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The thread about the baffling naming of Leith railway stations; know your North Leith from your Leith North; which South Leith is which and whether Leith Walk West or Leith Walk East is westmost!
This thread was originally written and published in September 2019.
We went to visit Trinity House expecting to find some treasures of Leith maritime history, but we were surprised to find some local railway history hidden round the back too, a bench from South Leith Railway Station which closed way, way back in 1903.
South Leith station benchSo let’s go on a little #NowAndThen visual trip down memory lane to South Leith station. The view is taken from Constitution Street looking east along the trackbed, what is now Tower Street. The tall remnant of buildings behind were part of the first Leith gas works, before they moved to Granton with the Edinburgh gas works. The station building is on the right, with the single platform behind it.
Original source: Kenneth G. Williamson on FlickrThis was the first railway station in Leith, and was originally named as such when it opened in 1832 as an extension of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway. This line ran from St. Leonards in Edinburgh to Midlothian, Leith being accessed by a reverse junction near Niddrie. This was the so-called “Innocent Railway“, in Scotch Gauge of 4ft 6in and horse drawn throughout. Looking the other way towards the Shore (and a prime example of that dreadful noughties architectural fad for oversized and inappropriate corner rotundas) we see Leith’s old Tower in the distance down Tower Street. Notice that the railway was not quite aligned with the modern Tower Street, but parallel. This continuation of the line beyond Constitution Street gave access to the east side of the port and its industries.
Original source: Kenneth G. Williamson on Flickr.The station was on the sea front when it was built, with Leith Sands beyond and the high tide line beyond that. The railway providing a new boundary between land and shore as Leith crept northwards into the Forth. This station was handy for the Shore, where the steamers left from at the time, but was quickly swallowed up by seaward extensions of the docks and became increasingly inconveniently positioned. In 1845 the North British Railway bought over the Edinburgh & Dalkeith and set about converting their new possession into standard gauge and steam power. However, they were not interested in passenger traffic here – it was routes South from Edinburgh that had caused them to buy the E&DR – and closed South Leith to passengers in 1846. The line remained open for dock traffic, always it’s primary purpose as it had been built as a direct connection to the Midlothian Coalfield.
OS 1849 Town Plan. Tower Street (blue), Constitution Street (yellow) and South Leith Station (orange)The naming of Leith’s railway stations was always a bit confusing. For a relatively small place, it had a lot of various stations and they were often duplicated due to the competing nature of the North British (NBR) and Caledonian Railways (CR), who fought petulantly with each other for access to the lucrative docks and industrial traffic. To add confusion, when most of these stations were first named, Leith was two distinct municipal parishes; South Leith and North Leith. These are ancient names, referring to the banks of the river of Water of Leith on which they lie, geographically they are more east and westerly of one and other than south and northerly. At various times there were stations called Leith, Leith Central, South Leith, North Leith, Leith North, Leith Citadel, Leith East, Leith Walk, Leith Walk West and Leith Walk East! (And that’s not counting those stations in the Leith boundaries which don’t have “Leith” in their name.)
An animated timeline of railways and railway stations in Leith, from 1830 – 1990. Dock, mineral and private sidings omitted for clarity. © SelfThe next station to open in Leith was North Leith in 1846. It was opened as a branch of the Edinburgh, Leith & Granton Railway, which ran from Canal Street Station (at right angles to the present day Waverley), through the Scotland Street Tunnel to Trinity and on to a rail ferry at Granton Docks. The NBR bought this railway too in 1862 and experimented with calling the station variously Leith Citadel or Leith North, before settling back on North Leith. They re-opened the old Edinburgh & Dalkeith Leith station in 1859 as a single platform called South Leith.
The next arrival was that of the Caledonian Railway, who opened a station called Leith in 1869 on a rather circuitous line around the North and West of the city from Princes Street Station via Roseburn and Newhaven. It would be renamed North Leith in 1903. To get around the confusion of two rival North Leith stations being a few hundred metres from each other on the same street, most maps stuck with Leith for the Caley station and North Leith for the NBR. To locals it would just have been the Caley and North British stations.
Railway Stations of Leith on the NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe North Leith muddles would be solved in 1947 when the ex-NBR station, by now 24 years in the LNER grouping, was closed to passenger traffic. Rather pointlessly, 5 years later the ex-Caley North Leith was renamed Leith North, and the ex-NBR North Leith goods station once again became Leith Citadel!
The renaming of the Caley station was not the only change on the Leith railway map in 1903; this was the year the North British opened their (far too) vast station at Leith Central – which of course was well to the south of South Leith… It’s arrival resulted in the closure of the latter station for the second and final time. Leith Central was on a fairly short branch from Waverley via Abbeyhill, but could never match the electric tramway on speed, frequency, convenience and on proximity to destinations, so it always struggled for patronage. Leith Central was the last major railway terminus built in Scotland, and had a short life, closing in 1952 after a fairly unintense life. It had been built more as a symbol of the NBR‘s dominance and a blocker to the Caley opening a passenger station in the centre of Leith than anything else.
Leith Central Station at the bottom. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThose grand Caley plans were the Leith New Lines, a very expensive and winding route around Leith to connect the eastern and western sides of the Docks. Large goods stations were opened at Bonnington, Leith Walk, Restalrig and South Leith; where it caused confusion with the NBR South Leith goods station. The Caley had wanted to provide passenger stations too; the platforms and some other structures for these were actually built, at Victoria Park in Trinity and above street level on Leith Walk on the Gordon Street railway arches. After Leith Walk, the intention was a costly branch to Princes Street station from a junction near Lochend via tunnels under Calton Hill and cut-and-cover tunnelling of Princes Street itself. None of these plans came to fruition though, the NBR‘s massive Leith Central meant it would have been a costly folly (which Leith Central admittedly also was).
The Leith New Lines. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe two parallel, neighbouring South Leith Goods stations of the NBR and Caley happily co-existed side-by-side into the 1950s, when British Railway in their wisdom renamed the ex-NBR station Leith South and ex-CR station Leith East. The latter closed in the 1970s, the former lasted into the 1990s, its yard (South Leith Yard) is still technically in use, but has not seen any traffic in the best part of 10 years.
The last set of Leith-named stations were those of Leith Walk – none of which are actually in Leith by any definition later than the 18th century! Leith Walk passenger station was opened by the NBR in 1869 when they built a diversionary line from Waverley station to Trinity via Abbeyhill to avoid the awkward Scotland Street tunnel. Passenger stations were added along the line, including where it passed under Leith Walk at Shrubhill. An enormous goods yard was provided on the east side of the Walk. When the Caley opened their Leith New Lines in 1903, they also provided a goods yard for Leith Walk, further to the north. Both were called Leith Walk (goods) so inevitably were referred to as the North British or Caley to differentiate them.
The Leith Walk. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe passenger station closed in 1930, another victim of competition from the electric tramway. After nationalisation, the ever wise British Railways decided to rationalise matters and renamed the ex-NBR station Leith Walk East and the ex-Caley station Leith Walk West. This makes perfect sense in principle to a naming committee in a far off office, except it results in Leith Walk East being more westerly than Leith Walk West on account of Leith Walk not running on a true north-south axis! Nothing is ever straightforward when it comes to the names of Leith’s railway stations!
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site (including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget) by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, Andy Arthur
#NowAndThen #CaledonianRailway #Caley #EdinburghDalkeithRailway #NorthBritishRailway #RailwayStations #Railways #transport #Transportation #Written2019
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The thread about the baffling naming of Leith railway stations; know your North Leith from your Leith North; which South Leith is which and whether Leith Walk West or Leith Walk East is westmost!
This thread was originally written and published in September 2019.
We went to visit Trinity House expecting to find some treasures of Leith maritime history, but we were surprised to find some local railway history hidden round the back too, a bench from South Leith Railway Station which closed way, way back in 1903.
South Leith station benchSo let’s go on a little #NowAndThen visual trip down memory lane to South Leith station. The view is taken from Constitution Street looking east along the trackbed, what is now Tower Street. The tall remnant of buildings behind were part of the first Leith gas works, before they moved to Granton with the Edinburgh gas works. The station building is on the right, with the single platform behind it.
Original source: Kenneth G. Williamson on FlickrThis was the first railway station in Leith, and was originally named as such when it opened in 1832 as an extension of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway. This line ran from St. Leonards in Edinburgh to Midlothian, Leith being accessed by a reverse junction near Niddrie. This was the so-called “Innocent Railway“, in Scotch Gauge of 4ft 6in and horse drawn throughout. Looking the other way towards the Shore (and a prime example of that dreadful noughties architectural fad for oversized and inappropriate corner rotundas) we see Leith’s old Tower in the distance down Tower Street. Notice that the railway was not quite aligned with the modern Tower Street, but parallel. This continuation of the line beyond Constitution Street gave access to the east side of the port and its industries.
Original source: Kenneth G. Williamson on Flickr.The station was on the sea front when it was built, with Leith Sands beyond and the high tide line beyond that. The railway providing a new boundary between land and shore as Leith crept northwards into the Forth. This station was handy for the Shore, where the steamers left from at the time, but was quickly swallowed up by seaward extensions of the docks and became increasingly inconveniently positioned. In 1845 the North British Railway bought over the Edinburgh & Dalkeith and set about converting their new possession into standard gauge and steam power. However, they were not interested in passenger traffic here – it was routes South from Edinburgh that had caused them to buy the E&DR – and closed South Leith to passengers in 1846. The line remained open for dock traffic, always it’s primary purpose as it had been built as a direct connection to the Midlothian Coalfield.
OS 1849 Town Plan. Tower Street (blue), Constitution Street (yellow) and South Leith Station (orange)The naming of Leith’s railway stations was always a bit confusing. For a relatively small place, it had a lot of various stations and they were often duplicated due to the competing nature of the North British (NBR) and Caledonian Railways (CR), who fought petulantly with each other for access to the lucrative docks and industrial traffic. To add confusion, when most of these stations were first named, Leith was two distinct municipal parishes; South Leith and North Leith. These are ancient names, referring to the banks of the river of Water of Leith on which they lie, geographically they are more east and westerly of one and other than south and northerly. At various times there were stations called Leith, Leith Central, South Leith, North Leith, Leith North, Leith Citadel, Leith East, Leith Walk, Leith Walk West and Leith Walk East! (And that’s not counting those stations in the Leith boundaries which don’t have “Leith” in their name.)
An animated timeline of railways and railway stations in Leith, from 1830 – 1990. Dock, mineral and private sidings omitted for clarity. © SelfThe next station to open in Leith was North Leith in 1846. It was opened as a branch of the Edinburgh, Leith & Granton Railway, which ran from Canal Street Station (at right angles to the present day Waverley), through the Scotland Street Tunnel to Trinity and on to a rail ferry at Granton Docks. The NBR bought this railway too in 1862 and experimented with calling the station variously Leith Citadel or Leith North, before settling back on North Leith. They re-opened the old Edinburgh & Dalkeith Leith station in 1859 as a single platform called South Leith.
The next arrival was that of the Caledonian Railway, who opened a station called Leith in 1869 on a rather circuitous line around the North and West of the city from Princes Street Station via Roseburn and Newhaven. It would be renamed North Leith in 1903. To get around the confusion of two rival North Leith stations being a few hundred metres from each other on the same street, most maps stuck with Leith for the Caley station and North Leith for the NBR. To locals it would just have been the Caley and North British stations.
Railway Stations of Leith on the NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe North Leith muddles would be solved in 1947 when the ex-NBR station, by now 24 years in the LNER grouping, was closed to passenger traffic. Rather pointlessly, 5 years later the ex-Caley North Leith was renamed Leith North, and the ex-NBR North Leith goods station once again became Leith Citadel!
The renaming of the Caley station was not the only change on the Leith railway map in 1903; this was the year the North British opened their (far too) vast station at Leith Central – which of course was well to the south of South Leith… It’s arrival resulted in the closure of the latter station for the second and final time. Leith Central was on a fairly short branch from Waverley via Abbeyhill, but could never match the electric tramway on speed, frequency, convenience and on proximity to destinations, so it always struggled for patronage. Leith Central was the last major railway terminus built in Scotland, and had a short life, closing in 1952 after a fairly unintense life. It had been built more as a symbol of the NBR‘s dominance and a blocker to the Caley opening a passenger station in the centre of Leith than anything else.
Leith Central Station at the bottom. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThose grand Caley plans were the Leith New Lines, a very expensive and winding route around Leith to connect the eastern and western sides of the Docks. Large goods stations were opened at Bonnington, Leith Walk, Restalrig and South Leith; where it caused confusion with the NBR South Leith goods station. The Caley had wanted to provide passenger stations too; the platforms and some other structures for these were actually built, at Victoria Park in Trinity and above street level on Leith Walk on the Gordon Street railway arches. After Leith Walk, the intention was a costly branch to Princes Street station from a junction near Lochend via tunnels under Calton Hill and cut-and-cover tunnelling of Princes Street itself. None of these plans came to fruition though, the NBR‘s massive Leith Central meant it would have been a costly folly (which Leith Central admittedly also was).
The Leith New Lines. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe two parallel, neighbouring South Leith Goods stations of the NBR and Caley happily co-existed side-by-side into the 1950s, when British Railway in their wisdom renamed the ex-NBR station Leith South and ex-CR station Leith East. The latter closed in the 1970s, the former lasted into the 1990s, its yard (South Leith Yard) is still technically in use, but has not seen any traffic in the best part of 10 years.
The last set of Leith-named stations were those of Leith Walk – none of which are actually in Leith by any definition later than the 18th century! Leith Walk passenger station was opened by the NBR in 1869 when they built a diversionary line from Waverley station to Trinity via Abbeyhill to avoid the awkward Scotland Street tunnel. Passenger stations were added along the line, including where it passed under Leith Walk at Shrubhill. An enormous goods yard was provided on the east side of the Walk. When the Caley opened their Leith New Lines in 1903, they also provided a goods yard for Leith Walk, further to the north. Both were called Leith Walk (goods) so inevitably were referred to as the North British or Caley to differentiate them.
The Leith Walk. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe passenger station closed in 1930, another victim of competition from the electric tramway. After nationalisation, the ever wise British Railways decided to rationalise matters and renamed the ex-NBR station Leith Walk East and the ex-Caley station Leith Walk West. This makes perfect sense in principle to a naming committee in a far off office, except it results in Leith Walk East being more westerly than Leith Walk West on account of Leith Walk not running on a true north-south axis! Nothing is ever straightforward when it comes to the names of Leith’s railway stations!
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site (including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget) by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, Andy Arthur
#NowAndThen #CaledonianRailway #Caley #EdinburghDalkeithRailway #NorthBritishRailway #RailwayStations #Railways #transport #Transportation #Written2019
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The thread about the baffling naming of Leith railway stations; know your North Leith from your Leith North; which South Leith is which and whether Leith Walk West or Leith Walk East is westmost!
This thread was originally written and published in September 2019.
We went to visit Trinity House expecting to find some treasures of Leith maritime history, but we were surprised to find some local railway history hidden round the back too, a bench from South Leith Railway Station which closed way, way back in 1903.
South Leith station benchSo let’s go on a little #NowAndThen visual trip down memory lane to South Leith station. The view is taken from Constitution Street looking east along the trackbed, what is now Tower Street. The tall remnant of buildings behind were part of the first Leith gas works, before they moved to Granton with the Edinburgh gas works. The station building is on the right, with the single platform behind it.
Original source: Kenneth G. Williamson on FlickrThis was the first railway station in Leith, and was originally named as such when it opened in 1832 as an extension of the Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway. This line ran from St. Leonards in Edinburgh to Midlothian, Leith being accessed by a reverse junction near Niddrie. This was the so-called “Innocent Railway“, in Scotch Gauge of 4ft 6in and horse drawn throughout. Looking the other way towards the Shore (and a prime example of that dreadful noughties architectural fad for oversized and inappropriate corner rotundas) we see Leith’s old Tower in the distance down Tower Street. Notice that the railway was not quite aligned with the modern Tower Street, but parallel. This continuation of the line beyond Constitution Street gave access to the east side of the port and its industries.
Original source: Kenneth G. Williamson on Flickr.The station was on the sea front when it was built, with Leith Sands beyond and the high tide line beyond that. The railway providing a new boundary between land and shore as Leith crept northwards into the Forth. This station was handy for the Shore, where the steamers left from at the time, but was quickly swallowed up by seaward extensions of the docks and became increasingly inconveniently positioned. In 1845 the North British Railway bought over the Edinburgh & Dalkeith and set about converting their new possession into standard gauge and steam power. However, they were not interested in passenger traffic here – it was routes South from Edinburgh that had caused them to buy the E&DR – and closed South Leith to passengers in 1846. The line remained open for dock traffic, always it’s primary purpose as it had been built as a direct connection to the Midlothian Coalfield.
OS 1849 Town Plan. Tower Street (blue), Constitution Street (yellow) and South Leith Station (orange)The naming of Leith’s railway stations was always a bit confusing. For a relatively small place, it had a lot of various stations and they were often duplicated due to the competing nature of the North British (NBR) and Caledonian Railways (CR), who fought petulantly with each other for access to the lucrative docks and industrial traffic. To add confusion, when most of these stations were first named, Leith was two distinct municipal parishes; South Leith and North Leith. These are ancient names, referring to the banks of the river of Water of Leith on which they lie, geographically they are more east and westerly of one and other than south and northerly. At various times there were stations called Leith, Leith Central, South Leith, North Leith, Leith North, Leith Citadel, Leith East, Leith Walk, Leith Walk West and Leith Walk East! (And that’s not counting those stations in the Leith boundaries which don’t have “Leith” in their name.)
An animated timeline of railways and railway stations in Leith, from 1830 – 1990. Dock, mineral and private sidings omitted for clarity. © SelfThe next station to open in Leith was North Leith in 1846. It was opened as a branch of the Edinburgh, Leith & Granton Railway, which ran from Canal Street Station (at right angles to the present day Waverley), through the Scotland Street Tunnel to Trinity and on to a rail ferry at Granton Docks. The NBR bought this railway too in 1862 and experimented with calling the station variously Leith Citadel or Leith North, before settling back on North Leith. They re-opened the old Edinburgh & Dalkeith Leith station in 1859 as a single platform called South Leith.
The next arrival was that of the Caledonian Railway, who opened a station called Leith in 1869 on a rather circuitous line around the North and West of the city from Princes Street Station via Roseburn and Newhaven. It would be renamed North Leith in 1903. To get around the confusion of two rival North Leith stations being a few hundred metres from each other on the same street, most maps stuck with Leith for the Caley station and North Leith for the NBR. To locals it would just have been the Caley and North British stations.
Railway Stations of Leith on the NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe North Leith muddles would be solved in 1947 when the ex-NBR station, by now 24 years in the LNER grouping, was closed to passenger traffic. Rather pointlessly, 5 years later the ex-Caley North Leith was renamed Leith North, and the ex-NBR North Leith goods station once again became Leith Citadel!
The renaming of the Caley station was not the only change on the Leith railway map in 1903; this was the year the North British opened their (far too) vast station at Leith Central – which of course was well to the south of South Leith… It’s arrival resulted in the closure of the latter station for the second and final time. Leith Central was on a fairly short branch from Waverley via Abbeyhill, but could never match the electric tramway on speed, frequency, convenience and on proximity to destinations, so it always struggled for patronage. Leith Central was the last major railway terminus built in Scotland, and had a short life, closing in 1952 after a fairly unintense life. It had been built more as a symbol of the NBR‘s dominance and a blocker to the Caley opening a passenger station in the centre of Leith than anything else.
Leith Central Station at the bottom. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThose grand Caley plans were the Leith New Lines, a very expensive and winding route around Leith to connect the eastern and western sides of the Docks. Large goods stations were opened at Bonnington, Leith Walk, Restalrig and South Leith; where it caused confusion with the NBR South Leith goods station. The Caley had wanted to provide passenger stations too; the platforms and some other structures for these were actually built, at Victoria Park in Trinity and above street level on Leith Walk on the Gordon Street railway arches. After Leith Walk, the intention was a costly branch to Princes Street station from a junction near Lochend via tunnels under Calton Hill and cut-and-cover tunnelling of Princes Street itself. None of these plans came to fruition though, the NBR‘s massive Leith Central meant it would have been a costly folly (which Leith Central admittedly also was).
The Leith New Lines. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe two parallel, neighbouring South Leith Goods stations of the NBR and Caley happily co-existed side-by-side into the 1950s, when British Railway in their wisdom renamed the ex-NBR station Leith South and ex-CR station Leith East. The latter closed in the 1970s, the former lasted into the 1990s, its yard (South Leith Yard) is still technically in use, but has not seen any traffic in the best part of 10 years.
The last set of Leith-named stations were those of Leith Walk – none of which are actually in Leith by any definition later than the 18th century! Leith Walk passenger station was opened by the NBR in 1869 when they built a diversionary line from Waverley station to Trinity via Abbeyhill to avoid the awkward Scotland Street tunnel. Passenger stations were added along the line, including where it passed under Leith Walk at Shrubhill. An enormous goods yard was provided on the east side of the Walk. When the Caley opened their Leith New Lines in 1903, they also provided a goods yard for Leith Walk, further to the north. Both were called Leith Walk (goods) so inevitably were referred to as the North British or Caley to differentiate them.
The Leith Walk. NBR (olive) and CR (blue) railways, later the LNER and LMS © SelfThe passenger station closed in 1930, another victim of competition from the electric tramway. After nationalisation, the ever wise British Railways decided to rationalise matters and renamed the ex-NBR station Leith Walk East and the ex-Caley station Leith Walk West. This makes perfect sense in principle to a naming committee in a far off office, except it results in Leith Walk East being more westerly than Leith Walk West on account of Leith Walk not running on a true north-south axis! Nothing is ever straightforward when it comes to the names of Leith’s railway stations!
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site (including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget) by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.
These threads © 2017-2025, Andy Arthur
#NowAndThen #CaledonianRailway #Caley #EdinburghDalkeithRailway #NorthBritishRailway #RailwayStations #Railways #transport #Transportation #Written2019
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2026 Scottish Parliamentary Elections: The Day After
“In the end that was the choice you made, and it doesn’t matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.” – Cassandra Clare
This is an original post, not previously published elsewhere. If you would like to support me or this blog, please see my donate page here.
(Image Source: Wikipedia)
The results are in and we now know the shape of the Scottish Parliament. 58 SNP, 17 Labour, 17 Reform, 15 Green, 12 Conservative and 10 Liberal Democrats.
We don’t yet know the shape of the Scottish Government but the result is pretty certain so long as there are no major U-turns from the political party promises beforehand. The SNP will form a minority government and try to get their budgets and bills passed on an ad hoc basis.
I do not believe we’ll see a formal coalition agreement or even a looser cooperation agreement of confidence and supply (where a smaller party promises to support the annual budget and other votes where failure would result in the automatic fall of the government). The SNP still feel rather burned by the failure of their cooperation agreement with the Greens and while I think the Greens would consider a second shot, they are rather wary of being used and discarded again like they were last time.
The other probable source of a kingmaker is the Liberal Democrats who have outright refused to join a formal coalition with the nationalists but have signalled willingness to support budgets etc. Indeed, I believe courting Lib Dem votes for the last budget before the election was the SNP’s way of testing whether such an agreement would be acceptable to their own members (who skew rather more left and green than the leadership does).
It is notable that the same is true for the other parties as well. Any combination of SNP plus one other party would allow a Bill to pass and that technically should mean a fair bit of power-brokering or at least the SNP playing parties against each other. In practice, the Conservatives and Reform are so ideologically opposed to the SNP to support anything and La
For me as a political lobbyist, this was a good result all-in. A majority government tends to be one that closes ranks and pushes outside voices completely outside (or brings them in so close that everyone else can’t see them…but that’s a transparency talk for another time)
For the third time in a row since 2011, we have a pro-independence Parliament with 73 MSPs being representatives of pro-independence parties (if any MSPs on the other side would like to raise their personal convictions despite their party position, do let me know) though this was gained on just 41% of the proportional vote (the discrepancy is because while the Scottish Parliament is more proportional than the UK Parliament, it’s still got a built in advantage for the largest party). This is a drop from 48.4% of the proportional vote for the SNP + Greens in 2021. There have been increasing signs that while sentiment towards independence has been rising, there is a growing dissatisfaction with political parties in their delivery. This could prove important in the coming months especially now that there are openly pro-nationalist governments in place in all three of the devolved nations of the UK. This is probably the most important point to note out of the elections generally. While this doesn’t mean that independence is now inevitable in any or all of those nations, had this happened, say, to a Soviet or colonial bloc in the 20th century, pundits would indeed be predicting the bloc’s imminent demise and they would probably have been right.
Back to the parties though, there is going to be a lot more relief and disappointment than glee in the first week of the Parliament.
SNP
The SNP lost seats and lost vote share. Even though they remain the largest party, remain in government, held most of their “big hitter” politicians (with the notable departure of Angus Robertson who came third in his constituency seat, now taken by Green Lorna Slater) they did not make advances and fell back significantly from latter-day polling that suggested they might be in the running for an outright majority. They remain in a commanding position in Parliament – not least because of the fragmentation of their opponents – but being seven seats short of winning a vote means that they will be extremely reliant on other parties to get anything done. They may try to just do things boldly and challenge others to stop them but John Swinney isn’t Alex Salmond. I’ve never known him to start a fight that he didn’t know he’d already won and I’ve rarely known him to be sure that he’s won until he has.
Labour
This was a disaster of a campaign for Labour. Overshadowed by the scandals hitting their parent party and Keir Starmer down south, they decided not to campaign on policy but on a popularity contest. They pumped massive amounts of money into an advertising campaign for Anas Sarwar specifically and it didn’t work. He lost his constituency seat (though he remains an MSP due to his position on the Regional List) and oversaw a substantial loss of seats. It was, however, not as bad as some polls suggested and even though they are (joint) 2nd place in terms of seats, they were hard done by by the electoral system. In a truly proportionate system, they should have won 20-21 seats, rather than the 17 they have now.
Still, this leaves Labour largely frozen out of the Scottish politics as a party. Their best hope of influence is to do what they accidentally did last Parliament. Back then Sarwar lacked control over his MSPs and basically let them put forward Members’ Bills in areas of interest. This led to the PassivHaus Bill, substantial movements in Freedom of Information, a Land Reform policy that the Government voted down but which has since been adopted by the Greens and others. The party’s fortunes are going to remain closely tied to that of Starmer and Sarwar…but their MSPs may have fight in them yet.
Reform
This is objectively another disappointing result for Reform. Their polls have peaked in recent months and global setbacks to the Far-Right Movement may have ripples here too. The party that was almost certain to go from near-zero to the 2nd party in Parliament only managed joint-second and with far fewer than the up-to 30 seats they were aiming for. I believe their leader’s performance in the debates played a role here. Malcolm Offord’s blithe comment about his multitude of houses and yachts did not endear him to a public for whom the cost-of-living crisis is growing and is plainly being exacerbated by Reform’s allies rather than the immigrants that the party rose to power by demonising.
Greens
One of the winners of the elections, the Greens pulled off some noteworthy victories including their first set of constituency wins (it wasn’t that long ago that they were told by opponents that they weren’t even a “real” party if they couldn’t win in the constituencies. While that slur hasn’t been deployed in a while, it’s certainly no longer applicable anyway). The planet is in greater need of climate action than ever and between the SNP’s continued attempts to backslide on climate policy and Reform’s outright climate denial policies, there is a risk to Scotland here that the Greens will have to work hard resist.
Conservatives
Another of the election’s losers. Devoured by Reform even as they tried to radicalise to save themselves, only to find that the radicals devouring them could do it better. Nevertheless, the Conservatives held up rather better than I expected. Their strongholds in the South remain. My experience of farmers is that where they skew Conservative and Localist, it’s mostly because they want to be left alone rather than out of ideological rightward skew. For reasons mentioned above, the Tories will be largely frozen out of the Parliament this session. When the Right speak, Reform will be louder and first in the pecking order so the Conservatives will have to find a way of distinguishing themselves. There is merit to the idea of them pulling back to a centre-right “Ruth Davidson” position as that is now a clear gap in Scottish politics, but we’ll have to see if there’s anyone left in the party to pull that off.
Liberal Democrats
Probably the biggest winners of the election given the power they might soon have, the Lib Dems should be celebrating this weekend. I’ll admit that there’s plenty in their manifesto that should appeal broadly even to the Left should they want to push it so they may well get a lot done this session. Their vulnerability is that they can’t push too hard or the SNP will just pick another partner to get a vote passed but this is true for everyone else too. We’ll have to see which tail wags which dog going forward.
And everyone else
No other party got elected to Parliament nor did any independents. This is despite the Extremely Online set of supporters who were absolutely convinced that with the power of a tweet, they could get 125% of SNP voters to vote for them on the List and thus win an absolute super-majority. The high profile failures of Alba and Your Party are also a lesson to be learned. Building political parties is not easy. It takes years and maybe even decades of work to build success (seriously…both the SNP and Nigel Farage’s various parties are a lesson here in how long it takes) and even then it’s not a given and everything can blow away like smoke with a single bad headline.
No, it’s not fair that Scotland has such a high effective electoral threshold before votes become seats but we’re not looking at a German system here where a party was locked out because it got 4.9% of the vote but missed the 5.0% threshold. None of the parties who didn’t get a seat managed to clear 1% of the vote. The “best performing” one, with 0.88% of the vote, wasn’t even a real party but is a front group designed to try to confuse and steal votes from Green voters. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for smaller parties – I genuinely wish we had a more diverse Parliament – but it won’t happen without hard graft in the communities to build votes and to win people with your policies. There are five years until the next election. That isn’t as long as one might think.
#labourParty #news #politics #Scotland #ScottishPolitics #UKPolitics -
2026 Scottish Parliamentary Elections: The Day After
“In the end that was the choice you made, and it doesn’t matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.” – Cassandra Clare
This is an original post, not previously published elsewhere. If you would like to support me or this blog, please see my donate page here.
(Image Source: Wikipedia)
The results are in and we now know the shape of the Scottish Parliament. 58 SNP, 17 Labour, 17 Reform, 15 Green, 12 Conservative and 10 Liberal Democrats.
We don’t yet know the shape of the Scottish Government but the result is pretty certain so long as there are no major U-turns from the political party promises beforehand. The SNP will form a minority government and try to get their budgets and bills passed on an ad hoc basis.
I do not believe we’ll see a formal coalition agreement or even a looser cooperation agreement of confidence and supply (where a smaller party promises to support the annual budget and other votes where failure would result in the automatic fall of the government). The SNP still feel rather burned by the failure of their cooperation agreement with the Greens and while I think the Greens would consider a second shot, they are rather wary of being used and discarded again like they were last time.
The other probable source of a kingmaker is the Liberal Democrats who have outright refused to join a formal coalition with the nationalists but have signalled willingness to support budgets etc. Indeed, I believe courting Lib Dem votes for the last budget before the election was the SNP’s way of testing whether such an agreement would be acceptable to their own members (who skew rather more left and green than the leadership does).
It is notable that the same is true for the other parties as well. Any combination of SNP plus one other party would allow a Bill to pass and that technically should mean a fair bit of power-brokering or at least the SNP playing parties against each other. In practice, the Conservatives and Reform are so ideologically opposed to the SNP to support anything and La
For me as a political lobbyist, this was a good result all-in. A majority government tends to be one that closes ranks and pushes outside voices completely outside (or brings them in so close that everyone else can’t see them…but that’s a transparency talk for another time)
For the third time in a row since 2011, we have a pro-independence Parliament with 73 MSPs being representatives of pro-independence parties (if any MSPs on the other side would like to raise their personal convictions despite their party position, do let me know) though this was gained on just 41% of the proportional vote (the discrepancy is because while the Scottish Parliament is more proportional than the UK Parliament, it’s still got a built in advantage for the largest party). This is a drop from 48.4% of the proportional vote for the SNP + Greens in 2021. There have been increasing signs that while sentiment towards independence has been rising, there is a growing dissatisfaction with political parties in their delivery. This could prove important in the coming months especially now that there are openly pro-nationalist governments in place in all three of the devolved nations of the UK. This is probably the most important point to note out of the elections generally. While this doesn’t mean that independence is now inevitable in any or all of those nations, had this happened, say, to a Soviet or colonial bloc in the 20th century, pundits would indeed be predicting the bloc’s imminent demise and they would probably have been right.
Back to the parties though, there is going to be a lot more relief and disappointment than glee in the first week of the Parliament.
SNP
The SNP lost seats and lost vote share. Even though they remain the largest party, remain in government, held most of their “big hitter” politicians (with the notable departure of Angus Robertson who came third in his constituency seat, now taken by Green Lorna Slater) they did not make advances and fell back significantly from latter-day polling that suggested they might be in the running for an outright majority. They remain in a commanding position in Parliament – not least because of the fragmentation of their opponents – but being seven seats short of winning a vote means that they will be extremely reliant on other parties to get anything done. They may try to just do things boldly and challenge others to stop them but John Swinney isn’t Alex Salmond. I’ve never known him to start a fight that he didn’t know he’d already won and I’ve rarely known him to be sure that he’s won until he has.
Labour
This was a disaster of a campaign for Labour. Overshadowed by the scandals hitting their parent party and Keir Starmer down south, they decided not to campaign on policy but on a popularity contest. They pumped massive amounts of money into an advertising campaign for Anas Sarwar specifically and it didn’t work. He lost his constituency seat (though he remains an MSP due to his position on the Regional List) and oversaw a substantial loss of seats. It was, however, not as bad as some polls suggested and even though they are (joint) 2nd place in terms of seats, they were hard done by by the electoral system. In a truly proportionate system, they should have won 20-21 seats, rather than the 17 they have now.
Still, this leaves Labour largely frozen out of the Scottish politics as a party. Their best hope of influence is to do what they accidentally did last Parliament. Back then Sarwar lacked control over his MSPs and basically let them put forward Members’ Bills in areas of interest. This led to the PassivHaus Bill, substantial movements in Freedom of Information, a Land Reform policy that the Government voted down but which has since been adopted by the Greens and others. The party’s fortunes are going to remain closely tied to that of Starmer and Sarwar…but their MSPs may have fight in them yet.
Reform
This is objectively another disappointing result for Reform. Their polls have peaked in recent months and global setbacks to the Far-Right Movement may have ripples here too. The party that was almost certain to go from near-zero to the 2nd party in Parliament only managed joint-second and with far fewer than the up-to 30 seats they were aiming for. I believe their leader’s performance in the debates played a role here. Malcolm Offord’s blithe comment about his multitude of houses and yachts did not endear him to a public for whom the cost-of-living crisis is growing and is plainly being exacerbated by Reform’s allies rather than the immigrants that the party rose to power by demonising.
Greens
One of the winners of the elections, the Greens pulled off some noteworthy victories including their first set of constituency wins (it wasn’t that long ago that they were told by opponents that they weren’t even a “real” party if they couldn’t win in the constituencies. While that slur hasn’t been deployed in a while, it’s certainly no longer applicable anyway). The planet is in greater need of climate action than ever and between the SNP’s continued attempts to backslide on climate policy and Reform’s outright climate denial policies, there is a risk to Scotland here that the Greens will have to work hard resist.
Conservatives
Another of the election’s losers. Devoured by Reform even as they tried to radicalise to save themselves, only to find that the radicals devouring them could do it better. Nevertheless, the Conservatives held up rather better than I expected. Their strongholds in the South remain. My experience of farmers is that where they skew Conservative and Localist, it’s mostly because they want to be left alone rather than out of ideological rightward skew. For reasons mentioned above, the Tories will be largely frozen out of the Parliament this session. When the Right speak, Reform will be louder and first in the pecking order so the Conservatives will have to find a way of distinguishing themselves. There is merit to the idea of them pulling back to a centre-right “Ruth Davidson” position as that is now a clear gap in Scottish politics, but we’ll have to see if there’s anyone left in the party to pull that off.
Liberal Democrats
Probably the biggest winners of the election given the power they might soon have, the Lib Dems should be celebrating this weekend. I’ll admit that there’s plenty in their manifesto that should appeal broadly even to the Left should they want to push it so they may well get a lot done this session. Their vulnerability is that they can’t push too hard or the SNP will just pick another partner to get a vote passed but this is true for everyone else too. We’ll have to see which tail wags which dog going forward.
And everyone else
No other party got elected to Parliament nor did any independents. This is despite the Extremely Online set of supporters who were absolutely convinced that with the power of a tweet, they could get 125% of SNP voters to vote for them on the List and thus win an absolute super-majority. The high profile failures of Alba and Your Party are also a lesson to be learned. Building political parties is not easy. It takes years and maybe even decades of work to build success (seriously…both the SNP and Nigel Farage’s various parties are a lesson here in how long it takes) and even then it’s not a given and everything can blow away like smoke with a single bad headline.
No, it’s not fair that Scotland has such a high effective electoral threshold before votes become seats but we’re not looking at a German system here where a party was locked out because it got 4.9% of the vote but missed the 5.0% threshold. None of the parties who didn’t get a seat managed to clear 1% of the vote. The “best performing” one, with 0.88% of the vote, wasn’t even a real party but is a front group designed to try to confuse and steal votes from Green voters. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for smaller parties – I genuinely wish we had a more diverse Parliament – but it won’t happen without hard graft in the communities to build votes and to win people with your policies. There are five years until the next election. That isn’t as long as one might think.
#labourParty #news #politics #Scotland #ScottishPolitics #UKPolitics -
A simple outside the box fix for a broken telescopic whip
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Or conversely, if it is “broke” you have two choices. Order a replacement from the other side of the planet, and wait for the slow boat from China to navigate thousand of nautical miles across the stormy waters of international seas. Or, alternatively, and my preferred solution, is to see if it can be fixed. So when I managed to break the 18.5ft telescopic whip I had ordered from China a year or so ago, I was faced with that choice.
Hair of the dog
There is an old supposed remedy for the after effects of over indulgence in adult beverages. It is called the “hair of the dog that bit you”, often simplified to “hair of the dog”. The idea is that, in the morning, if you drink some more of the beverage that caused the problem you will recover. I rate that high on the skepticism index.
The dog that bit my antenna was another product from the same oriental source as the whip. It was a “top hat” designed for the PAC-12 antenna. This set of electric antlers proved too heavy for the whip that was never designed to carry them. The tip of the whip swayed rather wildly in the wind, before collapsing on the ground and decapitating itself in the process. The top hat survived but the top two sections of the whip parted company from the rest, never to be reconnected again.
What remained was 15 feet and 9 inches of whip that sat in a dark corner of the shack until, one day, a random firing of neurons in my brain came up with an idea. I call the idea “hair of the dog”; i.e. I wondered if I re-attached the top hat, the same one that caused the problem in the first place, to the shortened whip would it at least get me back on 20-meters?
The shortened wounded whip was a little too short to be resonant on the 20m band. Could the addition of a top (capacitance) hat lower the resonant frequency sufficiently to fix the problem? I embarked on an impromptu mission to find out.
Unextended top hat and whipTop loading a vertical whip is a very efficient way of convincing an electrically short antenna to resonate on a lower frequency. In effect, it increases the electrical length of the antenna. I have been chided by sagacious readers for using the term “electrical length”. The term may be technically incorrect but it makes it easier to understand what happens when an antenna is loaded. Is my top-loaded shortened whip as efficient as a full-length unloaded whip? I’ll leave that for the experts to comment upon.
There are advantages to a top-loaded vertical whip for field portable operators like myself. For a start, a shorter whip is less conspicuous. While activating a park back in the spring of this year, a uniformed Ontario Parks warden pulled up in her official pickup truck to see what I was up to. Ontario Parks wardens have the same authority as police officers when it comes to park rules and regulations. They can impose on-the-spot fines for infractions of a sometimes vague set of rules like “disturbing trees”. She told me that my long whip antenna had caught her eye. When I told her I was using Morse Code to contact other amateur radio operators and read out the list of all the states I had contacted, she was genuinely interested. We struck up a good rapport, especially when discussing which trail the resident park bear preferred. Although that encounter with officialdom went well I prefer to operate under the radar – nothing to see hear, move right along please.
Custom, ham-made (by me) support pole.As I write this we are well into fall. The winter months still lie ahead of us – 7 months of dreary, snowy, icy weather. So I took advantage of cool temperatures and still unfrozen ground to test my top-loaded shortened whip. I mounted the whip on my recently constructed support that uses PVC plumbing bits and part of a fiberglass driveway marker driven into the ground. For lucky readers in the southern states and other milder climates, a driveway marker is a thin pole used to identify the edges of a driveway when the snow comes. I use 5ft markers, and during last winter’s unusually heavy snowfall, they disappeared deep beneath the snow banks left by the snow plows on their daily runs. I gotta move to sunny Florida, snakes and gators be damned!
It might be considered folly to adopt a hair of the dog approach to fixing the whip but, of course, the lower sections of a telescopic whip are thicker than those at the top. Thicker sections are less likely to experience the wild, wind-induced, oscillatory motion that caused the initial problem. In fact, I had to shorten the whip by another two sections to bring resonance within the 20-meter band, thereby enhancing the physical rigidity even further.
