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529 results for “panopticpen”
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Y'all, since Donald Trump took office, #DHS / #ICE #LaMigra have created so much detention space that it is double the amount of penitentiary space in the entire country.
My pocket friends, I believe that ICE isn't about immigration; ICE is a paramilitary enforcing a christofascist nation state, and the ethnic/political/religious cleansing is about to begin.
The secret police have all the data the government has ever collected, and that's a lot, but they also have access to #palantir which has ALL the data.
They are the panopticon. And they're coming to a school zone near you.
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/
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Y'all, since Donald Trump took office, #DHS / #ICE #LaMigra have created so much detention space that it is double the amount of penitentiary space in the entire country.
My pocket friends, I believe that ICE isn't about immigration; ICE is a paramilitary enforcing a christofascist nation state, and the ethnic/political/religious cleansing is about to begin.
The secret police have all the data the government has ever collected, and that's a lot, but they also have access to #palantir which has ALL the data.
They are the panopticon. And they're coming to a school zone near you.
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/
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Y'all, since Donald Trump took office, #DHS / #ICE #LaMigra have created so much detention space that it is double the amount of penitentiary space in the entire country.
My pocket friends, I believe that ICE isn't about immigration; ICE is a paramilitary enforcing a christofascist nation state, and the ethnic/political/religious cleansing is about to begin.
The secret police have all the data the government has ever collected, and that's a lot, but they also have access to #palantir which has ALL the data.
They are the panopticon. And they're coming to a school zone near you.
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-expansion-across-us-at-heres-where-its-going-next/
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🧵2/2
...End-to-end encryption without backdoors is more secure than encryption with backdoors. Communications systems that no government can access are also communications systems that adversary governments cannot access. The tradeoff is between absolute security for everyone, including criminals, and compromised security for everyone, including governments.Salt Typhoon demonstrated that compromised security for everyone means exactly that."
https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-inverted-panopticon -
#Fascist #Socialmedia logos.
I did not want to trigger guardrails, so asked for "Norse, Ancient European" symbols...but even the #GenAI got the Sans Serif #Swastika right!Feel free for a human artist to run with this analog.
#Youtube could be more Illuminati.
#Telegram, russian two headed eagle
#Facebook, human face skinned
#Instagram, more panopticony -
#Fascist #Socialmedia logos.
I did not want to trigger guardrails, so asked for "Norse, Ancient European" symbols...but even the #GenAI got the Sans Serif #Swastika right!Feel free for a human artist to run with this analog.
#Youtube could be more Illuminati.
#Telegram, russian two headed eagle
#Facebook, human face skinned
#Instagram, more panopticony -
#Fascist #Socialmedia logos.
I did not want to trigger guardrails, so asked for "Norse, Ancient European" symbols...but even the #GenAI got the Sans Serif #Swastika right!Feel free for a human artist to run with this analog.
#Youtube could be more Illuminati.
#Telegram, russian two headed eagle
#Facebook, human face skinned
#Instagram, more panopticony -
UK Orders Ofcom to Enforce Encryption Backdoors
[Baroness Berger] also accused tech companies of lying when they say scanning encrypted messages isn’t possible. And maybe they are. But when your answer to that is “Well, we’ll just force them to comply by law,” you’re not solving the problem. You’re building a digital panopticon with the grace of a sledgehammer.
https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-orders-ofcom-to-explore-encryption-backdoors
#censorship #clientSideScanning #endToEndEncryption #onlineSafety #onlineSafetyAct #surveillance -
UK Orders Ofcom to Enforce Encryption Backdoors
[Baroness Berger] also accused tech companies of lying when they say scanning encrypted messages isn’t possible. And maybe they are. But when your answer to that is “Well, we’ll just force them to comply by law,” you’re not solving the problem. You’re building a digital panopticon with the grace of a sledgehammer.
https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-orders-ofcom-to-explore-encryption-backdoors
#censorship #clientSideScanning #endToEndEncryption #onlineSafety #onlineSafetyAct #surveillance -
CW: Panopticon of world wide AI surveillance
Palantir was not conceived as a commercial tech product—it was born from the wreckage of a failed government surveillance program. Created by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp as the private successor to DARPA’s Total Information Awareness initiative, Palantir’s mission from the outset was to fuse mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics into a tool for pre-crime governance. Its first and only client for years was the CIA, which deeply shaped the company's development and embedded it into the heart of U.S. intelligence infrastructure.
What emerged was a privatized version of the Panopticon, capable of predictive policing, pandemic modeling, and mass behavioral surveillance. From wastewater analytics during COVID to nationwide intelligence contracts, Palantir is now central to how the U.S. government processes and weaponizes information. But its roots reach even deeper, linking to PROMIS software, Iran-Contra operatives like John Poindexter, and shadowy data systems like Main Core—allegedly a secret list of Americans flagged for detention during “national emergencies.” These systems were not dismantled; they were privatized, insulated from oversight, and embedded across both government and corporate surveillance architectures.
Palantir’s rise is mirrored by other Thiel-backed ventures like Clearview AI and Facebook—technologies spun out of military research, marketed as innovation, and normalized into everyday life. As Whitney Webb reveals, we are already living within a surveillance state designed decades ago, now managed not by public institutions but by unaccountable corporations with intelligence roots and global reach.
#palantir #darpa #clearview #cia #peter_thiel #AISurveillance #uspol -
CW: Panopticon of world wide AI surveillance
Palantir was not conceived as a commercial tech product—it was born from the wreckage of a failed government surveillance program. Created by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp as the private successor to DARPA’s Total Information Awareness initiative, Palantir’s mission from the outset was to fuse mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics into a tool for pre-crime governance. Its first and only client for years was the CIA, which deeply shaped the company's development and embedded it into the heart of U.S. intelligence infrastructure.
