- 3D Hubs: FDM vs Resin Printing
- Digital Trends: How Resin 3D Printing Works
- Prusa Printers: How to Clean Resin Prints
- Liebert Pub: Safety Considerations for Resin 3D Printing
- Hackaday: Resin 3D Printing – How Messy Is It?
- MakeUseOf: Is Resin 3D Printing Worth It?
- Tom’s Guide: Best Resin 3D Printers of 2024
- 3DPrint.com: Minimizing Resin Printing Mess
- YouTube: Resin 3D Printing Setup and Cleanup Tips
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. The information provided is based on personal research, experience, and understanding of the subject matter at the time of writing. Readers should consult relevant experts or authorities for specific guidance related to their unique situations.
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Draconian – In Somnolent Ruin Review By Kenstrosity
Draconian is an institution. Since Where Lovers Mourn dropped 23 years ago, the Swedish death doom sextet upheld an unflappable standard of quality across seven records, marking a legendary discography matched by precious few. Everyone has their favorite out of those seven tomes, but it’s fairly uncommon to find a shared preference. This not only speaks to the diversity of Draconian’s sound despite their tried and true template, but also to the reliable nature of their compositions, capable of striking at the heart of anyone who might encounter them. I, just as susceptible to Draconian’s hooded charm, miraculously came into possession of their eighth outing, In Somnolent Ruin, albeit quite late. However, it took no time whatsoever to recognize that it was special.
As if in celebration of their reunion with original siren Lisa Johansson, Draconian amplified both the beautiful and the beastly sides of their trademark sound for In Somnolent Ruin. Heavy as Arcane Rain Fell and A Rose for the Apocalypse (“The Monochrome Blade”) and delicate as Sovran and Under a Godless Veil (“Lethe”), In Somnolent Ruin trudges inexorably through an unknowable pall with desperate fury and earnest sorrow. A dichotomy of intensity and grace embodies this hour-long funereal march, gloom and mist gently grazing the skin as the earth churns underfoot and a clouded sky thunders above. The emotions conjured through Draconian’s gothic spell, deep ripples that oscillate between tension and release in overwhelming concentrations, black out my vision and light up my synapses. This is what Draconian is known for, and what they do so well they’ve rarely done better than on In Somnolent Ruin.
Whereas Draconian routinely succeeds in songwriting across all of their records, In Somnolent Ruin blossoms primarily because of the striking performances it houses. Lisa and Anders Jacobsson shine here, each pouring every fiber of their being into their vocals (“The Monochrome Blade,” “The Face of God,” “Cold Heavens”). Anders sounds particularly venomous, his serrated growls and screaming rasps curdling my blood and melting my bones with every utterance (“I Gave You Wings”). Lisa belts like never before, showcasing a range and power I didn’t realize she possessed (“Cold Heavens”). Not to be outclassed, guitarists Johan Ericson and Niklas Nord shove thunderous riffs against each other and in concert with only the most bleeding-heart lead melodies (“I Welcome Thy Arrow,” “Misanthrope River”), creating a wonderful miasma of textures and tones that swirl with the deadly grace of smoke. Drummer Daniel Johansson and Bassist Daniel Arvidsson form a formidable rhythm section to bolster In Somnolent Ruin with great heft and shrewd patterns. Daniel Johansson in particular impresses with beats and fills that almost refuse to mimic Niklas’ riffs, instead forging his own path weaving in and out of the spaces between guitars and vocals with powerful muscularity. Working as a finely tuned machine, Draconian’s performance on In Somnolent Ruin is a rare coalescence that elevates every crest and crescendo beyond greatness.
That greatness nonetheless extends to songwriting, as In Somnolent Ruin showcases some of Draconian’s coolest pieces in their discography. With no fewer than four contenders for my Songs o’ the Year playlist (“The Monochrome Blade,” “The Face of God,” “I Gave You Wings,” “Cold Heavens”), the impact of these nine songs, both isolated from and integrated with the whole, leaves nothing but dust and rubble at my feet. Emotionally devastating, richly detailed, and imposing in stature, only one word approaches adequacy when intimating my impressions: majestic. Towering arcs that connect poignant storytelling to heartfelt expressiveness personify In Somnolent Ruin’s transition from the riff-laden challenge “I Welcome Thy Arrow” to the bitter death of “Lethe.” As I traverse that arc, marvelous transitions guide my way through twists and gnarls as beautiful in form as they are lethal to the touch. Draconian created something familiar enough to caress and comfort but surprising in its vitality and charisma, such that each fresh spin feels as compelling and impactful as the first.
I’m left astounded, alone in a clearing of brush and fog. So few discographies boast such reliable and recognizable greatness, but even fewer offer late-stage monoliths of this scale. To critique small nitpicks like the relative innocuousness of interlude “Asteria Beneath the Tranquil Sea” or the slightly less impressive “Anima” feels disingenuous—as if to do so is merely to make up for a perceived neglect of my responsibility to evaluation. Yet even accounting for this internal debate, In Somnolent Ruin is a rare triumph. A love letter to Draconian’s storied past and a celebration of their modern era, refined to staggering excellence.
Rating: Excellent!
#2026 #45 #DeathDoom #DeathMetal #DoomMetal #Draconian #GothicDoom #GothicMetal #InSomnolentRuin #May26 #NapalmRecords #Review #Reviews #SwedishMetal
DR: Buried Under 6 Feet of Bandwidth | Format Reviewed: Misanthrope Stream
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Official | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: May 8th, 2026