For this initial backyard test I used a set of four 13ft radials that lie mostly on the ground. I know this isn’t the most efficient way of providing the “other half” of an antenna. I have now improved on that by extending the support pole to 43 inches (109cm) and replaced the ground radials with two sloping, above ground radials with links for 15m, 17m and 20m.
Very soon our ground will be frozen hard – like concrete – and then other support options will be required. However, this top-loaded short whip is going to be traveling with me on my winter POTA activations. It works fine business on 20m but, even with the whip extended to its full 15 feet 9 inches, the top hat can’t get it to work on 30-meters. Shortening the whip further (and collapsing the top hat’s “antlers”) allows the higher bands to be used, which is useful while band conditions create openings there.
When I broke the whip I started to look into finding a replacement. The Chameleon 25ft whip sounded interesting but then I watched a video in which one of these whips waved at the heavens during windy conditions. I could foresee another catastrophic collapse in my future if I went that route. I wondered whether a park warden might consider a very tall waving whip a hazard to other park users and wave an infraction notice at me in response. No, there had to be a safer solution and I think this top-loaded formerly broken whip fits the bill quite nicely.
Meanwhile, back in the shack …
Work continues on renovating my rigs to return to QRP operations when band conditions permit. I have been using my Yaesu FT-891 throughout the summer. I like to think of the FT-891 as a QRP rig with optional QRO capability. The trouble is, it is too easy to tweak the power just a little to give my signal a little more muscle. My QRP Labs QMX is a great little radio but it isn’t built for hostile environments – like Ontario winters. Unfortunately I chose the low band QMX when ordering so I am limited to 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m and 20m – no access to the higher bands which have been quite active lately. I do have another option – a rugged, pugnacious but rather old little rig that covers all bands. It was built back in the era when there were fewer options for QRPers and lacks some of the features we now take for granted. There is a way to add on the missing features; I’ll publish the details in an upcoming post.
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CF Interview | apaull: «Do you have the gunfactor?» On Furnace Room Recordings
Some albums arrive with a concept so precisely articulated that the music barely needs defending. Gunfactor, apaull’s new record on Furnace Room Recordings, is one of them. Ten tracks navigating the pathways to fame — and infamy — across a sonic palette that moves from techno to synthwave by way of industrial, always with an economy of means that signals someone who knows exactly what they’re doing. The title lettering is by Al Diaz, a past collaborator of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The photographs are by Dave Clarke. We spoke with apaull about the album, its contradictions, and the questions it leaves unanswered.
Club Furies: The title operates simultaneously in two languages with meanings that don’t contradict each other but pull in different directions. Was that tension intentional from the start, or did the linguistic ambiguity emerge during the process and you decided to let it do its work?
apaull: The tension was intentional. The Dutch meaning came first, though. I was having coffee with a Dutch booking agent and she said you need produce good music but also have the “gunfactor”, this intangible ’it factor’ to become successful (and famous). The immediate question is how does one achieve that “it factor”. The theme developed from there. Either you have exceptional talent which leads to fame or you are somehow notorious, which leads to infamy.
https://soundcloud.com/apaull_music/sets/gunfactor-8-tracks
Club Furies: The album draws an implicit distinction between earned fame and inflicted fame. Tracks like «Veilig» or «King Dome» seem to inhabit that grey zone where recognition arrives through circumstances no one would have chosen. How do you construct that difference narratively without collapsing into moral judgment?
apaull: Great question. While I have strong personal views I try to present things agnostically. I create perspectives in my tracks, that sometimes belie my personal views, but are really there to ask the listener what they think. It’s like listening to a painting. What do you hear and what do you think about it?
Club Furies: «Finishing School» summons something from another era that, by your own notes, «might still hold true today.» What strikes you as more unsettling: that those ideas persist, or that we still have to keep saying so?
apaull: “Finishing School” is a tongue in cheek examination of societal structure. In previous eras, roles were more clearly defined than they are today, if not over the top rigid. Today we find ourselves in jello, where structure has been systematically removed. We now live in an open concept society, if not over the top lax. “Finishing School’s” light hearted question is do we need some of that structure back.
Club Furies: The album has very specific geographies: Berlin in January, Detroit, New York implicit in «Veilig.» Do those physical contexts affect the compositional process technically — in the sound, the tempo, the processing — or do they function more as states of mind?
apaull: Both. I absorb where I am and this influences my state of mind and how I write. I write music almost continually and love writing in hotel rooms. For instance, the album track “Fang Mich” (Catch Me) was written and produced in Berlin. It captures the vibes I soaked in from the winter weather, Tresor & Berghain techno forays, a cold and jet lag. I live two hours from Detroit, the birthplace of techno, and go there for Movement each year. Detroit techno is pretty straight ahead but with indelible flashes of house. It is warmer than Berlin techno. The track “Veilig” (Safe) was written about something that happened in New York. I have been there many times and carry the vibe of this ‘infinite city’ with me.
Club Furies: «Cartel» proposes a kind of inverse moral relativism. It’s arguably the album’s most conceptually exposed position. What was the writing process like for that track: did you start from the concept or arrive at it through the music?
apaull: I came accross the vocal sample first and used it as the track’s foundation. I wrote the music around this sample (normally I do it the other way around). I found it interesting that a politician would compare a global body (World Economic Forum) to Columbian drug cartels, the point being that the espoused global organizations are cartels, in there own right. The pandemic made clear that this is the case.
https://open.spotify.com/intl-es/album/2zoMok0136WpNuiulxOrXq
Club Furies: «True Though» suggests that sufficient fame functions as a shield. What’s interesting is that the track doesn’t sound like furious critique — it sounds more like resignation. Is that emotional ambiguity deliberate, or is it what came out?
apaull: My song writing is about providing a perspective, without the proselytizing that fury might evoke. I create these track perspectives to be there subliminally, that is you will only hear them if you listen deeply and far away from the club. “True Though” is about how Canada’s now former prime minister could not remember how many times he had donned ‘black face’, was somehow not cancelled and was still able to ascend this high office. While I’m a firm believer in redemption, I doubt that other politicians would have received this benefit of the doubt.
Club Furies: You close the album with «Altamont Joy,» which ends on «You’re gonna look real crazy, being on the other side of that line.» That line can be read as a warning, a statement of fact, or an irony. Did you want it to be all three at once?
apaull: The sample, in question, was delivered, by the speaker, as an omimous warning. It presents two perspectives, the speaker’s and the other, across some imaginary dotted line into a philosophical ‘no mans land’. The point of the track is that we cannot function with this level of polarization because the ability to discuss and reach consensus is lost.
https://soundcloud.com/apaull_music/gunfactor-demo
Club Furies: Bringing in Al Diaz for the title lettering places the record in a visual conversation with eighties street art and everything that history implies. How did you come to him, and what did you want that choice to communicate?
apaull: I met him through my friend and artist, Jason Maclean, on one of my trips to New York, and was mesmerized by his history and works. I was quite taken by his lettering (assembled from New York Metropolitan Transit Authority posters). For the purposes of creating visual artistic continuity between my releases I thought this lettering would work well.
Club Furies: Every track on the album has a remix. That’s a structural decision, not an accessory one. What interests you about the dialogue between your version and another artist’s reinterpretation? Are there tracks where that tension feels particularly generative?
apaull: I made a decision, early on, to release on my own label because I was new, wanted full control of my music and didn’t think the slog of attracting label interest was a good use of my time. Working with remixers was a good alternative to labels. I work with remixers for two reasons: 1. To have them create more danceable and club friendly versions of a track; and 2. To introduce my music to their audiences. The bonus is that I have been able to work with artists who I respect and admire, and learn from them.
https://clubfuries.com.mx/2026/02/22/cfp-apaull-king-dome-pyrame-frr034/
Club Furies: Your music operates in a space where peak time and after-hours aren’t opposites but continuities. That implies a certain resistance to the kind of specialization the market tends to reward. How do you think about that position in relation to how electronic music circulates today?
apaull: I see my music as art. While notionally it fits into the techno genre, I spend no time trying to get it to fit what is being played in clubs. While I enjoy club music, I see what is produced as being derivitive more than specialization. Clubgoers enjoy this musical continuity and for producers it can be a pathway to success. There is nothing wrong with that. I work diligently to create a sound, that is grounded but unique, and then work even harder to find the right audience. My work with club friendly remixers, as described above, is an invitation to their audience to become part of mine. Over time, what I produce will continue to work its way into clubs and other venues.
Club Furies: Furnace Room Recordings is now thirty-six releases in. What does running your own label mean for a project like yours? Does the autonomy change what you’re willing to sign off on?
apaull: The label means I get to release what I want and build a solid catalog that I control. It is a platform that now allows me to present my music to potential labels, remixers and venues and work to attract their interest. My goal is to write and professionally produce interesting tracks. I only sign off on and release tracks after my team has given their stamp of approval.
Club Furies: If the album asks «do you have the gunfactor?» — what’s your answer?
apaull: Ultimately, that is for others to decide, but, to save them some time I would say, YES.
Gunfactor is not a comfortable record, and it doesn’t try to be. It is a work that observes, with clinical detachment, the mechanisms by which the world rewards, ignores, or destroys people — and has the honesty not to offer solutions. In a circuit that often consumes itself in its own effervescence, apaull builds something slower and more durable: a body of work with edges, with conceptual texture, with the kind of coherence that can only come from someone who has been at this long enough not to need to impress anyone.
The question that titles the album stays open. Perhaps that is the only honest answer there is.
Gunfactor is released April 24, 2026 on Furnace Room Recordings (frr036), distributed by Superstition and available on all platforms. Remixes accompany the album as single and EP releases.
As a complement to the Gunfactor release, the inclusion of the Dina Summer Remix, set to be released on May 22, adds a significant layer of contemporary energy to the project. This remix not only reinterprets apaull’s sonic vision but also serves as a strategic bridge for listeners to further explore the creative process detailed in this interview.
artist: apaull
Album: Gunfactor
Release Format: Digital
Cat. No. frr036
Distribution: Superstition, all online platformsRelease Date: April 24, 2026
Pre Order FurnaceRoomRecords.lnk.to/Gunfactorapaull- writing, producing, mixing
Abe Duque- Executive Producer, masteringTracklist
1. Fang Mich 04:07
2. King Dome 05:20
3. Push the Button 06:10
4. Veilig 04:38
5. Finishing School 05:05
6. Gunfactor 05:34
7. Cartel 07:11
8. True Though 05:04
9. Payload 05:32
10. Altamont Joy 07:30apaull
Website | SoundCloud | Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp | Linktree
Furnace Room Records
Instagram | Facebook | Beatport
Club Furies
Website | SoundCloud | Instagram | Threads | TikTok | Facebook | Bandcamp | Linktree
#Acid #apaull #CFPremiere #clubFuries #ClubFuriesPremiere #EBM #Electrónica #electro #Electronic #Electronica #FurnaceRoomRecordings #house #IndieDance #Premiere #premiereCF #PremiereClubFuries #techno -
Tues. April 21, 2026: Tired Brain
image courtesy of Milena M from PixabayTuesday, April 21, 2026
Waxing Moon
Sunny and cold
You can read the Community Tarot Reading for the Week here.
Thursday, Bluesky had issues. Friday, Instagram wouldn’t let me post. Thank goodness I am old enough to have skills honed before social media. So it was basically frustrating, but nothing more. I could comment on posts on Instagram, I just couldn’t post anything from the computer (I can from my phone). With no explanation. It seemed to work again, somewhat, over the weekend, off and on.
By the time I’d posted the blog, it was bucketing down rain, so I postponed errands. I dealt with some admin work. There was a break in the weather, so I put on shoes, grabbed my bag, and trotted down to the post office. They’re putting in a new sidewalk in front of the post office, so I had to go around to the side door. But they’re doing a much better job than the Sidewalk Chewing Demons have been doing (the company working in front of the post office is a different one).
Got things mailed, headed to another nearby store to pick up some more notebooks for the workshop (I supply small notebooks that the participants can then take with them), swung by the liquor store, and headed home. Made it before the rain began again.
Worked on the handout. Changed things a half a dozen times, to find the right variety of exercises. Pulled some more books I want to take, for the participants to look at.
Did a nice chunk of work on the ghostwriting, getting to where I had hoped to be by end of day Thursday. So I was still behind, but not too far behind.
Cooked dinner, hung out on the front porch for a bit. Some of the seeds are coming up. The white bush (I don’t know what it is) out back exploded into bloom these past days. It usually lasts for a couple of weeks, before fading back to green.
Slept reasonably well, in spite of weird dreams and Charlotte fussing. I woke up at 4:30, refused to get up, dozed off, and got up around 6, which is fine. Fed everyone, the morning routine went well. It was so gorgeously quiet I didn’t want to break it by turning on the vacuum. I wanted to sit and enjoy the morning.
Did a whole lot of other housework before I used the vacuum, including throwing out a lot of instruction manuals for things we no longer have, and tidying up the rolltop desk in the sewing room, which turned into a catch-all. Now, it’s an actual functioning desk again. Did a medium-sized vacuum (a little over 90 minutes). I still need to do a deep clean in a few places. Did some planting.
In the afternoon, I headed down to the gallery to support my friend’s event. There were some other gallery members just hanging out, which was fun. It’s hard to really spend time with each other at openings, because they are so busy. I’m glad they’re busy, it’s great so many people are excited about our work, but I’m better one-on-one than in large groups.
On the way home, I picked up some peel and stick wallpaper that I plan to use on the back door. I can’t stand the raw press-wood door. It looks temporary, and I want something that looks like part of the house. Did a mockup (without peeling and sticking) and realized I’d gotten the math wrong, and needed more sheets.
Got some other work done, cooked dinner, got some planting done. One could feel the temperature dropping.
Did some re-reading of some material I needed for a project.
Slept reasonably well, up at the normal time on Sunday, morning routine. I polished and printed the handouts for the workshop, and did the Community Tarot Reading for the Week, which you can read here. The weather was horrible, and I figured I’d have a low-to-no turnout. I certainly wouldn’t want to come out in the weather if I didn’t have to!
Packed up the remaining bits and bobs for the workshop. Stopped to pick up some more peel and stick wallpaper, headed for the gallery. I was there way too early, but got set up and chatted with the member assigned to sit that day. The weather was awful. We waited a reasonable amount of time, and then called it. I packed back up, and got in the car – and one of the windshield wiper blades snapped off. I should be able to snap it right back on, but it wouldn’t snap, so I had to drive without it.
Stopped at Big Y for coffee filters, tulips, and cilantro. Got home safely, hauled everything upstairs, put it away. I will have to either get the wiper snapped back in or get new wipers this week. Heard from some people apologizing for not coming to the workshop. Reassured them it was fine, I wouldn’t want to be out in the weather, either. It moved between rain, sleet, snow, back to rain, and so forth, with the temperatures dropping.
Set up some tables for the plants inside, and pulled the tender seedlings from the porch. They should be able to go back out by tomorrow, but I didn’t want to risk them in 20F degree temperatures.
Fixed myself a sidecar and read for a bit.
Made fish tacos for dinner, and they turned out well. Definitely much better than the last time I tried them.
Had a relaxing evening, trying to store up energy for the coming week. Slept reasonably well, and woke up to frost on Monday morning. Morning routine was fine, although the free write was more of a brain dump than anything creative. I have some decisions to make this week, so I’m spinning out possibilities.
Technically, in our state, yesterday was a holiday, so a bunch of stuff was closed. I hoped that meant I could have a quiet workday at home.
There were shootings all over the country over the weekend, the worst being the man in Louisiana who shot most of his family, including his kids, across multiple locations. This is escalating because these men are never held accountable, and it has to start from the top. There have to be consequences for the Epstein abusers, and then it has to spread to everyone. This regime, through policy, legislation, and coverup, including overturning Roe vs. Wade, has legalized violence against women. That has to change.
Did the rounds posting the intent for the week and the tarot reading, then checked the blogs I read daily. Went through a whole lot of email and dealt with it. Washed the inside of the back door to prep it for papering.
Got a little over 1200 words done on BETTING MAN, which was okay, but not as much as I hoped.
I ate an early lunch because the playwrights’ group met online from noon to 2, and I wanted to be ready for that. Did the marketing rounds for the day.
During the writing session, I completed the admin work for the reading in June (the contract and other materials had just come through, so I read through everything and turned it around). I also worked on the pitch for the upcoming deadline. I read through several of my scripts, trying to figure out which sample was best suited as attachment. I was very glad I had the notebook from the free write sessions handy, because I’d made a bunch of notes for the project in there. I’ll give it another look today, and get it out the door.
Took a quick break, and then went back to the ghostwriting.
Had a really good session, over 3K, although I’m still not where I wanted to be by today. I’m still a day behind. I hope I can catch up today and tomorrow, or I will end up working one of the weekend days. I looked up at one point, and large snowflakes were flying around. Sigh.
My brain hurt by the time I shut down for the day. Heated up some leftovers. Read a bit for pleasure at night. I’m savoring my friend’s book instead of rushing through it.
Woke up at 3 AM because of pain in my hip. Tried to get that settled down, and then some dingus started using a leaf blower at 3:30. I’m sorry, there is NO reason to use a leaf blower at 3:30 AM. It wasn’t in the immediate area, but sound carries here, especially between the mountains. I wasn’t about to get dressed and hunt it down, but I was annoyed. I started drifting off again just before 5, and Tessa started insisted on breakfast.
Today will be a long day.
I wanted to go to the mechanic about the windshield wiper, but I have to do it as they’re opening. There’s frost this morning, and, even if I scrape it down off the windshield, I can’t really drive without being able to wipe it off with the wipers (and a paper towel doesn’t work, I tried). So I will wait until it’s warmer, tomorrow, and give it ago.
I have to get in touch with maintenance today, too. The toilet’s running again. I don’t want to waste water. I’m not a data center.
In this morning’s free write, I came to a decision that changes a lot in BETTING MAN. I had to make the decision today, because it affects what I’m about to write as well as the rest of the book, and this change also has an effect on one of the series arcs.
Now, I have to see if I can pull it off.
Late yesterday, an opportunity landed on my desk. A place to which I’d applied for a grant and didn’t get it has an opportunity for people just in this area and got in contact with me, but I have to get the materials out the door today. I’m not sure I can do it. I’m not sure I can afford not to at least try. I have the materials. It would be a case of the cover letter, which shouldn’t be too hard.
After breakfast, I need to get the garbage out, and then put together the crockpot meal. And then, get started on the workday.
Yoga was cancelled due to a sewage pipe break at the studio. I was looking forward to getting back to class, but I guess I’ll wait until next week.
Have a good one!
#art #books #freelance #plot #reading #tarot #teaching #weather #writing -
Dr. A.N. Grier’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Dr. A.N. Grier
If I were to rate the year of our Lord 2024, I’d give it a solid 4.5/5.0. No, I joke. FUCK 2024. Good riddance, fuck off, goodfuckingbye. This year, the layoffs continued (even affected some of our writers here), the prices skyrocketed, the World Series was bullshit, and landfills across the States are twice their capacity thanks to useless election fliers. This year has resulted in practically zero time to work on AMG efforts, write reviews, or listen to music as I continue to try to keep my job. Yay. Cheers to you, 2024—you sack of horse shit. Let’s go, 2025, you sassy bitch who suggests great things to come but probably won’t deliver. If only you could promise me more time doing the things I love—listening to metal, writing about it, and pretending to edit the other writers’ reviews while completely hammered. If so, I’d kiss you as the ball drops, take you to the back alley during the after-party, and promise not to poison your coffee the next morning.
But we aren’t there yet. We are still stuck in the past, looking over a mediocre year of metal, regurgitating the same shit we already wrote for each album on our lists. That way, you all can praise, argue, and whine about each choice and its placement. Thankfully, my lists rarely overlap with anyone else’s and no one actually gives a fuck, so my sleep patterns remain the same. Having passed the ten-year mark at this amazing madland, my tastes remain the same, and no one will be surprised that most of the selections here are the items I alone reviewed. That changes occasionally but with no time to think about music this year, you’ll be treated to odd takes and albums that only scored a 3.0. Oh no!1
Thank you to the AMG staff for their lackluster productivity and overrating tendencies. To Dolph, Kenny, and Sharky for introducing new segments and keeping legacy ones alive. And to Cuervo and GardensTale for the additional year-end contributions they deliver. I also have to give a huge shoutout to the top bosses—AMG and Steel Daddy—for all they do2. I guess I should also thank all of you for your continued support. I guess. May this list find you well as we are thrust into 2025 and the potential nightmares that it’ll bring. Cheers.
#ish. I Am the Intimidator // I Am the Intimidator – What? You fucking knew this was coming. When Steel told me to review an album about NASCAR and Dale Earnhardt, I couldn’t not do it. I mean, this one-off, self-titled record from a one-off band was a perfect opportunity to unleash my rage. And then… wait, what the fuck? It’s actually kinda good? In a weird year where I reviewed two racing-related albums, I Am the Intimidator sports3 six wild tracks that combine Dio and Iron Maiden with Ministry. What the fuck? And, somehow, the lyrics would be fucking hilarious if they weren’t so passionate. OK, the lyrics of the surprisingly delicious and crushing “Gasoline” are fucking hilarious, and a regular, all-caps attack in the AMG channels. After all the chaos and wild influences that make up this tight, six-track album, the passion for “The Intimidator” is true, even if it’s weird. But, I can’t stop listening to this album any more than I can stop drinking beer.
#10. Dust Bolt // Sound & Fury – Like so many other Grier lists, there’s always an album that becomes the most frequented in my shit-filled ears. Yup, I know, you all fucking hate it, and I couldn’t care less. For the band (and style), Sound & Fury is a brave effort that I find addictive, fun, and hilarious trolling material when Steel talks shit. Is it thrash? No, but that didn’t stop me from proclaiming Load as Metallica’s best album. Shifting away from the overused thrash concept and mediocre record releases, Dust Bolt chose the unconventional route of cleaner vocals, smoother production, and catchier choruses to remove themselves from their past outings (and, some would argue, from thrash and metal in general). For you naysayers, there are plenty of headbangable moments on Sound & Fury, so you don’t have to feel like a poser singing these new songs in your mom’s shower.
#9. Midnight // Hellish Expectations – Perhaps one of the most prolific metal bands out there, what can I say about Midnight that I haven’t said already? Oh yeah, they’re badass and if you don’t like them, you’re shit. Also, fuck you. Like previous releases, Midnight continues to speed through riffs that bring to mind classic outfits like Darkthrone, Motörhead, Venom, and Celtic Frost at a relentless speed. While other Midnight records are better, Hellish Expectations joins its compatriots in a discog that can do no wrong. Unless, of course, you don’t like this band’s style. In that case, read above regarding that “fuck you” thing. What makes Hellish Expectations great in this frustrating year is that it caps at twenty-five wonderful minutes—which is the same amount of time it takes to shit out your morning coffee. So, this is a chance to correct your poserness. If you like this band, you already know Hellish Expectations is a fun ride that’ll keep your spikes sharp and your leather pants shit free.
#8. Bombus // Your Blood – Like another band on my list, this Swedish heavy metal, hard rock band has seen a lot of ups and downs in their career. And, for some reason, their co-founding vocalist and guitarist walked. But that didn’t stop Bombus. Not only did they find someone to fill those two slots, but they also added another guitarist to round it out to three. With these new additions, the skill displayed on Your Blood is superior to anything the band has ever done. There’re solos, harmonizing leads, and riffs up the fucking wazoo. I’m uncertain if it’s due to this new skillset or an increase in motivation with five years between albums, but Bombus held nothing back for Your Blood. While there are plenty of the bangers you would expect from a band of this caliber, like the addictive “Take You Down,” there are also other interesting inclusions that I should hate, yet love. For example, the weird, Spaghetti Western qualities of “Your Blood,” the Nick Cave-meets-The White Stripes musings of “The One,” and the bizarreness that is “Carmina.” With Your Blood, the band has found their groove and passion again, delivering their best album yet.
#7. Vanessa Funke // Void – This year brought a surprising new addition to my favorite bands of all time. In this case, it was the newest release from the multi-instrumentalist, Vanessa Funke. With a small but stellar catalog, Ms. Funke continuously dabbles in new influences and song approaches with each album and Void is no different. Coming off last year’s acoustic masterpiece Vanessa Funke rewinds to her debut record, Solitude, alternating between rasps and cleans, acoustic and distorted guitars, and her perfectly molded combination of folk, melodeath, and atmospheric black metal. The textures created by the vocals, guitars, keys, and piano take Void down into some incredible depths, engulfing its listeners in blankets that can be both soft and stabby. Albums like this are rare for me these days, so when they do completely submerse me to the point that I can’t think of anything else, there’s no doubt it’ll make it on my year-end list.
#6. Crystal Viper // The Silver Key – Maybe not everyone’s favorite Polish act,4 Crystal Viper’s founding vocalist and guitarist, Marta Gabriel, has been knocking around her blend of heavy and power metal for nearly two decades. But, it’s been a rocky road of great, mediocre, and rage-inducing records. Where Crimen Expecta shines like a bright star in the sky, Tales of Fire and Ice is a dumpster fire that topped my most disappointing album of 2019. When I approached this year’s The Silver Key, I was expecting another mid album (or worse) but was immediately engrossed—maybe even more than Crimen Expecta. Though many of you dislike the vocals, Gabriel is in top form. But, her vocal performance is only one aspect of the Crystal Viper sound. Her guitar work is some of the best of her career, lending new ideas to the song structures and album flow. While plenty of bands are—and are not better—than Crystal Viper, The Silver Key is undeniably one of the best albums of their career.
#5. Sidewinder // Talons – Most likely one of the only overlaps I’ll have with the cunts that work here,5 Sidewinder’s newest release, Talons, threw me for a loop. Not expecting anything from a band I’ve never heard about, Talons immediately got my noggin’ bobbin’ in the most pleasing way. I can’t pinpoint exactly why I like this style of heavy, bounding stoner metal, but every time I hear it, it clicks. And nothing is better than diving right into a record where one of the band’s best pieces is the opener. “Guardians” is a quintessential Sidewinder piece that personifies the band and everything they stand for. But that’s only the beginning, as the guitars cruise down the road and the bass rumbles through the gravel. Clocking in at a mere thirty-four minutes, this eight-track beauty never reaches beyond its means, ensuring the songs are straight and tight, allowing Jem’s powerful vocals to direct the varying moods. While the band resides in the lush and beautiful landscapes of New Zealand,6 if a sound could represent the harsh desert lands of my home, this would be it.
#4. Aborted // Vault of Horrors – As many know, death metal is not my cup o’ tea. Once upon a time, death metal was my life, but that ship sailed when my favorites grew old and repetitive, and what you all call death metal these days bores me to tears. But the one band that continues to make me salivate is Aborted.7 And, boy, did this year’s Vault of Horrors deliver. With tracks like “Dreadbringer,” “The Golgothan,” and “Malevolent Haze,” this new release offers some incredible depth and relentless brutality. Aborted has always delivered good-to-great albums but after nearly thirty years, how can these lads continue to improve and produce such quality releases? Vault of Horrors is a great record and arguably one of the band’s best. It’s been several months since this beauty was released, so if it passed by you, rectify your posersivity.
#3. The Vision Bleak // Weird Tales – I don’t know what it is about The Vision Bleak but they fucking hit me and hit me hard. On the surface, their style is quite simple, but it’s the layers, stories, mood, and damning vocal performances that draw me in like I’m viewing a Vincent Price horror marathon. Combining their Type O Negative vocal characteristics with atmospheric moods that can be depressive at one point and ethereal at another, The Vision Bleak took a massive leap by releasing Weird Tales as (technically) a one-song album. Eight years since their incredible The Unknown, Weird Tales doesn’t skip a beat, maintaining the duo’s title as one of the greatest bands in gothic metal. With magnificent builds, eerie transitions, mind-bending fluidity, and heart-wrenching passages, the haunting nature of Weird Tales leaves you contemplating your existence in a world controlled by the fate instilled in it by the late, great H.P. Lovecraft.
#2. Kingcrow // Hopium – For fucking months, our progressive cunt, Dolphin Whisper, tried desperately to steal Kingcrow’s Hopium from me—somehow thinking he’s better than me when it comes to describing the lushness of Kingcrow. The fuck. Even though Kingcrow hasn’t released an album in six years, there’s no way some flipper fucker would take this from me. Sure, I’m not a huge fan of progressive metal, but at least I know what’s good progressive metal instead of lazily making love to everything with the tag of “prog.” Anyway, Hopium continues to deliver gorgeous tapestries painted with soothing vocals, synthy atmospheres, and impressive performances for all involved. Though I consider Eidos their best, Hopium is not far behind. While tapping into common influences like Dream Theater and Spock’s Beard, this Italian outfit is very much on a level all its own. If you like prog, you’ll find Hopium—with such wildly varying tracks like “Vicous Circle,” “Parallel Lines,” and “White Rabit’s Hole”—to be the most diverse prog record of the year.
#1. Borknagar // Fall – Goddammit, I love Borknagar. Few bands have such high album scores for a career that spans thirty years and a dozen albums—especially with a constant rotation of players and vocalists. Though, how can you be pissed off about having any of the great vocalists Borknagar has employed throughout the years? Since the beginning, the band has continuously introduced more melody and keys in their music, but Fall is special compared to the output in the last twenty years. Though this new album hasn’t hung up that hat by any means, Øystein G. Brun, Lars A. Nedland, and crew dug through the ashes of the past to bring some of those old-school black metal moments back into the mix. From the blackened assault of “Summits” and the Dimmu Borgir-esque vibes of “Northward,” the band continues to shock and surprise, avoiding a repetition from a previous album. So, dive into the best album o’ the year in all its glory.8
Honorable Mentions
- Portrait // The Host – While I didn’t like the production of Portrait’s The Host, I’m still a slut for King Diamond and Meryful Fate-adjacent metal. Especially when it comes to Portrait, who continues to be less like a copycat and more like a pioneer of the style.
- Attic // Return of the Witchfinder – More King Diamond-core! Easily one of the best examples of the sound, Attic continues to keep me coming back with each release. As their predecessor, Return of the Witchfinder brings a new story, more twists, and those pleasing falsettos that trigger my “O” face.
- Sarke // Endo Feight – Sarke (the artist) and crew have had one hell of a busy couple of years. This year, in particular, sees not only a new Sarke release but also a new Khold record (see below). Endo Feight is a wonderful addition to the band’s catalog and, by god, it’s wonderful to see the man himself back behind the kit.
- Khold // Du dømmes til død – See? I told you it would be here. While 2022’s Svartsyn was better record than Du dømmes til død (and a fantastic comeback), Du dømmes til død still has those elements that make the band so unique and fun to listen to.
- Blood Red Throne // Nonagon – Three years ago, Blood Red Throne released not only one of their best albums but 2021’s best death metal record. Unsurprisingly, it’s difficult to follow something like Imperial Congregation without some hiccups. That said, Nonagon is still a brutal piece of work worthy of mentioning.
Disappointments o’ the Year
- Darkthrone // It Beckons Us All……. – Like Sarke, Nocturno Culto has also been busy this year. If that’s part of the reason for the utter bore that’s It Beckons Us All……., I don’t know. But, this new record feels like Darkthrone is going through the motions. While I respect that they don’t care what the fuck any of us think, this is one of their worst albums.
- Exhorder // Defectum Omnium – After Exhorder’s incredible comeback album, Mourn the Southern Skies, I was more than a little excited for this new one. Unfortunately, like Darkthrone’s newest, Defectum Omnium is a dreadfully boring record that lacks all the passion of Exhorder’s comeback, leaving me confused and pissed the fuck off.
Songs o’ the Year
- Kingcrow – “White Rabbit’s Hole” – With an album full of great songs, there’s just something about the energy of this track that makes me so happy.
- Sidewinder – “Guardians” – This song represents some of the best stoner metal of 2024, and I can’t stop listening to it.
- Bombus – “Take You Down” – This song is just badass. I couldn’t care less what you think. Die.
Show 8 footnotes
- Fuck off, this happens every year. ↩
- Don’t call me Steel Daddy ever again! – Steel Daddy ↩
- See what I did there? ↩
- They can’t all be Vaders, ya fucks! ↩
- Love you, GardensTale. ↩
- Well, that’s what the Lord of the Rings movies tell me. ↩
- Yeah, yeah, bitch all you want about including this band into my collective bubble of “death metal.” ↩
- Also, stop listening to “Nordic Anthem” by itself. Fucking idiots. ↩
#2024 #Aborted #Attic #BlogPosts #BloodRedThrone #Bombus #Borknagar #CelticFrost #CrystalViper #Darkthrone #DimmuBorgir #Dio #DrANGrierSTopTenIshOf2024 #DreamTheater #DustBolt #Exhorder #IAmTheIntimidator #IronMaiden #Khold #KingDiamond #Kingcrow #Lists #MercyfulFate #Metallica #Midnight #Ministry #Motörhead #NickCave #Portrait #Sarke #Sidewinder #SpockSBeard #TheVisionBleak #TheWhiteStripes #TypeONegative #Vader #VanessaFunke #Venom
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Dolphin Whisperer’s and Ferox’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
By Dolphin Whisperer
Dolphin Whisperer
Every year, its end becomes more shocking and swift. Once, some guy told me, simply, “it only gets worse.” Not life though—attributing a better or worse or any sort of constant determination of our passage leaves a lot of room for falling into a void of enjoyment—life is, after all, a constant until its not. But time, or our sense of being in its too ever-present stream, flows at a rate that changes in ways to which we never quite catch up.
As such, there’s a comfort in knowing how much time an album, particularly one you enjoy will take. For the ten-to-twenty minutes it takes for grindcore proper to slap me silly or the forty-to-eighty minutes that it takes for my deepest progressive loves to wring out a moaning confession, I know where my attention lies, even if it’s only half there and half on a task at hand. Time and tasks, day to night, play to stop, music makes my world a better place. And entering my now third year at Angry Metal Guy, an institution that has been a fixture of my musical journey for even longer, I continue to hold a profound gratitude and excitement for another year of discovery.
2024 has had its challenges professionally and personally. 2025 will be no doubt the same, even if some trials we can see forming in the distance. But you want to know about the music, right? On that end, 2024 has yielded a heaping trove of great albums. Heck, even a Rodeö pick scratched at the rungs of an honorable mention. The below list barely scratches the surface of the breadth that the year has offered. Further down you will see Ferox‘s list, which captures a different collection equally rooted in joy. He might be more right than I am. But that matters little. Celebrate with us, your favorite collective of writers on the world wide web! Come hang with some of us on Discord too if you’d like. Most of the people there are certified flea-free. And don’t be too upset if 2025 doesn’t hit you the same at first. It’s just another year, and it’ll be over before you know it.
#ish. Kalandra // A Frame of Mind – At my core, I consider myself a Norwegian sad girl. Usually, this manifests in some sort of weepy, melancholy prog, the likes of Age of Silence or Madder Mortem.1 But Kalandra’s enfolkened an impassioned take on an artsy, progressive collection of empowering tunes hit me square in my aching heart from the moment I heard it. Most importantly, though, Kalandra knows that suffering is just a step on the path of growth and happiness, which is a message that inspires me every day.
#10. Dawnwalker // The Unknowing – The power to dream and envision a world driven by mysticism has an allure that’s hard to ignore. And while we know that more determinable laws guide the happenings of our daily lives, a glimpse of the unknown will always find its way into sequence. Dawnwalker putting this esoteric but ever-present concept into an atmospheric, genre-warped, playfully progressive package hardly surprises me, though. The British troupe has had my number since their unsung classic In Rooms,2 so I’m doing my last in continuing to love them despite Twelve‘s best efforts to underrate them.3
#9. Lizzard // Mesh – Lizzard’s 2021 opus Eroded is my favorite album of this decade so far. The French trio’s ability to warp deep, rhythm-tricky layers into driving and emotional rock songs his me at the core of my musical desire for cathartic hope expressed in an unassuming and lush framework. Mesh doesn’t present any differently in that regard. But its wrinkles on Lizzard’s timeless yet ’90s alternative-rooted oeuvre fuel Mesh’s inherent melancholy with a hope that’s jubilant, like a cracked smile on an overcast day.
#8. Dissimulator // Lower Form Resistance – [INCOMING TRANSMISSION.] “My name is Clyde, and I arrive from beyond with wonderful news. My good friend Ferox has survived this timeline after all, having learned to navigate the Lower Form Resistance assault of fast-twitch rhythms and slow-twitch death metal punctuation. His head, fully intact, sways wildly in its hairless glory—big dives for big skanking breaks, snappy rolls for whiplash accelerations. He may not be as rhythmically gifted in pit-galloping cadence as the virtuoso drum and bass duo that provides life to Dissimulator’s effortless strides, but Ferox is my everything nonetheless.” [END TRANSMISSION.]
#7. Mamaleek // Vida Blue – I couldn’t begin to tell you what has never landed about Mamaleek’s works before with a weird precision. As an act dedicated to sounding only like Mamaleek, their singular expression of tortured black(ish) metal warped by jazzy and slogging attitudes has manifested quite the take-it-or-leave-it musical experience. And while you, dear reader, may assume this is firmly up my alley, it has not been. At least not until Vida Blue served a bottom of the ninth heart-shaker as an ode to a departed friend.4 With a soulful swing, a tortured connection, and an exit velocity powered by equal parts loss and love, Mamaleek has clinched a campaign for my attention.
#6. Defeated Sanity // Chronicles of Lunacy – As an apex predator in the brutal death metal world, Defeated Sanity’s appearance arouses not questions of competency but rather calculations of the carnage wrought. Chronicles of Lunacy does not mark a turning point or novel twist in the Defeated Sanity timeline—its finely tuned lashings hit as inescapable all the same. When neither a beast’s reach, nor mass, nor attack speed goes contested, an exhibition of its might will flash with morbid glee. As such, Defeated Sanity need not surprise to strike mortal wound. Chronicles’ fangs glisten with an aged-imbrued tarnish, tearing at my flesh in every way I would expect. And I want more.
#5. Orgone // Pleroma – Meticulous and constructed as a master-work, Pleroma’s opening notes signal a trance. Acoustic twang and chamber instrument-fueled swoon build an atmosphere of wonder against a fervent and languished march of post-genre swells and death-fueled crescendos. Cycling through its many shades feels less like a fever dream and more of a trial-filled journey. Wielding a demure grandeur, Pleroma’s effortless realization of Orgone’s peerless vision never feels like the epic journey its runtime suggests. Were my time truly infinite, Pleroma would be even harder to rip away from the queue.
#4. Julie Christmas // Ridiculous and Full of Blood – A lady screaming bloody murder shouldn’t go down this smooth, but that’s always been the promise and success of Julie Christmas. Few vocalists leave me slack-jawed and ear-shaken in the wake of piercing cries, raw-throated shrieks, and impassioned lyrical slather. Yet, Ridiculous and Full of Blood cuts track after track out of sonic patterns that do exactly that, all while empowering a full band expression of alternative-laced grooves, post-informed climbs, and punk-tied sneer. The Christmas season sums a flurry of inspired performances under the banner of a madwoman. And I stand at the ready to fray my vocal cords in attempt to crack with the same battle-tested precision that Ms. Christmas has earned from a life hard-worn.
#3. Ingurgitating Oblivion // Ontology of Nought – Though born of minds unrelated, Ontology of Nought exists as an esoteric companion to the Pleroma embodiment. Orgone is the twin that went to conservatory, graduated with honors, and holds an honorable performing chair, all while remembering its young love for death metal. Ingurgitating Oblivion, on the other hand, dropped out, spiraled into entheogenic dissociation, earns a living gigging at jazz clubs—also maintains its youthful lust for the clamoring riff and hammering blast. Maximalism oozes a frothing wonder in the hiss of distorted chatter and rhythmic mastery. An imperfect and breathing construction rises and falls in ethereal inhales and vision-spinning mantras. Ontology of Nought deserves each of its over-budget minutes. Invest time in the freedom that it promises… “and cease to be.”
#2. OU // 蘇醒 II: Frailty – The casualness of OU’s inception belies its profound leap into my necessary rotation. No incumbent love ever has a defined position in the halls of end-of-year accolades,5 and even more so when the act’s very presence rang suspicious in its finely-tuned invasion to my critical wiles. But, as I noted when I first blew my love for 蘇醒 II: Frailty over the pages of Angry Metal Guy, it’s OU’s “idiosyncratic atmosphere” that pulls from a “polyrhythmic hypnosis” and masterful “energetic flow” that continues to chart them deservedly high in the annals of ’20s progressive music. And while this collision of classically-minded, synth-addicted madness slowly expands its universe one OU release at a time, I’m content to sit here and yell their praises at anyone who will listen.
#1. Pyrrhon // Exhaust – You know you’re getting old when an album about modern burnout and the pains of traffic resonates with you all the way from frozen shoulder to radiating lower back to cold-groaning knee. But when Pyrrhon stealth-bombed my aging metalhead mind with a tech-dial riff barrage of noisy and shouting proportions, I had no choice but to surrender. Exhaust demands attention from its initial irony-laced lift-off to its closing brutalist clock-out, swinging skronk-enabled splatters and ache-addled vituperation around every faded line and pothole in its death metal architecture. Though Pyrrhon uses simpler blocks, their construction here defies convention at every step. One fine commenter summed up Exhaust in the most succinct manner in that regard: “Death Metal, Hardcore, Noise Rock, Technical Death Metal. It’s just mathcore.” Except they took away the wrong message from that distillation. The verdict, in fact, is fuck you.