What emerged was a privatized version of the Panopticon, capable of predictive policing, pandemic modeling, and mass behavioral surveillance. From wastewater analytics during COVID to nationwide intelligence contracts, Palantir is now central to how the U.S. government processes and weaponizes information. But its roots reach even deeper, linking to PROMIS software, Iran-Contra operatives like John Poindexter, and shadowy data systems like Main Core—allegedly a secret list of Americans flagged for detention during “national emergencies.” These systems were not dismantled; they were privatized, insulated from oversight, and embedded across both government and corporate surveillance architectures.
Palantir’s rise is mirrored by other Thiel-backed ventures like Clearview AI and Facebook—technologies spun out of military research, marketed as innovation, and normalized into everyday life. As Whitney Webb reveals, we are already living within a surveillance state designed decades ago, now managed not by public institutions but by unaccountable corporations with intelligence roots and global reach.
#palantir #darpa #clearview #cia #peter_thiel #AISurveillance #uspol -
CW: Panopticon of world wide AI surveillance
Palantir was not conceived as a commercial tech product—it was born from the wreckage of a failed government surveillance program. Created by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp as the private successor to DARPA’s Total Information Awareness initiative, Palantir’s mission from the outset was to fuse mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics into a tool for pre-crime governance. Its first and only client for years was the CIA, which deeply shaped the company's development and embedded it into the heart of U.S. intelligence infrastructure.
What emerged was a privatized version of the Panopticon, capable of predictive policing, pandemic modeling, and mass behavioral surveillance. From wastewater analytics during COVID to nationwide intelligence contracts, Palantir is now central to how the U.S. government processes and weaponizes information. But its roots reach even deeper, linking to PROMIS software, Iran-Contra operatives like John Poindexter, and shadowy data systems like Main Core—allegedly a secret list of Americans flagged for detention during “national emergencies.” These systems were not dismantled; they were privatized, insulated from oversight, and embedded across both government and corporate surveillance architectures.
Palantir’s rise is mirrored by other Thiel-backed ventures like Clearview AI and Facebook—technologies spun out of military research, marketed as innovation, and normalized into everyday life. As Whitney Webb reveals, we are already living within a surveillance state designed decades ago, now managed not by public institutions but by unaccountable corporations with intelligence roots and global reach.
#palantir #darpa #clearview #cia #peter_thiel #AISurveillance #uspol -
CW: Panopticon of world wide AI surveillance
Palantir was not conceived as a commercial tech product—it was born from the wreckage of a failed government surveillance program. Created by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp as the private successor to DARPA’s Total Information Awareness initiative, Palantir’s mission from the outset was to fuse mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics into a tool for pre-crime governance. Its first and only client for years was the CIA, which deeply shaped the company's development and embedded it into the heart of U.S. intelligence infrastructure.
What emerged was a privatized version of the Panopticon, capable of predictive policing, pandemic modeling, and mass behavioral surveillance. From wastewater analytics during COVID to nationwide intelligence contracts, Palantir is now central to how the U.S. government processes and weaponizes information. But its roots reach even deeper, linking to PROMIS software, Iran-Contra operatives like John Poindexter, and shadowy data systems like Main Core—allegedly a secret list of Americans flagged for detention during “national emergencies.” These systems were not dismantled; they were privatized, insulated from oversight, and embedded across both government and corporate surveillance architectures.
Palantir’s rise is mirrored by other Thiel-backed ventures like Clearview AI and Facebook—technologies spun out of military research, marketed as innovation, and normalized into everyday life. As Whitney Webb reveals, we are already living within a surveillance state designed decades ago, now managed not by public institutions but by unaccountable corporations with intelligence roots and global reach.
#palantir #darpa #clearview #cia #peter_thiel #AISurveillance #uspol -
CW: Panopticon of world wide AI surveillance
Palantir was not conceived as a commercial tech product—it was born from the wreckage of a failed government surveillance program. Created by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp as the private successor to DARPA’s Total Information Awareness initiative, Palantir’s mission from the outset was to fuse mass surveillance, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics into a tool for pre-crime governance. Its first and only client for years was the CIA, which deeply shaped the company's development and embedded it into the heart of U.S. intelligence infrastructure.
What emerged was a privatized version of the Panopticon, capable of predictive policing, pandemic modeling, and mass behavioral surveillance. From wastewater analytics during COVID to nationwide intelligence contracts, Palantir is now central to how the U.S. government processes and weaponizes information. But its roots reach even deeper, linking to PROMIS software, Iran-Contra operatives like John Poindexter, and shadowy data systems like Main Core—allegedly a secret list of Americans flagged for detention during “national emergencies.” These systems were not dismantled; they were privatized, insulated from oversight, and embedded across both government and corporate surveillance architectures.
Palantir’s rise is mirrored by other Thiel-backed ventures like Clearview AI and Facebook—technologies spun out of military research, marketed as innovation, and normalized into everyday life. As Whitney Webb reveals, we are already living within a surveillance state designed decades ago, now managed not by public institutions but by unaccountable corporations with intelligence roots and global reach.
#palantir #darpa #clearview #cia #peter_thiel #AISurveillance #uspol -
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”
#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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and #TheHindu's editorial today.
The potential for misuse of this app for state surveillance and being utilised by a malicious entity after compromise to target millions of users is very present and clear. This is no empty fear considering what the Union government has done with the use of Pegasus software to target the political opposition, journalists and activists. Notwithstanding Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia’s clarification that users could delete the app, the directive’s text mandating that it cannot be disabled suggests that it will function more as a Panopticon and less as a simple verification tool.
#surveillance #India #DigitalSurveillance #DigitalPriavacy #Privacy
www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/zero-stars-on-the-sanchar-saathi-app/article70349952.ece -
😡 1984 is Here 😡
@taylorlorenz.bsky.social 's latest video reveals how the #government is using #CollegeFootball games as a testing ground for #MassSurveillance. From #FacialRecognition to #stingray devices, our every move is being monitored.