Honorable Mentions:
- Inner Strength // Daydreaming in Moonlight – Another way you know you’re getting old is that you love an album that sounds like it should have released in 1995. Alas, here we are.
- Dysrhythmia // Coffin of Conviction – Instrumental progressive music should be as exciting as Dysrhythmia. Comes for the Martyr riffs. Stay for the Metheny floating.
- Beaten to Death // Sunrise Over Rigor Mortis – Beaten to Death is still the best grindcore band on the planet. They probably won’t ever release a better album than Dødsfest!, but that’s OK. Their discography is now about two hours total. Go listen to it if you haven’t.
- Stygian Crown // Funeral for a King – Doom should always have a guitar tone that feels equally powered by swords and beer alongside vocals that feel soft like bar-stained leather stools.
- Kollapse // AR – I didn’t know KEN mode had a Danish doppelgänger with a frightening, large pink face. But they do, and boy does Kollapse know how to yell and riff.
- Sleepytime Gorilla Museum // of the Last Human Being – Had I infinitely more listening time, I may have been able to parse better this deeply cinematic and wacky slab of no wave emboldened prog. Most don’t actually earn the avant-garde tag the way SGT does.
- Defying // Wadera – Hour-long albums based on old Polish werewolf stories and horror movies shouldn’t be this easy to repeat, but I find myself often falling into Wadera’s unbreakable spell.
- Arthouse Fatso // Sycophantic Seizures: A Double Feature – I didn’t have radically-minded industrial deathgrind about the frustrated escapades of a fictional Orson Welles life on my 2024 bingo, but here I am telling you to listen to it anyway.
- Concrete Winds // Concrete Winds – Just this. And shitloads of riffs.
Disappointments o’ the Year:
- Myrath // Karma – I love Shehili so much. My love for power metal isn’t what it used to be, but Myrath’s exuberance while staying rooted in both the trickier waters of prog and the anthemic cries of power metal gave me hope both that I’d continue to latch on to the kind of playful love it can offer. But the arrangements on Karma, despite Myrath’s still life-affirming messages, do absolutely nothing to bolster that same joy for me. Karma sinks my listening brain. And that hurts.
- Pallbearer // Mind Burns Alive – The continued non-success of Pallbearer and their sleepy-toned take on creaky prog rock hurts the Dolph who fell in love with their weepy doom classic (and still controversial to true doomsters) Heartless. And yet the general blogging population seems to praise them for trying to reinvent sadboi roots rock with worse lyrics. And, for my money, Pallbearer is sounding increasingly thin live. If a return to glory is in store for Pallbearer, it will begin with them finally playing a riff again.
- Polterguts // Nobody Likes You – Okay, this EP actually rips because Polterguts rips. Hard. But, Polterguts, if you’re reading this, please put it on Bandcamp so I can link the shit out of it and give you money. I am disappointed that I have no way to contribute currency to your cause. “Ricky Has a Knife2” is worth the price of admission alone.
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.
Coconut (left), Kiwi (right) in a stylish Adidog sweater.
Ferox
I worked way too much in 2024. I can’t complain; it was meaningful work that I chose to take on, and it got me that much closer to not having to work at all if I don’t want to. Still, that’s what I’ll think of when I think of 2024: lots and lots of work. That had a knock-on effect, especially when it comes to hobbies like lifting, getting out to national parks, and writing here. I did very little of any of that. I kept up with metal as best I could, and embarked on a big end-of-year listening push to have an accurate picture of what came out in 2024. I’m grateful that I got to do a list at all this year, so I took the responsibility seriously… but I’d be lying if I said I was buried in the scene all year.
One of the highlights of my 2024 was meeting a whole slew of staffers in person. I traveled a bunch this year, both for work and for my daughter’s ballet pursuits, and with that came the chance to hang with some of the people who make this place go. My body count of staffers met this year: Steel Druhm, Madam X, Cherd, Twelve, Dr. Wyrm, Thus Spoke, El Cuervo, Doom et al, and Holdeneye. It was a veritable orgy of almost entirely chaste fellowship, and only one (1) bad hang among the lot!6
I’m grateful to Steel Druhm and Angry Metal Guy for indulging my schedule, and for the real leadership they provide at my fake job. I found this unique community because it had the best music writing on the internet, and that remains true today thanks to the talented people who contribute their time and enthusiasm to keeping the machinery humming. I’m lucky to be a small part of it, and hopeful that 2025 will give me more time to spend in the Hall.
#ish. Mother of Graves // The Periapt of Absence – My “-ish” spot typically goes to an album that might have listed if I just had more time with it. That holds true of the sophomore effort from Indianapolis’s Mother of Graves, which landed on my radar by way of Carcharadon‘s excellent TYHMHM piece. This slab of classic sadboi death doom transcends any tribcore concerns through sheer quality of execution. From opener “Gallows” through final track “Like Darkness to a Dying Flame,” The Periapt of Absence guides the listener through the stages of grief with varied compositions that maintain a consistent mood throughout. Classic death doom is alive and well.
#10. Wormed // Omegon – Maddog‘s compelling rave for Omegon is my personal Review o’ the Year; fortunately, the prose was well spent on this efficient and brutal riff delivery system. Wormed has been creating slam-adjacent otherworldly death metal for a good while now, and Omegon is a distillation of everything the band has learned over the past two decades. 2024 is the year I realized I’ve been a brutal death metal guy all along. With songs like “Pareidolia Robotica” and “Virtual Teratogenesis,” Wormed took me by the hand and guided me through this journey of self-discovery… all while the people in the offices around me called in noise complaints.
#9. Ripped to Shreds // Sanshi – The already impressive Ripped to Shreds leveled up with Sanshi, a blast of aggressive but technically adept death metal that never left my rotation after its release. The guitar hero shredding plays like a release valve to the vicious and punky energy that Andrew Lee injects into his compositions. This cycle of tension and release makes for an addictive listen that feels like it ends mere moments after you hit play. The thrash elements of the R2S sounds are more prevalent on Sanshi, meaning the band now scratches the same itch for me that Horrendous did with their last killer slab.
#8. Scumbag // Homicide Cult – Scumbag! SCUUUMMMMBAGGGG. This nasty bit of business, with its deathgrind touches and morbid sense of humor (“Pure Adrenaline Hard-On,” “The Meating”), was tailor-made for the Ferox sensibility. Herein lie twenty-eight minutes of death metal that never slams but still walks the same line that Wormhole managed to last year: brutal but somehow cheerful, and stoopid without being remotely dumb. Dylan Cruz, of this band and Noxis, came out of nowhere to occupy a huge chunk of my limited listening time this year.
#7. Black Curse // Burning in Celestial Poison – With Burning in Celestial Poison, Black Curse stages a forty-five-minute takeover of your central nervous system. Eldritch Elitist captured the elemental power of these five compositions better than I ever could, but this album gave me exactly what I needed in a 2024 that was characterized by an extreme lack of work-life balance. Metal can provide a safe outlet for less-than-savory feelings, and Black Curse expressed a lot of things for me that I couldn’t express myself and stay employed. Lose yourself in these five tracks and emerge scoured but smarter.
#6. Spectral Wound // Songs of Blood and Mire – The hot streak continues; Songs of Blood and Mire, Spectral Wound’s fourth album, is their best effort yet. Carcharadon capably cataloged crisp new cross-currents in the band’s sound, but the song quality remains the same. Tracks like “At Wine-Dark Midnight in the Mouldering Halls” and Song o’ the Year “Aristocratic Suicidal Black Metal” showcase the band’s gift for coupling aggression with sweeping melody. In this way, Spectral Wound recalls Watain without so much distracting ooga-booga. Songs of Blood and Mire finds them continuing to refine their sound and grow in confidence.
#5. Endonomos // Endonomos II – Enlightenment – Endonomos carried the torch for doom in 2024. Enlightenment is a stately procession, its six long tracks blending influences from all across the doom spectrum. This is music that soars as it plods. Steel Druhm noted similarities to both Khemmis and Fvneral Fvkk. Those comps are perfect; not since Carnal Confessions has a doom album so effectively cut through the clutter of genre tropes to evoke genuine emotion.
#4. Pyrrhon // Exhaust – I hate it when the promotional push for an album ties a record too strongly to the narrative of its creation. It’s like the record company is trying to force a reaction that the album itself might or might not evoke. So when Exhaust arrived with heavy-handed descriptions of process and what Pyrrhon went through trying to make the album happen, I bristled and stopped reading. Fortunately, the music on Exhaust speaks for itself. This is a bitter and blistering record that finds the band raging against their rage’s inability to change even a single thing. I’ve always appreciated Pyrrhon, but I’ve never connected with their music as immediately as I did on Exhaust.
#3. Defeated Sanity // Chronicles of Lunacy – Defeated Sanity has had quite the AMG journey. They’ve gone from being brushed aside by a n00b named Potato Jim to being on the receiving end of a double-4.0 fellating from the tenured likes of Dolphin Whisperer and Maddog. Chronicles of Lunacy finds Defeated Sanity extending the Colin Marston-enabled peak that they hit on 2020’s The Sanguinary Impetus. It takes extreme skill to weaponize the base and the stoopid this effectively. Defeated Sanity is more than up for the job.
#2. Inter Arma // New Heaven – Here’s another band that could be wrestling with The Law of Diminishing Recordings by now, but instead persists with quality release after quality release. Inter Arma never repeats themselves, but each of their albums could only come from them. Hot take: Sky Funeral has remained my favorite Inter Arma album even as they’ve racked up an epic run of excellence. New Heaven makes a run at unseating it. This is a slab that rewards the many repeated listens I gave it in 2024; it sat in my top slot for much of the year until a late-breaking favorite pushed it aside.
#1. Noxis // Violence Inherent in the System – This is my third time publishing a list at AMG; each previous year, I had clear Album o’the Year winners in Immolation’s Acts of God and Afterbirth’s In But Not Of. 2024 marked the first Listurnalia that began with an opening for my top slot. But as I weeded through my favorite music of the year, I realized: Noxis drew me in with the bass flourish at the beginning of album opener “Skullcrushing Defilement,” and they still haven’t let go. The Pittsburgher in me hates to credit anything from Cleveland, but Noxis weeded out that deeply rooted prejudice with their inventive and fresh take on death metal. Every track on Violence Inherent in the System is a wild ride that alternately crushes, challenges, and tickles. The only break from the madcap pace comes on mid-album interlude “Excursion,” but that just prepares you for the utter barking lunacy of “Horns Echo Over Chorazim.” That song incorporates strange arrangements that include various woodwind instruments, and somehow they do it with zero pretension and abundant commitment to brutality. Listurnalia may have begun with a blank space atop my list, but it ended with Noxis firmly entrenched as the winner of 2024.
Honorable Mentions:
- Stenched // Purulence Gushing from the Coffin – This one-man outfit captured that elusive filthy magic and spewed out the annum’s premiere filthy wallow.
- Aborted // Vault of Horrors – These Belgian veterans, long under-appreciated in the Hall, finally found their champion in Grier. They hooked themselves up to the juvenation machine by leaning into the melodeath that has been creeping into their sound, and cranked out their best set in years.
- Vitriol // Suffer and Become – Here’s a mean and heavy slab that seemed to fade from the general consciousness as the year wore on, but remains worthy of note.
Disappointment o’the Year:
Ferox! I just didn’t have time to make a meaningful contribution here this year. It has been a pleasure to watch other members of my n00b class like Dolph and Maddog and Thus become AMG institutions, even as I mostly watch from the sidelines and come out to play when I can.
Song o’the Year:
Imagine being asked to name your favorite song of the year, and responding with a twenty-seven song playlist!7
Show 7 footnotes
- Whose very good outing is another in a long line of successes. Old Eyes, New Heart missing the cut should ring testament to how wonderful 2024 has been. ↩
- In case you don’t know, Ampwall is a music e-commerce hub built by members of Woe as an alternative experience to Bandcamp. Vowing to maintain an artist-first and community-influenced direction, Ampwall holds a lot of promise to the musical underground. And the whole Dawnwalker discography digitally! ↩
- Seems like a 4.0 innit. ilu Twelve. <3 ↩
- Former Mamaleek keys maestro Eric Livingston. RIP. ↩
- Pain of Salvation, feel free to read this and prove me a liar. ↩
- It was Grier, right? – Steel ↩
- Who would do such a thing? Surely, if one were to commit such a heinous act, they’d at least provide a cute dog picture to atone. – Dolph ↩
#2024 #AFrameOfMind #Aborted #AR #ArthouseFatso #BeatenToDeath #BlackCurse #BurningInCelestialPoison #ChroniclesOfLunacy #CoffinOfConviction #ConcreteWinds #Dawnwalker #DaydreamingInMoonlight #DefeatedSanity #Defying #Dissimulator #Dysrhythmia #Endonomos #EndonomosIIEnlightenment #Exhaust #FuneralForAKing #GodsOverBrokenPeople #HomicideCult #Horrendous #IngurgitatingOblivion #InnerStrength #InterArma #JulieChristmas #Kalandra #Khemmis #Kollapse #Lists #Listurnalia #Listurnalia2024 #Lizzard #LowerFormResistance #Mamaleek #Mesh #MotherOfGraves #Myrath #NewHeaven #NobodyLikesYou #Noxis #OfTheLastHumanBeing #Omegon #OntologyOfNought #Orgone #OU #Pallbearer #Pleroma #Polterguts #PurulenceGushingFromTheCoffin #Pyrrhon #RidiculousAndFullOfBlood #RippedToShreds #Sanshi #SaveThisUtility #Scumbag #SleepytimeGorillaMuseum #SongsOfBloodAndMire #SpectralWound #Stenched #StygianCrown #SufferAndBecome #SunriseOverRigorMortis #SycophanticSeizuresADoubleFeature #ThePeriaptOfAbsence #TheUnknowing #VaultOfHorrors #VidaBlue #ViolenceInherentInTheSystem #Vitriol #Wadera #Watain #Wormed #蘇醒IIFrailty
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Angry Metal Guy’s Top 10(ish) of 2025 By Angry Metal GuyEvery year has been shitty for a while, and in some ways, 2025 was the shittiest of them all. The widespread sense that the End Is Nigh is what I would charitably call our zeitgeist.1 And I feel comfortable saying, it’s a shitty zeitgeist. But in defiance of the shit burger we’re all eating every day while we wait for the AI drone war to start, 2025 was my best year in a while. It did, in fact, see me more involved on the front and back ends of AngryMetalGuy.com than I’d been in a long time. And like those lists we’ve already published, AMG, both as a persona and community, has been a refuge for me during difficult times. The joy of discovery and the eclecticism inherent in what we do here have been a major part of why I love this blog. So, honestly, that’s been nice.
In terms of the blog’s health, AngryMetalGuy.com is holding steady. We’ve got a growing team of n00bs covering some of the holes we’ve had in the schedule.2 I worked very hard on training them in combination with Druhm, and it’s fair to say we were both happy with the result. We had some of our best candidates to date, and that made me proud and happy. There’s still room for a few more, so we might dig into the pool in the early part of 2026. So if you applied, all hope is not lost. We continue to attract around 1.25 million views a month, and that’s held steady for three years running. Obviously, we would like to continue to grow. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re actually seeing a slight downturn in visitors because of Generative AI. There are, of course, a lot of people who go to Google and write “My Favorite Band – New Album Review,” and they will be greeted by an AngryMetalGuy.com link that tends to place pretty highly on the Google Machine and awaits their complaints with open arms. But I suspect there are other kinds of views we’ve accrued – those which end up in people grabbing album art or looking for release dates – that disappear when people are requesting that ChatGPT do that for them. And while LLMs will link you after plagiarizing you, they’ll only do it if you let them, and we do not. And so any conversions of people checking linked resources are probably lost.3 There have been some weird months here and there with seemingly anomalously low numbers, so who even knows.
The active n00bs have allowed us to revive the three-posts-a-day pace,4 and we only went dark for five days during 2025. As a collective, we posted 699 posts—down from the very peak of 2019’s nearly 1,000 posts!—but in line with where we’ve been since Covid. And, our posts continue to be longer than they were in 2019, averaging 901 words for a total of 629,905 words that we produced for free in 2025. That’s a 2600-page term paper—Times New Roman, 12 point font, double-spaced on A4 paper.5 This dedication to quantity derives from the whip of an analytics-driven Steel Druhm, but wouldn’t be possible without our amazing staff putting their shoulders to the Eternal Boulder ov Metal™ and rolling it uphill every day, saying “One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
We continue to have international appeal, as well, though the country rankings haven’t changed much from 2024. Like last year, our top five is made up of the English-speaking world (US, UK, CAN, AUS at five) + Germany (at four).6 Weirdly, we are getting a sizable amount of traffic from China, which clocks in at six for the first time. There are almost certainly shenanigans at play with those numbers, as I am not aware of any influx of Chinese fans here recently. Maybe that’s AI traffic. Maybe that’s VPN traffic. Maybe we’ve been infiltrated and are now a communist honey pot. Maybe Druhm is buying traffic. Or, maybe, Winnie the Pooh has finally discovered how excellent the realm of heavy metal really is, and China is going through a different kind of cultural revolution! Regardless, 7-10 is made up of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, and France, with Spain and Finland dropping out of the top ten. The biggest news, however, when it comes to our international readership, is that signs point strongly to Pope Francis having been our solitary reader in the Holy See. The venerable Franciscan passed away in April of 2025, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that no one appears to have made the pilgrimage from the Vatican to Angry Metal Guy this year.
It’s worth noting that we lost more than a few stalwarts along the way in 2025,7 largely due to the #Cursed-Boomer-Posting chat on Slack, which has torn us apart. There may also have been some other influences, such as marriages, having high-paying jobs, running TV shows, having actual lives, or resenting me.8 Regardless, for all those who have worked hard to make AngryMetalGuy.com go, but who are not here with us anymore, I just want to say thank you. Despite my autistic isolation and standoffishness, I do love you all and miss you. The door is, of course, always open. And I am happy to see some special little guys who’ve been in deep freeze popping their heads out of the sand and grabbing promo. It’s a wonderful sight to behold, and maybe we’ll see some newfound productivity from old friends in 2026.
To close, I want to thank everyone – readers and writers alike – for your enthusiasm, your dedication to AngryMetalGuy.com as an institution, and your undying fealty to me, Angry Metal Guy.9 I know I can come off as harsh. And I know that some people grumble that I’m too hard on them when I read their texts or when they have divergent opinions in the comments, but that’s only true if you’ve never met a passive construction you didn’t love or if you’re wrong about metal. And, as I tell my students, we’re a team. Our goal is to make sure that AMG produces the very highest quality writing, while covering as much of the scene as possible.10 And given the loyalty of our readers, your comments, and “the eye test,” as it were, we are achieving that goal consistently. I’m still very proud of that and, if I stop to think about it, humbled by it, too.
While it feels like there’s a lot to dread after the 2025 that was, we still have a lot to be excited about here. So let’s hope that 2026 isn’t all like it’s felt in the first five days or so. Anyway, I have gone on far too long, have a wordy, overwrought list.
#(ish) 3: Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon [June 20th, 2025 | Nameless Grave Records | Bandcamp] — Chasing the Dragon is super fun. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it’s a little stupid in a way that I find endearing. And, as I remarked in June, while US Power Metal has been getting a lot of love around these parts, Helms Deep has not been on the receiving end of nearly enough of that love. While other bands showed up to a back alley knife fight, these Florida men showed up with a bejet-packed dragon and a collection of songs that burned hotter than dragonsfire, melting the competition down and shaming their lineages for decades to come. And joking hyperbole aside, Helms Deep doesn’t feel like a novelty act. They aren’t just good ’cause I find them funny. Chasing the Dragon features playing that’s sharp and vital across the board, with guitars that never stand still, a singer who sells every chorus with the right balance of chops, cheese, and buckets of swagger. Said differently, Helms Deep is just dudes playing good, honest heavy metal while having a great time. What more do you need?
#(ish) 2: Vittra // Intense Indifference [September 19th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — Vittra’s Intense Indifference shows up hungry, plays fast, hits hard, and gets out before you have time to get bored. Thirty-three minutes of riff-first, bethrashened melodeath go by in a blur; the hooks are sticky, the harmonies are sharp, and the energy is manic and adventurous. While the At the Gates lineage is obvious,11 Vittra pulls in enough Soilwork polish and Mors Principium Est flash to songwriting that’s focused on momentum rather than atmosphere, and the result is addictive. And what really pushes this record from really good to great are the flashes of the unexpected: honkytonk piano, bluesy acoustic passages, and classic rock phrasing that shouldn’t work, but does. It’s great listening to an album this full of piss and vinegar. I get excited when bands pop up that make the kind of thrashy, intense melodic death that never begs for an Insomnium comp. And sure, these guys have room to grow, but Intense Indifference caused me to feel anything but.
#(ish) 1: Arjen Anthony Lucassen // Songs No One Will Hear [September 12th, 2025 | InsideOut Music | Bandcamp] — Arjen Lucassen has been a favorite of mine during the time that AngryMetalGuy.com has been up and running. The “poofy-haired cheesehead”12 behind many of my favorite albums during AMG’s time is still a gem even in 2025. Crazily, Arjen’s first ‘solo record’ Lost in the New Real was released in 2012,13 and Songs No One Will Hear is its direct successor. A true concept record—with Toehider’s god-tier singer, Michael Mills, voicing a radio DJ talking to listeners about impending doom—it reflects both our End Is Nigh Zeitgeist and Arjen’s particular… idiom. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, Songs No One Will Hear is both tongue-in-cheek and yet deeply aware of the nature of information, grifting, and societal collapse, while still displaying the kind of referential goofiness that made Lost in the New Real such a charming record.14 The thing that dinged Songs No One Will Hear a little for me is the sense of uncanny familiarity. At times, it sounds like Arjen was working specifically to emulate the structure of Lost in the New Real. That created a bit of cognitive dissonance that I have never quite gotten over. It also drove a lot of replays of its under-the-radar predecessor rather than the album I should have been reviewing. But is Songs one of the best 11 records o’ 2025? I certainly think so.
#10: An Abstract Illusion // The Sleeping City [October 17th, 2025 | Willowtip | Bandcamp] — The Sleeping City had two strikes against it. First, it had the unenviable task of following Woe, a record that could easily have been the template on which they built their sound. It’s hard to break away from an overwhelmingly popular sound, yet these Ore Islanders took a left turn, exhibiting a level of daring I admire. The shift in aesthetic is the story of The Sleeping City in a lot of ways; the synths, the vibe, and the mood lean into dystopian sci-fi, and it’s a choice that works. What I love about The Sleeping City is that it’s detailed and detail-oriented without distracting from the expansiveness of the songwriting, which remains evocative and carefully structured. And while they sound comfortable letting songs breathe, they never get lost in the quest for “atmosphere” that undermines many modern releases. Second,15 the real gripe about The Sleeping City was the mastering job. But even a mastering job that clips peaks and fills valleys shows just how strong the raw material is. And so, finally, The Sleeping City feels like the product of a band choosing growth over safety while being true to themselves. And that’s an admirable trait that I hope they never lose.
#9: Fallujah // Xenotaph [June 13th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — Fallujah landing on my list came as a genuine surprise to me, mostly because I really had quietly written them off. I used to like them, but they never carried that In Flames-style of eternal hope for me. Xenotaph pulled me back in by doing a deceptively simple thing: reintroducing attack. Everything about this record feels more immediate; guitars cut, compositions move with purpose, and songs are taut and sharp. The atmospheric elements remain, but they’re now integrated into something heavier and more immediate. I love the balance Fallujah finds, combining that late-Cynic energy with the aggression of brutal and technical death. And the deeper I got, the more Xenotaph rewarded me. Repetition revealed interlinked ideas and layered guitar work that shoots like a web throughout, creating a sinuous structure on which everything rests. As I wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb, “Fallujah has achieved a conceptual evolution on Xenotaph that feels true to their origins and yet develops their sound in ways that make it accessible, and yet, truly unique.” It isn’t exactly br00tal death metal, but it’s not so drenched in “atmosphere” that it lacks tension. Most importantly, it worked.
#8: Scardust // Souls [July 18th, 2025 | Frontiers Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Scardust landing at number eight sans review is another casualty of my 2025 Stack o’ Shame, though this was less neglect than simple overextension in a year where too many heavy hitters landed at once. July, yo, what a month. Unfortunately, I missed the review window, then I missed the window to pawn it off responsibly, and by the time I circled back, it was late. However, Scardust’s third full-length is a sharp, confident 42 minutes of symphonic power/prog that feels fully aware and unique. While it doesn’t quite lock together as tightly as Strangers did at a conceptual and compositional level, Souls more than compensates for that with sheer craft. The orchestral and choral arrangements are some of the strongest I heard all year, and Scardust’s chemistry is ridonkulous. The rhythm section especially deserves accolades, with basswork that should be forcing its way into “best of” conversations. As a band, Scardust exists in the interstices of genre, where comparisons kind of work but can’t capture their unique voice. And while the band is impressive, the compositions feel so coherent because of Noa Gruman, who carries the album with control, range, and an incomparable soprano. Her extreme register (that is, growls) stays mostly holstered here, but her presence—and sheer talent—is on constant display, balancing different styles, moods, and feels. And her vocal performance isn’t the only standout vocal performance on Souls. The closing “Touch of Life” trilogy finds Ross Jennings (Haken) popping up in full “weird Ross” mode, which ends up as the cherry on top. The result is smart, muscular, and memorable; an album I’m ashamed to have missed.
#7: Aephanemer // Utopie [October 31st, 2025 | Napalm Records | Bandcamp] — Aephanemer’s Utopie landed, as I mentioned in my Record o’ the Month blurb, squarely at the top of my Stack o’ Shame. I was honored to be able to get access to this and start listening early, and I was immediately impressed. Yet, I got sick. Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life age of the earth. Meanwhile, Utopie sat there reminding me of my failures until Grin Reaper saved my ass and gave Aephanemer’s newest opus the unhinged tongue bath it so rightfully deserved. Utopie takes everything these French melodic death metallers have been doing over the past couple of albums and tightens the screws until the whole machine purrs with confidence. The neoclassical elements have become a perfect blend that helps everything work perfectly. Utopie flows; songs connect, ideas develop, momentum carries everything forward, and yet Aephanemer does not sacrifice the immediacy and energy that makes melodic death metal such a fine dopamine mine. While I haven’t sat down and learned the parts, I feel like the guitars are more fluid and more expressive, resulting in special melodies propelled by a buoyancy reflected in the theme. And you know me, what I want from great records is a holistic sense of greatness. Happily, Aephanemer accomplishes just that on Utopie. Had I been operating at full capacity when it dropped, I would have written a review that kids would call “extra.”16
#6: Insania // The Great Apocalypse [June 13th, 2025 | Frontiers Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — The Great Apocalypse, contrary to its name, is sneaky. It doesn’t gallop in and smack you in the face with shock or novelty, but instead, it reveals its strength through confidence, craft, and an almost unfair level of replay value. What initially feels like—and has been so often written off as—a solid, familiar Europower record gradually opens up to be something richer and more rewarding. And it’s kept paying dividends the longer I’ve been sitting with it. Insania sounds, as I noted when I wrote the review, like a band fully aware of their lineage and completely at ease with it. But the truly confident understand themselves enough to think differently. The resulting record is full of massive, sticky hooks, choruses that hit with power metal optimism and momentum, and electrifying guitars throughout. In fact, while investigating their discography, I was struck by how much Insania upped their game on The Great Apocalypse. And key to that is the guitar, which elevates the record by resisting predictability and yet coexisting on a meta-level with the genre that they know so well. Songs evolve instead of looping, melodies get reshaped rather than repeated, and familiar ideas or tropes are nudged just enough off-center to stay engaging but familiar. The Great Apocalypse approaches with intention, and Insania performs like a band that’s rediscovering why they love playing this kind of music in the first place. This record is exhilarating, memorable, and deeply satisfying, which is why it belongs among these other great releases.
#5: Kalaveraztekah // Nikan Axkan [May 2nd, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — In what I’m pretty sure is a first for me, an Ünsïgnëd Bänd Rödëö contestant has made my Top Ten(ish) list. I’ve had plenty of unsigned bands on my lists, but I walked into Kalaveraztekah’s masterful Nikan Axkan utterly unprepared for what I would find. Like a kid buying music in the ’90s, I just looked at that amazing cover art and decided that I was going to join the team reviewing this record instead of the other one. And that twist of fate has earned Mexico’s finest Aztec-themed death metal band a spot on the End o’ Year Metal List o’ Record™.17 As I cleverly wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb: “There’s no sense that these Hidrocálidos are some kind of novelty act. They aren’t a Mexican Eluveitie, just playing Dark Tranquillity riffs while putting a Ritual Death Flute over it for 40 seconds in every song.”18 Rather, Nikan Axkan is chock full of muscular riffing and the kind of grindy death metal that I’ve always associated with the Mexican scene. Combined with a high-concept connecting to Mexican pre-history and the judicious use of a fucking death flute, I just never quit listening to Nikan Axkan.19 And so here they are, in the Top 5 of my Top 10(ish) of 2025,20 and it couldn’t be more deserved.
#4: Impureza // Alcázares [July 11th, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I admit, I have tried to lead by example. I have attempted to become a servant leader. Rather than eating up a ton of oxygen and making everything actually about me (instead of just in jest) and what I want as Angry Metal Guy, I have, with time and wisdom, tried to allow others a chance to spread their wings. One of the things that means is that I can’t just bogart other writers’ “discoveries,” and I try not to block them if they grab something before I do.21 So, in that context, you’ll understand that I got pretty excited when I realized that I could review the newest Impureza without poaching it. The band’s approach to metal—infused with flamenco and semi-fantastical alternate-historical high concepts about colonial history—had entranced me previously, but I always felt like they were leaving a lot on the table. Their sound had not quite blended the flamenco and the metal, but rather, the genres sat side by side. Alcázares changes that. From start to finish, Alcázares is addictive, creative, musically impressive, and just a lot of fun. The artful ability of these Orléanais-via-España to marry such disparate styles with genuinely unique approaches to music that run as deeply as the very notion of meter is one of the most impressive feats accomplished in metal in 2025. But it’s not just a meta-concern of the artistic feat that excites me. Alcázares is a fucking banger that can stimulate your intellect, or that can leave your neck sore. Take your pick!22
#3: Phantom Spell // Heather & Hearth [July 18th, 2025 | Cruz del Sur Music | Bandcamp] — Phantom Spell has the benefit of being a genuine surprise. My happy place, when I can afford to be there, is digging through the promo bin and listening to everything I can get my hands on. I have made so many fantastic discoveries there, just immersed in my own little world, listening to samples to get a feel of what we’re being sent. Heather & Hearth looked like classic Steel Druhmcore: Cruz del Sur Records, retro metal, D&D Basic Set art. I popped it in, got dragged in, and totally distracted from the rest of what I was doing. I know that this might seem incongruent, but Heather & Hearth sounds fresh. In a world of hypercompressed, hyper-reamped, extremer-than-thou metal, the act of writing good songs with tons of vocal harmonies, instruments that sit in their sonic corridors, and—despite being recorded by one single dude—a convincingly live vibe feels “like a radical act.”23 I quickly grew to love Heather & Hearth, shared it with all the normies I know who love Ghost (“Isn’t this so much better?”), and began singing its praises. And I’ve been happy to see it popping up on lists throughout list season. It means a lot to me that people can hear just how good Phantom Spell is. And Phantom Spell also proved to be quite generative, in that I wrote the Spotify post as a response to a discussion about why Heather & Hearth wasn’t available there. Easily one of the best records I heard in 2025, and I’m looking forward to hearing so much more.
#2: In Mourning // The Immortal [August 29th, 2025 | Supreme Chaos Records | Bandcamp] — When a record is truly exceptional, the hardest part is often articulating why it has transcended other things without reducing it to a checklist. In Mourning’s fantastic The Immortal resists that kind of accounting in the best possible way. Its melodies are lush and emotionally evocative, capable of landing with equal force whether they’re carried by aching vocals or unfurled through long, expansive, yet intimate, trem-picked guitar passages. The riffing is punishing but disciplined, balancing weighty chug with sharper, blackened melodies, creating a constant tension between death metal heft and sadboi atmosphere without fully committing to drowning the production in reverb. And yet, none of this marks a radical departure from what In Mourning has done before—has been doing since 2008. The crucial difference here is in execution: every compositional choice seems to land exactly where it should be. In a sense, this calls attention to the role of probability, as much as inspiration or songcraft, in composition. Some records feel blessed from the outset, where one can go through the same process again and never produce the same results. The hooks here stick without feeling forced, climaxes are perfectly placed, and the pacing across the record gives each track room to breathe while contributing to the kind of flow reserved for only the best albums. Even moments that might feel familiar hit differently on The Immortal, like everything snaps into place. The Immortal succeeds, then, not just on craft but on feel: it feels heavier, sadder, and more resonant than its predecessors; and it stands comfortably among the strongest melodic death metal releases in years.
#1: Calva Louise // Edge of the Abyss [July 11th, 2025 | Mascot Records | Bandcamp] — Edge of the Abyss ran away with my listening this year in a way I genuinely don’t remember happening before, and that probably tells you most of what you need to know. The record is frantic, restless, and overloaded with ideas, moving between genres and feels with the speed of fast-cut editing; shifting at the drop of a dime. That both makes the record fun to listen to and keeps it surprising and fresh even after dozens of listens. The pace and density line up uncannily well with where my own brain tends to live, and I suspect that’s a part of why it lodged itself so firmly in my rotation. Calva Louise writes songs that feel driven by impulse and curiosity rather than caution or genre boundaries, and that creative energy and freedom are contagious. Jess Allanic’s pop instincts and melodic sense anchor the chaos, lending the lighter passages real emotional weight and memorability, rather than merely serving as connective tissue. Edge of the Abyss’s incorporation of Latin rhythmic elements and melodic sensibilities ended up also being a personal bonus; Latin music has been a refuge for me from musical monotony for years, and hearing them integrated naturally into Edge of the Abyss was exciting, and it generated affection for this wayward Venezuelan and her French and English bandmates. What really sealed the deal for me, though, was how committed the band sounds to its vision. The songwriting is ambitious and fun, but it doesn’t feel scattered. The album has a cinematic feel – complemented by literally cinematic music videos – but doesn’t feel bloated or melodramatic. And Calva Louise sports a swagger unique to bands who are just doing exactly what they want to be doing. Since July, I’ve kept coming back to Edge of the Abyss and forgetting I had even enjoyed other records this year. There’s a real sense of becoming here; of a band pulling its influences together into something that feels unique. And I also feel invested in Calva Louise in a way I haven’t been with many bands. I really am so happy to see them growing and succeeding. I love seeing them landing on people’s lists here and elsewhere. They have so much potential, and I am so eager to see what they do next. But should the worst befall them, I’ll always have Edge of the Abyss, and it already feels like an all-timer.
Honorable Mentions
Sarastus // Agony Eternal [July 1st, 2025 | Dominance of Darkness Records | Bandcamp] — Stolen from me by one Kenstrosity, Sarastus was a joyous discovery by me in the depths of the promo bin. One part black metal with a touch of death n’ roll for vibes, Agony Eternal strikes hard at modern conventions of black metal and sounds fresh by playing fast, unapologetic, engaging music with razor-sharp riffs. Melodic, without being sickly sweet or cheesy, with a ton of attack and great songwriting chops, Sarastus really threads the needle on Agony Eternal, making something that is driven and addictive, but undeniably black metal.
Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations [July 4th, 2025 | Bad Omen | Bandcamp] — I’ve been back and forth with Wytch Hazel in the past. I have enjoyed what they do, but in the past I’ve been more skeptical of specifically nostalgiacore records that don’t feel like they’re adding much “new.” First, I think I’m just getting past that problem, as the “new” in metal is emphasizing things I don’t love about the scene. But second, I think V: Lamentations is just a more engaging record. From the word ‘go,’ Wytch Hazel writes with a kind of urgency that gives their brand of ’70s-tinged metal an extra kick, and the energy sits so well with me. Maybe the songwriting is just a bit tighter, maybe it’s faster, I don’t know—I didn’t write the proper review. All I know is that I keep circling back to Lamentations in a way that I haven’t done as much with their earlier albums. And that made it easy to put in the running for Listurnalia and to give my personal Angry Stamp o’ Approval™.
Mors Principium Est // Darkness Invisible [September 26th, 2025 | Perception/Reigning Phoenix Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — Probably the grower of the year, Darkness Invisible surprised me by sticking around. When I started reviewing it, I expected not to like it much. I had been a big fan of the band’s previous output and of their former guitarist’s solo record from last year. But with familiarity—and time spent dissecting it—I became increasingly impressed with the album. While the production is busy and pulls it down, the writing forges a new path that better represents the vision of MPE’s founding member, Ville Viljanen. And that vision is bleak, blackened, and surprisingly sticky. No matter your opinion on the end of the previous incarnation, Darkness Invisible at least demonstrates that there is still a vital future for Finland’s most underrated melodic death metal powerhouse. And that’s a future to which I look forward.
Blackbraid // Blackbraid III [August 8th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — I have a Gollumesque distaste for modern black metal. I am physically incapable of starting a review or blurb of a black metal band without reminding readers how much I hate “atmosphere” in the post-Cascadian black metal era. “Give it to us raw and wriggling!” I growl at all the fat hobbitses who try to feed me empty, overcooked “atmosphere.” Blackbraid doesn’t want to feed me atmosphere. Instead, Blackbraid’s III trembles with a vibe that brings me back to discovering black metal; at times blistering, at times introspective, but rarely overstaying its welcome and never feeling like its primary goal is to be the band that defanged black metal for good to make it okay to listen to for kids in the suburbs. I’ll be listening to III for a long time.
Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria — This record is too long. It’s got too much hype among the staff. And also, it’s too damned good to be an honorable mention. And yet, there are only so many #(ish)es, and I got to Beyond Obsidian Eurphoria too late to really give it the kind of sustained love that it needs to properly list. Still, once I started listening, I’ve been swinging past it every day. Sometimes twice. The songwriting is a bit wandering, the album is a bit overwhelming, and yet there is an undeniable vibe that Tómarúm traffics in, and that’s sneakily sticky. Combine that techy Death with something akin to Disillusion, and maybe you’ve got your comp. The only complaint I have is that some of the melodies end up intentionally arch in a way that makes me think that they are actively trying not to give the ear something to latch onto. That’s dumb, but it’s also very 2025. And hey, at least there’s a really easy trick for them to sell out with.
…and Oceans // The Regeneration Itinerary [May 23rd, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] —The Regeneration Itinerary was a lot more controversial among fans than I expected, but I really enjoyed it. As I wrote in May, “It’s always fun to watch bands defy Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™, and while The Regeneration Itinerary isn’t their best record yet, 30 years after their debut, …and Oceans is still releasing vital music that’s impossible to overlook.” And that’s just true facts as stated by a metal-knower. While not quite the tour de force of its predecessors, this record is a solid bit of weirdo black metal with some of the best art in the biz. I recommend it highly.
Haxprocess24 // Beyond What Eyes Can See [July 25th, 2025 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — Four songs, three of which are over 10 minutes long, and a combo of what I’d call post-Opeth songwriting with OSDM aesthetics, Beyond What Eyes Can See deserved more attention this year and ended up, instead, on my Stack o’ Shame™. This isn’t a reflection on them; they play vital death metal and deserve accolades for their expansive vision and the way everything flows. They just got eaten up by the July where everything got released. Sorry, boys, but here’s your fig leaf!
Majestica // Power Train [February 7th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Back in like 2008, I saw a band called ReinXeed play a whole bunch of covers of Swedish dance/electronica “group” E-Type at a Culture Night in Umeå. I remember hearing from people in the local scene that they were “big in Japan,” and I listened to some stuff, but wasn’t super moved by it at the time. In 2019, ReinXeed changed their name to Majestica and got signed to Nuclear Blast. And damnit if they aren’t just a lot better than they were in 2008. Power Train, which is on our collective Stack o’ Shame™, is the band’s third full-length under the moniker, and it rocks the same kind of sickly sweet melodies, guitar gymnastics, and general sense of fun that makes power metal my go-to genre a lot of days. While not quite as sticky and addictive as some other things higher up the list, Power Train was a solid addition to the band’s discography and one of the better power records I heard this year. You’ve come a long way, baby!
Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail [April 18th, 2025 | Willowtip Records | Bandcamp] — While not as high on this record as others on the staff, Dormant Ordeal is undeniably vital. And I’m just never going to write a better blurb than I did when they got Record o’ the Month for April: “This record hits a sweet spot inside of me, best described as the ‘oh yeah, that’s how death metal is done’ spot. The riffs flow, and my brain just opens up the spigots, releasing a veritable tsunami of dopamine. Every riff that cuts, every transition that seethes, and every recognition of the slick, skilled ways that these guys construct songs, I get a nice big kick of that Happy Chemical. Tooth and Nail is dynamic, punishing, aggressive, and better yet, it’s smart.” Man, that guy can write!
Aversed // Erasure of Color [March 25th, 2025 | M-Theory Audio | Bandcamp] — Last, and I guess technically least – but that isn’t taking into account that there were like 10,000 albums released in 2025 and there are only like 25 on this list – is Aversed’s Erasure of Color. Part of the reason for its late arrival is that, despite being our Record o’ the Month for March, Erasure of Color didn’t actually make it onto my personal playlist until quite a bit later. And damn, that was kind of a big miss on my part. Great melodeath with a unique flavor and great intensity; there’s something thoughtful and sharp about this record. Combine that with excellent album art and the Dolphin Whisperer seal of approval, and Erasure of Color has everything fans of melodeath need to carry them through this wasteland. I will need to keep my eyes on Aversed going forward.
#AndOceans #2025 #Aephanemer #AnAbstractIllusion #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish #ArjenLucassen #Aversed #Blackbraid #CalvaLouise #ChasingTheDragon #DormantOrdeal #EdgeOfTheAbyss #Fallujah #Haxprocess #HelmsDeep #Impureza #InMourning #Insania #IntenseIndifference #Kalaveraztekah #Majestica #MorsPrincipiumEst #PhantomSpell #Sarastus #Scardust #Tómarúm #Vittra #WytchHazel -
Angry Metal Guy’s Top 10(ish) of 2025 By Angry Metal Guy
Every year has been shitty for a while, and in some ways, 2025 was the shittiest of them all. The widespread sense that the End Is Nigh is what I would charitably call our zeitgeist.1 And I feel comfortable saying, it’s a shitty zeitgeist. But in defiance of the shit burger we’re all eating every day while we wait for the AI drone war to start, 2025 was my best year in a while. It did, in fact, see me more involved on the front and back ends of AngryMetalGuy.com than I’d been in a long time. And like those lists we’ve already published, AMG, both as a persona and community, has been a refuge for me during difficult times. The joy of discovery and the eclecticism inherent in what we do here have been a major part of why I love this blog. So, honestly, that’s been nice.
In terms of the blog’s health, AngryMetalGuy.com is holding steady. We’ve got a growing team of n00bs covering some of the holes we’ve had in the schedule.2 I worked very hard on training them in combination with Druhm, and it’s fair to say we were both happy with the result. We had some of our best candidates to date, and that made me proud and happy. There’s still room for a few more, so we might dig into the pool in the early part of 2026. So if you applied, all hope is not lost. We continue to attract around 1.25 million views a month, and that’s held steady for three years running. Obviously, we would like to continue to grow. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re actually seeing a slight downturn in visitors because of Generative AI. There are, of course, a lot of people who go to Google and write “My Favorite Band – New Album Review,” and they will be greeted by an AngryMetalGuy.com link that tends to place pretty highly on the Google Machine and awaits their complaints with open arms. But I suspect there are other kinds of views we’ve accrued – those which end up in people grabbing album art or looking for release dates – that disappear when people are requesting that ChatGPT do that for them. And while LLMs will link you after plagiarizing you, they’ll only do it if you let them, and we do not. And so any conversions of people checking linked resources are probably lost.3 There have been some weird months here and there with seemingly anomalously low numbers, so who even knows.
The active n00bs have allowed us to revive the three-posts-a-day pace,4 and we only went dark for five days during 2025. As a collective, we posted 699 posts—down from the very peak of 2019’s nearly 1,000 posts!—but in line with where we’ve been since Covid. And, our posts continue to be longer than they were in 2019, averaging 901 words for a total of 629,905 words that we produced for free in 2025. That’s a 2600-page term paper—Times New Roman, 12 point font, double-spaced on A4 paper.5 This dedication to quantity derives from the whip of an analytics-driven Steel Druhm, but wouldn’t be possible without our amazing staff putting their shoulders to the Eternal Boulder ov Metal™ and rolling it uphill every day, saying “One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
We continue to have international appeal, as well, though the country rankings haven’t changed much from 2024. Like last year, our top five is made up of the English-speaking world (US, UK, CAN, AUS at five) + Germany (at four).6 Weirdly, we are getting a sizable amount of traffic from China, which clocks in at six for the first time. There are almost certainly shenanigans at play with those numbers, as I am not aware of any influx of Chinese fans here recently. Maybe that’s AI traffic. Maybe that’s VPN traffic. Maybe we’ve been infiltrated and are now a communist honey pot. Maybe Druhm is buying traffic. Or, maybe, Winnie the Pooh has finally discovered how excellent the realm of heavy metal really is, and China is going through a different kind of cultural revolution! Regardless, 7-10 is made up of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, and France, with Spain and Finland dropping out of the top ten. The biggest news, however, when it comes to our international readership, is that signs point strongly to Pope Francis having been our solitary reader in the Holy See. The venerable Franciscan passed away in April of 2025, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that no one appears to have made the pilgrimage from the Vatican to Angry Metal Guy this year.
It’s worth noting that we lost more than a few stalwarts along the way in 2025,7 largely due to the #Cursed-Boomer-Posting chat on Slack, which has torn us apart. There may also have been some other influences, such as marriages, having high-paying jobs, running TV shows, having actual lives, or resenting me.8 Regardless, for all those who have worked hard to make AngryMetalGuy.com go, but who are not here with us anymore, I just want to say thank you. Despite my autistic isolation and standoffishness, I do love you all and miss you. The door is, of course, always open. And I am happy to see some special little guys who’ve been in deep freeze popping their heads out of the sand and grabbing promo. It’s a wonderful sight to behold, and maybe we’ll see some newfound productivity from old friends in 2026.
To close, I want to thank everyone – readers and writers alike – for your enthusiasm, your dedication to AngryMetalGuy.com as an institution, and your undying fealty to me, Angry Metal Guy.9 I know I can come off as harsh. And I know that some people grumble that I’m too hard on them when I read their texts or when they have divergent opinions in the comments, but that’s only true if you’ve never met a passive construction you didn’t love or if you’re wrong about metal. And, as I tell my students, we’re a team. Our goal is to make sure that AMG produces the very highest quality writing, while covering as much of the scene as possible.10 And given the loyalty of our readers, your comments, and “the eye test,” as it were, we are achieving that goal consistently. I’m still very proud of that and, if I stop to think about it, humbled by it, too.
While it feels like there’s a lot to dread after the 2025 that was, we still have a lot to be excited about here. So let’s hope that 2026 isn’t all like it’s felt in the first five days or so. Anyway, I have gone on far too long, have a wordy, overwrought list.
#(ish) 3: Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon [June 20th, 2025 | Nameless Grave Records | Bandcamp] — Chasing the Dragon is super fun. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it’s a little stupid in a way that I find endearing. And, as I remarked in June, while US Power Metal has been getting a lot of love around these parts, Helms Deep has not been on the receiving end of nearly enough of that love. While other bands showed up to a back alley knife fight, these Florida men showed up with a bejet-packed dragon and a collection of songs that burned hotter than dragonsfire, melting the competition down and shaming their lineages for decades to come. And joking hyperbole aside, Helms Deep doesn’t feel like a novelty act. They aren’t just good ’cause I find them funny. Chasing the Dragon features playing that’s sharp and vital across the board, with guitars that never stand still, a singer who sells every chorus with the right balance of chops, cheese, and buckets of swagger. Said differently, Helms Deep is just dudes playing good, honest heavy metal while having a great time. What more do you need?
#(ish) 2: Vittra // Intense Indifference [September 19th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — Vittra’s Intense Indifference shows up hungry, plays fast, hits hard, and gets out before you have time to get bored. Thirty-three minutes of riff-first, bethrashened melodeath go by in a blur; the hooks are sticky, the harmonies are sharp, and the energy is manic and adventurous. While the At the Gates lineage is obvious,11 Vittra pulls in enough Soilwork polish and Mors Principium Est flash to songwriting that’s focused on momentum rather than atmosphere, and the result is addictive. And what really pushes this record from really good to great are the flashes of the unexpected: honkytonk piano, bluesy acoustic passages, and classic rock phrasing that shouldn’t work, but does. It’s great listening to an album this full of piss and vinegar. I get excited when bands pop up that make the kind of thrashy, intense melodic death that never begs for an Insomnium comp. And sure, these guys have room to grow, but Intense Indifference caused me to feel anything but.
#(ish) 1: Arjen Anthony Lucassen // Songs No One Will Hear [September 12th, 2025 | InsideOut Music | Bandcamp] — Arjen Lucassen has been a favorite of mine during the time that AngryMetalGuy.com has been up and running. The “poofy-haired cheesehead”12 behind many of my favorite albums during AMG’s time is still a gem even in 2025. Crazily, Arjen’s first ‘solo record’ Lost in the New Real was released in 2012,13 and Songs No One Will Hear is its direct successor. A true concept record—with Toehider’s god-tier singer, Michael Mills, voicing a radio DJ talking to listeners about impending doom—it reflects both our End Is Nigh Zeitgeist and Arjen’s particular… idiom. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, Songs No One Will Hear is both tongue-in-cheek and yet deeply aware of the nature of information, grifting, and societal collapse, while still displaying the kind of referential goofiness that made Lost in the New Real such a charming record.14 The thing that dinged Songs No One Will Hear a little for me is the sense of uncanny familiarity. At times, it sounds like Arjen was working specifically to emulate the structure of Lost in the New Real. That created a bit of cognitive dissonance that I have never quite gotten over. It also drove a lot of replays of its under-the-radar predecessor rather than the album I should have been reviewing. But is Songs one of the best 11 records o’ 2025? I certainly think so.
#10: An Abstract Illusion // The Sleeping City [October 17th, 2025 | Willowtip | Bandcamp] — The Sleeping City had two strikes against it. First, it had the unenviable task of following Woe, a record that could easily have been the template on which they built their sound. It’s hard to break away from an overwhelmingly popular sound, yet these Ore Islanders took a left turn, exhibiting a level of daring I admire. The shift in aesthetic is the story of The Sleeping City in a lot of ways; the synths, the vibe, and the mood lean into dystopian sci-fi, and it’s a choice that works. What I love about The Sleeping City is that it’s detailed and detail-oriented without distracting from the expansiveness of the songwriting, which remains evocative and carefully structured. And while they sound comfortable letting songs breathe, they never get lost in the quest for “atmosphere” that undermines many modern releases. Second,15 the real gripe about The Sleeping City was the mastering job. But even a mastering job that clips peaks and fills valleys shows just how strong the raw material is. And so, finally, The Sleeping City feels like the product of a band choosing growth over safety while being true to themselves. And that’s an admirable trait that I hope they never lose.
#9: Fallujah // Xenotaph [June 13th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — Fallujah landing on my list came as a genuine surprise to me, mostly because I really had quietly written them off. I used to like them, but they never carried that In Flames-style of eternal hope for me. Xenotaph pulled me back in by doing a deceptively simple thing: reintroducing attack. Everything about this record feels more immediate; guitars cut, compositions move with purpose, and songs are taut and sharp. The atmospheric elements remain, but they’re now integrated into something heavier and more immediate. I love the balance Fallujah finds, combining that late-Cynic energy with the aggression of brutal and technical death. And the deeper I got, the more Xenotaph rewarded me. Repetition revealed interlinked ideas and layered guitar work that shoots like a web throughout, creating a sinuous structure on which everything rests. As I wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb, “Fallujah has achieved a conceptual evolution on Xenotaph that feels true to their origins and yet develops their sound in ways that make it accessible, and yet, truly unique.” It isn’t exactly br00tal death metal, but it’s not so drenched in “atmosphere” that it lacks tension. Most importantly, it worked.
#8: Scardust // Souls [July 18th, 2025 | Frontiers Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Scardust landing at number eight sans review is another casualty of my 2025 Stack o’ Shame, though this was less neglect than simple overextension in a year where too many heavy hitters landed at once. July, yo, what a month. Unfortunately, I missed the review window, then I missed the window to pawn it off responsibly, and by the time I circled back, it was late. However, Scardust’s third full-length is a sharp, confident 42 minutes of symphonic power/prog that feels fully aware and unique. While it doesn’t quite lock together as tightly as Strangers did at a conceptual and compositional level, Souls more than compensates for that with sheer craft. The orchestral and choral arrangements are some of the strongest I heard all year, and Scardust’s chemistry is ridonkulous. The rhythm section especially deserves accolades, with basswork that should be forcing its way into “best of” conversations. As a band, Scardust exists in the interstices of genre, where comparisons kind of work but can’t capture their unique voice. And while the band is impressive, the compositions feel so coherent because of Noa Gruman, who carries the album with control, range, and an incomparable soprano. Her extreme register (that is, growls) stays mostly holstered here, but her presence—and sheer talent—is on constant display, balancing different styles, moods, and feels. And her vocal performance isn’t the only standout vocal performance on Souls. The closing “Touch of Life” trilogy finds Ross Jennings (Haken) popping up in full “weird Ross” mode, which ends up as the cherry on top. The result is smart, muscular, and memorable; an album I’m ashamed to have missed.
#7: Aephanemer // Utopie [October 31st, 2025 | Napalm Records | Bandcamp] — Aephanemer’s Utopie landed, as I mentioned in my Record o’ the Month blurb, squarely at the top of my Stack o’ Shame. I was honored to be able to get access to this and start listening early, and I was immediately impressed. Yet, I got sick. Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life age of the earth. Meanwhile, Utopie sat there reminding me of my failures until Grin Reaper saved my ass and gave Aephanemer’s newest opus the unhinged tongue bath it so rightfully deserved. Utopie takes everything these French melodic death metallers have been doing over the past couple of albums and tightens the screws until the whole machine purrs with confidence. The neoclassical elements have become a perfect blend that helps everything work perfectly. Utopie flows; songs connect, ideas develop, momentum carries everything forward, and yet Aephanemer does not sacrifice the immediacy and energy that makes melodic death metal such a fine dopamine mine. While I haven’t sat down and learned the parts, I feel like the guitars are more fluid and more expressive, resulting in special melodies propelled by a buoyancy reflected in the theme. And you know me, what I want from great records is a holistic sense of greatness. Happily, Aephanemer accomplishes just that on Utopie. Had I been operating at full capacity when it dropped, I would have written a review that kids would call “extra.”16
#6: Insania // The Great Apocalypse [June 13th, 2025 | Frontiers Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — The Great Apocalypse, contrary to its name, is sneaky. It doesn’t gallop in and smack you in the face with shock or novelty, but instead, it reveals its strength through confidence, craft, and an almost unfair level of replay value. What initially feels like—and has been so often written off as—a solid, familiar Europower record gradually opens up to be something richer and more rewarding. And it’s kept paying dividends the longer I’ve been sitting with it. Insania sounds, as I noted when I wrote the review, like a band fully aware of their lineage and completely at ease with it. But the truly confident understand themselves enough to think differently. The resulting record is full of massive, sticky hooks, choruses that hit with power metal optimism and momentum, and electrifying guitars throughout. In fact, while investigating their discography, I was struck by how much Insania upped their game on The Great Apocalypse. And key to that is the guitar, which elevates the record by resisting predictability and yet coexisting on a meta-level with the genre that they know so well. Songs evolve instead of looping, melodies get reshaped rather than repeated, and familiar ideas or tropes are nudged just enough off-center to stay engaging but familiar. The Great Apocalypse approaches with intention, and Insania performs like a band that’s rediscovering why they love playing this kind of music in the first place. This record is exhilarating, memorable, and deeply satisfying, which is why it belongs among these other great releases.
#5: Kalaveraztekah // Nikan Axkan [May 2nd, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — In what I’m pretty sure is a first for me, an Ünsïgnëd Bänd Rödëö contestant has made my Top Ten(ish) list. I’ve had plenty of unsigned bands on my lists, but I walked into Kalaveraztekah’s masterful Nikan Axkan utterly unprepared for what I would find. Like a kid buying music in the ’90s, I just looked at that amazing cover art and decided that I was going to join the team reviewing this record instead of the other one. And that twist of fate has earned Mexico’s finest Aztec-themed death metal band a spot on the End o’ Year Metal List o’ Record™.17 As I cleverly wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb: “There’s no sense that these Hidrocálidos are some kind of novelty act. They aren’t a Mexican Eluveitie, just playing Dark Tranquillity riffs while putting a Ritual Death Flute over it for 40 seconds in every song.”18 Rather, Nikan Axkan is chock full of muscular riffing and the kind of grindy death metal that I’ve always associated with the Mexican scene. Combined with a high-concept connecting to Mexican pre-history and the judicious use of a fucking death flute, I just never quit listening to Nikan Axkan.19 And so here they are, in the Top 5 of my Top 10(ish) of 2025,20 and it couldn’t be more deserved.
#4: Impureza // Alcázares [July 11th, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I admit, I have tried to lead by example. I have attempted to become a servant leader. Rather than eating up a ton of oxygen and making everything actually about me (instead of just in jest) and what I want as Angry Metal Guy, I have, with time and wisdom, tried to allow others a chance to spread their wings. One of the things that means is that I can’t just bogart other writers’ “discoveries,” and I try not to block them if they grab something before I do.21 So, in that context, you’ll understand that I got pretty excited when I realized that I could review the newest Impureza without poaching it. The band’s approach to metal—infused with flamenco and semi-fantastical alternate-historical high concepts about colonial history—had entranced me previously, but I always felt like they were leaving a lot on the table. Their sound had not quite blended the flamenco and the metal, but rather, the genres sat side by side. Alcázares changes that. From start to finish, Alcázares is addictive, creative, musically impressive, and just a lot of fun. The artful ability of these Orléanais-via-España to marry such disparate styles with genuinely unique approaches to music that run as deeply as the very notion of meter is one of the most impressive feats accomplished in metal in 2025. But it’s not just a meta-concern of the artistic feat that excites me. Alcázares is a fucking banger that can stimulate your intellect, or that can leave your neck sore. Take your pick!22
#3: Phantom Spell // Heather & Hearth [July 18th, 2025 | Cruz del Sur Music | Bandcamp] — Phantom Spell has the benefit of being a genuine surprise. My happy place, when I can afford to be there, is digging through the promo bin and listening to everything I can get my hands on. I have made so many fantastic discoveries there, just immersed in my own little world, listening to samples to get a feel of what we’re being sent. Heather & Hearth looked like classic Steel Druhmcore: Cruz del Sur Records, retro metal, D&D Basic Set art. I popped it in, got dragged in, and totally distracted from the rest of what I was doing. I know that this might seem incongruent, but Heather & Hearth sounds fresh. In a world of hypercompressed, hyper-reamped, extremer-than-thou metal, the act of writing good songs with tons of vocal harmonies, instruments that sit in their sonic corridors, and—despite being recorded by one single dude—a convincingly live vibe feels “like a radical act.”23 I quickly grew to love Heather & Hearth, shared it with all the normies I know who love Ghost (“Isn’t this so much better?”), and began singing its praises. And I’ve been happy to see it popping up on lists throughout list season. It means a lot to me that people can hear just how good Phantom Spell is. And Phantom Spell also proved to be quite generative, in that I wrote the Spotify post as a response to a discussion about why Heather & Hearth wasn’t available there. Easily one of the best records I heard in 2025, and I’m looking forward to hearing so much more.
#2: In Mourning // The Immortal [August 29th, 2025 | Supreme Chaos Records | Bandcamp] — When a record is truly exceptional, the hardest part is often articulating why it has transcended other things without reducing it to a checklist. In Mourning’s fantastic The Immortal resists that kind of accounting in the best possible way. Its melodies are lush and emotionally evocative, capable of landing with equal force whether they’re carried by aching vocals or unfurled through long, expansive, yet intimate, trem-picked guitar passages. The riffing is punishing but disciplined, balancing weighty chug with sharper, blackened melodies, creating a constant tension between death metal heft and sadboi atmosphere without fully committing to drowning the production in reverb. And yet, none of this marks a radical departure from what In Mourning has done before—has been doing since 2008. The crucial difference here is in execution: every compositional choice seems to land exactly where it should be. In a sense, this calls attention to the role of probability, as much as inspiration or songcraft, in composition. Some records feel blessed from the outset, where one can go through the same process again and never produce the same results. The hooks here stick without feeling forced, climaxes are perfectly placed, and the pacing across the record gives each track room to breathe while contributing to the kind of flow reserved for only the best albums. Even moments that might feel familiar hit differently on The Immortal, like everything snaps into place. The Immortal succeeds, then, not just on craft but on feel: it feels heavier, sadder, and more resonant than its predecessors; and it stands comfortably among the strongest melodic death metal releases in years.
#1: Calva Louise // Edge of the Abyss [July 11th, 2025 | Mascot Records | Bandcamp] — Edge of the Abyss ran away with my listening this year in a way I genuinely don’t remember happening before, and that probably tells you most of what you need to know. The record is frantic, restless, and overloaded with ideas, moving between genres and feels with the speed of fast-cut editing; shifting at the drop of a dime. That both makes the record fun to listen to and keeps it surprising and fresh even after dozens of listens. The pace and density line up uncannily well with where my own brain tends to live, and I suspect that’s a part of why it lodged itself so firmly in my rotation. Calva Louise writes songs that feel driven by impulse and curiosity rather than caution or genre boundaries, and that creative energy and freedom are contagious. Jess Allanic’s pop instincts and melodic sense anchor the chaos, lending the lighter passages real emotional weight and memorability, rather than merely serving as connective tissue. Edge of the Abyss’s incorporation of Latin rhythmic elements and melodic sensibilities ended up also being a personal bonus; Latin music has been a refuge for me from musical monotony for years, and hearing them integrated naturally into Edge of the Abyss was exciting, and it generated affection for this wayward Venezuelan and her French and English bandmates. What really sealed the deal for me, though, was how committed the band sounds to its vision. The songwriting is ambitious and fun, but it doesn’t feel scattered. The album has a cinematic feel – complemented by literally cinematic music videos – but doesn’t feel bloated or melodramatic. And Calva Louise sports a swagger unique to bands who are just doing exactly what they want to be doing. Since July, I’ve kept coming back to Edge of the Abyss and forgetting I had even enjoyed other records this year. There’s a real sense of becoming here; of a band pulling its influences together into something that feels unique. And I also feel invested in Calva Louise in a way I haven’t been with many bands. I really am so happy to see them growing and succeeding. I love seeing them landing on people’s lists here and elsewhere. They have so much potential, and I am so eager to see what they do next. But should the worst befall them, I’ll always have Edge of the Abyss, and it already feels like an all-timer.
Honorable Mentions
Sarastus // Agony Eternal [July 1st, 2025 | Dominance of Darkness Records | Bandcamp] — Stolen from me by one Kenstrosity, Sarastus was a joyous discovery by me in the depths of the promo bin. One part black metal with a touch of death n’ roll for vibes, Agony Eternal strikes hard at modern conventions of black metal and sounds fresh by playing fast, unapologetic, engaging music with razor-sharp riffs. Melodic, without being sickly sweet or cheesy, with a ton of attack and great songwriting chops, Sarastus really threads the needle on Agony Eternal, making something that is driven and addictive, but undeniably black metal.
Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations [July 4th, 2025 | Bad Omen | Bandcamp] — I’ve been back and forth with Wytch Hazel in the past. I have enjoyed what they do, but in the past I’ve been more skeptical of specifically nostalgiacore records that don’t feel like they’re adding much “new.” First, I think I’m just getting past that problem, as the “new” in metal is emphasizing things I don’t love about the scene. But second, I think V: Lamentations is just a more engaging record. From the word ‘go,’ Wytch Hazel writes with a kind of urgency that gives their brand of ’70s-tinged metal an extra kick, and the energy sits so well with me. Maybe the songwriting is just a bit tighter, maybe it’s faster, I don’t know—I didn’t write the proper review. All I know is that I keep circling back to Lamentations in a way that I haven’t done as much with their earlier albums. And that made it easy to put in the running for Listurnalia and to give my personal Angry Stamp o’ Approval™.
Mors Principium Est // Darkness Invisible [September 26th, 2025 | Perception/Reigning Phoenix Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — Probably the grower of the year, Darkness Invisible surprised me by sticking around. When I started reviewing it, I expected not to like it much. I had been a big fan of the band’s previous output and of their former guitarist’s solo record from last year. But with familiarity—and time spent dissecting it—I became increasingly impressed with the album. While the production is busy and pulls it down, the writing forges a new path that better represents the vision of MPE’s founding member, Ville Viljanen. And that vision is bleak, blackened, and surprisingly sticky. No matter your opinion on the end of the previous incarnation, Darkness Invisible at least demonstrates that there is still a vital future for Finland’s most underrated melodic death metal powerhouse. And that’s a future to which I look forward.
Blackbraid // Blackbraid III [August 8th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — I have a Gollumesque distaste for modern black metal. I am physically incapable of starting a review or blurb of a black metal band without reminding readers how much I hate “atmosphere” in the post-Cascadian black metal era. “Give it to us raw and wriggling!” I growl at all the fat hobbitses who try to feed me empty, overcooked “atmosphere.” Blackbraid doesn’t want to feed me atmosphere. Instead, Blackbraid’s III trembles with a vibe that brings me back to discovering black metal; at times blistering, at times introspective, but rarely overstaying its welcome and never feeling like its primary goal is to be the band that defanged black metal for good to make it okay to listen to for kids in the suburbs. I’ll be listening to III for a long time.
Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria — This record is too long. It’s got too much hype among the staff. And also, it’s too damned good to be an honorable mention. And yet, there are only so many #(ish)es, and I got to Beyond Obsidian Eurphoria too late to really give it the kind of sustained love that it needs to properly list. Still, once I started listening, I’ve been swinging past it every day. Sometimes twice. The songwriting is a bit wandering, the album is a bit overwhelming, and yet there is an undeniable vibe that Tómarúm traffics in, and that’s sneakily sticky. Combine that techy Death with something akin to Disillusion, and maybe you’ve got your comp. The only complaint I have is that some of the melodies end up intentionally arch in a way that makes me think that they are actively trying not to give the ear something to latch onto. That’s dumb, but it’s also very 2025. And hey, at least there’s a really easy trick for them to sell out with.
…and Oceans // The Regeneration Itinerary [May 23rd, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] —The Regeneration Itinerary was a lot more controversial among fans than I expected, but I really enjoyed it. As I wrote in May, “It’s always fun to watch bands defy Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™, and while The Regeneration Itinerary isn’t their best record yet, 30 years after their debut, …and Oceans is still releasing vital music that’s impossible to overlook.” And that’s just true facts as stated by a metal-knower. While not quite the tour de force of its predecessors, this record is a solid bit of weirdo black metal with some of the best art in the biz. I recommend it highly.
Haxprocess24 // Beyond What Eyes Can See [July 25th, 2025 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — Four songs, three of which are over 10 minutes long, and a combo of what I’d call post-Opeth songwriting with OSDM aesthetics, Beyond What Eyes Can See deserved more attention this year and ended up, instead, on my Stack o’ Shame™. This isn’t a reflection on them; they play vital death metal and deserve accolades for their expansive vision and the way everything flows. They just got eaten up by the July where everything got released. Sorry, boys, but here’s your fig leaf!
Majestica // Power Train [February 7th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Back in like 2008, I saw a band called ReinXeed play a whole bunch of covers of Swedish dance/electronica “group” E-Type at a Culture Night in Umeå. I remember hearing from people in the local scene that they were “big in Japan,” and I listened to some stuff, but wasn’t super moved by it at the time. In 2019, ReinXeed changed their name to Majestica and got signed to Nuclear Blast. And damnit if they aren’t just a lot better than they were in 2008. Power Train, which is on our collective Stack o’ Shame™, is the band’s third full-length under the moniker, and it rocks the same kind of sickly sweet melodies, guitar gymnastics, and general sense of fun that makes power metal my go-to genre a lot of days. While not quite as sticky and addictive as some other things higher up the list, Power Train was a solid addition to the band’s discography and one of the better power records I heard this year. You’ve come a long way, baby!
Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail [April 18th, 2025 | Willowtip Records | Bandcamp] — While not as high on this record as others on the staff, Dormant Ordeal is undeniably vital. And I’m just never going to write a better blurb than I did when they got Record o’ the Month for April: “This record hits a sweet spot inside of me, best described as the ‘oh yeah, that’s how death metal is done’ spot. The riffs flow, and my brain just opens up the spigots, releasing a veritable tsunami of dopamine. Every riff that cuts, every transition that seethes, and every recognition of the slick, skilled ways that these guys construct songs, I get a nice big kick of that Happy Chemical. Tooth and Nail is dynamic, punishing, aggressive, and better yet, it’s smart.” Man, that guy can write!
Aversed // Erasure of Color [March 25th, 2025 | M-Theory Audio | Bandcamp] — Last, and I guess technically least – but that isn’t taking into account that there were like 10,000 albums released in 2025 and there are only like 25 on this list – is Aversed’s Erasure of Color. Part of the reason for its late arrival is that, despite being our Record o’ the Month for March, Erasure of Color didn’t actually make it onto my personal playlist until quite a bit later. And damn, that was kind of a big miss on my part. Great melodeath with a unique flavor and great intensity; there’s something thoughtful and sharp about this record. Combine that with excellent album art and the Dolphin Whisperer seal of approval, and Erasure of Color has everything fans of melodeath need to carry them through this wasteland. I will need to keep my eyes on Aversed going forward.
#AndOceans #2025 #Aephanemer #AnAbstractIllusion #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish #ArjenLucassen #Aversed #Blackbraid #CalvaLouise #ChasingTheDragon #DormantOrdeal #EdgeOfTheAbyss #Fallujah #Haxprocess #HelmsDeep #Impureza #InMourning #Insania #IntenseIndifference #Kalaveraztekah #Majestica #MorsPrincipiumEst #PhantomSpell #Sarastus #Scardust #Tómarúm #Vittra #WytchHazel -
Alekhines Gun’s, ClarkKent’s and Owlswald’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 By Steel Druhm
Alekhines Gun
It’s genuinely surreal to be writing this article. This Gun found his whole life flipped upside down literally on New Year’s Eve, in a new town, a new state, unemployed, and with nothing to do but review. By God’s grace, I’ve managed to find an actual career in my new town, walking into a new industry with nothing on my resume but exuberance and enthusiasm.1 This blog, with its incredible set of writers who inspire me daily, and readership who prove endearing and exasperating in equal measure, has been a rare moment of consistency in a year filled with professional and personal uncertainty. I didn’t get to listen to nearly as many albums as I’d hoped to, thanks to this being such a transitional year for my life, and perhaps in years to come, I’ll look back on this list in annoyance. But for the moment, it stands as a monument of achievement; of personal growth and practical accomplishment, and I’m immensely grateful to every reader and commenter for being along with me on this journey.
My thanks to The Angry One for giving me a second chance in my n00b days when it became clear I didn’t understand the assignment; I hope you don’t regret your choice too much.2 Thanks to the main AMG staff for being so friendly and welcoming, especially Mystikus Hugebeard, Dear Hollow, Twelve, and Kenstrosity. My eternal fealty to Steel for enduring what I imagine was an unbearable amount of stupid questions and formatting issues as I got my sea legs under me, and continue to see how much I have yet to grow as a writer.
And lastly, all my love and an Eternal Hails to my Freezer Freak brethren – Tyme, Killjoy, Owlswald, and Clark Kent. You guys were the best n00b class a guy could ask to come up with, and it has been such a privilege to have been formally writing alongside the four of you this year and call you friends as well as colleagues. Cheers to many more.
#Ish: Phobocosm // Gateway – Late release or no, it only took one listen to know this was something I needed in my life. Unrelenting in its atmosphere and with a tone like being devoured by vampire bats, Gateway doesn’t want for a plethora of oppressive moments and maintains its bleakness with admirable consistency. With interludes that function more like proper instrumentals between the more heavy cuts, Phobocosm rotate between blunt force trauma and existential despair in equal measure, flattening brain marrow with kaiju-sized stomptastic riffs only to throw you haplessly into depressive and gloom-drenched melodies the next. The rare kind of death metal peak for a rainy day, open up the gate and let it take you on a journey you might not come back from.
#10: Ancient Death // Ego Dissolution – Ancient Death is a testimony to why you should always read our foul filter excavations. Boasting a styling of, dare I say, classier old school deathisms with a healthy dollop of melody and chuggathons for days, Ego Dissolution is a mighty slab indeed. Kenstrosity quite correctly heaped praise on this release for its rare tonal fusion of Death and The Chasm, and beyond that, it has excellently implemented clean vocals, subtle synth work to bolster doomier moments, and riffs which transition from bludgeoning to esoteric in a heartbeat. Solos are peak, as all good death requires, atmospheres are coated in muck and mire without being underproduced, and even the instrumental stands out as a solid step in the journey on offer. Ego Dissolution deserves better than being a footnote in the annals of filter history, representing a highbrow slab of quality in mood-setting while still offering up violence at every turn.
#9: Teitanblood // From the Visceral Abyss – These void-worshipers have crafted an album that straddles the line of black, death, and war metal so flawlessly that every trip to their abyss leaves me exhausted and battered, but utterly enthralled. A flawless fusion of riff and atmosphere in equal measure, every ingredient from the militant drumming to the cacophonous vocals is a means to an end, and whether you’re in it more for the former or the latter is entirely irrelevant. Few albums manage to transcend being a collection of tracks into being a completed whole body of work so smoothly, and From the Visceral Abyss does so with blackened bile pouring through pounding through its poisoned veins. Disconcerting in its antagonism yet enthralling in the exactness of its vision, Teitanblood remains an auditory scrying mirror into the deepest pits that we were never meant to gaze upon.
#8: Imperial Triumphant // Goldstar – Goldstar is exactly what I had hoped for after the excessively out-there of their previous release: A more riff-centric album, which only just scales down the weird to let the approachability shine through like bait on the unsuspecting listener. To be sure, the alien Gorguts and Voivodisms remain, but this album takes a flavor similar to Alphaville3 and it builds its progressivism on the bones of licks and riffs which don’t take twenty listens to decipher before their foundation is made clear. Virtuoso musicianship remains at a peak, but as the tagline “Nine Class ‘A’ Songs” suggests, Imperial Triumphant have opted less to overwhelm the listener as much as flex on them, with fantastic results. A great introduction if you’re new to the band, and an enthralling listen for the jazz enthusiast and avant-garde black metal fan alike.
#7: Kalaveraztekah // Nikan Axkan – I underrated this a bit during the initial rodeo. While my complaints about the treble-heavy lack of bottom end remain, this is a masterfully composed record which continues to reveal new moments of wonder with each spin. Riffs designed to evoke thematic atmosphere and crush skulls in equal measure abound (“Nikan Axkan”) while remembering to summon the native beauty of the Aztec backdrop (“Yowaltekuhtli”) with skill. Lurching into Morbid Angel flirtations laced with delightful indigenous beats one minute and having haunting clean vocals drenched with horror and ritualism the next, this album is a whirlwind of a listen, a journey through primal soundscapes and human history meshed with technical prowess and grace. Hopefully someone picks them up soon, as they are well deserving of a bigger spotlight, and if you missed our rodeo on this release (shame on you) then you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.
#6: Labryinthus Stellarum // Rift in Reality – When I was very young, trancecore was one of the first “heavy” sounds I cut my teeth on, and consequently, my earballs feel right at home in these rifts. Impossibly catchy without being so simple as to offend my intelligence, and featuring electronics that have as much diversity and life in them as any guitar tone, Rift in Reality is a testimony that you can make techno and metal work on albums not named The Key. The blackened production stands in sharp contrast to the piercing, cosmic-echo cleanliness of the electronics, which are always spearheading the melodies but never at the cost of the full band’s heft and power. Spreading their songwriting wings a bit from the last release in more intricate melodies, a smattering of breakdowns, and heavier use of cleans has afforded Labryinthus Stellarum more personality than gimmickries, and I can’t wait to see where they go from here.
#5: Oskoreien // Hollow Fangs – It’s been a decent year for the more raw elements of black metal, but these fangs poisoned all who stood in their way. Somehow catchy in its simplicity yet not devoid of moving melodies, Hollow Fangs isn’t as much an innovation of the thing as much as the thing done at peak quality and skill. The cold tones reinforce the melancholy on display in the chord progressions, while the occasional leads sound more introspective than meandering despite their lack of raw noodlage. While I agree with the spirit of Owlswald‘s criticisms, I cannot deny that I continue to be drawn to this record despite its warts. Hollow Fangs has managed to set itself apart this year while not doing much out of the ordinary, containing that X factor that finds me reaching out to it over and over again.
#4: Blut Aus Nord // Ethereal Horizons – Like all good Blut Aus Nord albums, I had to let this album come to me, but once it did, it shows no signs of letting up. Somehow sidestepping the melodic trappings of the Memoria Vetusta series into something far more hypnotic yet no less deep in scope, Ethereal Horizons places all its stock on triumphant hypnosis. With nods to several chapters towards the band’s era in composition and production alike, the French kings use the building blocks of their dissonant works and claustrophobic atmospheres to construct something liberating and uplifting, with even the momentary bouts of darkness more atmospheric than truly grueling. I suspect we will find Ethereal Horizons to be an important stepping stone for the next chapter of blackened adventure. For now, adjust expectations away from whatever sequel you were hoping for in their litany of journeys and accept the new horizons showing just past the dawn.
#3: Cryptopsy // An Insatiable Violence – I was an admitted latecomer to the Cryptopsy brand, stumbling upon their excellent Book of Suffering EPs some years ago. Consequently, I’ve been a staunch defender of their modern era even as I dove backward into the classics and peculiarities. An Insatiable Violence smacks with a validation of all my affections, keeping the technical might while continuing to grow in groovy, melodic directions. True, I should have been a tad harder on the production of the drum tones than I was in my initial review, but tough tiddlywinks. From the sky-piercing beauty of the solo in the opening track “The Nimis Adoration” to the bookending body blow of “Malignant Needs,” this album remains a quality offering of the most elite of brutal death. Succinct in length but with twice the riff-to-minute factor, Cryptopsy stands supreme at the top of the more violent end of the musical spectrum this year.
#2: Messa // The Spin – While part of me deeply misses the droning elements and slightly crustier tone of Belfry, there’s no denying the spiritual journey this album takes me on with each listen. The embodiment of a grower, what begins as a somewhat underwhelming (compared to previous efforts) listen slowly unfurls itself to be an excellently realized, meticulously composed release. Look no further than album highlight “The Dress” for riffs that border more on twangy than “crushing” and yet pack the spirit of the doomiest doom in each measure. Vocalist Sara continues to up her harmonization game with double and triple-tracked melodies that reach right into my soul. Though The Spin is relatively light in guitar tone, each listen reveals a weight and power hidden from track to track, and the fantastic album closer “Thicker Blood” instinctively has me reaching out to replay the album as soon as it ends. Truly gorgeous.
#1: Aran Angmar // Ordo Diabolicum – Since plucking this record at random with no prior knowledge or expectations from the pit, Aran Angmar has stuck with me through professional and personal challenges and victories, tragedies and triumphs, in a manner befitting the greatest of Greek black metal. The harmonized leads in “Chariots of Fire” still dwell rent-free in my head, and the wailing clean vocals of the kickoff track “Dungeons of the Damned” still get my blood pumping every time. Excellent for cleaning your impossibly filthy house, working on a long overdue job project, or slaughtering your enemies by the hundreds in equal measure, Ordo Diabolicum is the sound of perseverance rewarded, of effort given and blood shed for a higher purpose, and actually witnessing the payoff with your own eyes. Sidestepping the tropes of evil for something so supremely triumphant is a move that has paid big dividends for this outfit, and while blackened to its core, few soundtracks have encouraged me to keep on keepin’ on like this has. A monstrous record to declare war on whatever oppresses you.
Honorable Mentions:
- Mutagenic Host // The Diseased Machine – Designed to reduce one’s gluteus maximus into a shape far more concave, this is a youthful release wise beyond its years in bringing the pain and infecting all in its wake.
- Qrixkuor // The Womb of the World – Bringing in an actual symphonic performance has somehow rendered this cavernous sound even more daunting. At once engaging and uncomfortable, this is an album for those who find beauty in the most repulsive of darkened shrines.
ClarkKent
When I first discovered the Angry Metal Guy blog back in 2021,4 it was during a period of transition in my life, as COVID spurred a career transition out of teaching and, eventually, into data analytics. At the time, my metal tastes were limited to more well-known acts like Metallica and Iron Maiden, with forays into Opeth, Enslaved, and Ayreon. Boy, did this blog expand my horizon. Between taking online classes and staying home with my two kids, I devoured AMG reviews and dove into the vast ocean of metal acts that both the writers and commenters introduced me to. And then, when Angry Metal Guy put out the casting call later that year, I was out of a job and always wanted to be a writer, so I thought, Why not? Little did I know this decision would see me stored in a freezer for four long years. Thankfully, when I thawed out last year, it was with four great guys who all kept each other sane during our n00bship: Alekhines Gun, Tyme, Killjoy, and Owlswald. I’m happy to have had their camaraderie and friendship, and I’m stoked that all five of us were demoted to staff writers. I am also grateful to Steel Druhm and Angry Metal Guy for bringing me aboard, despite my horrid taste, and to Dolphin Whisperer and Maddog for their helpful tips and feedback on my drafts. As Steel would say, you guys were gentle, yet brutal, and in the best possible way. With 2025 proving a stressful year, largely due to increasing work demands, listening to promos and writing reviews has proven a helpful outlet. I’m looking forward to an awesome 2026.