✊It's time to push back against the Panopticon!
#Surveillance #Privacy #GovernmentSpying #TaylorLorenz #BigBrother #Orwellian #CivilLiberties #DigitalRights #PrivacyMatters #BigTech #SurveillanceState #PrivacyConscious
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Waldgeflüster – Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II Review
By Killjoy
Waldgeflüster has been around for a while. Based in Bavaria, Germany and led by Winterherz, they’ve been weaving nature-themed atmospheric black metal since 2009. Waldgeflüster has passed through the hands of several atmoblack aficionados before me. El Cuervo enjoyed the Panopticon/Waldgeflüster split in 2016 but was less impressed by Ruinen later that year. Doom_et_Al found 2021’s Dahoam to be disappointing and unmemorable. Waldgeflüster used the four years since then to create double albums Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II. I is a more traditional atmoblack record, while II is a reconstruction of the same melodies from the standpoint of various non-metal musical genres. An intriguing idea, to be sure. Is Knochengesänge so nice you’ll want to listen to it twice?
That may not be entirely accurate because, despite being born from the same place, Knochengesänge I and II grew into very different beasts. I will sound much more familiar to those who know Waldgeflüster’s prior work. It shares a deep kinship with the folksy trem-picking of Panopticon, not to mention that both groups put out double albums this year. Austin and Bekah Lunn even directly contributed their musical and photographic talents to Knochengesänge. II is a patchwork of different musical styles. It ranges from acoustic folk (“Das Klagelied der Krähen”) to overcast post-rock (“Frankfurt, 19. März,” “The Little King and His Architect”) to semi-upbeat alt-rock (“A Crusade in the Dark”). Both records conclude with different renditions of the traditional Scottish song “The Parting Glass.”
Knochengesänge I sees Waldgeflüster attempting to escape the shadow of similar, more influential atmospheric black metal groups. It’s telling that, despite the band’s longevity, no AMG writer to date has ever tagged Waldgeflüster in another band’s review as a reference point. Indeed, much of I passes uneventfully in a Harakiri for the Sky haze, but I tend to like it best when Waldgeflüster adds their own folksy flavor. The melodies of “Der kleinste König und sein Architekt” are especially crisp, and the song really comes into its own at the end when it transitions to a warm folk section with hearty clean singing and subtle violin strings. Charlie Anderson’s violin appears frequently, adding a great deal of poignancy. “Knochengesang” and “Bamberg, 20. Juni” are other notable examples of Waldgeflüster using strings to elevate their sound.
Since this is a double album, you already know what the primary flaw of Knochengesänge is—bloat. However, the problem runs deeper than mere minute count. Even if each track were halved in length, many would still have an uphill battle maintaining my attention. This is the case with both parts but particularly true of II, most of which seemed to drag on for an eternity. The greatest exception is “Singing of Bones” almost at the very end of II, a pleasant folk number with acoustic guitar and violin working in tandem. Even though II is all over the place stylistically, most of it isn’t so wildly different from I that it couldn’t have conceivably been integrated. I even tried reordering the tracks into each album’s corresponding pairs and found that many covered each other’s weaknesses decently well (again, except for bloat), which supports my suspicion that these two mediocre albums could have been distilled into one really good album.
Knochengesänge began with an interesting double album premise that, sadly, yielded little of note during its 109-minute combined runtime. I and II may be highly symmetrical but they are only mildly codependent. I can’t recommend listening to them back to back and, in fact, II can be safely disregarded by most listeners. Fans of the Panopticon aesthetic should find enough to enjoy in I, but it may fall a bit flat for everyone else, especially given that newcomers like Autrest are offering a much more potent take on this type of atmoblack. A frustrating refusal to self-edit is what holds both records back the most; nearly every track is 8 minutes or longer, and few fully justify their length. I respect Waldgeflüster’s desire to explore new musical avenues and I’ll keep an eye on them in the future, but I don’t expect to return much to Knochengesänge.
Rating: I: 2.5/5.0 | II: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: AOP Records
Websites: blackmetalwaldgefluester.bandcamp.com | waldgefluester.com | facebook.com/blackmetalwaldgefluester
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025#20 #25 #2025 #AOPRecords #AtmosphericBlackMetal #Autrest #FolkMetal #GermanMetal #HarakiriForTheSky #KnochengesängeI #KnochengesängeII #NotMetal #Nov25 #Panopticon #Review #Reviews #Waldgeflüster
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Waldgeflüster – Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II Review
By Killjoy
Waldgeflüster has been around for a while. Based in Bavaria, Germany and led by Winterherz, they’ve been weaving nature-themed atmospheric black metal since 2009. Waldgeflüster has passed through the hands of several atmoblack aficionados before me. El Cuervo enjoyed the Panopticon/Waldgeflüster split in 2016 but was less impressed by Ruinen later that year. Doom_et_Al found 2021’s Dahoam to be disappointing and unmemorable. Waldgeflüster used the four years since then to create double albums Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II. I is a more traditional atmoblack record, while II is a reconstruction of the same melodies from the standpoint of various non-metal musical genres. An intriguing idea, to be sure. Is Knochengesänge so nice you’ll want to listen to it twice?
That may not be entirely accurate because, despite being born from the same place, Knochengesänge I and II grew into very different beasts. I will sound much more familiar to those who know Waldgeflüster’s prior work. It shares a deep kinship with the folksy trem-picking of Panopticon, not to mention that both groups put out double albums this year. Austin and Bekah Lunn even directly contributed their musical and photographic talents to Knochengesänge. II is a patchwork of different musical styles. It ranges from acoustic folk (“Das Klagelied der Krähen”) to overcast post-rock (“Frankfurt, 19. März,” “The Little King and His Architect”) to semi-upbeat alt-rock (“A Crusade in the Dark”). Both records conclude with different renditions of the traditional Scottish song “The Parting Glass.”