#ish. Bloodletter // Leave the Light Behind — While staying true to their melothrash sound, Bloodletter continues to improve in their songwriting year after year. This is easily their best and my favorite thrash record of the year, in a year where not much thrash really stood out to me. The tight songwriting, the energy, and the melodic leads are all top-notch, and this one stands up even after repeated spins.
#10. Wings of Steel // Winds of Time — This was one of my favorite reviews to write in 2025. Not just because the album was big and fun, with big bombastic numbers like the opening song “Winds of Time,” or tight and speedy cuts like “Saints and Sinners,” or ballads like “Crying,” or my song of the year, “Flight of the Eagle.” It gave me the rare opportunity to write fart jokes and the even rarer chance to “steal” a promo from Steel. So many throwback classic metal bands sound like they belong in that older time, but Wings of Steel sound timeless—they could belong in the new and the then all at the same time.
#9. Besna // Krásno — While I’m not typically drawn to post-metal, Besna’s Krásno proves an exception. The harsh guitar tones and vocals provide an alluring contrast with the catchy melodic tremolos. Despite its brief length, this is a surprisingly progressive album. Each song reveals a beauty to Besna’s songwriting and musicianship, and that album art is gorgeous, to boot. I love everything Besna does here, and this proved to be just the beginning of what was a strong start to 2025.
#8. Green Carnation // A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores of Melancholia — I’m glad Doc Grier introduced Green Carnation to me when Leaves of Yesteryear topped his 2020 list. I love this band, and this record is no exception. It has six tracks of pure earworm and ends up being one of the catchiest albums of the year. These guys know how to write songs that make you feel good and want to dance and sing along to. What’s more exciting is that this is the first of a planned trilogy, so hopefully that means we don’t have to wait long for the next one.
#7. Phantom Spell // Heather and Hearth — Heather and Hearth is like a time machine, one taking you back to ’70s era prog. Man, it’s a lot of fun. It’s catchy and bright—a shining beacon amidst a horde of brutal, violent metal. This is packed to the gills with hooks, from spry riffs to feel-good synths to memorable choruses. Metal rarely puts a smile on your face without sounding like cheesy power metal à la Fellowship, but Phantom Spell does it here. Apparently, this kind of bright and cheery metal was just what I needed this year, and it proved a nice summer balm.
#6. Atlantic // Timeworn — When I first listened to this earlier in the year, I just assumed it was the work of an established, well-known band. So it was a surprise to learn Timeworn was actually the debut from a relative newcomer in Callan Hoy. Something about 2025 has drawn me towards these uplifting albums that burst with good feelings and catchy melodies. For the 34 minutes I spend with this, I just get lost in the currents of the tremolos and blast beats and, at least for a moment, live in a world of calm and bliss.
#5. In the Woods… // Otra — This sort of melodic, catchy metal is my kryptonite. In the Woods… plays the kind of songs that get lodged in my brain, and I start whistling them while doing my grocery shopping, drawing funny looks. I’d never heard of these guys until Grier’s review earlier this year, and now I’m thinking maybe I should dive into their back catalog. More worryingly, this is the second album on my list that Grier gave a glowing review for. That means either he actually has good taste, or my taste is just as bad as his.
#4. Oromet // The Sinking Isle — If I had a time machine, I’d go back and rate this one a little higher. This isn’t a “marathon” like some of Bell Witch’s records, nor a piece of crushing funeral doom, nor one that makes extensive use of silence. It is introspective, full of surprises, and melodic. It also came at a period in my life when work was particularly stressful. Playing this helped provide me with some solace and calm as I took in the beautiful compositions. These guys have a bright future ahead of them.
#3. Deafheaven // Lonely People with Power — After the misstep that was Infinite Granite, it’s nice to see Deafheaven back to form. I was ready to write them off, but thanks to Doom_et_Al’s impassioned words, I excitedly dove in. I’m glad I did. I now know their form of shoegaze-y black metal is divisive among metal fans (I was clueless about this fact when I first discovered them), but I don’t care, and I still love it. It’s just so easy to get lost in those lush guitar tones and harsh rasps. It’s tough to pick out any one tune as a standout because it’s the experience of the record as a whole that is so rewarding.
#2. In Mourning // The Immortal — This is a remarkable piece of melodic progressive death. I hadn’t heard of In Mourning until Kenstrosity and the other AMG staffers started talking them up ahead of this release. It seems I’ve really missed out and need to fix that. The Immortal is just about perfect. From song craft to musical performances, these guys nail it. From the beautiful guitar tones to the excellent combo of clean and harsh vox to the memorable melodies, The Immortal is an emotional tour de force that grows more majestic with each spin.
#1. Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria — When I first moved away from more mainstream metal acts, it was progressive death bands like Tómarúm that drew me in. Opeth, Between the Buried and Me, Enslaved, and Ayreon opened up my ears to the reward of listening to songs that reveal new layers and depth with repeated listening. Each year, one or two prog death records climb high in my rankings, and this year that mantle belongs to Tómarúm. This record is massive, and the more time I spend with it, the more depths I plumb, and I find that it contains never-ending riches. There are just so many surprises—the technicality, the speed, the melodies—even some flutes! As great as the debut was, these guys have only gotten better and have earned a spot as one of my current favorites in the genre, along with Iotunn and Dvne. This is the kind of album I love to get lost in—it’s pure bliss.
Honorable Mentions
- Empyrean Sanctum // Detachment from Reality — This passion project from Justin Kellerman may not have impressed my Rodeo-mates as much as me, but I strongly connected with it due to dynamic songwriting and inspired performances.
- Skaldr // Samsr — This was initially a lot higher on my list, but it didn’t hold up as well as it did back in January. Still, it’s a remarkable bit of melodic black metal and good enough to rank as among the best of 2025.
- Aephenamer // Utopie — Melodic and symphonic metal with superb songwriting? Sign me up. This latest from Aephenamer is just so dynamic and fun, and it’s another great effort from a reliably high-quality group. The last couple of songs are absolute beauties.
- An Abstract Illusion // The Sleeping City — This may not be as strong as their older stuff, but it’s still incredibly moving. The introduction of synths charts a new direction for the band, but they make it work with some gorgeous atmospherics.
Songs o’ the Year
1. Wings of Steel — “Flight of the Eagle” 2. Lord of the Lost — “One of Us Will Be Next” 3. In the Woods — “Let Me Sing” 4. Hanging Garden — “Morgan’s Trail” 5. Fer de Lance — “Fires on the Mountainside” 6. Tómarúm — “Shed this Erroneous Skin” 7. Green Carnation — “In Your Paradise” 8. Structure — “Will I Deserve It?” 9. Atlantic — “Voyages” 10. In Mourning — “Staghorn” 11. Dolven — “You’ve Chosen”
Owlswald
I’ve finally made it to the end of my first year on staff, culminating with my inaugural list. This time last year, I was deep in the throes of my n00bdom and watched from the dark confines of the dungeon as many of my Freezer Crew brethren shared their initial staff lists. And as stoked as I was for my mates, I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous that I was still toiling with cleanup detail as an unnamed shadow. But the wheel of ascent turns for us all. After a few more months surviving on table scraps and standing water, our Managing Ape unlocked my cage, releasing me at last into the aviary and the promised start of my pledged service bound labor.
Though my escape from the rookery took longer, that extended time was not without its merits. Reviewing is a skill that must be honed like any other, and although metal—and music generally—has been an essential part of my life since I was young, it has admittedly taken longer for me to truly articulate the “why.” Anyone can declare an album “good” or “bad,” but developing and communicating the rationale is an entirely different discipline. A discipline that I believe I have improved over my first year as a writer here, and one that I look forward to developing further with more time in the seat.
My thanks go out, first and foremost, to Steel and AMG Himself for granting me the opportunity to contribute to this very special, longstanding community and for the monumental trust they have placed in me. Specifically, the trust that I wouldn’t utterly trash the place—a faith I’ve done my best to test (More on one attempt below). I must also thank my fellow writers—both old and new, including those now in the annals of AMG—who I’ve read for years and whose work continues to inspire me. And last, but certainly not least, I thank all of you who read, comment and visit the site regularly. The reality that my thoughts command even a sliver of your precious time remains utterly surreal. For that connection, I am truly honored.
Taking this good energy and running with it, let’s get to the list!
#ish. Harvested // Dysthymia – I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me at the start of the year that my first list would be kicked off by an unsigned band. But here we are, and Harvested’s self-released debut, Dysthymia, deserves the honor because it fucking rules. Operating in the sweet spot between Decapitated and Cattle Decapitation, the album boasts one of the best guitar tones of the year. These Canadians flaunt a songwriting maturity that many veteran groups twice their age still haven’t found—a sound that is as bone-crushingly heavy as it is technically brutal. I have been spinning Dysthymia regularly since its release, and highlight tracks like “Unending Madness” and “Gathered and Deluded” make primo Heavy Moves Heavy additions.
#10. Jade // Mysteries of a Flowery Dream – Some albums demand the right conditions and the listener’s utmost attention to enjoy fully, and Jade’s Mysteries of a Flowery Dream is such a record. Though it took a while for their sophomore effort to envelop me in its dark, murky, and oscillating guise, I’m glad I remained patient because the payoff was huge. This Barcelonian quartet has created a sensory-rich listening experience that is as immersive as it is complex and dynamic, featuring superb songwriting intertwined with recurrent themes and soaring leads that ensure the album’s 43 minutes feel unified and purposeful. Achieving this level of cohesive, complex dynamism is a feat that is incredibly hard to execute well, which makes Mysteries of a Flowery Dream all the more impressive.
#9. Pillars of Cacophony // Paralipomena – Each year, one tech-death record usually carves out a spot on my list. Last year, Apogean’s Cyberstrictive set an incredibly high bar, taking album of the year honors with its near-perfect blend of hook-laden guitar maneuvers and groove-focused rhythms. While tech-death won’t be repeating as champion in 2025, Pillars of Cacophony are nonetheless representing the genre in a major way with Paralipomena. The album showcases multi-instrumentalist Dominik’s talents in crafting unsettling, unpredictable soundscapes filled with propulsive fretwork, dissonant phrases, and kinetic rhythmic patterns. Drawing directly from Dominik’s own research as a bioscientist, Paralipomena coils science with the aural might of death metal to create a record that is as conceptually authentic as it is musically captivating.
#8. King Witch // III – Doom—and more specifically stoner—has always been hit-or-miss to these ears. But on III, Scotland’s King Witch grabbed the best parts of the genre and compressed them into a Seattle-made mold of hard rock and grunge that immediately won me over. The album is the culmination of the group’s artistic evolution, combining the strong songwriting of their debut with the dynamic shifts of their follow-up. Guitarist Jamie Gilchrist and bassist Rory Lee assemble a sophisticated foundation of earthmoving, genre-bending riffs that perfectly augment the star power of vocalist Laura Donnelly, whose Chris Cornell-like range and Janis Joplin grit give the material undeniable power and command. The result is a sound that elevates III far beyond typical doom boundaries into one of the year’s best records.
#7. Agriculture // The Spiritual Sound – I initially missed Agriculture’s self-titled debut and follow-up EP, so The Spiritual Sound was my first introduction to this Californian black metal outfit. But after months of having this record on constant rotation—and seeing their live show—I can confidently conclude they are one of the most innovative and unique black metal groups operating right now. Self-dubbed as “ecstatic black metal,” Agriculture shatters convention by challenging the dark extremity of the genre with a patchwork of math rock, shoegaze, noise, and folk influences. Powered by Leah Levinson’s manic, shifting vocals and inventive guitar work from Dan Meyer and Richard Chowenhill, The Spiritual Sound is a genre-defying record that is both unpredictable and intensely authentic.
#6. Cryptopsy // An Insatiable Violence – Outside of my admiration for fellow drummer extraordinaire Flo Mounier, I have to admit that I had more or less forgotten about Cryptopsy after 2012’s self-titled album. Thanks to my fellow Freezer Crew brother Alekhines Gun, I gave them another go, and An Insatiable Violence hit me like a ton of bricks, forcing me to quickly figure out how to start begging these Canadians for forgiveness. From Matt McGachy’s unique, manic screams to Mounier’s pummeling gravity blasts and double-bass to Christian Donaldson’s “waltz-rooted chuggathons” and fret noises, every aspect of An Insatiable Violence is crystal clear, full of groove and hits like a fucking tank. Needless to say, I won’t be making the same mistake twice, and these death metal legends now have my full attention again.
#5. …and Oceans // The Regeneration Itinerary – Being a longtime fan of these multifarious Finns, I rejoiced when they returned from an extended hiatus in 2020 with Cosmic World Mother. Yet, as strong as that album—and follow-up As in Gardens, So in Tombs—was, it didn’t have the same symphonic and eclectic oomph as The Dynamic Gallery of Thoughts or The Symmetry of I – The Circle of O. Much to my pleasure, The Regeneration Itinerary is a riveting return to form for …and Oceans, returning to their symphonic, frenetic and blackened sound of yore while maintaining the incisiveness of their modern form. This album is peppered with their classic trademarks, and “Prophetical Mercury Implement” is the best song the group has written in decades. After taking a couple of albums to get their groove back, The Regeneration Itinerary is evidence that …and Oceans has found it again.
#4. Messa // The Spin – Messa’s fourth full-length marks the second doom record on my list (and the second led by a badass frontwoman). On The Spin, Messa continues to evolve their progressive identity, imbuing their sound with flavors of 80’s dark post-punk and gothic rock that evoke the haunting architecture of early Killing Joke. While Sara’s vocals may not possess the same boisterous power as Laura Donnelly’s, her spellbinding presence and seductive delivery make The Spin simply irresistible. Guitarist Alberto complements Sara’s bewitching and buttery croons with sparkling arpeggios and overdriven solos steeped heavily in the classic occult groups of the ’70s. It’s clear Messa is operating on a completely different level than their peers, and I can’t get enough of The Spin.
#3. Buried Realm // The Dormant Darkness – You always remember your first. Buried Realm’s The Dormant Darkness was my first full review on staff, a record that I am forever grateful Twelve decided to waive his seniority over and allow my newly-clipped wings to review because it ended up surprising the hell out of me. Josh Dummer’s technical melodeath project came out firing on all cylinders with its third album, upping the virtuosity with a slew of new guests. It is full of highlights, memorable hooks, and technically impressive solos and is a non-stop blast. In fact, I loved The Dormant Darkness so much that I committed the cardinal sin of breaking the score counter immediately—an action that can quickly get one thrown into the woodchipper of despair. Luckily, I am still here to tell the tale, and now I have my love of The Dormant Darkness to show for it.
#2. Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria – If there was ever a year for me to look for a #1A/#1B scenario, this would have been it, as I floundered back and forth between this album and my #1 pick. Chalk it up to indecision or whatever you must, but ultimately, one can’t go wrong with either in this instance. In short, Tómarúm’s Beyond Obsidian Euphoria is long-form progressive death metal greatness. Razor-sharp technicality, sparkling melodicism, and excellent songwriting form a weighty spirit that counterbalances crushing heft with airy refrains that move and flow seamlessly across its rewarding 70-minute runtime. There isn’t much more I can say here that Sponge-fren Ken‘s aptly penned review didn’t capture already, outside of stating that Tómarúm‘s opus is as close to perfect in both structure and execution as one can get. To put it simply, it’s a triumph.
#1. In Mourning // The Immortal – Speaking of perfection, In Mourning have achieved such a standard with their latest melodeath offering, The Immortal. After our Almighty Overlord listened to The Immortal following the flurry of votes the record received for August’s Record O’ the Month, he responded with a few choice words that captured my thoughts about the album succinctly: “Damn…” he said. “They nailed this. Well, that’s easy.” But I think that is even an understatement for how incredibly awesome this album is, and, doing one better, I don’t think many have grasped it yet, either. With their seventh album, these Swedes have found the perfect combination of their patented Opethian death metal chuggery, sadboi melodies, and creative dynamism, resulting in a sound rich in emotional depth with more digestible hooks than one can handle. I’m talking hooks—both riffs and vocal melodies—that dig deep into your psyche and never let go. They connect on a different level—a telltale sign we’re dealing with a classic. A decade from now, when In Mourning has hopefully amassed an even deeper discography, should the question arise—”What is the most essential melodeath album of the last ten years?”—I’m willing to bet The Immortal will be the resounding answer.
Honorable Mentions
- Mutagenic Host // The Diseased Machine – I miss Edge of Sanity with a passion, but Mutagenic Host’s The Diseased Machine is helping stem my longing—at least temporarily. These newcomers kicked off 2025 with an absolutely filthy dose of death metal that hasn’t stopped invading my playlist.
- Abigail Williams // A Void Within Existence – While 2019’s Walk Beyond the Dark was one hell of a record, A Void Within Existence may very well surpass it. Drummer Mike Heller codifies the attack, as Ken Sorceron and company unleash an all-out assault of crushing weight and unrelenting groove.
- Bianca // Bianca – Despite its late arrival hindering its consideration for a higher ranking, these Italians clearly have something special brewing with their self-titled debut. An enchanting mix of ethereality and chilling blackened soundscapes that is worth hearing immediately.
- Ambush // Evil in All Dimensions – Heavy metal group Ambush lived up to their name when they absolutely ambushed my ears and eyes with their nostalgic blend of 80’s Maiden, Priest, and Helloween, replete with their oh-so-tight fashion. Vocalist Oskar Jacobsson is poised to be the genre’s next colossal talent. Remember—you heard it here first.
- Fallujah // Xenotaph – Following the heavily criticized 2019 effort, Undying Light, it took six years for these tech-death masters to regroup and recalibrate. But Fallujah delivered a massive surprise with Xenotaph, easily one of their strongest—and best sounding—records to date. Here’s to hoping this reinvigorated momentum holds true.
Song o’ the Year
Ambush // “Bending the Steel” – This surprise pick eventually knocked …and Oceans’ “Prophetical Mercury Implement” from the top spot. It’s a brilliant piece of songwriting that would have immediately launched this act to superstardom had it only been released four decades earlier. 100% nostalgia and cold, hard steel.
#AndOceans #2025 #AbigailWilliams #Aephenamer #Agriculture #AlekhinesGunS #Ambush #AnAbstractIllusion #AncientDeath #AranAngmar #Atlantic #Besna #Bianca #BlogLists #Bloodletter #BlutAusNord #BuriedRealm #ClarkKentSAndOwlswaldSTopTenIshOf2025 #Cryptopsy #Deafheaven #EmpyreanSanctum #Fallujah #GreenCarnation #Harvested #ImperialTriumphant #InMourning #InTheWoods #Jade #Kalaveraztekah #KingWitch #LabryinthusStellarum #Lists #Messa #MutagenicHost #Oromet #Oskoreien #PhantomSpell #Phobocosm #PillarsOfCacophony #Skaldr #Teitanblood #Tómarúm #WingsOfSteel -
Record(s) o’ the Month – June 2025
By Angry Metal Guy
As we inch inexorably closer to relevance and timeliness, we must first cross the fallow fields of June. A weird month, June was differentiated by the sheer number of recommendations that I received from the staff. Some months will see the Groupthink kick in, and everyone will vote for the same three albums. But June had no clear standout. Instead, it had a raft of yeah, I like that! That said, the longer I’ve spent with the records that were released in June, the more I have enjoyed almost all of the recommendations. Some of them unexpectedly. That there were so many recommendations has meant that I have had to take my time. But at last, the time has come…
You guys remember that time when we had a big kerfuffle with the guy who produced The Flesh Prevails? That’s the last time that I can clock that a Fallujah record really hit home for me. As much as I adored their debut, Fallujah’s post-gettin’-big material has largely left me cold. I’m not even sure I remember listening to 2022’s Empyrean until prepping for this. Xenotaph—out June 13th, 2025, from Nuclear Blast Records [Bandcamp]—is different. With a vibe that screams Traced in Air, but with a willingness to push into the realms of death metal that made Fallujah a household name,1 Xenotaph hits genuinely different. Sounding something more akin to reunion-era Cynic works for them because it’s technically appealing, it’s melodically sexy, and it doesn’t undermine their strengths. It enhances them. While The Harvest Wounds did have a vaguely atmospheric backing, the guitars and drums had bite, and the whole album didn’t have the dreamlike quality that came to define their follow-ups. While the increasingly atmospheric vibe undermined the band’s sound for me, Xenotaph—which features more guitar attack than any record of theirs since their debut, probably—benefits from the dreamy qualities, giving it a surreal, progressive feel that flows with the album art, the dynamic vocal performances, and interesting composition. Yet, the reintroduction of attack on the guitars and the more consistent compositional dynamics make Xenotaph feel heavier and more immediate than anything I’ve heard from these Bay Area death metallers in a long time. The deeper I dig into Xenotaph, the stronger it feels. Dolphin Whisperer noted—in a newborn baby-induced fugue state—that the album benefits from borderline-conceptual interlinkages between songs and “endless and lush guitar layers that scaffold the composition on Xenotaph and make it a rewarding, repeatable listen.” That’s unusually understated for a Record o’ the Month review. So let me hyperbolize: Fallujah has achieved a conceptual evolution on Xenotaph that feels true to their origins and yet develops their sound in ways that make it accessible, and yet, truly unique. Said differently, Fallujah’s sellout has been well executed, and I’m here for it.2
Runner(s) Up:
Insania // The Great Apocalypse [June 13th, 2025 | Frontiers Music | Stream on Tidal] — I was surprised when I started listening to Insania’s The Great Apocalypse and found myself increasingly invested in it. At first, it was the kind of record that felt familiar—a solid Good! on the rating scale, something that scratched an itch and amused me—but with time, I came to see so much more. Too much of the response to this album has been to write it off as either derivative or rote power metal, but a deep dive tells a different story. The Great Apocalypse finds a band that’s developing its sound, using decades of experience, and branching out slowly but surely. This becomes increasingly true as the album continues. A bit like T/L’s Rhapsody, this record starts in the familiar and becomes increasingly adventurous and interesting as it goes on—with particularly elevated guitarwork throughout. But I don’t need to justify my love for The Great Apocalypse by saying it’s more than it is perceived to be. Because it is also a very good Europower record from a band that cut its teeth decades ago and has reawakened full of piss, vinegar, and addictive hockey rock choruses that you won’t forget for days. To quote an earlier, extremely excited version of AMG Myself, “by playing to form and yet resisting predictability, The Great Apocalypse finds Insania sounding like a band that knows the rules so well that they don’t have to break them; they subvert them. While earlier albums felt a bit paint-by-numbers, added nuance and increasing sophistication have propelled Insania into a different tier: one that’s ambitious, confident, and, at times, even profound.”3
Cryptopsy // An Insatiable Violence [June 20th, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Remember when a Cryptopsy release was the biggest deal in the metal scene since the last Cryptopsy release? It’s been a while. And yet An Insatiable Violence is a reminder that Cryptopsy is still very sorry for whatever it was they tried to do, and actually, they’re still really fucking good. Maybe they’ve gotten better. At first pass, An Insatiable Violence feels like a continuation of 13 years of Cryptopsy paying penance for an album no one liked while proving they can still rip with the best of them. But the longer you sit with An Insatiable Violence, the more it comes into focus as something greater: 38 minutes that deliberately weave together every era of Cryptopsy, from the bone-grinding grooves and whirwind savagery of their early days to flashes of melody and subtle nods to avant-garde detours. As some fucking guy who I’ve never heard of before (Alekhines Gun?4) wrote with an obvious excess of pathos that makes me wonder whether he’s a fit for what we do around here: “For the last decade plus, Cryptopsy have enhanced their skillset, honed their compositions, and fine-tuned their performances into the giants they used to be. An Insatiable Violence is engaging, bloodthirsty, frantic, and most importantly, an excellent release from a granddaddy band who are here to remind any that there truly is none so vile.”
Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon [June 20th, 2025 | Nameless Grave Records | Bandcamp] — American power metal was on a lot of lips in June. Alas, everyone was talking about one band with great music, but who struggled to stick the landing. On the other hand, not enough people were talking about the album that literally has a dragon with a fucking jetpack on the cover, as well as a vocalist who can both cheese and hit notes when doing his US Power Metal Obligatory Falsetto Wail™. Whether evoking Mötely Crüe (“Cursed”) or Rata Blanca (“Craze of the Vampire”), Helms Deep does it all with the kind of charm and pizzazz that is undeniable. Chasing the Dragon exudes a certain charisma, what the kids would call “rizz,” but also has a righteously old school production job—in style, if not in DR Score—that makes me feel like I’m listening to a dubbed tape that my brother’s buddy’s older brother recorded for us. But all of this is window dressing on a record that is chock full of genuinely good guitar work, fun writing, and the kind of Drinking a PBR and Headbanging with My People energy that metal has increasingly lost as listeners and practitioners have become invested in Being Taken Very Seriously as Artists.5 As a-guy-who-definitely-is-not-Superman wrote, unchecked by journalistic ethics or a desire to be circumspect and humble in his opining: “Within the belly of this dragon is a great album. I immensely enjoyed my time with Chasing the Dragon, which has a modern sound that is clearly dedicated to its influences without ripping them off. Sciortino has created a magical project. If Helms Deep can combine their balls-to-the-wall energy with some discipline, their next album could be a monster.” Point taken, it’s long, but Chasing the Dragon is already a monster. A winged, armored, fire-breathing monster wearing a fucking jet pack!
#2025 #AnInsatiableViolence #AngryMetalGuy #BlogPost #ChasingTheDragon #Cryptopsy #Empyrean #Fallujah #HelmsDeep #Insania #Jun25 #RecordSOTheMonth #RecordsOfTheMonth #TheFleshPrevails #TheGreatApocalypse #Xenotaph
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Record(s) o’ the Month – June 2025
By Angry Metal Guy
As we inch inexorably closer to relevance and timeliness, we must first cross the fallow fields of June. A weird month, June was differentiated by the sheer number of recommendations that I received from the staff. Some months will see the Groupthink kick in, and everyone will vote for the same three albums. But June had no clear standout. Instead, it had a raft of yeah, I like that! That said, the longer I’ve spent with the records that were released in June, the more I have enjoyed almost all of the recommendations. Some of them unexpectedly. That there were so many recommendations has meant that I have had to take my time. But at last, the time has come…
You guys remember that time when we had a big kerfuffle with the guy who produced The Flesh Prevails? That’s the last time that I can clock that a Fallujah record really hit home for me. As much as I adored their debut, Fallujah’s post-gettin’-big material has largely left me cold. I’m not even sure I remember listening to 2022’s Empyrean until prepping for this. Xenotaph—out June 13th, 2025, from Nuclear Blast Records [Bandcamp]—is different. With a vibe that screams Traced in Air, but with a willingness to push into the realms of death metal that made Fallujah a household name,1 Xenotaph hits genuinely different. Sounding something more akin to reunion-era Cynic works for them because it’s technically appealing, it’s melodically sexy, and it doesn’t undermine their strengths. It enhances them. While The Harvest Wounds did have a vaguely atmospheric backing, the guitars and drums had bite, and the whole album didn’t have the dreamlike quality that came to define their follow-ups. While the increasingly atmospheric vibe undermined the band’s sound for me, Xenotaph—which features more guitar attack than any record of theirs since their debut, probably—benefits from the dreamy qualities, giving it a surreal, progressive feel that flows with the album art, the dynamic vocal performances, and interesting composition. Yet, the reintroduction of attack on the guitars and the more consistent compositional dynamics make Xenotaph feel heavier and more immediate than anything I’ve heard from these Bay Area death metallers in a long time. The deeper I dig into Xenotaph, the stronger it feels. Dolphin Whisperer noted—in a newborn baby-induced fugue state—that the album benefits from borderline-conceptual interlinkages between songs and “endless and lush guitar layers that scaffold the composition on Xenotaph and make it a rewarding, repeatable listen.” That’s unusually understated for a Record o’ the Month review. So let me hyperbolize: Fallujah has achieved a conceptual evolution on Xenotaph that feels true to their origins and yet develops their sound in ways that make it accessible, and yet, truly unique. Said differently, Fallujah’s sellout has been well executed, and I’m here for it.2
Runner(s) Up:
Insania // The Great Apocalypse [June 13th, 2025 | Frontiers Music | Stream on Tidal] — I was surprised when I started listening to Insania’s The Great Apocalypse and found myself increasingly invested in it. At first, it was the kind of record that felt familiar—a solid Good! on the rating scale, something that scratched an itch and amused me—but with time, I came to see so much more. Too much of the response to this album has been to write it off as either derivative or rote power metal, but a deep dive tells a different story. The Great Apocalypse finds a band that’s developing its sound, using decades of experience, and branching out slowly but surely. This becomes increasingly true as the album continues. A bit like T/L’s Rhapsody, this record starts in the familiar and becomes increasingly adventurous and interesting as it goes on—with particularly elevated guitarwork throughout. But I don’t need to justify my love for The Great Apocalypse by saying it’s more than it is perceived to be. Because it is also a very good Europower record from a band that cut its teeth decades ago and has reawakened full of piss, vinegar, and addictive hockey rock choruses that you won’t forget for days. To quote an earlier, extremely excited version of AMG Myself, “by playing to form and yet resisting predictability, The Great Apocalypse finds Insania sounding like a band that knows the rules so well that they don’t have to break them; they subvert them. While earlier albums felt a bit paint-by-numbers, added nuance and increasing sophistication have propelled Insania into a different tier: one that’s ambitious, confident, and, at times, even profound.”3
Cryptopsy // An Insatiable Violence [June 20th, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — Remember when a Cryptopsy release was the biggest deal in the metal scene since the last Cryptopsy release? It’s been a while. And yet An Insatiable Violence is a reminder that Cryptopsy is still very sorry for whatever it was they tried to do, and actually, they’re still really fucking good. Maybe they’ve gotten better. At first pass, An Insatiable Violence feels like a continuation of 13 years of Cryptopsy paying penance for an album no one liked while proving they can still rip with the best of them. But the longer you sit with An Insatiable Violence, the more it comes into focus as something greater: 38 minutes that deliberately weave together every era of Cryptopsy, from the bone-grinding grooves and whirwind savagery of their early days to flashes of melody and subtle nods to avant-garde detours. As some fucking guy who I’ve never heard of before (Alekhines Gun?4) wrote with an obvious excess of pathos that makes me wonder whether he’s a fit for what we do around here: “For the last decade plus, Cryptopsy have enhanced their skillset, honed their compositions, and fine-tuned their performances into the giants they used to be. An Insatiable Violence is engaging, bloodthirsty, frantic, and most importantly, an excellent release from a granddaddy band who are here to remind any that there truly is none so vile.”
Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon [June 20th, 2025 | Nameless Grave Records | Bandcamp] — American power metal was on a lot of lips in June. Alas, everyone was talking about one band with great music, but who struggled to stick the landing. On the other hand, not enough people were talking about the album that literally has a dragon with a fucking jetpack on the cover, as well as a vocalist who can both cheese and hit notes when doing his US Power Metal Obligatory Falsetto Wail™. Whether evoking Mötely Crüe (“Cursed”) or Rata Blanca (“Craze of the Vampire”), Helms Deep does it all with the kind of charm and pizzazz that is undeniable. Chasing the Dragon exudes a certain charisma, what the kids would call “rizz,” but also has a righteously old school production job—in style, if not in DR Score—that makes me feel like I’m listening to a dubbed tape that my brother’s buddy’s older brother recorded for us. But all of this is window dressing on a record that is chock full of genuinely good guitar work, fun writing, and the kind of Drinking a PBR and Headbanging with My People energy that metal has increasingly lost as listeners and practitioners have become invested in Being Taken Very Seriously as Artists.5 As a-guy-who-definitely-is-not-Superman wrote, unchecked by journalistic ethics or a desire to be circumspect and humble in his opining: “Within the belly of this dragon is a great album. I immensely enjoyed my time with Chasing the Dragon, which has a modern sound that is clearly dedicated to its influences without ripping them off. Sciortino has created a magical project. If Helms Deep can combine their balls-to-the-wall energy with some discipline, their next album could be a monster.” Point taken, it’s long, but Chasing the Dragon is already a monster. A winged, armored, fire-breathing monster wearing a fucking jet pack!
#2025 #AnInsatiableViolence #AngryMetalGuy #BlogPost #ChasingTheDragon #Cryptopsy #Empyrean #Fallujah #HelmsDeep #Insania #Jun25 #RecordSOTheMonth #RecordsOfTheMonth #TheFleshPrevails #TheGreatApocalypse #Xenotaph
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Battle for the Ballot: Best Dramatic Presentation 2026
The two Best Dramatic Presentation categories are among my favourites in the Hugos, because I consume a lot of SFF media and have a lot of thoughts and feelings about them. Since my post last year about why I had wanted Loki S2 to win a Hugo in 2024 (which I was working on for a while but ended up not posting it in time for it to sway anyone), I’ve been toying with the idea of producing more writing around some of my favourite things from each year, in case it helps anybody—least of all me, in getting it all out of my system.
I know I’m posting this with one day to go before nominations (these take so long for me! I must develop a better system for next year 🤔), but I’m really writing this to sound out my own thoughts about the DP categories this year, because it is absolutely bananas with how stacked they both are. There have been some truly great speculative television shows and films, stuff that I’m sure we’ll still be talking about for years to come, and making decisions to boil my favourite media down to just 5 per category—especially given the fiddliness of Long Form and Short Form where TV is concerned, which I’ll get to in a sec—is going to be excruciatingly difficult for me.
So come along on a journey with me as I parse my thoughts, and who knows! Maybe I’ll argue my way to your heart about some of this, or tell you about something you hadn’t heard of before—some of which I’ve already written about before, but I’m getting ahead of myself!
Let me know what your ballot looks like, and if you’re nominating any of the below shows, films, and other dramatic works, or if you’re including other things entirely. I’m curious!
TV series and the Long Form/Short Form debate
A big question for many fen every year is “do I nominate one episode from a TV series that stands on its own or that adequately represents the show in Short Form, or do I nominate the whole season in Long Form because it’s one complete narrative, and isolating one chapter of it would be unfair?”
Understandably, it’s a tough one; when a show inevitably gets votes in both categories, it can lead to headaches for the Hugo Administrating Team as they have to sift through the numbers and ultimately decide which category it should be nominated in1, which I don’t envy at all. But at the same time, as a voter, I have to go with what my heart says and name my favourite episodes in Short Form, regardless of whether I’ve also named the show/season as a whole in Long Form, because if enough others have put that same episode down, then that’s what’ll make it through to the shortlist, and I would want my vote to count towards those totals.
All that to say: if you expected a clear stance from me on this, HA! I’m afraid I don’t have one 😇—and to be perfectly honest, this is exactly the sort of thing where people’s mileage will vary the most.
My personal method of deciding whether to nominate entire TV seasons rather than one specific episode is purely based on ~vibes~, on whether or not I thought the season works better in its totality than through its individual parts, versus cases where one outstanding episode eclipses all the others for me. Not all shows are written the same, of course, and those that favour a longer narrative arc (as a lot of prestige TV does nowadays) tend to find their way on my long form ballot more often than not, as opposed to the more episodic writing that isn’t as popular now but used to be ubiquitous in the pre-streaming era.
Ultimately, you may agree or disagree with me on my reasoning for some of my choices below, whether on the LF/SF question or my actual opinions of the various media, and that’s fair enough. I welcome discussion in the comments, but please keep it civil!
Jump to:
- Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
- Long Form: Films
- Long Form: Non-Film/TV
- Short Form: TV Episodes
- Short Form: Non-TV
Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
You might see episodes from some of these further down in the episode/short form discussion.
Andor, Season 2+
This is kind of my front-runner among the TV seasons for the Long Form category. Overall, I enjoyed it slightly more than season 1 for a few reasons: first of all, the pacing was much more even, with a little bit more action and intrigue peppered throughout the season as opposed to having several quieter mini-arcs that slowed things down in places; and crucially, there was a lot less dithering from Cassian Andor, our reluctant protagonist, who finally comes into his own as a rebel after being passively tossed about this way and that in the first season. The agency he has in this one makes him much more interesting as a character, and brings him on the same level as other players in the budding rebellion front, like Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael. In fact, with all the different character arcs completed, Andor finally becomes what Rogue One always wanted to be: a testament to the great sacrifices necessary for revolution to take root.
I liked a lot of what went down in this season as tensions continued ramping up between the Empire and the Rebellion; the Ghorman subplot was outstanding, especially with Dedra and Cyril’s journeys as instruments of Imperial oppression and violence, as was Mon Mothma’s arc from quiet resistance financier to full-on political rebel on the run, with her heartbreaking arc where she realises the personal cost of rebellion. None of the individual episodes in season 2 came even close to the intensity or narrative brilliance of One Way Out, which was hands down my favourite episode of season 1, but that’s okay—I think this season works so much better in its totality, that I’ll be happy to nominate it wholesale.
I still need to re-watch Rogue One actually, to see if my (very mid) opinion on it changes at all, but ultimately I’m just really happy this show was made, and that it looked and felt amazing throughout. It’s probably my favourite Star Wars story, period, and I am so chuffed that so much of it was filmed in the UK (in locations I know and visit all the time, including my old workplace!2), and is full of incredibly talented and classically trained British theatre actors who fill the space with their physicality and make their performances memorable even in the smallest of roles3.
Severance, Season 2+
Another really strong contender for this category. If you ask me which TV show might win the LF Hugo between this, Andor, or Pluribus, my money would probably be on Severance, even if I personally prefer Andor thematically and Pluribus cinematically. There’s no doubt Severance is an absolute masterpiece of television—nay, of cinema—and the fact that the most anti-capitalist story of our time is coming directly from the big tech megacorp Apple is an irony that is as delicious as it is hilarious.
Aside from its bonkers world-building (which still has so many unanswered questions!), this season of Severance also dove pretty deep into its characters, whom we only got to know a bit in season 1. I don’t want to get too spoilery here, but there’s a handful of moments in this season that go SO HARD—particularly that one slow episode that everyone else hated for some reason, where we follow Patricia Arquette’s character as she goes to her dingy home town and fills us in on the cult lore around Lumon Industries, and of course the team building episode in which our intrepid heroes actually go outside, but it’s all weird in that trademark Lumon way where nothing really fully makes sense, and it leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable, like something’s not quite aligned right.
But yeah, the world-building, man. It’s something else. I was glued to my screen and my mind was running a mile a minute trying to join the dots and figure out the answers to the show’s mysteries, much like our heroes consolidate memories refine macrodata—remember, the work is mysterious and important—and the excitement of getting it just before the show confirmed it was super fun. Yet, finally understanding what macrodata refinement is was actually a really tragic moment, and everything that happens after that made my heart break for the innies who are stuck living a half-life they can’t escape, on pain of death.
Ultimately, what I loved the most about the second season of Severance is its staunch anti-capitalist messaging that speaks to the average office worker today regardless of where they may be in the world, because corporate manipulation knows no borders:
- A job is a job, not a family.
- The company you work for does not deserve blind, cult-like loyalty.
- Your life is more than just work, and compartmentalising your work self and your out-of-work self might be a band-aid solution, but it doesn’t really work in the end.
- You are you, with all your complex layers of self, even if your corporate overlords (…or just your line manager 🤐) want you to think otherwise, or to act otherwise so you can fit into their office culture.
- Basically, it’s all dumb, and you deserve to live, not just to survive so you can punch your clock card and get meaningless little bonuses like finger traps or waffle parties.
This relatability is what keeps me hooked, and what I think elevates the show from pretty sci-fi to a classic of our times. It’s definitely got my vote.
Pluribus, Season 1+
God, talk about another cinematic masterpiece. When Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul‘s Vince Gilligan said he was working on a new show (which he was writing specifically for Rhea Seahorn to star in), I was crossing my fingers and my toes that it would be sci-fi, and Pluribus has completely blown my expectations out of the water. Not only does it mark Gilligan’s return to science fiction for the first time since The X-Files, but he brings his now-trademark cinematic visual language to it, full of tight choreography and nuanced subtext through visual and music cues, which is what made BB & BCS so special.
The result is an unnerving combination of horror, absurdist humour, and subtle world-building, centered around a complex character named Carol Sturka, who is one of only a few humans not to join the weird hive mind connection that takes over all other human beings on the planet, and doesn’t want to even entertain the idea. I’ve seen many reviews call her unlikable and unrelatable, and while the first part may be true (I was really tired of her contrarian nature in the first half of the season), I think there’s something more going on here than just a selfish white American woman who expects the world to move just for her.
The thing is, Vince Gilligan does not talk down to his audience; he expects us to keep up and to pick up what he’s putting down, whether that’s subtle digs at the publishing industry (it is truly hilarious to me that the protagonist of this show is an actual romantasy author!), not-so-subtle digs about community building and the harm humanity has done to the planet and to each other (particularly around resource distribution, iykyk), and questions about human nature that we are left to ponder: would you trade world peace for the complete flattening of human culture? Are we capable of retaining what makes us human while not actively harming the world around us, or each other? What is humanity, really, or human nature even?