Knochengesänge I sees Waldgeflüster attempting to escape the shadow of similar, more influential atmospheric black metal groups. It’s telling that, despite the band’s longevity, no AMG writer to date has ever tagged Waldgeflüster in another band’s review as a reference point. Indeed, much of I passes uneventfully in a Harakiri for the Sky haze, but I tend to like it best when Waldgeflüster adds their own folksy flavor. The melodies of “Der kleinste König und sein Architekt” are especially crisp, and the song really comes into its own at the end when it transitions to a warm folk section with hearty clean singing and subtle violin strings. Charlie Anderson’s violin appears frequently, adding a great deal of poignancy. “Knochengesang” and “Bamberg, 20. Juni” are other notable examples of Waldgeflüster using strings to elevate their sound.
Since this is a double album, you already know what the primary flaw of Knochengesänge is—bloat. However, the problem runs deeper than mere minute count. Even if each track were halved in length, many would still have an uphill battle maintaining my attention. This is the case with both parts but particularly true of II, most of which seemed to drag on for an eternity. The greatest exception is “Singing of Bones” almost at the very end of II, a pleasant folk number with acoustic guitar and violin working in tandem. Even though II is all over the place stylistically, most of it isn’t so wildly different from I that it couldn’t have conceivably been integrated. I even tried reordering the tracks into each album’s corresponding pairs and found that many covered each other’s weaknesses decently well (again, except for bloat), which supports my suspicion that these two mediocre albums could have been distilled into one really good album.
Knochengesänge began with an interesting double album premise that, sadly, yielded little of note during its 109-minute combined runtime. I and II may be highly symmetrical but they are only mildly codependent. I can’t recommend listening to them back to back and, in fact, II can be safely disregarded by most listeners. Fans of the Panopticon aesthetic should find enough to enjoy in I, but it may fall a bit flat for everyone else, especially given that newcomers like Autrest are offering a much more potent take on this type of atmoblack. A frustrating refusal to self-edit is what holds both records back the most; nearly every track is 8 minutes or longer, and few fully justify their length. I respect Waldgeflüster’s desire to explore new musical avenues and I’ll keep an eye on them in the future, but I don’t expect to return much to Knochengesänge.
Rating: I: 2.5/5.0 | II: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: AOP Records
Websites: blackmetalwaldgefluester.bandcamp.com | waldgefluester.com | facebook.com/blackmetalwaldgefluester
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025#20 #25 #2025 #AOPRecords #AtmosphericBlackMetal #Autrest #FolkMetal #GermanMetal #HarakiriForTheSky #KnochengesängeI #KnochengesängeII #NotMetal #Nov25 #Panopticon #Review #Reviews #Waldgeflüster
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Waldgeflüster – Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II Review
By Killjoy
Waldgeflüster has been around for a while. Based in Bavaria, Germany and led by Winterherz, they’ve been weaving nature-themed atmospheric black metal since 2009. Waldgeflüster has passed through the hands of several atmoblack aficionados before me. El Cuervo enjoyed the Panopticon/Waldgeflüster split in 2016 but was less impressed by Ruinen later that year. Doom_et_Al found 2021’s Dahoam to be disappointing and unmemorable. Waldgeflüster used the four years since then to create double albums Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II. I is a more traditional atmoblack record, while II is a reconstruction of the same melodies from the standpoint of various non-metal musical genres. An intriguing idea, to be sure. Is Knochengesänge so nice you’ll want to listen to it twice?
That may not be entirely accurate because, despite being born from the same place, Knochengesänge I and II grew into very different beasts. I will sound much more familiar to those who know Waldgeflüster’s prior work. It shares a deep kinship with the folksy trem-picking of Panopticon, not to mention that both groups put out double albums this year. Austin and Bekah Lunn even directly contributed their musical and photographic talents to Knochengesänge. II is a patchwork of different musical styles. It ranges from acoustic folk (“Das Klagelied der Krähen”) to overcast post-rock (“Frankfurt, 19. März,” “The Little King and His Architect”) to semi-upbeat alt-rock (“A Crusade in the Dark”). Both records conclude with different renditions of the traditional Scottish song “The Parting Glass.”
Knochengesänge I sees Waldgeflüster attempting to escape the shadow of similar, more influential atmospheric black metal groups. It’s telling that, despite the band’s longevity, no AMG writer to date has ever tagged Waldgeflüster in another band’s review as a reference point. Indeed, much of I passes uneventfully in a Harakiri for the Sky haze, but I tend to like it best when Waldgeflüster adds their own folksy flavor. The melodies of “Der kleinste König und sein Architekt” are especially crisp, and the song really comes into its own at the end when it transitions to a warm folk section with hearty clean singing and subtle violin strings. Charlie Anderson’s violin appears frequently, adding a great deal of poignancy. “Knochengesang” and “Bamberg, 20. Juni” are other notable examples of Waldgeflüster using strings to elevate their sound.
Since this is a double album, you already know what the primary flaw of Knochengesänge is—bloat. However, the problem runs deeper than mere minute count. Even if each track were halved in length, many would still have an uphill battle maintaining my attention. This is the case with both parts but particularly true of II, most of which seemed to drag on for an eternity. The greatest exception is “Singing of Bones” almost at the very end of II, a pleasant folk number with acoustic guitar and violin working in tandem. Even though II is all over the place stylistically, most of it isn’t so wildly different from I that it couldn’t have conceivably been integrated. I even tried reordering the tracks into each album’s corresponding pairs and found that many covered each other’s weaknesses decently well (again, except for bloat), which supports my suspicion that these two mediocre albums could have been distilled into one really good album.