Big stuff coming from an Apple TV show, once again; should I even be surprised at this point?
I think the long game of this show is going to be Carol’s character development from grumpy selfish miser to someone who genuinely cares about other people—a reverse Walter White, if you will. Gilligan is all about the narrative arc, and he has been known to deliver some of the best narrative arcs in TV ever, even if they take a while to stick the landing. I have faith that he is cooking something we haven’t even yet begun to poke at, if Better Call Saul is any indication, and between the already great writing and the show’s superlative production value, I think Pluribus is going to be a low-key modern classic. Vince has my vote, now and always.
My Hero Academia: The Final Season+
I wrote about this extensively in my Hugo ballot recommendations post a couple of months ago, so I’ll pull a quote from that as to why I loved it so much:
Y’all, what can I say: this has been my favourite anime of the last decade, and the fact it is ending has had me in my feelings for months. I’ve been deeply invested emotionally for many years, watching the simulcasts on the same day as the anime airs in Japan since around season 2, and this last season has been all payoff for almost ten years’ worth of story. Every Saturday from October 4th till December 13th, I tuned in and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes straight, which for an anime aimed at teenage boys is an absolute feat. Defying every expectation, it stuck the landing for every little story beat, every subplot, and every theme set up over its ten year tenure perfectly, making it one of my absolute favourite stories in the superhero genre.
This is definitely one of those where context is essential, so I don’t think it can be viewed in a vacuum and appreciated to the same extent as having watched all previous seven seasons. You can try, but it wouldn’t be worth it just for the awards. Just watch the show so the ending can hit you like a ton of bricks in the best way possible, even if you miss the deadline. It’s fun, it’s moving, it’s made with so much love for American comics through a uniquely Japanese perspective. I can’t recommend it enough, and it’ll definitely be on my Long Form ballot even if I’m one of ten people who put it there 🤷🏻♀️
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Silo, Season 2: It’s definitely not as tight as season 1, and it was missing some stuff from the books that may well turn up in season 3. For what it’s worth, there’s a lot I enjoyed about this season, but unfortunately it’s simply weaker when Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette isn’t on screen, and there’s a lot of that unfortunately. I’m certainly looking forward to what season 3 will be adapting, and to see what format that will take, as I think they’re either condensing or axing the second half of book 2 to go straight to the dual narrative of book 3, which I have mixed feelings about.
- Murderbot: I never got into the books because of tonal whiplash (MB’s violence and misanthropy coated in dry humour just didn’t work for me), and while I thought the TV show was a little better in that regard, ultimately I thought the show was just okay. I didn’t actively dislike it, mind, but I watched most of it on a plane ride, didn’t finish it, and haven’t felt like picking it back up since. The story just doesn’t grab me, I think, and I never felt particularly attached to or compelled by any of the characters… and I’m okay with that 🤷🏻♀️. Not everything is for everyone! I expect it’ll be mass-nominated by all the book fans anyway based on the online discourse I’ve seen, so it won’t miss my vote.
- Invasion, Season 3: I didn’t even know this was out, lmao! I was deeply invested while watching seasons 1 and 2 (even though I disliked quite a few of the characters), but as soon as I was done with it I promptly forgot about it—and Apple TV didn’t even let me know that it was back on. Whomst can I shake until they fix the marketing situation over there?! Christ on a cracker!
- Stranger Things, Season 5: To my own surprise, I didn’t like this season nearly as much as season 4, let alone season 1, and so I will not be considering it for the Long Form category (including the last episode, which would qualify under Long Form on its own due to being 128 MINUTES LONG 🙄). It’s turned out to be one of those things where, while I enjoyed it a fair bit in the moment, the longer I think about it the more my feelings about it seem to change, and the ending has left me a bit… conflicted, shall we say. But it did have some great episodes in the middle especially, so I will consider a couple of them in the Short Form category.
Long Form: Films
Sinners+
This was probably my favourite SFF film of last year. Not only is it atmospheric, fun, and lush with cross-border folkloric world-building (Hoodoo magic and Irish vampires?! yes please!), but the story touches so many themes that a regular popcorn movie won’t even veer towards, and it does so brilliantly.
All the many layers of the Black and POC experience in the South during the Prohibition era (and beyond) are crystallised in the character arc of each ensemble cast member, with some absolutely outstanding performances by Hailee Steinfeld (whose character Mary is biracial, and torn between safety and belonging), Michael B. Jordan (who plays identical twins Smoke and Stack so well he walked away with an Oscar for it), and Wunmi Mosaku in particular as Smoke’s wife Annie (she’s such an underrated performer, but I’m so glad to see her actually flex her acting skills after her appearance in Loki). We’re talking themes like the push and pull of religion and its role in both keeping communities together and also oppressing them, the safety of BIPOC in a white supremacist society, and even the immigrant experience… the truth is your average blockbuster would never—but this is Ryan Coogler, and he won’t sugar-coat things for a mainstream audience, instead telling a story only he could tell, filled with truth, complexity, and nuance, something I really wish more filmmakers would embrace nowadays.
The film’s protagonist, Sammie (Miles Caton) has a preternatural gift with music, and the plot revolves around a juke joint Smoke and Stack put together, and the connection that music can create across time and even culture—with a wonderful supernatural twist.
One of my favourite moments is when the villain Remmick (an immortal Irish vampire played by Jack O’Connell) turns up at their juke joint and cries with joy at the emotions Sammie’s music has brought him after years of numbness. He talks about his own experience of colonialism at the hands of the British Empire and the subsequent erasure of Irish culture through the centuries, which is a very real thing—but he’s also a predator who has been making his way through the land trying to trap people and turn them into vampires, chased away by indigenous people who could tell he was a monster before attacking a couple who are Klan members. It’s clear that he doesn’t want Sammie’s music in order to connect people, but to use it as a tool on his quest to propagate a vampire race, and that seemingly sweet moment of connection is exposed as the performative allyship that it is.
There are some phenomenal action sequences too, with the last third of the film keeping me on the edge of my IMAX seat4. Genuinely, this film was such a breath of fresh air: delightfully complex but also fun, in ways that cinema just doesn’t dare to be right now. I was sad they didn’t win all the awards they were up for, but perhaps we can give it a Hugo instead.
Frankenstein+
©️ Netflix 2025I have a full review of this here, but basically: the SFF-ness of this is lush, as expected from a Guillermo Del Toro movie, and for the most part it works well as an adaptation of the book. As I mention in my other post, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the NT’s theatre adaptation, which I still consider the ultimate version of this story, but it does similar things with the characters as Penny Dreadful, which is my runner-up favourite, save for the very end, and it’s that ending that makes the whole thing fall short for me, unfortunately.
To quote myself:
Why do we sing sad songs, when we know their ending is unhappy? When our instinctual yearning for a happy ending is met with the inevitability of human flaws getting in the way, that emotional release we experience is what my ancestors called catharsis. As the audience we accept that because of who these characters are, they would always make these choices and lead the story to the same outcome, time and again, even though we’d like them to change, to choose better, so they can be happy in the end.
What makes Frankenstein compelling in any iteration is its core conflict: Victor’s refusal to acknowledge the Creature as human, despite the fact that the Creature is deeply human, as much as his creator would like to think otherwise. We are invited to empathise with the Creature’s plight, to see how he thinks and feels, how he desires things we all do: safety, friendship, love. Victor is incapable of recognising this, and so the two clash eternally. Such is the tragedy, and no matter what minor changes are made to it, the good adaptations always recognise the impasse between the two at the end. It’s what makes the story tick.
My ultimate issue with the way Del Toro chose to end his adaptation of Frankenstein is that it ultimately robs us of our deserved catharsis by artificially resolving the incontrovertible stalemate between the two leads, giving us a happy(ish) ending in which Victor, at death’s door, forgives the Creature for the violence and destruction he’s wrought, apologises for what he did to him, and urges him to live on, free of guilt, yet completely alone. The Creature then walks off into the Arctic sunrise, liberated from his vendetta yet devastated at losing his creator.
It’s a lovely thought in principle, a Del Toro-ism about accepting one’s nature and walking away from one’s painful past, and if it were an original story without baggage I’d be all for it—after all, The Shape of Water had similar, pro-monster themes of letting go of trying to fit into a world that won’t accept you anyway, and I ate that up voraciously. But here, in taking a tragedy that is so classic and ingrained, loading it with a bunch of new traumas and subplots, and then resolving it all with a little monologue, the ending robs the story of its true conclusion, fundamentally missing the point of the source text, and doing a disservice both to Victor and the Creature.
I still think it’s a strong contender in the category, and definitely one of my favourite SFF movies I saw last year, despite my issues with it. However, given all my favourite TV shows above, I think I might eschew giving this one of my ballot spots, but I won’t be disappointed to see it on the final ballot, should it make it through.
Thunderbolts*+
I loved this movie A LOT, you guys, and it made me very sad that it flopped at the box office. I don’t blame people for being fatigued with Marvel’s mediocre superhero slop, but they should have given this movie a chance at the very least, because it might not have been the movie we wanted, but it was definitely the movie we needed right now.
(c) Disney/Marvel Studios, 2025I was very surprised with how deep it went into the trauma our various superheroes and anti-heroes have sustained through their previous adventures, and the level of empathy with which it treated them all:
- Yelena Belova, the last surviving Black Widow5, starts off depressed and morose, aimless, dissatisfied with running around and blowing things up for people with nothing to show for it except a path of destruction.
- Her and Natasha Romanoff’s father figure, Alexei Shostakov, is facing the music that his “Red Star” superhero persona is nothing but a figment of a bygone era, and is living a meagre life as a limo driver while reminiscing about his glory days.
- John Walker, the temporary Captain America replacement later dubbed “U.S. Agent”, is dealing with guilt after slaughtering innocent bystanders using Cap’s vibranium shield during the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all while struggling through early parenthood.
- The Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—is running for office, in an attempt to turn his newfound and shaky inner peace into something productive. Yet, something keeps niggling at him about the power vacuum left in the wake of the Avengers disappearing, and he can’t help but get involved in ways political candidates really shouldn’t. See: taking a huge machine gun and riding a motorbike out to the desert to find out who is behind these shenanigans. Tut tut, Mr Congressman.
- Oh, there’s also Ava Star/Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp, probably my least favourite Marvel movie to date, whom I completely forgot about before watching this movie and while writing this review. Oops! Her thing is that she is constantly phasing in and out of a solid existence, and she has to keep shouting about how traumatised she is with no need for subtext because they know we’ve all forgotten about her and need to be reminded of her struggles. Normally I’d be mad at that, but they are not wrong this time 😅
And then, there’s Bob.
(c) Disney/Marvel, 2025Bob is a new guy, recruited to be experimented on in hopes of becoming a superhero. He seems normal, average even, and he reluctantly joins our motley crew as they escape from a trap set by their employer—but under the surface he carries a deep wound, a gash that opens up to swallow him whole and turns him into The Void, his mysterious alter ego who awakens when Bob’s absolutely OTT superpowers kick in. The rest, as they say, is plot.
There’s a lot of (predictably dark) humour in this, and I was surprised with how much I liked these characters once they were given enough room to be protagonists, rather than minor antagonists in someone else’s story. While they haphazardly join forces into a makeshift team, their trauma is taken seriously, coalescing into the film’s climactic battle that pits the reluctant heroes against The Void, who weaponises each of their subconscious against them. The Void is Depression, by any other name—it’s the dark voice inside that tells each of our anti-heroes that they are worthless, unlovable, guilty, and alone. In order to beat him they have to reach out with empathy to themselves first and then to each other, and literally hold each other in a tight embrace as a reminder that they are not alone. What wins the day is friendship, empathy, and love, not unlike the last season of My Hero Academia, which I also loved last year, or Superman, which I’m about to get into below.
I cried BUCKETS while watching Thunderbolts* in the UK’s largest IMAX screen alongside my Bucky Barnes-obsessed friend, who has since made this film her entire personality (affectionate), and honestly, I’ve also been thinking about it ever since. Again, it’s a delightful little irony that the megalithic Disney/MCU would come out with a narrative so introspective and empathetic, especially at a time that loneliness and isolation is rampant among the film’s core audience of young men. I really hope that watching this film inspired people to reach out and be less alone in their struggles, and that the financial hit Disney took with it won’t keep us from seeing more of these characters in the future.
Also! A fun fact I noticed while listening to the soundtrack was that the film’s main theme is a reversed version of the main Avengers theme; just listen to the first few seconds of both themes and you’ll hear it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Jzgp1jNiQ
Superman+
A good Superman movie?? In this economy?? Hallelujah!
I love a lot about what this film does with the core Superman premise. It gets Clark right, down to his farm boy roots and dorky kindness. It gets Superman right: his power isn’t unbeatable, and it isn’t even the most powerful thing about him (spoiler: it’s the dorky kindness). It gets Lex Luthor right—especially for our times—by having him be a smart but petty tech billionaire with an overinflated ego, someone who funds an invasion and even starts a pocket dimension on a whim, without once thinking of the consequences. It even gets Jimmy Olsen right simply by bringing him out of the margins where he’s been relegated for the last several Superman adaptations—and it’s actually really funny that he’s the one guy with the most game in this film, and that that’s how he gets to help out.
The structure of the film is an absolute delight, too. From the very start, we are thrown into the midst of a losing fight for Superman, which is a bold choice, as is having Clark’s relationship with Lois Lane already set up (and she even knows about him being Superman!). We don’t spend any time whatsoever on origin stories, budding relationship exploration, or long-winded exposition—we simply hit the ground running, and find out the particulars as we go along. It is assumed we know who Superman is, because… we all know who Superman is. And the themes around identity, responsibility, community, and how we should treat each other are laid bare without pretence, very directly speaking to the audience about contemporary problems we’re all facing day to day. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air not to be treated like an idiot, frankly.
There are a couple of things I don’t like about it though. For one, the film feels very busy, with so many characters and subplots and easter eggs thrown in, that if you blink you’ll definitely miss something. Relatedly, not all of those characters or subplots are treated equally, because there simply isn’t enough screen time to go around for everything. So the Justice Friends get the short shrift, as do Papa and Mama Kent, as does Krypton6, so that we can focus on the personal and political stakes that Clark/Superman has to overcome.
This is another superhero story with empathy at its heart, where the answer to even the most cosmic problems is… just be kind. Kindness is punk rock. As one of my favourite YouTube video essayists put it, this Superman is the American hero we desperately need right now. Someone who will stand up for what’s right even when the rest of the world tells him not to, someone with an unshakeable moral compass that only points to goodness. Watch that whole video actually, Dove does such a fantastic job analysing the cultural geography that plays into this film, and how it all ties together to bring us this ray of f*cking sunshine:
All this to say, I love that James Gunn can make a superhero movie that aims to appeal broadly but doesn’t feel like it panders to the lowest available denominator, and that he had the guts to (a) make the story feel relevant to our current times, what with all the invasions/”wars” going on right now that are purely happening for profit and that no one is doing anything to stop 🙄, and (b) leave us with a message of hope, that we can imagine a kinder world and that we can be the instruments of making that vision a reality. That kindness can be punk rock.
Dare I say, this was the movie that made me go, “huh, maybe the genre isn’t dead yet”, which… please, let it not be dead, I really like superheroes!
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Mickey 17: I enjoyed this a lot, particularly for its world-building and Robert Pattinson’s performance. Unfortunately I think the Bong Joon-Ho-ness of it all kind of undercuts the story in favour of very on-the-nose political commentary, which was fun in the moment but in retrospect kinda leaves me a bit… “meh!”, probably because the current climate is so much worse than when this movie was made, and making fun of things/people just isn’t enough right now. So I don’t think this will be getting one of my spots, but it’s still totally worth seeing, if you haven’t!
- Fantastic Four – First Steps: I also enjoyed this a lot, especially in light of B-Mask’s excellent Fantastic Four video from a few years back which explained the classic comics and got me up to speed on the characters. It’s an honest-to-God decent, good Marvel movie, which as I keep saying is a rare sight these days, but that being said… I liked the stuff I talked about up top way more than this one, not to mention the TV seasons, so I just think it gets edged out by the competition.
- Hamnet: Technically an SFF movie! The trailer had me weeping, but the movie left me cold somehow, perhaps because it’s a little too obvious in its attempts to make people cry (Mark Kermode said it best! The bit with the song at the very end irked me too because I recognised it, and the moment was actually completely ruined for me.) It does have some wonderful and atmospheric visuals where it comes to the speculative aspect of it, and the soundtrack by Max Richter is predictably phenomenal (if only they’d used his original song for the climactic ending of the film!!), but it just didn’t move me in the ways I thought it would, so it’s a miss.
The “I haven’t seen these yet” caveat+
- K-Pop Demon Hunters: Yes, I know, somehow, I still haven’t seen this movie. I’m assuming it’ll get nominated to high heaven, so I’ll watch it ahead of voting, I promise.
- Weapons: I’ve heard fantastic things about this, and my husband is a big WKUK fan, so I might be watching this soon and revising my thoughts.
- Wicked: For Good: I liked the first film well enough, and I hear that a LOT happens in the second half of the musical, so I’m tentatively putting this on a hold list until I watch it. I don’t know if it would edge out any of my favourites, realistically speaking, but I suppose there is always room for surprises!
Long Form: Non-Film/TV
B-Mask’s “The REAL Thunderbolts Story: Marvel’s Greatest Scam“*
This is a 2.5 hour love letter to comics, and the first in a five-part series that tells the story of the real Thunderbolts from the comic books (a team that bears very little resemblance to the one portrayed in the recent MCU film discussed above). It features complex animations drawing from the original comic book art, as well as a full cast of voice actors bringing the characters to life with their performances.
* I’m personally torn on whether this would qualify for BDP-LF or BRW (seeing as it is technically a fanwork, and not an original work), but either way it is nothing short of a masterpiece—I wrote more about it in my 2025 underrated Hugo picks post, if you’re interested.
Short Form: TV Episodes
A caveat: my reasoning around nominating a particular episode is kind of like nominating my favourite chapter of a novel. Especially with how a lot of the prestige TV shows are made nowadays, individual episodes function as chapters in a longer story, so they have to be considered in the context of the wider narrative they’re a part of. If they are from a second, third, or even last season of a long-running show, even more so.
Also—and this might be a slightly spicy take—I personally don’t like that a lot of Hugo voters seem to only watch the individual episodes on the eventual shortlist without any context, and then complain that they didn’t get what was going on. That’s because context matters, and while I understand that it would take a lot of time to watch an entire season (or even several!) to be able to appreciate a single episode… if you want your vote to be informed, that’s the job, innit?
This has happened several times to me, where there’s an episode on the shortlist from a show I don’t watch (and have no intention of watching—sorry Lower Decks), so I just skip it and don’t put it in my ballot at the end, or rank it below my own favourites. I do the same with sequels to books I haven’t read, out of respect for the work itself as well as its author, but that’s just me I guess! 🤷🏻♀️
Anyway, here are some thoughts about my favourite episodes of speculative TV from this year, under spoiler tags for obvious reasons.
Two episodes from Stranger Things, Season 5+
‘Chapter Four: Sorcerer’
I loved, loved, loved this episode. The moment Will uses his new power… it gave me goosebumps, it was so good—and the fight sequence in front of the gate to the Upside Down is incredible. Rather than the writing, though, I want to praise the actors’ performances and the work of the crew who worked on the practical effects, stunts, and complicated cinematography in this episode. Especially given more recent revelations about how the Duffers went into production with season 5 without having ironed out the ending, and the stress that added to the poor production crew, I think any flowers should really be going to them for making such an outstanding piece of TV despite the challenges.
‘Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz’
Yes, the scene in this photo feels a little ludicrously long considering they’re both on the run and about to be caught by the Big Bad, but I loved the heart of this relationship and the character development for both Holly and Max in this episode. I had also seen the Stranger Things play in London a couple of years back, and this episode eliminated the issues I had with the world-building in that, which at first had seemed to contradict the revelations in season 4 about Vecna/Henry Creel’s agency as a villain and his role in shaping the Upside Down… I was glad to see that in fact all the loose threads from the various seasons did connect, and that the strands from the play were relevant too.
Various episodes from Severance, Season 2+
S2E4: ‘Woe’s Hollow’
I mentioned this episode in my discussion of the series earlier, but let me get into it here: this is one of the best episodes of TV ever made, period, and I will fight you on this. I don’t know if it would stand alone in any capacity, considering the weird tone is already a lot to deal with and there’s a lot of plot and character interaction that picks up from where the last season left off, not to mention a big-time betrayal that ends up echoing through the rest of season 2.
I spent a good chunk of the beginning wondering if this was a simulator or a dream sequence because it didn’t fully make sense for our protagonists to be outside the Lumon offices, and the uncanny doppelgangers guiding them through the forest seemed almost dreamlike, but the reality was much more sinister in the end, which tracks. If there’s a single episode from this show I’d nominate, it’d be this one.
S2E8: ‘Sweet Vitriol’
People hate this episode because it’s slow and follows an unlikeable antagonist whom we are invited to empathise with, and that’s precisely the reason I like it. First of all, we get way more insight into the Lumon cult corporation from Harmony Cobel, who ostensibly grew up in the cult and has invested her whole life into the company’s welfare. This is also where we begin to see cracks form in her resolve as an antagonist, as she has realised that the company sees her as an expendable cog despite her lifelong investment and dedication, and so she decides to fight them, to prove that this little cog is actually so important, it might well bring the whole house down.
It’s interesting also for thematic reasons, outside of the show’s world. On an individual level, the image of someone who grew up in poverty while idolising a particular company, then making their entire life revolve around it so as to gain favour and socioeconomic mobility, gaining that and then losing it when the company no longer sees them as valuable, is unfortunately too relatable. So is seeing a small town that once had its own industry and community be taken over by a mega corporation and become completely dependent on it, eventually falling into destitution once the corporation pulls their activities out of the town. The actual commentary here is silent, but extremely powerful.
I don’t think Cobel’s about-turn is enough to fully make her an anti-hero, but I really enjoyed this episode for all the insight it gave us both into her and the world of Severance outside of Lumon HQ.
S2E10: ‘Cold Harbor’
There is a strong argument to be made that the season two finale is absolutely worth a nomination as well, making this a really tough choice. Two seasons’ worth of mystery solving and internal corporate espionage culminate in this one-hour episode where our protagonists clash with one another and with the antagonists, and it’s just adrenaline all the way down.
Some spoilery thoughts here.While the big questions have been answered (where is Mark’s wife? what is Cold Harbor? what are they doing with all those sheep?), so many more remain. Is there a way to save the innies at all, if Lumon ends up falling? Can Mark S. and Helly R. ever hope to have a life outside these walls? And what happens to Gemma now that she’s out, even though she has 24 distinct, hand-crafted personalities inside her?
There’s actually a great take I hadn’t come across before I sat down to write this, and that is that the finale actually inverts the Orpheus & Eurydice narrative of Mark and Gemma, by having Mark’s innie actually choose to stay behind in Lumon so he can be with Helly. It’s less of a lack of faith and more of a conscious decision, which perhaps makes it even more tragic as Gemma watches her husband (sort of) run toward danger and another woman, leaving her alone at the exit, screaming for him to come back.
Having written about the other episodes already, I do think ep4 is a stronger contender purely from a craft/vibes standpoint, whereas the finale is more typical in many ways, as it focuses on exposition and plot and is faster paced. YMMV here, for sure, but I’m inclined to pick ep4 over this one, now that I think about it.
Two episodes from Pluribus, Season 1+
Episode 1: “We is Us”
It’s not often that a TV pilot stands on its own two feet well. It’s even less common for the film-making to be so good that one must gasp in awe at the choreography, cinematography, and editing, multiple times throughout the course of the episode. One of my biggest peeves is when a TV pilot is so mired in exposition that there is no room for characters or atmosphere until the next episode because they simply have to give you the setup quickly—it ends up feeling flat and boring and frankly, it puts me off more than it entices me to keep watching until it gets better.7
Well, this episode does none of that.
Gilligan’s forte is silent scenes that actually speak volumes. There is so much storytelling in this episode that has no words; we watch an intergalactic viral hive mind sequence take over the Earth in perfectly synchronised movement, and the storytelling is in the silence, the perfect unison, and the eerie smiles as the hive mind consciousness flattens the individuals inside. A lesser writer would put exposition in dialogue, possibly giving too much information for where we are in the story, but Gilligan knows that less is more. We get just enough to hook us in, and the rest is pure atmosphere and of course, character.
Carol is introduced as a grumpy romantasy author, a lesbian in a loving relationship who constantly finds reasons to be miserable, much to her partner’s chagrin. When the hive mind sequence is spread via planes in the air, Carol loses her partner, and simultaneously the world. The panic that ensues is completely understandable, and it gets worse at every turn as she is met with more and more hive mind people, but no one else like her. What a place for a pilot to leave us in! Aren’t you hooked just by reading this?? GO WATCH THIS SHOW!
Episode 7: “The Gap”
The title refers to a real place that Manousos (pictured) has to cross, but also I suppose to the gap between Carol and others at this point in the show. This is another masterfully crafted episode with a dual narrative point of view, where Carol continues her life in Albuquerque while Manousos is making his slow way up through South and Central America towards Carol, crossing cities, climbing mountains, and trudging through thick, treacherous jungles, all while refusing the hive mind’s help at every opportunity.
Some spoilery thoughts here.At first, it’s admirable; he won’t even take gas without paying for it somehow, even though everything he comes across is at his disposal. Soon enough, however, his steadfastness turns into stubbornness that does more harm to him than good. When he gets seriously injured in the jungle (something that was completely preventable, had he accepted the hive mind’s help and transited through safer means),
Meanwhile, Carol stoically endures complete and total isolation for a long time as a result of the hive mind evacuating the whole metro area of Albuquerque, which happened when Carol hurt one of them (and by extension, all of them) quite badly while trying to find answers. She is given resources and sustenance remotely, and for a while enjoys her peaceful environment, going around town and doing whatever she feels like… until she finally cracks under the pressure of extreme loneliness, and asks the hive mind to come back.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment actually, seeing someone as stubborn sturdy as Carol finally admit that she can’t live her whole life completely cut off from other people, even though she hates the hive mind on principle, and can’t wrap her mind around accepting this status quo. In fairness, she makes it to about a month and a half, which is pretty long, but her isolation was also so complete that there were zero people around her for that whole time—an unfathomable experience that’s so well depicted on screen. I personally love the rooftop golf scene as an example of how utterly devoid of people the landscape is, a mundane sort of post-apocalyptic image.
This is probably my favourite episode in season 1, and even think it could be presented without context and still mostly work alright for new viewers… Though I’d still hope that people would watch the whole season anyway. If I had to pick one episode to represent the series as a whole, I’d say it’s this one.
Short Form: Non-TV
‘Songs No One Will Hear’ by Arjen Lucassen (music album)
I wrote a fair amount about this pre-apocalyptic concept album in my underrated Hugo recommendations post; here’s a snippet:
The result is an album that grapples with the essence of the human condition (something Lucassen is very adept at), asking what makes life worth living from the perspectives of a bunch of different characters as they try to come to terms with the impending end of the world—including those who think it’s all a hoax, those who embrace it, and those who rage against the dying of the light. It straddles a weird and fun line between diegetic/in-world music that’s on the radio and telling the story as a sung-through musical, which is a little different than what you might expect, particularly for a progressive rock album. But that’s the Arjen Lucassen guarantee: big questions, big emotions, and a sound that isn’t afraid to change dramatically when necessary, even mid-song. Full of theatricality, Songs No One Will Hear is in some ways very similar to Lucassen’s Ayreon albums, but retains its own identity both musically and thematically.
We’ve been known to nominate SFF music albums when they arise, and on occasion those musicians have even responded to being recognised by fandom—seeing Clipping live in Helsinki was fun!—so this wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, though perhaps it is a bit of a left field suggestion for most Hugo voters as a progressive rock concept album.
While he’s extremely popular in his own niche, most of Lucassen’s fans aren’t in SF fandom and vice versa, something that I would love to help shift by talking about his work more to Hugo voters and talking to Ayreon/Lucassen fans more about joining our community and coming to Worldcon, especially as the next few years are looking quite international. Lucassen’s very obvious Golden Age influences are bound to have pointed many of his fans to the genre, so the bridge is already half-built.
I’m sure that I’ll be one of very few people longlisting this album, but 🤷🏻♀️! I really think If you see just a single, solitary vote for it in the full data, know that it was me!
Footnotes
- Per the WSFS Constitution, clauses 3.8.2 and 3.8.3. ↩︎
- In addition to the more fannish post I linked above, I found another really cool essay about the Barbican as Coruscant from an architect who works in film and TV. ↩︎
- A special shoutout to Joshua James, who played the doctor who tortured Bix Caleen with the sounds of distant massacres; I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him in Treasure Island at the National Theatre back in 2015 or so, and make a point to see him in every play he’s in when I can. He had a stint as Dr Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow recently which I unfortunately missed, but I bet he was perfect! ↩︎
- I’d like to thank Octothorpe’s Alison Scott for her recommendation to see the film in an IMAX theatre, as the experience was truly spectacular. ↩︎
- There is another Black Widow character played by Olga Kurilenko who turns up for literally five minutes, but she is so not present in the rest of the film that I’m not even going to go into it. If it weren’t for Yelena and Alexei, I’d say that movie had zero lasting impact on the MCU, given how late into Natasha’s journey we got it (literally after she was canonically killed off), lol (sarcastic). ↩︎
- I still don’t know how to feel about the plot twist around Krypton and Clark’s biological parents, brief as it was. I think it is intended to maximise the contrast between where Clark hails from and where he grew up and how that affected his identity, and the discomfort it creates is probably very intentional from Gunn. ↩︎
- I call this “pilot syndrome”, and it’s one of my least favourite phenomena in media. ↩︎
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Battle for the Ballot: Best Dramatic Presentation 2026
The two Best Dramatic Presentation categories are among my favourites in the Hugos, because I consume a lot of SFF media and have a lot of thoughts and feelings about them. Since my post last year about why I had wanted Loki S2 to win a Hugo in 2024 (which I was working on for a while but ended up not posting it in time for it to sway anyone), I’ve been toying with the idea of producing more writing around some of my favourite things from each year, in case it helps anybody—least of all me, in getting it all out of my system.
I know I’m posting this with one day to go before nominations (these take so long for me! I must develop a better system for next year 🤔), but I’m really writing this to sound out my own thoughts about the DP categories this year, because it is absolutely bananas with how stacked they both are. There have been some truly great speculative television shows and films, stuff that I’m sure we’ll still be talking about for years to come, and making decisions to boil my favourite media down to just 5 per category—especially given the fiddliness of Long Form and Short Form where TV is concerned, which I’ll get to in a sec—is going to be excruciatingly difficult for me.
So come along on a journey with me as I parse my thoughts, and who knows! Maybe I’ll argue my way to your heart about some of this, or tell you about something you hadn’t heard of before—some of which I’ve already written about before, but I’m getting ahead of myself!
Let me know what your ballot looks like, and if you’re nominating any of the below shows, films, and other dramatic works, or if you’re including other things entirely. I’m curious!
TV series and the Long Form/Short Form debate
A big question for many fen every year is “do I nominate one episode from a TV series that stands on its own or that adequately represents the show in Short Form, or do I nominate the whole season in Long Form because it’s one complete narrative, and isolating one chapter of it would be unfair?”
Understandably, it’s a tough one; when a show inevitably gets votes in both categories, it can lead to headaches for the Hugo Administrating Team as they have to sift through the numbers and ultimately decide which category it should be nominated in1, which I don’t envy at all. But at the same time, as a voter, I have to go with what my heart says and name my favourite episodes in Short Form, regardless of whether I’ve also named the show/season as a whole in Long Form, because if enough others have put that same episode down, then that’s what’ll make it through to the shortlist, and I would want my vote to count towards those totals.
All that to say: if you expected a clear stance from me on this, HA! I’m afraid I don’t have one 😇—and to be perfectly honest, this is exactly the sort of thing where people’s mileage will vary the most.
My personal method of deciding whether to nominate entire TV seasons rather than one specific episode is purely based on ~vibes~, on whether or not I thought the season works better in its totality than through its individual parts, versus cases where one outstanding episode eclipses all the others for me. Not all shows are written the same, of course, and those that favour a longer narrative arc (as a lot of prestige TV does nowadays) tend to find their way on my long form ballot more often than not, as opposed to the more episodic writing that isn’t as popular now but used to be ubiquitous in the pre-streaming era.
Ultimately, you may agree or disagree with me on my reasoning for some of my choices below, whether on the LF/SF question or my actual opinions of the various media, and that’s fair enough. I welcome discussion in the comments, but please keep it civil!
Jump to:
- Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
- Long Form: Films
- Long Form: Non-Film/TV
- Short Form: TV Episodes
- Short Form: Non-TV
Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
You might see episodes from some of these further down in the episode/short form discussion.
Andor, Season 2+
This is kind of my front-runner among the TV seasons for the Long Form category. Overall, I enjoyed it slightly more than season 1 for a few reasons: first of all, the pacing was much more even, with a little bit more action and intrigue peppered throughout the season as opposed to having several quieter mini-arcs that slowed things down in places; and crucially, there was a lot less dithering from Cassian Andor, our reluctant protagonist, who finally comes into his own as a rebel after being passively tossed about this way and that in the first season. The agency he has in this one makes him much more interesting as a character, and brings him on the same level as other players in the budding rebellion front, like Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael. In fact, with all the different character arcs completed, Andor finally becomes what Rogue One always wanted to be: a testament to the great sacrifices necessary for revolution to take root.
I liked a lot of what went down in this season as tensions continued ramping up between the Empire and the Rebellion; the Ghorman subplot was outstanding, especially with Dedra and Cyril’s journeys as instruments of Imperial oppression and violence, as was Mon Mothma’s arc from quiet resistance financier to full-on political rebel on the run, with her heartbreaking arc where she realises the personal cost of rebellion. None of the individual episodes in season 2 came even close to the intensity or narrative brilliance of One Way Out, which was hands down my favourite episode of season 1, but that’s okay—I think this season works so much better in its totality, that I’ll be happy to nominate it wholesale.
I still need to re-watch Rogue One actually, to see if my (very mid) opinion on it changes at all, but ultimately I’m just really happy this show was made, and that it looked and felt amazing throughout. It’s probably my favourite Star Wars story, period, and I am so chuffed that so much of it was filmed in the UK (in locations I know and visit all the time, including my old workplace!2), and is full of incredibly talented and classically trained British theatre actors who fill the space with their physicality and make their performances memorable even in the smallest of roles3.
Severance, Season 2+
Another really strong contender for this category. If you ask me which TV show might win the LF Hugo between this, Andor, or Pluribus, my money would probably be on Severance, even if I personally prefer Andor thematically and Pluribus cinematically. There’s no doubt Severance is an absolute masterpiece of television—nay, of cinema—and the fact that the most anti-capitalist story of our time is coming directly from the big tech megacorp Apple is an irony that is as delicious as it is hilarious.
Aside from its bonkers world-building (which still has so many unanswered questions!), this season of Severance also dove pretty deep into its characters, whom we only got to know a bit in season 1. I don’t want to get too spoilery here, but there’s a handful of moments in this season that go SO HARD—particularly that one slow episode that everyone else hated for some reason, where we follow Patricia Arquette’s character as she goes to her dingy home town and fills us in on the cult lore around Lumon Industries, and of course the team building episode in which our intrepid heroes actually go outside, but it’s all weird in that trademark Lumon way where nothing really fully makes sense, and it leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable, like something’s not quite aligned right.
But yeah, the world-building, man. It’s something else. I was glued to my screen and my mind was running a mile a minute trying to join the dots and figure out the answers to the show’s mysteries, much like our heroes consolidate memories refine macrodata—remember, the work is mysterious and important—and the excitement of getting it just before the show confirmed it was super fun. Yet, finally understanding what macrodata refinement is was actually a really tragic moment, and everything that happens after that made my heart break for the innies who are stuck living a half-life they can’t escape, on pain of death.
Ultimately, what I loved the most about the second season of Severance is its staunch anti-capitalist messaging that speaks to the average office worker today regardless of where they may be in the world, because corporate manipulation knows no borders:
- A job is a job, not a family.
- The company you work for does not deserve blind, cult-like loyalty.
- Your life is more than just work, and compartmentalising your work self and your out-of-work self might be a band-aid solution, but it doesn’t really work in the end.
- You are you, with all your complex layers of self, even if your corporate overlords (…or just your line manager 🤐) want you to think otherwise, or to act otherwise so you can fit into their office culture.
- Basically, it’s all dumb, and you deserve to live, not just to survive so you can punch your clock card and get meaningless little bonuses like finger traps or waffle parties.
This relatability is what keeps me hooked, and what I think elevates the show from pretty sci-fi to a classic of our times. It’s definitely got my vote.
Pluribus, Season 1+
God, talk about another cinematic masterpiece. When Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul‘s Vince Gilligan said he was working on a new show (which he was writing specifically for Rhea Seahorn to star in), I was crossing my fingers and my toes that it would be sci-fi, and Pluribus has completely blown my expectations out of the water. Not only does it mark Gilligan’s return to science fiction for the first time since The X-Files, but he brings his now-trademark cinematic visual language to it, full of tight choreography and nuanced subtext through visual and music cues, which is what made BB & BCS so special.
The result is an unnerving combination of horror, absurdist humour, and subtle world-building, centered around a complex character named Carol Sturka, who is one of only a few humans not to join the weird hive mind connection that takes over all other human beings on the planet, and doesn’t want to even entertain the idea. I’ve seen many reviews call her unlikable and unrelatable, and while the first part may be true (I was really tired of her contrarian nature in the first half of the season), I think there’s something more going on here than just a selfish white American woman who expects the world to move just for her.
The thing is, Vince Gilligan does not talk down to his audience; he expects us to keep up and to pick up what he’s putting down, whether that’s subtle digs at the publishing industry (it is truly hilarious to me that the protagonist of this show is an actual romantasy author!), not-so-subtle digs about community building and the harm humanity has done to the planet and to each other (particularly around resource distribution, iykyk), and questions about human nature that we are left to ponder: would you trade world peace for the complete flattening of human culture? Are we capable of retaining what makes us human while not actively harming the world around us, or each other? What is humanity, really, or human nature even?
Big stuff coming from an Apple TV show, once again; should I even be surprised at this point?
I think the long game of this show is going to be Carol’s character development from grumpy selfish miser to someone who genuinely cares about other people—a reverse Walter White, if you will. Gilligan is all about the narrative arc, and he has been known to deliver some of the best narrative arcs in TV ever, even if they take a while to stick the landing. I have faith that he is cooking something we haven’t even yet begun to poke at, if Better Call Saul is any indication, and between the already great writing and the show’s superlative production value, I think Pluribus is going to be a low-key modern classic. Vince has my vote, now and always.
My Hero Academia: The Final Season+
I wrote about this extensively in my Hugo ballot recommendations post a couple of months ago, so I’ll pull a quote from that as to why I loved it so much:
Y’all, what can I say: this has been my favourite anime of the last decade, and the fact it is ending has had me in my feelings for months. I’ve been deeply invested emotionally for many years, watching the simulcasts on the same day as the anime airs in Japan since around season 2, and this last season has been all payoff for almost ten years’ worth of story. Every Saturday from October 4th till December 13th, I tuned in and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes straight, which for an anime aimed at teenage boys is an absolute feat. Defying every expectation, it stuck the landing for every little story beat, every subplot, and every theme set up over its ten year tenure perfectly, making it one of my absolute favourite stories in the superhero genre.
This is definitely one of those where context is essential, so I don’t think it can be viewed in a vacuum and appreciated to the same extent as having watched all previous seven seasons. You can try, but it wouldn’t be worth it just for the awards. Just watch the show so the ending can hit you like a ton of bricks in the best way possible, even if you miss the deadline. It’s fun, it’s moving, it’s made with so much love for American comics through a uniquely Japanese perspective. I can’t recommend it enough, and it’ll definitely be on my Long Form ballot even if I’m one of ten people who put it there 🤷🏻♀️
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Silo, Season 2: It’s definitely not as tight as season 1, and it was missing some stuff from the books that may well turn up in season 3. For what it’s worth, there’s a lot I enjoyed about this season, but unfortunately it’s simply weaker when Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette isn’t on screen, and there’s a lot of that unfortunately. I’m certainly looking forward to what season 3 will be adapting, and to see what format that will take, as I think they’re either condensing or axing the second half of book 2 to go straight to the dual narrative of book 3, which I have mixed feelings about.
- Murderbot: I never got into the books because of tonal whiplash (MB’s violence and misanthropy coated in dry humour just didn’t work for me), and while I thought the TV show was a little better in that regard, ultimately I thought the show was just okay. I didn’t actively dislike it, mind, but I watched most of it on a plane ride, didn’t finish it, and haven’t felt like picking it back up since. The story just doesn’t grab me, I think, and I never felt particularly attached to or compelled by any of the characters… and I’m okay with that 🤷🏻♀️. Not everything is for everyone! I expect it’ll be mass-nominated by all the book fans anyway based on the online discourse I’ve seen, so it won’t miss my vote.