Knochengesänge began with an interesting double album premise that, sadly, yielded little of note during its 109-minute combined runtime. I and II may be highly symmetrical but they are only mildly codependent. I can’t recommend listening to them back to back and, in fact, II can be safely disregarded by most listeners. Fans of the Panopticon aesthetic should find enough to enjoy in I, but it may fall a bit flat for everyone else, especially given that newcomers like Autrest are offering a much more potent take on this type of atmoblack. A frustrating refusal to self-edit is what holds both records back the most; nearly every track is 8 minutes or longer, and few fully justify their length. I respect Waldgeflüster’s desire to explore new musical avenues and I’ll keep an eye on them in the future, but I don’t expect to return much to Knochengesänge.
Rating: I: 2.5/5.0 | II: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: AOP Records
Websites: blackmetalwaldgefluester.bandcamp.com | waldgefluester.com | facebook.com/blackmetalwaldgefluester
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025#20 #25 #2025 #AOPRecords #AtmosphericBlackMetal #Autrest #FolkMetal #GermanMetal #HarakiriForTheSky #KnochengesängeI #KnochengesängeII #NotMetal #Nov25 #Panopticon #Review #Reviews #Waldgeflüster
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Waldgeflüster – Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II Review
By Killjoy
Waldgeflüster has been around for a while. Based in Bavaria, Germany and led by Winterherz, they’ve been weaving nature-themed atmospheric black metal since 2009. Waldgeflüster has passed through the hands of several atmoblack aficionados before me. El Cuervo enjoyed the Panopticon/Waldgeflüster split in 2016 but was less impressed by Ruinen later that year. Doom_et_Al found 2021’s Dahoam to be disappointing and unmemorable. Waldgeflüster used the four years since then to create double albums Knochengesänge I and Knochengesänge II. I is a more traditional atmoblack record, while II is a reconstruction of the same melodies from the standpoint of various non-metal musical genres. An intriguing idea, to be sure. Is Knochengesänge so nice you’ll want to listen to it twice?
That may not be entirely accurate because, despite being born from the same place, Knochengesänge I and II grew into very different beasts. I will sound much more familiar to those who know Waldgeflüster’s prior work. It shares a deep kinship with the folksy trem-picking of Panopticon, not to mention that both groups put out double albums this year. Austin and Bekah Lunn even directly contributed their musical and photographic talents to Knochengesänge. II is a patchwork of different musical styles. It ranges from acoustic folk (“Das Klagelied der Krähen”) to overcast post-rock (“Frankfurt, 19. März,” “The Little King and His Architect”) to semi-upbeat alt-rock (“A Crusade in the Dark”). Both records conclude with different renditions of the traditional Scottish song “The Parting Glass.”
Knochengesänge I sees Waldgeflüster attempting to escape the shadow of similar, more influential atmospheric black metal groups. It’s telling that, despite the band’s longevity, no AMG writer to date has ever tagged Waldgeflüster in another band’s review as a reference point. Indeed, much of I passes uneventfully in a Harakiri for the Sky haze, but I tend to like it best when Waldgeflüster adds their own folksy flavor. The melodies of “Der kleinste König und sein Architekt” are especially crisp, and the song really comes into its own at the end when it transitions to a warm folk section with hearty clean singing and subtle violin strings. Charlie Anderson’s violin appears frequently, adding a great deal of poignancy. “Knochengesang” and “Bamberg, 20. Juni” are other notable examples of Waldgeflüster using strings to elevate their sound.
Since this is a double album, you already know what the primary flaw of Knochengesänge is—bloat. However, the problem runs deeper than mere minute count. Even if each track were halved in length, many would still have an uphill battle maintaining my attention. This is the case with both parts but particularly true of II, most of which seemed to drag on for an eternity. The greatest exception is “Singing of Bones” almost at the very end of II, a pleasant folk number with acoustic guitar and violin working in tandem. Even though II is all over the place stylistically, most of it isn’t so wildly different from I that it couldn’t have conceivably been integrated. I even tried reordering the tracks into each album’s corresponding pairs and found that many covered each other’s weaknesses decently well (again, except for bloat), which supports my suspicion that these two mediocre albums could have been distilled into one really good album.
Knochengesänge began with an interesting double album premise that, sadly, yielded little of note during its 109-minute combined runtime. I and II may be highly symmetrical but they are only mildly codependent. I can’t recommend listening to them back to back and, in fact, II can be safely disregarded by most listeners. Fans of the Panopticon aesthetic should find enough to enjoy in I, but it may fall a bit flat for everyone else, especially given that newcomers like Autrest are offering a much more potent take on this type of atmoblack. A frustrating refusal to self-edit is what holds both records back the most; nearly every track is 8 minutes or longer, and few fully justify their length. I respect Waldgeflüster’s desire to explore new musical avenues and I’ll keep an eye on them in the future, but I don’t expect to return much to Knochengesänge.
Rating: I: 2.5/5.0 | II: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: AOP Records
Websites: blackmetalwaldgefluester.bandcamp.com | waldgefluester.com | facebook.com/blackmetalwaldgefluester
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025#20 #25 #2025 #AOPRecords #AtmosphericBlackMetal #Autrest #FolkMetal #GermanMetal #HarakiriForTheSky #KnochengesängeI #KnochengesängeII #NotMetal #Nov25 #Panopticon #Review #Reviews #Waldgeflüster
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CW: Political commentary
Being in Central Europe and having an interest in such things, I'm constantly seeing distant echoes of the 'cold war' period which arguably ended in 1990 or so.
The old men who held the Soviet satellite states in an unpleasant grip made many mistakes, and we often think that pervasive surveillance was one of those errors.
I do wonder how - in the light of this - we can interpret today's monitoring of our Internet communications, the panopticon of CCTV & facial recognition, and the use of spy cops in some territories?
Equally, can we ask if AI is heading towards imposing a world view acceptable to the tech bros, in the way that a single world view was imposed by the Soviets?