- Invasion, Season 3: I didn’t even know this was out, lmao! I was deeply invested while watching seasons 1 and 2 (even though I disliked quite a few of the characters), but as soon as I was done with it I promptly forgot about it—and Apple TV didn’t even let me know that it was back on. Whomst can I shake until they fix the marketing situation over there?! Christ on a cracker!
- Stranger Things, Season 5: To my own surprise, I didn’t like this season nearly as much as season 4, let alone season 1, and so I will not be considering it for the Long Form category (including the last episode, which would qualify under Long Form on its own due to being 128 MINUTES LONG 🙄). It’s turned out to be one of those things where, while I enjoyed it a fair bit in the moment, the longer I think about it the more my feelings about it seem to change, and the ending has left me a bit… conflicted, shall we say. But it did have some great episodes in the middle especially, so I will consider a couple of them in the Short Form category.
Long Form: Films
Sinners+
This was probably my favourite SFF film of last year. Not only is it atmospheric, fun, and lush with cross-border folkloric world-building (Hoodoo magic and Irish vampires?! yes please!), but the story touches so many themes that a regular popcorn movie won’t even veer towards, and it does so brilliantly.
All the many layers of the Black and POC experience in the South during the Prohibition era (and beyond) are crystallised in the character arc of each ensemble cast member, with some absolutely outstanding performances by Hailee Steinfeld (whose character Mary is biracial, and torn between safety and belonging), Michael B. Jordan (who plays identical twins Smoke and Stack so well he walked away with an Oscar for it), and Wunmi Mosaku in particular as Smoke’s wife Annie (she’s such an underrated performer, but I’m so glad to see her actually flex her acting skills after her appearance in Loki). We’re talking themes like the push and pull of religion and its role in both keeping communities together and also oppressing them, the safety of BIPOC in a white supremacist society, and even the immigrant experience… the truth is your average blockbuster would never—but this is Ryan Coogler, and he won’t sugar-coat things for a mainstream audience, instead telling a story only he could tell, filled with truth, complexity, and nuance, something I really wish more filmmakers would embrace nowadays.
The film’s protagonist, Sammie (Miles Caton) has a preternatural gift with music, and the plot revolves around a juke joint Smoke and Stack put together, and the connection that music can create across time and even culture—with a wonderful supernatural twist.
One of my favourite moments is when the villain Remmick (an immortal Irish vampire played by Jack O’Connell) turns up at their juke joint and cries with joy at the emotions Sammie’s music has brought him after years of numbness. He talks about his own experience of colonialism at the hands of the British Empire and the subsequent erasure of Irish culture through the centuries, which is a very real thing—but he’s also a predator who has been making his way through the land trying to trap people and turn them into vampires, chased away by indigenous people who could tell he was a monster before attacking a couple who are Klan members. It’s clear that he doesn’t want Sammie’s music in order to connect people, but to use it as a tool on his quest to propagate a vampire race, and that seemingly sweet moment of connection is exposed as the performative allyship that it is.
There are some phenomenal action sequences too, with the last third of the film keeping me on the edge of my IMAX seat4. Genuinely, this film was such a breath of fresh air: delightfully complex but also fun, in ways that cinema just doesn’t dare to be right now. I was sad they didn’t win all the awards they were up for, but perhaps we can give it a Hugo instead.
Frankenstein+
©️ Netflix 2025I have a full review of this here, but basically: the SFF-ness of this is lush, as expected from a Guillermo Del Toro movie, and for the most part it works well as an adaptation of the book. As I mention in my other post, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the NT’s theatre adaptation, which I still consider the ultimate version of this story, but it does similar things with the characters as Penny Dreadful, which is my runner-up favourite, save for the very end, and it’s that ending that makes the whole thing fall short for me, unfortunately.
To quote myself:
Why do we sing sad songs, when we know their ending is unhappy? When our instinctual yearning for a happy ending is met with the inevitability of human flaws getting in the way, that emotional release we experience is what my ancestors called catharsis. As the audience we accept that because of who these characters are, they would always make these choices and lead the story to the same outcome, time and again, even though we’d like them to change, to choose better, so they can be happy in the end.
What makes Frankenstein compelling in any iteration is its core conflict: Victor’s refusal to acknowledge the Creature as human, despite the fact that the Creature is deeply human, as much as his creator would like to think otherwise. We are invited to empathise with the Creature’s plight, to see how he thinks and feels, how he desires things we all do: safety, friendship, love. Victor is incapable of recognising this, and so the two clash eternally. Such is the tragedy, and no matter what minor changes are made to it, the good adaptations always recognise the impasse between the two at the end. It’s what makes the story tick.
My ultimate issue with the way Del Toro chose to end his adaptation of Frankenstein is that it ultimately robs us of our deserved catharsis by artificially resolving the incontrovertible stalemate between the two leads, giving us a happy(ish) ending in which Victor, at death’s door, forgives the Creature for the violence and destruction he’s wrought, apologises for what he did to him, and urges him to live on, free of guilt, yet completely alone. The Creature then walks off into the Arctic sunrise, liberated from his vendetta yet devastated at losing his creator.
It’s a lovely thought in principle, a Del Toro-ism about accepting one’s nature and walking away from one’s painful past, and if it were an original story without baggage I’d be all for it—after all, The Shape of Water had similar, pro-monster themes of letting go of trying to fit into a world that won’t accept you anyway, and I ate that up voraciously. But here, in taking a tragedy that is so classic and ingrained, loading it with a bunch of new traumas and subplots, and then resolving it all with a little monologue, the ending robs the story of its true conclusion, fundamentally missing the point of the source text, and doing a disservice both to Victor and the Creature.
I still think it’s a strong contender in the category, and definitely one of my favourite SFF movies I saw last year, despite my issues with it. However, given all my favourite TV shows above, I think I might eschew giving this one of my ballot spots, but I won’t be disappointed to see it on the final ballot, should it make it through.
Thunderbolts*+
I loved this movie A LOT, you guys, and it made me very sad that it flopped at the box office. I don’t blame people for being fatigued with Marvel’s mediocre superhero slop, but they should have given this movie a chance at the very least, because it might not have been the movie we wanted, but it was definitely the movie we needed right now.
(c) Disney/Marvel Studios, 2025I was very surprised with how deep it went into the trauma our various superheroes and anti-heroes have sustained through their previous adventures, and the level of empathy with which it treated them all:
- Yelena Belova, the last surviving Black Widow5, starts off depressed and morose, aimless, dissatisfied with running around and blowing things up for people with nothing to show for it except a path of destruction.
- Her and Natasha Romanoff’s father figure, Alexei Shostakov, is facing the music that his “Red Star” superhero persona is nothing but a figment of a bygone era, and is living a meagre life as a limo driver while reminiscing about his glory days.
- John Walker, the temporary Captain America replacement later dubbed “U.S. Agent”, is dealing with guilt after slaughtering innocent bystanders using Cap’s vibranium shield during the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all while struggling through early parenthood.
- The Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—is running for office, in an attempt to turn his newfound and shaky inner peace into something productive. Yet, something keeps niggling at him about the power vacuum left in the wake of the Avengers disappearing, and he can’t help but get involved in ways political candidates really shouldn’t. See: taking a huge machine gun and riding a motorbike out to the desert to find out who is behind these shenanigans. Tut tut, Mr Congressman.
- Oh, there’s also Ava Star/Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp, probably my least favourite Marvel movie to date, whom I completely forgot about before watching this movie and while writing this review. Oops! Her thing is that she is constantly phasing in and out of a solid existence, and she has to keep shouting about how traumatised she is with no need for subtext because they know we’ve all forgotten about her and need to be reminded of her struggles. Normally I’d be mad at that, but they are not wrong this time 😅
And then, there’s Bob.
(c) Disney/Marvel, 2025Bob is a new guy, recruited to be experimented on in hopes of becoming a superhero. He seems normal, average even, and he reluctantly joins our motley crew as they escape from a trap set by their employer—but under the surface he carries a deep wound, a gash that opens up to swallow him whole and turns him into The Void, his mysterious alter ego who awakens when Bob’s absolutely OTT superpowers kick in. The rest, as they say, is plot.
There’s a lot of (predictably dark) humour in this, and I was surprised with how much I liked these characters once they were given enough room to be protagonists, rather than minor antagonists in someone else’s story. While they haphazardly join forces into a makeshift team, their trauma is taken seriously, coalescing into the film’s climactic battle that pits the reluctant heroes against The Void, who weaponises each of their subconscious against them. The Void is Depression, by any other name—it’s the dark voice inside that tells each of our anti-heroes that they are worthless, unlovable, guilty, and alone. In order to beat him they have to reach out with empathy to themselves first and then to each other, and literally hold each other in a tight embrace as a reminder that they are not alone. What wins the day is friendship, empathy, and love, not unlike the last season of My Hero Academia, which I also loved last year, or Superman, which I’m about to get into below.
I cried BUCKETS while watching Thunderbolts* in the UK’s largest IMAX screen alongside my Bucky Barnes-obsessed friend, who has since made this film her entire personality (affectionate), and honestly, I’ve also been thinking about it ever since. Again, it’s a delightful little irony that the megalithic Disney/MCU would come out with a narrative so introspective and empathetic, especially at a time that loneliness and isolation is rampant among the film’s core audience of young men. I really hope that watching this film inspired people to reach out and be less alone in their struggles, and that the financial hit Disney took with it won’t keep us from seeing more of these characters in the future.
Also! A fun fact I noticed while listening to the soundtrack was that the film’s main theme is a reversed version of the main Avengers theme; just listen to the first few seconds of both themes and you’ll hear it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Jzgp1jNiQ
Superman+
A good Superman movie?? In this economy?? Hallelujah!
I love a lot about what this film does with the core Superman premise. It gets Clark right, down to his farm boy roots and dorky kindness. It gets Superman right: his power isn’t unbeatable, and it isn’t even the most powerful thing about him (spoiler: it’s the dorky kindness). It gets Lex Luthor right—especially for our times—by having him be a smart but petty tech billionaire with an overinflated ego, someone who funds an invasion and even starts a pocket dimension on a whim, without once thinking of the consequences. It even gets Jimmy Olsen right simply by bringing him out of the margins where he’s been relegated for the last several Superman adaptations—and it’s actually really funny that he’s the one guy with the most game in this film, and that that’s how he gets to help out.
The structure of the film is an absolute delight, too. From the very start, we are thrown into the midst of a losing fight for Superman, which is a bold choice, as is having Clark’s relationship with Lois Lane already set up (and she even knows about him being Superman!). We don’t spend any time whatsoever on origin stories, budding relationship exploration, or long-winded exposition—we simply hit the ground running, and find out the particulars as we go along. It is assumed we know who Superman is, because… we all know who Superman is. And the themes around identity, responsibility, community, and how we should treat each other are laid bare without pretence, very directly speaking to the audience about contemporary problems we’re all facing day to day. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air not to be treated like an idiot, frankly.
There are a couple of things I don’t like about it though. For one, the film feels very busy, with so many characters and subplots and easter eggs thrown in, that if you blink you’ll definitely miss something. Relatedly, not all of those characters or subplots are treated equally, because there simply isn’t enough screen time to go around for everything. So the Justice Friends get the short shrift, as do Papa and Mama Kent, as does Krypton6, so that we can focus on the personal and political stakes that Clark/Superman has to overcome.
This is another superhero story with empathy at its heart, where the answer to even the most cosmic problems is… just be kind. Kindness is punk rock. As one of my favourite YouTube video essayists put it, this Superman is the American hero we desperately need right now. Someone who will stand up for what’s right even when the rest of the world tells him not to, someone with an unshakeable moral compass that only points to goodness. Watch that whole video actually, Dove does such a fantastic job analysing the cultural geography that plays into this film, and how it all ties together to bring us this ray of f*cking sunshine:
All this to say, I love that James Gunn can make a superhero movie that aims to appeal broadly but doesn’t feel like it panders to the lowest available denominator, and that he had the guts to (a) make the story feel relevant to our current times, what with all the invasions/”wars” going on right now that are purely happening for profit and that no one is doing anything to stop 🙄, and (b) leave us with a message of hope, that we can imagine a kinder world and that we can be the instruments of making that vision a reality. That kindness can be punk rock.
Dare I say, this was the movie that made me go, “huh, maybe the genre isn’t dead yet”, which… please, let it not be dead, I really like superheroes!
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Mickey 17: I enjoyed this a lot, particularly for its world-building and Robert Pattinson’s performance. Unfortunately I think the Bong Joon-Ho-ness of it all kind of undercuts the story in favour of very on-the-nose political commentary, which was fun in the moment but in retrospect kinda leaves me a bit… “meh!”, probably because the current climate is so much worse than when this movie was made, and making fun of things/people just isn’t enough right now. So I don’t think this will be getting one of my spots, but it’s still totally worth seeing, if you haven’t!
- Fantastic Four – First Steps: I also enjoyed this a lot, especially in light of B-Mask’s excellent Fantastic Four video from a few years back which explained the classic comics and got me up to speed on the characters. It’s an honest-to-God decent, good Marvel movie, which as I keep saying is a rare sight these days, but that being said… I liked the stuff I talked about up top way more than this one, not to mention the TV seasons, so I just think it gets edged out by the competition.
- Hamnet: Technically an SFF movie! The trailer had me weeping, but the movie left me cold somehow, perhaps because it’s a little too obvious in its attempts to make people cry (Mark Kermode said it best! The bit with the song at the very end irked me too because I recognised it, and the moment was actually completely ruined for me.) It does have some wonderful and atmospheric visuals where it comes to the speculative aspect of it, and the soundtrack by Max Richter is predictably phenomenal (if only they’d used his original song for the climactic ending of the film!!), but it just didn’t move me in the ways I thought it would, so it’s a miss.
The “I haven’t seen these yet” caveat+
- K-Pop Demon Hunters: Yes, I know, somehow, I still haven’t seen this movie. I’m assuming it’ll get nominated to high heaven, so I’ll watch it ahead of voting, I promise.
- Weapons: I’ve heard fantastic things about this, and my husband is a big WKUK fan, so I might be watching this soon and revising my thoughts.
- Wicked: For Good: I liked the first film well enough, and I hear that a LOT happens in the second half of the musical, so I’m tentatively putting this on a hold list until I watch it. I don’t know if it would edge out any of my favourites, realistically speaking, but I suppose there is always room for surprises!
Long Form: Non-Film/TV
B-Mask’s “The REAL Thunderbolts Story: Marvel’s Greatest Scam“*
This is a 2.5 hour love letter to comics, and the first in a five-part series that tells the story of the real Thunderbolts from the comic books (a team that bears very little resemblance to the one portrayed in the recent MCU film discussed above). It features complex animations drawing from the original comic book art, as well as a full cast of voice actors bringing the characters to life with their performances.
* I’m personally torn on whether this would qualify for BDP-LF or BRW (seeing as it is technically a fanwork, and not an original work), but either way it is nothing short of a masterpiece—I wrote more about it in my 2025 underrated Hugo picks post, if you’re interested.
Short Form: TV Episodes
A caveat: my reasoning around nominating a particular episode is kind of like nominating my favourite chapter of a novel. Especially with how a lot of the prestige TV shows are made nowadays, individual episodes function as chapters in a longer story, so they have to be considered in the context of the wider narrative they’re a part of. If they are from a second, third, or even last season of a long-running show, even more so.
Also—and this might be a slightly spicy take—I personally don’t like that a lot of Hugo voters seem to only watch the individual episodes on the eventual shortlist without any context, and then complain that they didn’t get what was going on. That’s because context matters, and while I understand that it would take a lot of time to watch an entire season (or even several!) to be able to appreciate a single episode… if you want your vote to be informed, that’s the job, innit?
This has happened several times to me, where there’s an episode on the shortlist from a show I don’t watch (and have no intention of watching—sorry Lower Decks), so I just skip it and don’t put it in my ballot at the end, or rank it below my own favourites. I do the same with sequels to books I haven’t read, out of respect for the work itself as well as its author, but that’s just me I guess! 🤷🏻♀️
Anyway, here are some thoughts about my favourite episodes of speculative TV from this year, under spoiler tags for obvious reasons.
Two episodes from Stranger Things, Season 5+
‘Chapter Four: Sorcerer’
I loved, loved, loved this episode. The moment Will uses his new power… it gave me goosebumps, it was so good—and the fight sequence in front of the gate to the Upside Down is incredible. Rather than the writing, though, I want to praise the actors’ performances and the work of the crew who worked on the practical effects, stunts, and complicated cinematography in this episode. Especially given more recent revelations about how the Duffers went into production with season 5 without having ironed out the ending, and the stress that added to the poor production crew, I think any flowers should really be going to them for making such an outstanding piece of TV despite the challenges.
‘Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz’
Yes, the scene in this photo feels a little ludicrously long considering they’re both on the run and about to be caught by the Big Bad, but I loved the heart of this relationship and the character development for both Holly and Max in this episode. I had also seen the Stranger Things play in London a couple of years back, and this episode eliminated the issues I had with the world-building in that, which at first had seemed to contradict the revelations in season 4 about Vecna/Henry Creel’s agency as a villain and his role in shaping the Upside Down… I was glad to see that in fact all the loose threads from the various seasons did connect, and that the strands from the play were relevant too.
Various episodes from Severance, Season 2+
S2E4: ‘Woe’s Hollow’
I mentioned this episode in my discussion of the series earlier, but let me get into it here: this is one of the best episodes of TV ever made, period, and I will fight you on this. I don’t know if it would stand alone in any capacity, considering the weird tone is already a lot to deal with and there’s a lot of plot and character interaction that picks up from where the last season left off, not to mention a big-time betrayal that ends up echoing through the rest of season 2.
I spent a good chunk of the beginning wondering if this was a simulator or a dream sequence because it didn’t fully make sense for our protagonists to be outside the Lumon offices, and the uncanny doppelgangers guiding them through the forest seemed almost dreamlike, but the reality was much more sinister in the end, which tracks. If there’s a single episode from this show I’d nominate, it’d be this one.
S2E8: ‘Sweet Vitriol’
People hate this episode because it’s slow and follows an unlikeable antagonist whom we are invited to empathise with, and that’s precisely the reason I like it. First of all, we get way more insight into the Lumon cult corporation from Harmony Cobel, who ostensibly grew up in the cult and has invested her whole life into the company’s welfare. This is also where we begin to see cracks form in her resolve as an antagonist, as she has realised that the company sees her as an expendable cog despite her lifelong investment and dedication, and so she decides to fight them, to prove that this little cog is actually so important, it might well bring the whole house down.
It’s interesting also for thematic reasons, outside of the show’s world. On an individual level, the image of someone who grew up in poverty while idolising a particular company, then making their entire life revolve around it so as to gain favour and socioeconomic mobility, gaining that and then losing it when the company no longer sees them as valuable, is unfortunately too relatable. So is seeing a small town that once had its own industry and community be taken over by a mega corporation and become completely dependent on it, eventually falling into destitution once the corporation pulls their activities out of the town. The actual commentary here is silent, but extremely powerful.
I don’t think Cobel’s about-turn is enough to fully make her an anti-hero, but I really enjoyed this episode for all the insight it gave us both into her and the world of Severance outside of Lumon HQ.
S2E10: ‘Cold Harbor’
There is a strong argument to be made that the season two finale is absolutely worth a nomination as well, making this a really tough choice. Two seasons’ worth of mystery solving and internal corporate espionage culminate in this one-hour episode where our protagonists clash with one another and with the antagonists, and it’s just adrenaline all the way down.
Some spoilery thoughts here.While the big questions have been answered (where is Mark’s wife? what is Cold Harbor? what are they doing with all those sheep?), so many more remain. Is there a way to save the innies at all, if Lumon ends up falling? Can Mark S. and Helly R. ever hope to have a life outside these walls? And what happens to Gemma now that she’s out, even though she has 24 distinct, hand-crafted personalities inside her?
There’s actually a great take I hadn’t come across before I sat down to write this, and that is that the finale actually inverts the Orpheus & Eurydice narrative of Mark and Gemma, by having Mark’s innie actually choose to stay behind in Lumon so he can be with Helly. It’s less of a lack of faith and more of a conscious decision, which perhaps makes it even more tragic as Gemma watches her husband (sort of) run toward danger and another woman, leaving her alone at the exit, screaming for him to come back.
Having written about the other episodes already, I do think ep4 is a stronger contender purely from a craft/vibes standpoint, whereas the finale is more typical in many ways, as it focuses on exposition and plot and is faster paced. YMMV here, for sure, but I’m inclined to pick ep4 over this one, now that I think about it.
Two episodes from Pluribus, Season 1+
Episode 1: “We is Us”
It’s not often that a TV pilot stands on its own two feet well. It’s even less common for the film-making to be so good that one must gasp in awe at the choreography, cinematography, and editing, multiple times throughout the course of the episode. One of my biggest peeves is when a TV pilot is so mired in exposition that there is no room for characters or atmosphere until the next episode because they simply have to give you the setup quickly—it ends up feeling flat and boring and frankly, it puts me off more than it entices me to keep watching until it gets better.7
Well, this episode does none of that.
Gilligan’s forte is silent scenes that actually speak volumes. There is so much storytelling in this episode that has no words; we watch an intergalactic viral hive mind sequence take over the Earth in perfectly synchronised movement, and the storytelling is in the silence, the perfect unison, and the eerie smiles as the hive mind consciousness flattens the individuals inside. A lesser writer would put exposition in dialogue, possibly giving too much information for where we are in the story, but Gilligan knows that less is more. We get just enough to hook us in, and the rest is pure atmosphere and of course, character.
Carol is introduced as a grumpy romantasy author, a lesbian in a loving relationship who constantly finds reasons to be miserable, much to her partner’s chagrin. When the hive mind sequence is spread via planes in the air, Carol loses her partner, and simultaneously the world. The panic that ensues is completely understandable, and it gets worse at every turn as she is met with more and more hive mind people, but no one else like her. What a place for a pilot to leave us in! Aren’t you hooked just by reading this?? GO WATCH THIS SHOW!
Episode 7: “The Gap”
The title refers to a real place that Manousos (pictured) has to cross, but also I suppose to the gap between Carol and others at this point in the show. This is another masterfully crafted episode with a dual narrative point of view, where Carol continues her life in Albuquerque while Manousos is making his slow way up through South and Central America towards Carol, crossing cities, climbing mountains, and trudging through thick, treacherous jungles, all while refusing the hive mind’s help at every opportunity.
Some spoilery thoughts here.At first, it’s admirable; he won’t even take gas without paying for it somehow, even though everything he comes across is at his disposal. Soon enough, however, his steadfastness turns into stubbornness that does more harm to him than good. When he gets seriously injured in the jungle (something that was completely preventable, had he accepted the hive mind’s help and transited through safer means),
Meanwhile, Carol stoically endures complete and total isolation for a long time as a result of the hive mind evacuating the whole metro area of Albuquerque, which happened when Carol hurt one of them (and by extension, all of them) quite badly while trying to find answers. She is given resources and sustenance remotely, and for a while enjoys her peaceful environment, going around town and doing whatever she feels like… until she finally cracks under the pressure of extreme loneliness, and asks the hive mind to come back.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment actually, seeing someone as stubborn sturdy as Carol finally admit that she can’t live her whole life completely cut off from other people, even though she hates the hive mind on principle, and can’t wrap her mind around accepting this status quo. In fairness, she makes it to about a month and a half, which is pretty long, but her isolation was also so complete that there were zero people around her for that whole time—an unfathomable experience that’s so well depicted on screen. I personally love the rooftop golf scene as an example of how utterly devoid of people the landscape is, a mundane sort of post-apocalyptic image.
This is probably my favourite episode in season 1, and even think it could be presented without context and still mostly work alright for new viewers… Though I’d still hope that people would watch the whole season anyway. If I had to pick one episode to represent the series as a whole, I’d say it’s this one.
Short Form: Non-TV
‘Songs No One Will Hear’ by Arjen Lucassen (music album)
I wrote a fair amount about this pre-apocalyptic concept album in my underrated Hugo recommendations post; here’s a snippet:
The result is an album that grapples with the essence of the human condition (something Lucassen is very adept at), asking what makes life worth living from the perspectives of a bunch of different characters as they try to come to terms with the impending end of the world—including those who think it’s all a hoax, those who embrace it, and those who rage against the dying of the light. It straddles a weird and fun line between diegetic/in-world music that’s on the radio and telling the story as a sung-through musical, which is a little different than what you might expect, particularly for a progressive rock album. But that’s the Arjen Lucassen guarantee: big questions, big emotions, and a sound that isn’t afraid to change dramatically when necessary, even mid-song. Full of theatricality, Songs No One Will Hear is in some ways very similar to Lucassen’s Ayreon albums, but retains its own identity both musically and thematically.
We’ve been known to nominate SFF music albums when they arise, and on occasion those musicians have even responded to being recognised by fandom—seeing Clipping live in Helsinki was fun!—so this wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, though perhaps it is a bit of a left field suggestion for most Hugo voters as a progressive rock concept album.
While he’s extremely popular in his own niche, most of Lucassen’s fans aren’t in SF fandom and vice versa, something that I would love to help shift by talking about his work more to Hugo voters and talking to Ayreon/Lucassen fans more about joining our community and coming to Worldcon, especially as the next few years are looking quite international. Lucassen’s very obvious Golden Age influences are bound to have pointed many of his fans to the genre, so the bridge is already half-built.
I’m sure that I’ll be one of very few people longlisting this album, but 🤷🏻♀️! I really think If you see just a single, solitary vote for it in the full data, know that it was me!
Footnotes
- Per the WSFS Constitution, clauses 3.8.2 and 3.8.3. ↩︎
- In addition to the more fannish post I linked above, I found another really cool essay about the Barbican as Coruscant from an architect who works in film and TV. ↩︎
- A special shoutout to Joshua James, who played the doctor who tortured Bix Caleen with the sounds of distant massacres; I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him in Treasure Island at the National Theatre back in 2015 or so, and make a point to see him in every play he’s in when I can. He had a stint as Dr Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow recently which I unfortunately missed, but I bet he was perfect! ↩︎
- I’d like to thank Octothorpe’s Alison Scott for her recommendation to see the film in an IMAX theatre, as the experience was truly spectacular. ↩︎
- There is another Black Widow character played by Olga Kurilenko who turns up for literally five minutes, but she is so not present in the rest of the film that I’m not even going to go into it. If it weren’t for Yelena and Alexei, I’d say that movie had zero lasting impact on the MCU, given how late into Natasha’s journey we got it (literally after she was canonically killed off), lol (sarcastic). ↩︎
- I still don’t know how to feel about the plot twist around Krypton and Clark’s biological parents, brief as it was. I think it is intended to maximise the contrast between where Clark hails from and where he grew up and how that affected his identity, and the discomfort it creates is probably very intentional from Gunn. ↩︎
- I call this “pilot syndrome”, and it’s one of my least favourite phenomena in media. ↩︎
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Battle for the Ballot: Best Dramatic Presentation 2026
The two Best Dramatic Presentation categories are among my favourites in the Hugos, because I consume a lot of SFF media and have a lot of thoughts and feelings about them. Since my post last year about why I had wanted Loki S2 to win a Hugo in 2024 (which I was working on for a while but ended up not posting it in time for it to sway anyone), I’ve been toying with the idea of producing more writing around some of my favourite things from each year, in case it helps anybody—least of all me, in getting it all out of my system.
I know I’m posting this with one day to go before nominations (these take so long for me! I must develop a better system for next year 🤔), but I’m really writing this to sound out my own thoughts about the DP categories this year, because it is absolutely bananas with how stacked they both are. There have been some truly great speculative television shows and films, stuff that I’m sure we’ll still be talking about for years to come, and making decisions to boil my favourite media down to just 5 per category—especially given the fiddliness of Long Form and Short Form where TV is concerned, which I’ll get to in a sec—is going to be excruciatingly difficult for me.
So come along on a journey with me as I parse my thoughts, and who knows! Maybe I’ll argue my way to your heart about some of this, or tell you about something you hadn’t heard of before—some of which I’ve already written about before, but I’m getting ahead of myself!
Let me know what your ballot looks like, and if you’re nominating any of the below shows, films, and other dramatic works, or if you’re including other things entirely. I’m curious!
TV series and the Long Form/Short Form debate
A big question for many fen every year is “do I nominate one episode from a TV series that stands on its own or that adequately represents the show in Short Form, or do I nominate the whole season in Long Form because it’s one complete narrative, and isolating one chapter of it would be unfair?”
Understandably, it’s a tough one; when a show inevitably gets votes in both categories, it can lead to headaches for the Hugo Administrating Team as they have to sift through the numbers and ultimately decide which category it should be nominated in1, which I don’t envy at all. But at the same time, as a voter, I have to go with what my heart says and name my favourite episodes in Short Form, regardless of whether I’ve also named the show/season as a whole in Long Form, because if enough others have put that same episode down, then that’s what’ll make it through to the shortlist, and I would want my vote to count towards those totals.
All that to say: if you expected a clear stance from me on this, HA! I’m afraid I don’t have one 😇—and to be perfectly honest, this is exactly the sort of thing where people’s mileage will vary the most.
My personal method of deciding whether to nominate entire TV seasons rather than one specific episode is purely based on ~vibes~, on whether or not I thought the season works better in its totality than through its individual parts, versus cases where one outstanding episode eclipses all the others for me. Not all shows are written the same, of course, and those that favour a longer narrative arc (as a lot of prestige TV does nowadays) tend to find their way on my long form ballot more often than not, as opposed to the more episodic writing that isn’t as popular now but used to be ubiquitous in the pre-streaming era.
Ultimately, you may agree or disagree with me on my reasoning for some of my choices below, whether on the LF/SF question or my actual opinions of the various media, and that’s fair enough. I welcome discussion in the comments, but please keep it civil!
Jump to:
- Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
- Long Form: Films
- Long Form: Non-Film/TV
- Short Form: TV Episodes
- Short Form: Non-TV
Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
You might see episodes from some of these further down in the episode/short form discussion.
Andor, Season 2+
This is kind of my front-runner among the TV seasons for the Long Form category. Overall, I enjoyed it slightly more than season 1 for a few reasons: first of all, the pacing was much more even, with a little bit more action and intrigue peppered throughout the season as opposed to having several quieter mini-arcs that slowed things down in places; and crucially, there was a lot less dithering from Cassian Andor, our reluctant protagonist, who finally comes into his own as a rebel after being passively tossed about this way and that in the first season. The agency he has in this one makes him much more interesting as a character, and brings him on the same level as other players in the budding rebellion front, like Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael. In fact, with all the different character arcs completed, Andor finally becomes what Rogue One always wanted to be: a testament to the great sacrifices necessary for revolution to take root.
I liked a lot of what went down in this season as tensions continued ramping up between the Empire and the Rebellion; the Ghorman subplot was outstanding, especially with Dedra and Cyril’s journeys as instruments of Imperial oppression and violence, as was Mon Mothma’s arc from quiet resistance financier to full-on political rebel on the run, with her heartbreaking arc where she realises the personal cost of rebellion. None of the individual episodes in season 2 came even close to the intensity or narrative brilliance of One Way Out, which was hands down my favourite episode of season 1, but that’s okay—I think this season works so much better in its totality, that I’ll be happy to nominate it wholesale.
I still need to re-watch Rogue One actually, to see if my (very mid) opinion on it changes at all, but ultimately I’m just really happy this show was made, and that it looked and felt amazing throughout. It’s probably my favourite Star Wars story, period, and I am so chuffed that so much of it was filmed in the UK (in locations I know and visit all the time, including my old workplace!2), and is full of incredibly talented and classically trained British theatre actors who fill the space with their physicality and make their performances memorable even in the smallest of roles3.
Severance, Season 2+
Another really strong contender for this category. If you ask me which TV show might win the LF Hugo between this, Andor, or Pluribus, my money would probably be on Severance, even if I personally prefer Andor thematically and Pluribus cinematically. There’s no doubt Severance is an absolute masterpiece of television—nay, of cinema—and the fact that the most anti-capitalist story of our time is coming directly from the big tech megacorp Apple is an irony that is as delicious as it is hilarious.
Aside from its bonkers world-building (which still has so many unanswered questions!), this season of Severance also dove pretty deep into its characters, whom we only got to know a bit in season 1. I don’t want to get too spoilery here, but there’s a handful of moments in this season that go SO HARD—particularly that one slow episode that everyone else hated for some reason, where we follow Patricia Arquette’s character as she goes to her dingy home town and fills us in on the cult lore around Lumon Industries, and of course the team building episode in which our intrepid heroes actually go outside, but it’s all weird in that trademark Lumon way where nothing really fully makes sense, and it leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable, like something’s not quite aligned right.
But yeah, the world-building, man. It’s something else. I was glued to my screen and my mind was running a mile a minute trying to join the dots and figure out the answers to the show’s mysteries, much like our heroes consolidate memories refine macrodata—remember, the work is mysterious and important—and the excitement of getting it just before the show confirmed it was super fun. Yet, finally understanding what macrodata refinement is was actually a really tragic moment, and everything that happens after that made my heart break for the innies who are stuck living a half-life they can’t escape, on pain of death.
Ultimately, what I loved the most about the second season of Severance is its staunch anti-capitalist messaging that speaks to the average office worker today regardless of where they may be in the world, because corporate manipulation knows no borders:
- A job is a job, not a family.
- The company you work for does not deserve blind, cult-like loyalty.
- Your life is more than just work, and compartmentalising your work self and your out-of-work self might be a band-aid solution, but it doesn’t really work in the end.
- You are you, with all your complex layers of self, even if your corporate overlords (…or just your line manager 🤐) want you to think otherwise, or to act otherwise so you can fit into their office culture.
- Basically, it’s all dumb, and you deserve to live, not just to survive so you can punch your clock card and get meaningless little bonuses like finger traps or waffle parties.
This relatability is what keeps me hooked, and what I think elevates the show from pretty sci-fi to a classic of our times. It’s definitely got my vote.
Pluribus, Season 1+
God, talk about another cinematic masterpiece. When Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul‘s Vince Gilligan said he was working on a new show (which he was writing specifically for Rhea Seahorn to star in), I was crossing my fingers and my toes that it would be sci-fi, and Pluribus has completely blown my expectations out of the water. Not only does it mark Gilligan’s return to science fiction for the first time since The X-Files, but he brings his now-trademark cinematic visual language to it, full of tight choreography and nuanced subtext through visual and music cues, which is what made BB & BCS so special.
The result is an unnerving combination of horror, absurdist humour, and subtle world-building, centered around a complex character named Carol Sturka, who is one of only a few humans not to join the weird hive mind connection that takes over all other human beings on the planet, and doesn’t want to even entertain the idea. I’ve seen many reviews call her unlikable and unrelatable, and while the first part may be true (I was really tired of her contrarian nature in the first half of the season), I think there’s something more going on here than just a selfish white American woman who expects the world to move just for her.
The thing is, Vince Gilligan does not talk down to his audience; he expects us to keep up and to pick up what he’s putting down, whether that’s subtle digs at the publishing industry (it is truly hilarious to me that the protagonist of this show is an actual romantasy author!), not-so-subtle digs about community building and the harm humanity has done to the planet and to each other (particularly around resource distribution, iykyk), and questions about human nature that we are left to ponder: would you trade world peace for the complete flattening of human culture? Are we capable of retaining what makes us human while not actively harming the world around us, or each other? What is humanity, really, or human nature even?
Big stuff coming from an Apple TV show, once again; should I even be surprised at this point?
I think the long game of this show is going to be Carol’s character development from grumpy selfish miser to someone who genuinely cares about other people—a reverse Walter White, if you will. Gilligan is all about the narrative arc, and he has been known to deliver some of the best narrative arcs in TV ever, even if they take a while to stick the landing. I have faith that he is cooking something we haven’t even yet begun to poke at, if Better Call Saul is any indication, and between the already great writing and the show’s superlative production value, I think Pluribus is going to be a low-key modern classic. Vince has my vote, now and always.
My Hero Academia: The Final Season+
I wrote about this extensively in my Hugo ballot recommendations post a couple of months ago, so I’ll pull a quote from that as to why I loved it so much:
Y’all, what can I say: this has been my favourite anime of the last decade, and the fact it is ending has had me in my feelings for months. I’ve been deeply invested emotionally for many years, watching the simulcasts on the same day as the anime airs in Japan since around season 2, and this last season has been all payoff for almost ten years’ worth of story. Every Saturday from October 4th till December 13th, I tuned in and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes straight, which for an anime aimed at teenage boys is an absolute feat. Defying every expectation, it stuck the landing for every little story beat, every subplot, and every theme set up over its ten year tenure perfectly, making it one of my absolute favourite stories in the superhero genre.
This is definitely one of those where context is essential, so I don’t think it can be viewed in a vacuum and appreciated to the same extent as having watched all previous seven seasons. You can try, but it wouldn’t be worth it just for the awards. Just watch the show so the ending can hit you like a ton of bricks in the best way possible, even if you miss the deadline. It’s fun, it’s moving, it’s made with so much love for American comics through a uniquely Japanese perspective. I can’t recommend it enough, and it’ll definitely be on my Long Form ballot even if I’m one of ten people who put it there 🤷🏻♀️
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Silo, Season 2: It’s definitely not as tight as season 1, and it was missing some stuff from the books that may well turn up in season 3. For what it’s worth, there’s a lot I enjoyed about this season, but unfortunately it’s simply weaker when Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette isn’t on screen, and there’s a lot of that unfortunately. I’m certainly looking forward to what season 3 will be adapting, and to see what format that will take, as I think they’re either condensing or axing the second half of book 2 to go straight to the dual narrative of book 3, which I have mixed feelings about.
- Murderbot: I never got into the books because of tonal whiplash (MB’s violence and misanthropy coated in dry humour just didn’t work for me), and while I thought the TV show was a little better in that regard, ultimately I thought the show was just okay. I didn’t actively dislike it, mind, but I watched most of it on a plane ride, didn’t finish it, and haven’t felt like picking it back up since. The story just doesn’t grab me, I think, and I never felt particularly attached to or compelled by any of the characters… and I’m okay with that 🤷🏻♀️. Not everything is for everyone! I expect it’ll be mass-nominated by all the book fans anyway based on the online discourse I’ve seen, so it won’t miss my vote.
- Invasion, Season 3: I didn’t even know this was out, lmao! I was deeply invested while watching seasons 1 and 2 (even though I disliked quite a few of the characters), but as soon as I was done with it I promptly forgot about it—and Apple TV didn’t even let me know that it was back on. Whomst can I shake until they fix the marketing situation over there?! Christ on a cracker!
- Stranger Things, Season 5: To my own surprise, I didn’t like this season nearly as much as season 4, let alone season 1, and so I will not be considering it for the Long Form category (including the last episode, which would qualify under Long Form on its own due to being 128 MINUTES LONG 🙄). It’s turned out to be one of those things where, while I enjoyed it a fair bit in the moment, the longer I think about it the more my feelings about it seem to change, and the ending has left me a bit… conflicted, shall we say. But it did have some great episodes in the middle especially, so I will consider a couple of them in the Short Form category.
Long Form: Films
Sinners+
This was probably my favourite SFF film of last year. Not only is it atmospheric, fun, and lush with cross-border folkloric world-building (Hoodoo magic and Irish vampires?! yes please!), but the story touches so many themes that a regular popcorn movie won’t even veer towards, and it does so brilliantly.
All the many layers of the Black and POC experience in the South during the Prohibition era (and beyond) are crystallised in the character arc of each ensemble cast member, with some absolutely outstanding performances by Hailee Steinfeld (whose character Mary is biracial, and torn between safety and belonging), Michael B. Jordan (who plays identical twins Smoke and Stack so well he walked away with an Oscar for it), and Wunmi Mosaku in particular as Smoke’s wife Annie (she’s such an underrated performer, but I’m so glad to see her actually flex her acting skills after her appearance in Loki). We’re talking themes like the push and pull of religion and its role in both keeping communities together and also oppressing them, the safety of BIPOC in a white supremacist society, and even the immigrant experience… the truth is your average blockbuster would never—but this is Ryan Coogler, and he won’t sugar-coat things for a mainstream audience, instead telling a story only he could tell, filled with truth, complexity, and nuance, something I really wish more filmmakers would embrace nowadays.
The film’s protagonist, Sammie (Miles Caton) has a preternatural gift with music, and the plot revolves around a juke joint Smoke and Stack put together, and the connection that music can create across time and even culture—with a wonderful supernatural twist.
One of my favourite moments is when the villain Remmick (an immortal Irish vampire played by Jack O’Connell) turns up at their juke joint and cries with joy at the emotions Sammie’s music has brought him after years of numbness. He talks about his own experience of colonialism at the hands of the British Empire and the subsequent erasure of Irish culture through the centuries, which is a very real thing—but he’s also a predator who has been making his way through the land trying to trap people and turn them into vampires, chased away by indigenous people who could tell he was a monster before attacking a couple who are Klan members. It’s clear that he doesn’t want Sammie’s music in order to connect people, but to use it as a tool on his quest to propagate a vampire race, and that seemingly sweet moment of connection is exposed as the performative allyship that it is.