(That's not to say there wasn't a western world view, but at least alternatives were tolerated, if not encouraged, or tested).Would the Eastern bloc secret police forces be admiring the way 21st century society is heading?
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Star Flash, alias NearLink, is a Chinese remote control standard, advertised as an alternative to Bluetooth. It supports "voice control" and lossless audio streaming, and has global ambitions.
Those who don't believe in the benefits of the generalized Panopticon, 1984 style, should be very concerned.
#china #privacy #surveillance #tech #starflash #nearlink
https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/16/china_starflash_universal_remotes_standard/
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By Angry Metal Guy
Once upon a time, Månegarm was an apex predator of the blackened folk metal scene that took metal by storm (er, Storm) in the early-to-mid-2000s. For a brief moment, as Heathenfests proliferated and white guys from Wisconsin,1 fell in love with songs about Vikings and runes, the Viking metal/folk metal subgenre was the Next Big Thing, fueled by a surprisingly liquid supply of fiddles, jaw harps, gallops, and flask-swinging choruses. Yet, time wasn’t kind. Turisas ghosted us after leaving us a weird note, Finntroll got lost in the woods and returned changed, and even Thyrfing and Moonsorrow have slowed to a crawl. But Månegarm has never stopped.2 With the impending release of Edsvuren (Oathbound or Sworn), their thirteenth full-length and fifth since signing with Napalm Records, this Swedish trio stands as one of the last standard-bearers of this once-ferocious scene.
Månegarm’s arc explains how we got here. From Havets vargar (2000) to Nattväsen (2009), Månegarm was among the hardest-hitting of the folk metal vanguard. They blended black metal’s blasting intensity with violin counterpoint (and solos), and Erik Grawsiö’s gravel-throated roar. But following Nattväsen, Månegarm underwent a serious change. With the departure of their violinist and bassist, Grawsiö moved to bass, but more importantly, they emerged with a retooled sound. By 2013’s Legions of the North, Månegarm had begun shaping themselves towards something more akin to Amon Amarth’s mid-paced crunch than the blastful abandon of their black metal roots. Edsvuren continues the same trajectory, letting the flames burn low rather than trying to rekindle the blaze; content to let the embers glow.
When the wind blows right, however, Månegarm’s fire burns bright. When these Swedes go heavy, the results are still vital—some of the best metal they’ve released in years. The opening trifecta demonstrates this: “I skogfruns famn” brims with trem-picked harmonies, fiddle, and melodies and pacing that evoke Isengard or Lumsk. “Lögrinns värn” picks up the pace and builds on Amon Amarthian heft, while “En Blodvittneskrans”—one of the album’s standout tracks—crackles with surprisingly punk-inflected drumming and tremelos that transport me to Bjoergvin. On the album’s back half, we again find heavy tracks that brim with harmonic minor riffing, fantastic vocal harmonies, and creative songwriting. “Skild från hugen” stretches into a seven-minute epic, weaving gallops, fiddle, and a doomy interlude where Elinor Videfors’ smoky alto helps to elevate the song. While “Likgökens fest” follows with another blast of urgency. In these moments, Månegarm is vibrant and confident, with a powerful sound and presence.
Much of Edsvuren, however, lives in the embers. Acoustic folk tracks like “Rodhins hav,” “Till gudars följe,” and “I runor ristades orden” aren’t filler; they’re beautiful. The production places each acoustic strum and hand drum with care, and Videfors’ voice adds a crystalline, haunting quality. Ancient and evocative, these songs are built on droning harmonies and modal folk melodies. And they sound great. In listening to these, I’m reminded of Panopticon’s Laurentian Blue, folk music with fiddle and a deep melancholy.3 The problem is proportion. Nearly half the record lives in this slower, acoustic, or mid-paced heavy space. And when stacked back-to-back (“Rodhins hav” through “Hör mitt kall,” and then again in the closing pair of songs), the album sputters. At 51 minutes, Edsvuren isn’t overlong, but there are moments when the pacing lengthens the album.
The vocals provide the oxygen that keeps Edsvuren burning, showcasing some of the finest arrangements Månegarm has ever recorded. Grawsiö’s extreme vocals remain commanding, but it’s his cleans—gravelly and full,4 at times evoking throat singing—that unite Edsvuren. The interplay with the guest vocalists—Elinor Videfors, Grawsiö’s daughter Lea on “I skogfruns famn”—is well balanced. And at its best, the record gives the impression that you’re sitting around the campfire and listening to them sing. Choruses bloom into layers of voices that feel almost ritualistic—but at least communal—and are balanced expertly in the mix (“Till gudars följe”). There’s an almost Finntrollian playfulness in the vocal arrangements at times (again, “Till gudars följe”), while at other times the harmonies are clinically tight like harmonic minor Bad Religion or early Soen. Even when the riffs tread familiar ground—or the album feels like it’s slowing down too much—the vocals continually elevate compositions and keep me hooked.
Edsvuren is an album that’s easy to like, but tricky to love. But I can say with confidence that it’s my favorite Månegarm since the Napalm run began in 2013. The heavy material is vital, energetic, and it reminds me of why I fell in love with these Swedish wolves to begin with. The folk songs and feel are brittle and beautiful, and give the album character and variety. Unfortunately, the overall balance of the record leans a little too hard into mid-tempo riffs, rock feels rather than blastbeats, and acoustic folk music—resulting in pacing that makes it feel less than the sum of its Very-Good!-to-Great! parts. I enjoy the songs, I admire the craft, but taken as a whole, they leave Edsvuren a little low on bite. Edsvuren may not spark anew Månegarm’s flames, but it tends the embers—keeping them warm enough for fellowship, beer, and song.
Rating: Good!
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream5
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: linktr.ee/manegarmofficial | manegarm.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 29th, 2025#2025 #30 #AmonAmarth #Aug25 #BadReligion #Edsvuren #Finntroll #FolkMetal #HavetsVargar #Isengard #LaurentianBlue #Lumsk #Månegarm #MelodicBlackMetal #MelodicDeathMetal #Moonsorrow #NapalmRecords #Nattväsen #Panopticon #Review #Reviews #Soen #Storm #Thyrfing #Turisas #VikingMetal
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By Angry Metal Guy
Once upon a time, Månegarm was an apex predator of the blackened folk metal scene that took metal by storm (er, Storm) in the early-to-mid-2000s. For a brief moment, as Heathenfests proliferated and white guys from Wisconsin,1 fell in love with songs about Vikings and runes, the Viking metal/folk metal subgenre was the Next Big Thing, fueled by a surprisingly liquid supply of fiddles, jaw harps, gallops, and flask-swinging choruses. Yet, time wasn’t kind. Turisas ghosted us after leaving us a weird note, Finntroll got lost in the woods and returned changed, and even Thyrfing and Moonsorrow have slowed to a crawl. But Månegarm has never stopped.2 With the impending release of Edsvuren (Oathbound or Sworn), their thirteenth full-length and fifth since signing with Napalm Records, this Swedish trio stands as one of the last standard-bearers of this once-ferocious scene.
Månegarm’s arc explains how we got here. From Havets vargar (2000) to Nattväsen (2009), Månegarm was among the hardest-hitting of the folk metal vanguard. They blended black metal’s blasting intensity with violin counterpoint (and solos), and Erik Grawsiö’s gravel-throated roar. But following Nattväsen, Månegarm underwent a serious change. With the departure of their violinist and bassist, Grawsiö moved to bass, but more importantly, they emerged with a retooled sound. By 2013’s Legions of the North, Månegarm had begun shaping themselves towards something more akin to Amon Amarth’s mid-paced crunch than the blastful abandon of their black metal roots. Edsvuren continues the same trajectory, letting the flames burn low rather than trying to rekindle the blaze; content to let the embers glow.
When the wind blows right, however, Månegarm’s fire burns bright. When these Swedes go heavy, the results are still vital—some of the best metal they’ve released in years. The opening trifecta demonstrates this: “I skogfruns famn” brims with trem-picked harmonies, fiddle, and melodies and pacing that evoke Isengard or Lumsk. “Lögrinns värn” picks up the pace and builds on Amon Amarthian heft, while “En Blodvittneskrans”—one of the album’s standout tracks—crackles with surprisingly punk-inflected drumming and tremelos that transport me to Bjoergvin. On the album’s back half, we again find heavy tracks that brim with harmonic minor riffing, fantastic vocal harmonies, and creative songwriting. “Skild från hugen” stretches into a seven-minute epic, weaving gallops, fiddle, and a doomy interlude where Elinor Videfors’ smoky alto helps to elevate the song. While “Likgökens fest” follows with another blast of urgency. In these moments, Månegarm is vibrant and confident, with a powerful sound and presence.
Much of Edsvuren, however, lives in the embers. Acoustic folk tracks like “Rodhins hav,” “Till gudars följe,” and “I runor ristades orden” aren’t filler; they’re beautiful. The production places each acoustic strum and hand drum with care, and Videfors’ voice adds a crystalline, haunting quality. Ancient and evocative, these songs are built on droning harmonies and modal folk melodies. And they sound great. In listening to these, I’m reminded of Panopticon’s Laurentian Blue, folk music with fiddle and a deep melancholy.3 The problem is proportion. Nearly half the record lives in this slower, acoustic, or mid-paced heavy space. And when stacked back-to-back (“Rodhins hav” through “Hör mitt kall,” and then again in the closing pair of songs), the album sputters. At 51 minutes, Edsvuren isn’t overlong, but there are moments when the pacing lengthens the album.
The vocals provide the oxygen that keeps Edsvuren burning, showcasing some of the finest arrangements Månegarm has ever recorded. Grawsiö’s extreme vocals remain commanding, but it’s his cleans—gravelly and full,4 at times evoking throat singing—that unite Edsvuren. The interplay with the guest vocalists—Elinor Videfors, Grawsiö’s daughter Lea on “I skogfruns famn”—is well balanced. And at its best, the record gives the impression that you’re sitting around the campfire and listening to them sing. Choruses bloom into layers of voices that feel almost ritualistic—but at least communal—and are balanced expertly in the mix (“Till gudars följe”). There’s an almost Finntrollian playfulness in the vocal arrangements at times (again, “Till gudars följe”), while at other times the harmonies are clinically tight like harmonic minor Bad Religion or early Soen. Even when the riffs tread familiar ground—or the album feels like it’s slowing down too much—the vocals continually elevate compositions and keep me hooked.
Edsvuren is an album that’s easy to like, but tricky to love. But I can say with confidence that it’s my favorite Månegarm since the Napalm run began in 2013. The heavy material is vital, energetic, and it reminds me of why I fell in love with these Swedish wolves to begin with. The folk songs and feel are brittle and beautiful, and give the album character and variety. Unfortunately, the overall balance of the record leans a little too hard into mid-tempo riffs, rock feels rather than blastbeats, and acoustic folk music—resulting in pacing that makes it feel less than the sum of its Very-Good!-to-Great! parts. I enjoy the songs, I admire the craft, but taken as a whole, they leave Edsvuren a little low on bite. Edsvuren may not spark anew Månegarm’s flames, but it tends the embers—keeping them warm enough for fellowship, beer, and song.
Rating: Good!
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream5
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: linktr.ee/manegarmofficial | manegarm.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 29th, 2025#2025 #30 #AmonAmarth #Aug25 #BadReligion #Edsvuren #Finntroll #FolkMetal #HavetsVargar #Isengard #LaurentianBlue #Lumsk #Månegarm #MelodicBlackMetal #MelodicDeathMetal #Moonsorrow #NapalmRecords #Nattväsen #Panopticon #Review #Reviews #Soen #Storm #Thyrfing #Turisas #VikingMetal
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By Angry Metal Guy
Once upon a time, Månegarm was an apex predator of the blackened folk metal scene that took metal by storm (er, Storm) in the early-to-mid-2000s. For a brief moment, as Heathenfests proliferated and white guys from Wisconsin,1 fell in love with songs about Vikings and runes, the Viking metal/folk metal subgenre was the Next Big Thing, fueled by a surprisingly liquid supply of fiddles, jaw harps, gallops, and flask-swinging choruses. Yet, time wasn’t kind. Turisas ghosted us after leaving us a weird note, Finntroll got lost in the woods and returned changed, and even Thyrfing and Moonsorrow have slowed to a crawl. But Månegarm has never stopped.2 With the impending release of Edsvuren (Oathbound or Sworn), their thirteenth full-length and fifth since signing with Napalm Records, this Swedish trio stands as one of the last standard-bearers of this once-ferocious scene.
Månegarm’s arc explains how we got here. From Havets vargar (2000) to Nattväsen (2009), Månegarm was among the hardest-hitting of the folk metal vanguard. They blended black metal’s blasting intensity with violin counterpoint (and solos), and Erik Grawsiö’s gravel-throated roar. But following Nattväsen, Månegarm underwent a serious change. With the departure of their violinist and bassist, Grawsiö moved to bass, but more importantly, they emerged with a retooled sound. By 2013’s Legions of the North, Månegarm had begun shaping themselves towards something more akin to Amon Amarth’s mid-paced crunch than the blastful abandon of their black metal roots. Edsvuren continues the same trajectory, letting the flames burn low rather than trying to rekindle the blaze; content to let the embers glow.
When the wind blows right, however, Månegarm’s fire burns bright. When these Swedes go heavy, the results are still vital—some of the best metal they’ve released in years. The opening trifecta demonstrates this: “I skogfruns famn” brims with trem-picked harmonies, fiddle, and melodies and pacing that evoke Isengard or Lumsk. “Lögrinns värn” picks up the pace and builds on Amon Amarthian heft, while “En Blodvittneskrans”—one of the album’s standout tracks—crackles with surprisingly punk-inflected drumming and tremelos that transport me to Bjoergvin. On the album’s back half, we again find heavy tracks that brim with harmonic minor riffing, fantastic vocal harmonies, and creative songwriting. “Skild från hugen” stretches into a seven-minute epic, weaving gallops, fiddle, and a doomy interlude where Elinor Videfors’ smoky alto helps to elevate the song. While “Likgökens fest” follows with another blast of urgency. In these moments, Månegarm is vibrant and confident, with a powerful sound and presence.
Much of Edsvuren, however, lives in the embers. Acoustic folk tracks like “Rodhins hav,” “Till gudars följe,” and “I runor ristades orden” aren’t filler; they’re beautiful. The production places each acoustic strum and hand drum with care, and Videfors’ voice adds a crystalline, haunting quality. Ancient and evocative, these songs are built on droning harmonies and modal folk melodies. And they sound great. In listening to these, I’m reminded of Panopticon’s Laurentian Blue, folk music with fiddle and a deep melancholy.3 The problem is proportion. Nearly half the record lives in this slower, acoustic, or mid-paced heavy space. And when stacked back-to-back (“Rodhins hav” through “Hör mitt kall,” and then again in the closing pair of songs), the album sputters. At 51 minutes, Edsvuren isn’t overlong, but there are moments when the pacing lengthens the album.
The vocals provide the oxygen that keeps Edsvuren burning, showcasing some of the finest arrangements Månegarm has ever recorded. Grawsiö’s extreme vocals remain commanding, but it’s his cleans—gravelly and full,4 at times evoking throat singing—that unite Edsvuren. The interplay with the guest vocalists—Elinor Videfors, Grawsiö’s daughter Lea on “I skogfruns famn”—is well balanced. And at its best, the record gives the impression that you’re sitting around the campfire and listening to them sing. Choruses bloom into layers of voices that feel almost ritualistic—but at least communal—and are balanced expertly in the mix (“Till gudars följe”). There’s an almost Finntrollian playfulness in the vocal arrangements at times (again, “Till gudars följe”), while at other times the harmonies are clinically tight like harmonic minor Bad Religion or early Soen. Even when the riffs tread familiar ground—or the album feels like it’s slowing down too much—the vocals continually elevate compositions and keep me hooked.
Edsvuren is an album that’s easy to like, but tricky to love. But I can say with confidence that it’s my favorite Månegarm since the Napalm run began in 2013. The heavy material is vital, energetic, and it reminds me of why I fell in love with these Swedish wolves to begin with. The folk songs and feel are brittle and beautiful, and give the album character and variety. Unfortunately, the overall balance of the record leans a little too hard into mid-tempo riffs, rock feels rather than blastbeats, and acoustic folk music—resulting in pacing that makes it feel less than the sum of its Very-Good!-to-Great! parts. I enjoy the songs, I admire the craft, but taken as a whole, they leave Edsvuren a little low on bite. Edsvuren may not spark anew Månegarm’s flames, but it tends the embers—keeping them warm enough for fellowship, beer, and song.
Rating: Good!
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream5
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: linktr.ee/manegarmofficial | manegarm.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: August 29th, 2025#2025 #30 #AmonAmarth #Aug25 #BadReligion #Edsvuren #Finntroll #FolkMetal #HavetsVargar #Isengard #LaurentianBlue #Lumsk #Månegarm #MelodicBlackMetal #MelodicDeathMetal #Moonsorrow #NapalmRecords #Nattväsen #Panopticon #Review #Reviews #Soen #Storm #Thyrfing #Turisas #VikingMetal