There are some phenomenal action sequences too, with the last third of the film keeping me on the edge of my IMAX seat4. Genuinely, this film was such a breath of fresh air: delightfully complex but also fun, in ways that cinema just doesn’t dare to be right now. I was sad they didn’t win all the awards they were up for, but perhaps we can give it a Hugo instead.
Frankenstein+
©️ Netflix 2025I have a full review of this here, but basically: the SFF-ness of this is lush, as expected from a Guillermo Del Toro movie, and for the most part it works well as an adaptation of the book. As I mention in my other post, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the NT’s theatre adaptation, which I still consider the ultimate version of this story, but it does similar things with the characters as Penny Dreadful, which is my runner-up favourite, save for the very end, and it’s that ending that makes the whole thing fall short for me, unfortunately.
To quote myself:
Why do we sing sad songs, when we know their ending is unhappy? When our instinctual yearning for a happy ending is met with the inevitability of human flaws getting in the way, that emotional release we experience is what my ancestors called catharsis. As the audience we accept that because of who these characters are, they would always make these choices and lead the story to the same outcome, time and again, even though we’d like them to change, to choose better, so they can be happy in the end.
What makes Frankenstein compelling in any iteration is its core conflict: Victor’s refusal to acknowledge the Creature as human, despite the fact that the Creature is deeply human, as much as his creator would like to think otherwise. We are invited to empathise with the Creature’s plight, to see how he thinks and feels, how he desires things we all do: safety, friendship, love. Victor is incapable of recognising this, and so the two clash eternally. Such is the tragedy, and no matter what minor changes are made to it, the good adaptations always recognise the impasse between the two at the end. It’s what makes the story tick.
My ultimate issue with the way Del Toro chose to end his adaptation of Frankenstein is that it ultimately robs us of our deserved catharsis by artificially resolving the incontrovertible stalemate between the two leads, giving us a happy(ish) ending in which Victor, at death’s door, forgives the Creature for the violence and destruction he’s wrought, apologises for what he did to him, and urges him to live on, free of guilt, yet completely alone. The Creature then walks off into the Arctic sunrise, liberated from his vendetta yet devastated at losing his creator.
It’s a lovely thought in principle, a Del Toro-ism about accepting one’s nature and walking away from one’s painful past, and if it were an original story without baggage I’d be all for it—after all, The Shape of Water had similar, pro-monster themes of letting go of trying to fit into a world that won’t accept you anyway, and I ate that up voraciously. But here, in taking a tragedy that is so classic and ingrained, loading it with a bunch of new traumas and subplots, and then resolving it all with a little monologue, the ending robs the story of its true conclusion, fundamentally missing the point of the source text, and doing a disservice both to Victor and the Creature.
I still think it’s a strong contender in the category, and definitely one of my favourite SFF movies I saw last year, despite my issues with it. However, given all my favourite TV shows above, I think I might eschew giving this one of my ballot spots, but I won’t be disappointed to see it on the final ballot, should it make it through.
Thunderbolts*+
I loved this movie A LOT, you guys, and it made me very sad that it flopped at the box office. I don’t blame people for being fatigued with Marvel’s mediocre superhero slop, but they should have given this movie a chance at the very least, because it might not have been the movie we wanted, but it was definitely the movie we needed right now.
(c) Disney/Marvel Studios, 2025I was very surprised with how deep it went into the trauma our various superheroes and anti-heroes have sustained through their previous adventures, and the level of empathy with which it treated them all:
- Yelena Belova, the last surviving Black Widow5, starts off depressed and morose, aimless, dissatisfied with running around and blowing things up for people with nothing to show for it except a path of destruction.
- Her and Natasha Romanoff’s father figure, Alexei Shostakov, is facing the music that his “Red Star” superhero persona is nothing but a figment of a bygone era, and is living a meagre life as a limo driver while reminiscing about his glory days.
- John Walker, the temporary Captain America replacement later dubbed “U.S. Agent”, is dealing with guilt after slaughtering innocent bystanders using Cap’s vibranium shield during the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all while struggling through early parenthood.
- The Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—is running for office, in an attempt to turn his newfound and shaky inner peace into something productive. Yet, something keeps niggling at him about the power vacuum left in the wake of the Avengers disappearing, and he can’t help but get involved in ways political candidates really shouldn’t. See: taking a huge machine gun and riding a motorbike out to the desert to find out who is behind these shenanigans. Tut tut, Mr Congressman.
- Oh, there’s also Ava Star/Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp, probably my least favourite Marvel movie to date, whom I completely forgot about before watching this movie and while writing this review. Oops! Her thing is that she is constantly phasing in and out of a solid existence, and she has to keep shouting about how traumatised she is with no need for subtext because they know we’ve all forgotten about her and need to be reminded of her struggles. Normally I’d be mad at that, but they are not wrong this time 😅
And then, there’s Bob.
(c) Disney/Marvel, 2025Bob is a new guy, recruited to be experimented on in hopes of becoming a superhero. He seems normal, average even, and he reluctantly joins our motley crew as they escape from a trap set by their employer—but under the surface he carries a deep wound, a gash that opens up to swallow him whole and turns him into The Void, his mysterious alter ego who awakens when Bob’s absolutely OTT superpowers kick in. The rest, as they say, is plot.
There’s a lot of (predictably dark) humour in this, and I was surprised with how much I liked these characters once they were given enough room to be protagonists, rather than minor antagonists in someone else’s story. While they haphazardly join forces into a makeshift team, their trauma is taken seriously, coalescing into the film’s climactic battle that pits the reluctant heroes against The Void, who weaponises each of their subconscious against them. The Void is Depression, by any other name—it’s the dark voice inside that tells each of our anti-heroes that they are worthless, unlovable, guilty, and alone. In order to beat him they have to reach out with empathy to themselves first and then to each other, and literally hold each other in a tight embrace as a reminder that they are not alone. What wins the day is friendship, empathy, and love, not unlike the last season of My Hero Academia, which I also loved last year, or Superman, which I’m about to get into below.
I cried BUCKETS while watching Thunderbolts* in the UK’s largest IMAX screen alongside my Bucky Barnes-obsessed friend, who has since made this film her entire personality (affectionate), and honestly, I’ve also been thinking about it ever since. Again, it’s a delightful little irony that the megalithic Disney/MCU would come out with a narrative so introspective and empathetic, especially at a time that loneliness and isolation is rampant among the film’s core audience of young men. I really hope that watching this film inspired people to reach out and be less alone in their struggles, and that the financial hit Disney took with it won’t keep us from seeing more of these characters in the future.
Also! A fun fact I noticed while listening to the soundtrack was that the film’s main theme is a reversed version of the main Avengers theme; just listen to the first few seconds of both themes and you’ll hear it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Jzgp1jNiQ
Superman+
A good Superman movie?? In this economy?? Hallelujah!
I love a lot about what this film does with the core Superman premise. It gets Clark right, down to his farm boy roots and dorky kindness. It gets Superman right: his power isn’t unbeatable, and it isn’t even the most powerful thing about him (spoiler: it’s the dorky kindness). It gets Lex Luthor right—especially for our times—by having him be a smart but petty tech billionaire with an overinflated ego, someone who funds an invasion and even starts a pocket dimension on a whim, without once thinking of the consequences. It even gets Jimmy Olsen right simply by bringing him out of the margins where he’s been relegated for the last several Superman adaptations—and it’s actually really funny that he’s the one guy with the most game in this film, and that that’s how he gets to help out.
The structure of the film is an absolute delight, too. From the very start, we are thrown into the midst of a losing fight for Superman, which is a bold choice, as is having Clark’s relationship with Lois Lane already set up (and she even knows about him being Superman!). We don’t spend any time whatsoever on origin stories, budding relationship exploration, or long-winded exposition—we simply hit the ground running, and find out the particulars as we go along. It is assumed we know who Superman is, because… we all know who Superman is. And the themes around identity, responsibility, community, and how we should treat each other are laid bare without pretence, very directly speaking to the audience about contemporary problems we’re all facing day to day. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air not to be treated like an idiot, frankly.
There are a couple of things I don’t like about it though. For one, the film feels very busy, with so many characters and subplots and easter eggs thrown in, that if you blink you’ll definitely miss something. Relatedly, not all of those characters or subplots are treated equally, because there simply isn’t enough screen time to go around for everything. So the Justice Friends get the short shrift, as do Papa and Mama Kent, as does Krypton6, so that we can focus on the personal and political stakes that Clark/Superman has to overcome.
This is another superhero story with empathy at its heart, where the answer to even the most cosmic problems is… just be kind. Kindness is punk rock. As one of my favourite YouTube video essayists put it, this Superman is the American hero we desperately need right now. Someone who will stand up for what’s right even when the rest of the world tells him not to, someone with an unshakeable moral compass that only points to goodness. Watch that whole video actually, Dove does such a fantastic job analysing the cultural geography that plays into this film, and how it all ties together to bring us this ray of f*cking sunshine:
All this to say, I love that James Gunn can make a superhero movie that aims to appeal broadly but doesn’t feel like it panders to the lowest available denominator, and that he had the guts to (a) make the story feel relevant to our current times, what with all the invasions/”wars” going on right now that are purely happening for profit and that no one is doing anything to stop 🙄, and (b) leave us with a message of hope, that we can imagine a kinder world and that we can be the instruments of making that vision a reality. That kindness can be punk rock.
Dare I say, this was the movie that made me go, “huh, maybe the genre isn’t dead yet”, which… please, let it not be dead, I really like superheroes!
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Mickey 17: I enjoyed this a lot, particularly for its world-building and Robert Pattinson’s performance. Unfortunately I think the Bong Joon-Ho-ness of it all kind of undercuts the story in favour of very on-the-nose political commentary, which was fun in the moment but in retrospect kinda leaves me a bit… “meh!”, probably because the current climate is so much worse than when this movie was made, and making fun of things/people just isn’t enough right now. So I don’t think this will be getting one of my spots, but it’s still totally worth seeing, if you haven’t!
- Fantastic Four – First Steps: I also enjoyed this a lot, especially in light of B-Mask’s excellent Fantastic Four video from a few years back which explained the classic comics and got me up to speed on the characters. It’s an honest-to-God decent, good Marvel movie, which as I keep saying is a rare sight these days, but that being said… I liked the stuff I talked about up top way more than this one, not to mention the TV seasons, so I just think it gets edged out by the competition.
- Hamnet: Technically an SFF movie! The trailer had me weeping, but the movie left me cold somehow, perhaps because it’s a little too obvious in its attempts to make people cry (Mark Kermode said it best! The bit with the song at the very end irked me too because I recognised it, and the moment was actually completely ruined for me.) It does have some wonderful and atmospheric visuals where it comes to the speculative aspect of it, and the soundtrack by Max Richter is predictably phenomenal (if only they’d used his original song for the climactic ending of the film!!), but it just didn’t move me in the ways I thought it would, so it’s a miss.
The “I haven’t seen these yet” caveat+
- K-Pop Demon Hunters: Yes, I know, somehow, I still haven’t seen this movie. I’m assuming it’ll get nominated to high heaven, so I’ll watch it ahead of voting, I promise.
- Weapons: I’ve heard fantastic things about this, and my husband is a big WKUK fan, so I might be watching this soon and revising my thoughts.
- Wicked: For Good: I liked the first film well enough, and I hear that a LOT happens in the second half of the musical, so I’m tentatively putting this on a hold list until I watch it. I don’t know if it would edge out any of my favourites, realistically speaking, but I suppose there is always room for surprises!
Long Form: Non-Film/TV
B-Mask’s “The REAL Thunderbolts Story: Marvel’s Greatest Scam“*
This is a 2.5 hour love letter to comics, and the first in a five-part series that tells the story of the real Thunderbolts from the comic books (a team that bears very little resemblance to the one portrayed in the recent MCU film discussed above). It features complex animations drawing from the original comic book art, as well as a full cast of voice actors bringing the characters to life with their performances.
* I’m personally torn on whether this would qualify for BDP-LF or BRW (seeing as it is technically a fanwork, and not an original work), but either way it is nothing short of a masterpiece—I wrote more about it in my 2025 underrated Hugo picks post, if you’re interested.
Short Form: TV Episodes
A caveat: my reasoning around nominating a particular episode is kind of like nominating my favourite chapter of a novel. Especially with how a lot of the prestige TV shows are made nowadays, individual episodes function as chapters in a longer story, so they have to be considered in the context of the wider narrative they’re a part of. If they are from a second, third, or even last season of a long-running show, even more so.
Also—and this might be a slightly spicy take—I personally don’t like that a lot of Hugo voters seem to only watch the individual episodes on the eventual shortlist without any context, and then complain that they didn’t get what was going on. That’s because context matters, and while I understand that it would take a lot of time to watch an entire season (or even several!) to be able to appreciate a single episode… if you want your vote to be informed, that’s the job, innit?
This has happened several times to me, where there’s an episode on the shortlist from a show I don’t watch (and have no intention of watching—sorry Lower Decks), so I just skip it and don’t put it in my ballot at the end, or rank it below my own favourites. I do the same with sequels to books I haven’t read, out of respect for the work itself as well as its author, but that’s just me I guess! 🤷🏻♀️
Anyway, here are some thoughts about my favourite episodes of speculative TV from this year, under spoiler tags for obvious reasons.
Two episodes from Stranger Things, Season 5+
‘Chapter Four: Sorcerer’
I loved, loved, loved this episode. The moment Will uses his new power… it gave me goosebumps, it was so good—and the fight sequence in front of the gate to the Upside Down is incredible. Rather than the writing, though, I want to praise the actors’ performances and the work of the crew who worked on the practical effects, stunts, and complicated cinematography in this episode. Especially given more recent revelations about how the Duffers went into production with season 5 without having ironed out the ending, and the stress that added to the poor production crew, I think any flowers should really be going to them for making such an outstanding piece of TV despite the challenges.
‘Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz’
Yes, the scene in this photo feels a little ludicrously long considering they’re both on the run and about to be caught by the Big Bad, but I loved the heart of this relationship and the character development for both Holly and Max in this episode. I had also seen the Stranger Things play in London a couple of years back, and this episode eliminated the issues I had with the world-building in that, which at first had seemed to contradict the revelations in season 4 about Vecna/Henry Creel’s agency as a villain and his role in shaping the Upside Down… I was glad to see that in fact all the loose threads from the various seasons did connect, and that the strands from the play were relevant too.
Various episodes from Severance, Season 2+
S2E4: ‘Woe’s Hollow’
I mentioned this episode in my discussion of the series earlier, but let me get into it here: this is one of the best episodes of TV ever made, period, and I will fight you on this. I don’t know if it would stand alone in any capacity, considering the weird tone is already a lot to deal with and there’s a lot of plot and character interaction that picks up from where the last season left off, not to mention a big-time betrayal that ends up echoing through the rest of season 2.
I spent a good chunk of the beginning wondering if this was a simulator or a dream sequence because it didn’t fully make sense for our protagonists to be outside the Lumon offices, and the uncanny doppelgangers guiding them through the forest seemed almost dreamlike, but the reality was much more sinister in the end, which tracks. If there’s a single episode from this show I’d nominate, it’d be this one.
S2E8: ‘Sweet Vitriol’
People hate this episode because it’s slow and follows an unlikeable antagonist whom we are invited to empathise with, and that’s precisely the reason I like it. First of all, we get way more insight into the Lumon cult corporation from Harmony Cobel, who ostensibly grew up in the cult and has invested her whole life into the company’s welfare. This is also where we begin to see cracks form in her resolve as an antagonist, as she has realised that the company sees her as an expendable cog despite her lifelong investment and dedication, and so she decides to fight them, to prove that this little cog is actually so important, it might well bring the whole house down.
It’s interesting also for thematic reasons, outside of the show’s world. On an individual level, the image of someone who grew up in poverty while idolising a particular company, then making their entire life revolve around it so as to gain favour and socioeconomic mobility, gaining that and then losing it when the company no longer sees them as valuable, is unfortunately too relatable. So is seeing a small town that once had its own industry and community be taken over by a mega corporation and become completely dependent on it, eventually falling into destitution once the corporation pulls their activities out of the town. The actual commentary here is silent, but extremely powerful.
I don’t think Cobel’s about-turn is enough to fully make her an anti-hero, but I really enjoyed this episode for all the insight it gave us both into her and the world of Severance outside of Lumon HQ.
S2E10: ‘Cold Harbor’
There is a strong argument to be made that the season two finale is absolutely worth a nomination as well, making this a really tough choice. Two seasons’ worth of mystery solving and internal corporate espionage culminate in this one-hour episode where our protagonists clash with one another and with the antagonists, and it’s just adrenaline all the way down.
Some spoilery thoughts here.While the big questions have been answered (where is Mark’s wife? what is Cold Harbor? what are they doing with all those sheep?), so many more remain. Is there a way to save the innies at all, if Lumon ends up falling? Can Mark S. and Helly R. ever hope to have a life outside these walls? And what happens to Gemma now that she’s out, even though she has 24 distinct, hand-crafted personalities inside her?
There’s actually a great take I hadn’t come across before I sat down to write this, and that is that the finale actually inverts the Orpheus & Eurydice narrative of Mark and Gemma, by having Mark’s innie actually choose to stay behind in Lumon so he can be with Helly. It’s less of a lack of faith and more of a conscious decision, which perhaps makes it even more tragic as Gemma watches her husband (sort of) run toward danger and another woman, leaving her alone at the exit, screaming for him to come back.
Having written about the other episodes already, I do think ep4 is a stronger contender purely from a craft/vibes standpoint, whereas the finale is more typical in many ways, as it focuses on exposition and plot and is faster paced. YMMV here, for sure, but I’m inclined to pick ep4 over this one, now that I think about it.
Two episodes from Pluribus, Season 1+
Episode 1: “We is Us”
It’s not often that a TV pilot stands on its own two feet well. It’s even less common for the film-making to be so good that one must gasp in awe at the choreography, cinematography, and editing, multiple times throughout the course of the episode. One of my biggest peeves is when a TV pilot is so mired in exposition that there is no room for characters or atmosphere until the next episode because they simply have to give you the setup quickly—it ends up feeling flat and boring and frankly, it puts me off more than it entices me to keep watching until it gets better.7
Well, this episode does none of that.
Gilligan’s forte is silent scenes that actually speak volumes. There is so much storytelling in this episode that has no words; we watch an intergalactic viral hive mind sequence take over the Earth in perfectly synchronised movement, and the storytelling is in the silence, the perfect unison, and the eerie smiles as the hive mind consciousness flattens the individuals inside. A lesser writer would put exposition in dialogue, possibly giving too much information for where we are in the story, but Gilligan knows that less is more. We get just enough to hook us in, and the rest is pure atmosphere and of course, character.
Carol is introduced as a grumpy romantasy author, a lesbian in a loving relationship who constantly finds reasons to be miserable, much to her partner’s chagrin. When the hive mind sequence is spread via planes in the air, Carol loses her partner, and simultaneously the world. The panic that ensues is completely understandable, and it gets worse at every turn as she is met with more and more hive mind people, but no one else like her. What a place for a pilot to leave us in! Aren’t you hooked just by reading this?? GO WATCH THIS SHOW!
Episode 7: “The Gap”
The title refers to a real place that Manousos (pictured) has to cross, but also I suppose to the gap between Carol and others at this point in the show. This is another masterfully crafted episode with a dual narrative point of view, where Carol continues her life in Albuquerque while Manousos is making his slow way up through South and Central America towards Carol, crossing cities, climbing mountains, and trudging through thick, treacherous jungles, all while refusing the hive mind’s help at every opportunity.
Some spoilery thoughts here.At first, it’s admirable; he won’t even take gas without paying for it somehow, even though everything he comes across is at his disposal. Soon enough, however, his steadfastness turns into stubbornness that does more harm to him than good. When he gets seriously injured in the jungle (something that was completely preventable, had he accepted the hive mind’s help and transited through safer means),
Meanwhile, Carol stoically endures complete and total isolation for a long time as a result of the hive mind evacuating the whole metro area of Albuquerque, which happened when Carol hurt one of them (and by extension, all of them) quite badly while trying to find answers. She is given resources and sustenance remotely, and for a while enjoys her peaceful environment, going around town and doing whatever she feels like… until she finally cracks under the pressure of extreme loneliness, and asks the hive mind to come back.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment actually, seeing someone as stubborn sturdy as Carol finally admit that she can’t live her whole life completely cut off from other people, even though she hates the hive mind on principle, and can’t wrap her mind around accepting this status quo. In fairness, she makes it to about a month and a half, which is pretty long, but her isolation was also so complete that there were zero people around her for that whole time—an unfathomable experience that’s so well depicted on screen. I personally love the rooftop golf scene as an example of how utterly devoid of people the landscape is, a mundane sort of post-apocalyptic image.
This is probably my favourite episode in season 1, and even think it could be presented without context and still mostly work alright for new viewers… Though I’d still hope that people would watch the whole season anyway. If I had to pick one episode to represent the series as a whole, I’d say it’s this one.
Short Form: Non-TV
‘Songs No One Will Hear’ by Arjen Lucassen (music album)
I wrote a fair amount about this pre-apocalyptic concept album in my underrated Hugo recommendations post; here’s a snippet:
The result is an album that grapples with the essence of the human condition (something Lucassen is very adept at), asking what makes life worth living from the perspectives of a bunch of different characters as they try to come to terms with the impending end of the world—including those who think it’s all a hoax, those who embrace it, and those who rage against the dying of the light. It straddles a weird and fun line between diegetic/in-world music that’s on the radio and telling the story as a sung-through musical, which is a little different than what you might expect, particularly for a progressive rock album. But that’s the Arjen Lucassen guarantee: big questions, big emotions, and a sound that isn’t afraid to change dramatically when necessary, even mid-song. Full of theatricality, Songs No One Will Hear is in some ways very similar to Lucassen’s Ayreon albums, but retains its own identity both musically and thematically.
We’ve been known to nominate SFF music albums when they arise, and on occasion those musicians have even responded to being recognised by fandom—seeing Clipping live in Helsinki was fun!—so this wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, though perhaps it is a bit of a left field suggestion for most Hugo voters as a progressive rock concept album.
While he’s extremely popular in his own niche, most of Lucassen’s fans aren’t in SF fandom and vice versa, something that I would love to help shift by talking about his work more to Hugo voters and talking to Ayreon/Lucassen fans more about joining our community and coming to Worldcon, especially as the next few years are looking quite international. Lucassen’s very obvious Golden Age influences are bound to have pointed many of his fans to the genre, so the bridge is already half-built.
I’m sure that I’ll be one of very few people longlisting this album, but 🤷🏻♀️! I really think If you see just a single, solitary vote for it in the full data, know that it was me!
Footnotes
- Per the WSFS Constitution, clauses 3.8.2 and 3.8.3. ↩︎
- In addition to the more fannish post I linked above, I found another really cool essay about the Barbican as Coruscant from an architect who works in film and TV. ↩︎
- A special shoutout to Joshua James, who played the doctor who tortured Bix Caleen with the sounds of distant massacres; I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him in Treasure Island at the National Theatre back in 2015 or so, and make a point to see him in every play he’s in when I can. He had a stint as Dr Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow recently which I unfortunately missed, but I bet he was perfect! ↩︎
- I’d like to thank Octothorpe’s Alison Scott for her recommendation to see the film in an IMAX theatre, as the experience was truly spectacular. ↩︎
- There is another Black Widow character played by Olga Kurilenko who turns up for literally five minutes, but she is so not present in the rest of the film that I’m not even going to go into it. If it weren’t for Yelena and Alexei, I’d say that movie had zero lasting impact on the MCU, given how late into Natasha’s journey we got it (literally after she was canonically killed off), lol (sarcastic). ↩︎
- I still don’t know how to feel about the plot twist around Krypton and Clark’s biological parents, brief as it was. I think it is intended to maximise the contrast between where Clark hails from and where he grew up and how that affected his identity, and the discomfort it creates is probably very intentional from Gunn. ↩︎
- I call this “pilot syndrome”, and it’s one of my least favourite phenomena in media. ↩︎
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Battle for the Ballot: Best Dramatic Presentation 2026
The two Best Dramatic Presentation categories are among my favourites in the Hugos, because I consume a lot of SFF media and have a lot of thoughts and feelings about them. Since my post last year about why I had wanted Loki S2 to win a Hugo in 2024 (which I was working on for a while but ended up not posting it in time for it to sway anyone), I’ve been toying with the idea of producing more writing around some of my favourite things from each year, in case it helps anybody—least of all me, in getting it all out of my system.
I know I’m posting this with one day to go before nominations (these take so long for me! I must develop a better system for next year 🤔), but I’m really writing this to sound out my own thoughts about the DP categories this year, because it is absolutely bananas with how stacked they both are. There have been some truly great speculative television shows and films, stuff that I’m sure we’ll still be talking about for years to come, and making decisions to boil my favourite media down to just 5 per category—especially given the fiddliness of Long Form and Short Form where TV is concerned, which I’ll get to in a sec—is going to be excruciatingly difficult for me.
So come along on a journey with me as I parse my thoughts, and who knows! Maybe I’ll argue my way to your heart about some of this, or tell you about something you hadn’t heard of before—some of which I’ve already written about before, but I’m getting ahead of myself!
Let me know what your ballot looks like, and if you’re nominating any of the below shows, films, and other dramatic works, or if you’re including other things entirely. I’m curious!
TV series and the Long Form/Short Form debate
A big question for many fen every year is “do I nominate one episode from a TV series that stands on its own or that adequately represents the show in Short Form, or do I nominate the whole season in Long Form because it’s one complete narrative, and isolating one chapter of it would be unfair?”
Understandably, it’s a tough one; when a show inevitably gets votes in both categories, it can lead to headaches for the Hugo Administrating Team as they have to sift through the numbers and ultimately decide which category it should be nominated in1, which I don’t envy at all. But at the same time, as a voter, I have to go with what my heart says and name my favourite episodes in Short Form, regardless of whether I’ve also named the show/season as a whole in Long Form, because if enough others have put that same episode down, then that’s what’ll make it through to the shortlist, and I would want my vote to count towards those totals.
All that to say: if you expected a clear stance from me on this, HA! I’m afraid I don’t have one 😇—and to be perfectly honest, this is exactly the sort of thing where people’s mileage will vary the most.
My personal method of deciding whether to nominate entire TV seasons rather than one specific episode is purely based on ~vibes~, on whether or not I thought the season works better in its totality than through its individual parts, versus cases where one outstanding episode eclipses all the others for me. Not all shows are written the same, of course, and those that favour a longer narrative arc (as a lot of prestige TV does nowadays) tend to find their way on my long form ballot more often than not, as opposed to the more episodic writing that isn’t as popular now but used to be ubiquitous in the pre-streaming era.
Ultimately, you may agree or disagree with me on my reasoning for some of my choices below, whether on the LF/SF question or my actual opinions of the various media, and that’s fair enough. I welcome discussion in the comments, but please keep it civil!
Jump to:
- Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
- Long Form: Films
- Long Form: Non-Film/TV
- Short Form: TV Episodes
- Short Form: Non-TV
Long Form: Entire TV Seasons
You might see episodes from some of these further down in the episode/short form discussion.
Andor, Season 2+
This is kind of my front-runner among the TV seasons for the Long Form category. Overall, I enjoyed it slightly more than season 1 for a few reasons: first of all, the pacing was much more even, with a little bit more action and intrigue peppered throughout the season as opposed to having several quieter mini-arcs that slowed things down in places; and crucially, there was a lot less dithering from Cassian Andor, our reluctant protagonist, who finally comes into his own as a rebel after being passively tossed about this way and that in the first season. The agency he has in this one makes him much more interesting as a character, and brings him on the same level as other players in the budding rebellion front, like Mon Mothma and Luthen Rael. In fact, with all the different character arcs completed, Andor finally becomes what Rogue One always wanted to be: a testament to the great sacrifices necessary for revolution to take root.
I liked a lot of what went down in this season as tensions continued ramping up between the Empire and the Rebellion; the Ghorman subplot was outstanding, especially with Dedra and Cyril’s journeys as instruments of Imperial oppression and violence, as was Mon Mothma’s arc from quiet resistance financier to full-on political rebel on the run, with her heartbreaking arc where she realises the personal cost of rebellion. None of the individual episodes in season 2 came even close to the intensity or narrative brilliance of One Way Out, which was hands down my favourite episode of season 1, but that’s okay—I think this season works so much better in its totality, that I’ll be happy to nominate it wholesale.
I still need to re-watch Rogue One actually, to see if my (very mid) opinion on it changes at all, but ultimately I’m just really happy this show was made, and that it looked and felt amazing throughout. It’s probably my favourite Star Wars story, period, and I am so chuffed that so much of it was filmed in the UK (in locations I know and visit all the time, including my old workplace!2), and is full of incredibly talented and classically trained British theatre actors who fill the space with their physicality and make their performances memorable even in the smallest of roles3.
Severance, Season 2+
Another really strong contender for this category. If you ask me which TV show might win the LF Hugo between this, Andor, or Pluribus, my money would probably be on Severance, even if I personally prefer Andor thematically and Pluribus cinematically. There’s no doubt Severance is an absolute masterpiece of television—nay, of cinema—and the fact that the most anti-capitalist story of our time is coming directly from the big tech megacorp Apple is an irony that is as delicious as it is hilarious.
Aside from its bonkers world-building (which still has so many unanswered questions!), this season of Severance also dove pretty deep into its characters, whom we only got to know a bit in season 1. I don’t want to get too spoilery here, but there’s a handful of moments in this season that go SO HARD—particularly that one slow episode that everyone else hated for some reason, where we follow Patricia Arquette’s character as she goes to her dingy home town and fills us in on the cult lore around Lumon Industries, and of course the team building episode in which our intrepid heroes actually go outside, but it’s all weird in that trademark Lumon way where nothing really fully makes sense, and it leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable, like something’s not quite aligned right.
But yeah, the world-building, man. It’s something else. I was glued to my screen and my mind was running a mile a minute trying to join the dots and figure out the answers to the show’s mysteries, much like our heroes consolidate memories refine macrodata—remember, the work is mysterious and important—and the excitement of getting it just before the show confirmed it was super fun. Yet, finally understanding what macrodata refinement is was actually a really tragic moment, and everything that happens after that made my heart break for the innies who are stuck living a half-life they can’t escape, on pain of death.
Ultimately, what I loved the most about the second season of Severance is its staunch anti-capitalist messaging that speaks to the average office worker today regardless of where they may be in the world, because corporate manipulation knows no borders:
- A job is a job, not a family.
- The company you work for does not deserve blind, cult-like loyalty.
- Your life is more than just work, and compartmentalising your work self and your out-of-work self might be a band-aid solution, but it doesn’t really work in the end.
- You are you, with all your complex layers of self, even if your corporate overlords (…or just your line manager 🤐) want you to think otherwise, or to act otherwise so you can fit into their office culture.
- Basically, it’s all dumb, and you deserve to live, not just to survive so you can punch your clock card and get meaningless little bonuses like finger traps or waffle parties.
This relatability is what keeps me hooked, and what I think elevates the show from pretty sci-fi to a classic of our times. It’s definitely got my vote.
Pluribus, Season 1+
God, talk about another cinematic masterpiece. When Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul‘s Vince Gilligan said he was working on a new show (which he was writing specifically for Rhea Seahorn to star in), I was crossing my fingers and my toes that it would be sci-fi, and Pluribus has completely blown my expectations out of the water. Not only does it mark Gilligan’s return to science fiction for the first time since The X-Files, but he brings his now-trademark cinematic visual language to it, full of tight choreography and nuanced subtext through visual and music cues, which is what made BB & BCS so special.
The result is an unnerving combination of horror, absurdist humour, and subtle world-building, centered around a complex character named Carol Sturka, who is one of only a few humans not to join the weird hive mind connection that takes over all other human beings on the planet, and doesn’t want to even entertain the idea. I’ve seen many reviews call her unlikable and unrelatable, and while the first part may be true (I was really tired of her contrarian nature in the first half of the season), I think there’s something more going on here than just a selfish white American woman who expects the world to move just for her.
The thing is, Vince Gilligan does not talk down to his audience; he expects us to keep up and to pick up what he’s putting down, whether that’s subtle digs at the publishing industry (it is truly hilarious to me that the protagonist of this show is an actual romantasy author!), not-so-subtle digs about community building and the harm humanity has done to the planet and to each other (particularly around resource distribution, iykyk), and questions about human nature that we are left to ponder: would you trade world peace for the complete flattening of human culture? Are we capable of retaining what makes us human while not actively harming the world around us, or each other? What is humanity, really, or human nature even?
Big stuff coming from an Apple TV show, once again; should I even be surprised at this point?
I think the long game of this show is going to be Carol’s character development from grumpy selfish miser to someone who genuinely cares about other people—a reverse Walter White, if you will. Gilligan is all about the narrative arc, and he has been known to deliver some of the best narrative arcs in TV ever, even if they take a while to stick the landing. I have faith that he is cooking something we haven’t even yet begun to poke at, if Better Call Saul is any indication, and between the already great writing and the show’s superlative production value, I think Pluribus is going to be a low-key modern classic. Vince has my vote, now and always.
My Hero Academia: The Final Season+
I wrote about this extensively in my Hugo ballot recommendations post a couple of months ago, so I’ll pull a quote from that as to why I loved it so much:
Y’all, what can I say: this has been my favourite anime of the last decade, and the fact it is ending has had me in my feelings for months. I’ve been deeply invested emotionally for many years, watching the simulcasts on the same day as the anime airs in Japan since around season 2, and this last season has been all payoff for almost ten years’ worth of story. Every Saturday from October 4th till December 13th, I tuned in and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes straight, which for an anime aimed at teenage boys is an absolute feat. Defying every expectation, it stuck the landing for every little story beat, every subplot, and every theme set up over its ten year tenure perfectly, making it one of my absolute favourite stories in the superhero genre.
This is definitely one of those where context is essential, so I don’t think it can be viewed in a vacuum and appreciated to the same extent as having watched all previous seven seasons. You can try, but it wouldn’t be worth it just for the awards. Just watch the show so the ending can hit you like a ton of bricks in the best way possible, even if you miss the deadline. It’s fun, it’s moving, it’s made with so much love for American comics through a uniquely Japanese perspective. I can’t recommend it enough, and it’ll definitely be on my Long Form ballot even if I’m one of ten people who put it there 🤷🏻♀️
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Silo, Season 2: It’s definitely not as tight as season 1, and it was missing some stuff from the books that may well turn up in season 3. For what it’s worth, there’s a lot I enjoyed about this season, but unfortunately it’s simply weaker when Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette isn’t on screen, and there’s a lot of that unfortunately. I’m certainly looking forward to what season 3 will be adapting, and to see what format that will take, as I think they’re either condensing or axing the second half of book 2 to go straight to the dual narrative of book 3, which I have mixed feelings about.
- Murderbot: I never got into the books because of tonal whiplash (MB’s violence and misanthropy coated in dry humour just didn’t work for me), and while I thought the TV show was a little better in that regard, ultimately I thought the show was just okay. I didn’t actively dislike it, mind, but I watched most of it on a plane ride, didn’t finish it, and haven’t felt like picking it back up since. The story just doesn’t grab me, I think, and I never felt particularly attached to or compelled by any of the characters… and I’m okay with that 🤷🏻♀️. Not everything is for everyone! I expect it’ll be mass-nominated by all the book fans anyway based on the online discourse I’ve seen, so it won’t miss my vote.
- Invasion, Season 3: I didn’t even know this was out, lmao! I was deeply invested while watching seasons 1 and 2 (even though I disliked quite a few of the characters), but as soon as I was done with it I promptly forgot about it—and Apple TV didn’t even let me know that it was back on. Whomst can I shake until they fix the marketing situation over there?! Christ on a cracker!
- Stranger Things, Season 5: To my own surprise, I didn’t like this season nearly as much as season 4, let alone season 1, and so I will not be considering it for the Long Form category (including the last episode, which would qualify under Long Form on its own due to being 128 MINUTES LONG 🙄). It’s turned out to be one of those things where, while I enjoyed it a fair bit in the moment, the longer I think about it the more my feelings about it seem to change, and the ending has left me a bit… conflicted, shall we say. But it did have some great episodes in the middle especially, so I will consider a couple of them in the Short Form category.
Long Form: Films
Sinners+
This was probably my favourite SFF film of last year. Not only is it atmospheric, fun, and lush with cross-border folkloric world-building (Hoodoo magic and Irish vampires?! yes please!), but the story touches so many themes that a regular popcorn movie won’t even veer towards, and it does so brilliantly.
All the many layers of the Black and POC experience in the South during the Prohibition era (and beyond) are crystallised in the character arc of each ensemble cast member, with some absolutely outstanding performances by Hailee Steinfeld (whose character Mary is biracial, and torn between safety and belonging), Michael B. Jordan (who plays identical twins Smoke and Stack so well he walked away with an Oscar for it), and Wunmi Mosaku in particular as Smoke’s wife Annie (she’s such an underrated performer, but I’m so glad to see her actually flex her acting skills after her appearance in Loki). We’re talking themes like the push and pull of religion and its role in both keeping communities together and also oppressing them, the safety of BIPOC in a white supremacist society, and even the immigrant experience… the truth is your average blockbuster would never—but this is Ryan Coogler, and he won’t sugar-coat things for a mainstream audience, instead telling a story only he could tell, filled with truth, complexity, and nuance, something I really wish more filmmakers would embrace nowadays.
The film’s protagonist, Sammie (Miles Caton) has a preternatural gift with music, and the plot revolves around a juke joint Smoke and Stack put together, and the connection that music can create across time and even culture—with a wonderful supernatural twist.
One of my favourite moments is when the villain Remmick (an immortal Irish vampire played by Jack O’Connell) turns up at their juke joint and cries with joy at the emotions Sammie’s music has brought him after years of numbness. He talks about his own experience of colonialism at the hands of the British Empire and the subsequent erasure of Irish culture through the centuries, which is a very real thing—but he’s also a predator who has been making his way through the land trying to trap people and turn them into vampires, chased away by indigenous people who could tell he was a monster before attacking a couple who are Klan members. It’s clear that he doesn’t want Sammie’s music in order to connect people, but to use it as a tool on his quest to propagate a vampire race, and that seemingly sweet moment of connection is exposed as the performative allyship that it is.
There are some phenomenal action sequences too, with the last third of the film keeping me on the edge of my IMAX seat4. Genuinely, this film was such a breath of fresh air: delightfully complex but also fun, in ways that cinema just doesn’t dare to be right now. I was sad they didn’t win all the awards they were up for, but perhaps we can give it a Hugo instead.
Frankenstein+
©️ Netflix 2025I have a full review of this here, but basically: the SFF-ness of this is lush, as expected from a Guillermo Del Toro movie, and for the most part it works well as an adaptation of the book. As I mention in my other post, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the NT’s theatre adaptation, which I still consider the ultimate version of this story, but it does similar things with the characters as Penny Dreadful, which is my runner-up favourite, save for the very end, and it’s that ending that makes the whole thing fall short for me, unfortunately.
To quote myself:
Why do we sing sad songs, when we know their ending is unhappy? When our instinctual yearning for a happy ending is met with the inevitability of human flaws getting in the way, that emotional release we experience is what my ancestors called catharsis. As the audience we accept that because of who these characters are, they would always make these choices and lead the story to the same outcome, time and again, even though we’d like them to change, to choose better, so they can be happy in the end.
What makes Frankenstein compelling in any iteration is its core conflict: Victor’s refusal to acknowledge the Creature as human, despite the fact that the Creature is deeply human, as much as his creator would like to think otherwise. We are invited to empathise with the Creature’s plight, to see how he thinks and feels, how he desires things we all do: safety, friendship, love. Victor is incapable of recognising this, and so the two clash eternally. Such is the tragedy, and no matter what minor changes are made to it, the good adaptations always recognise the impasse between the two at the end. It’s what makes the story tick.
My ultimate issue with the way Del Toro chose to end his adaptation of Frankenstein is that it ultimately robs us of our deserved catharsis by artificially resolving the incontrovertible stalemate between the two leads, giving us a happy(ish) ending in which Victor, at death’s door, forgives the Creature for the violence and destruction he’s wrought, apologises for what he did to him, and urges him to live on, free of guilt, yet completely alone. The Creature then walks off into the Arctic sunrise, liberated from his vendetta yet devastated at losing his creator.
It’s a lovely thought in principle, a Del Toro-ism about accepting one’s nature and walking away from one’s painful past, and if it were an original story without baggage I’d be all for it—after all, The Shape of Water had similar, pro-monster themes of letting go of trying to fit into a world that won’t accept you anyway, and I ate that up voraciously. But here, in taking a tragedy that is so classic and ingrained, loading it with a bunch of new traumas and subplots, and then resolving it all with a little monologue, the ending robs the story of its true conclusion, fundamentally missing the point of the source text, and doing a disservice both to Victor and the Creature.
I still think it’s a strong contender in the category, and definitely one of my favourite SFF movies I saw last year, despite my issues with it. However, given all my favourite TV shows above, I think I might eschew giving this one of my ballot spots, but I won’t be disappointed to see it on the final ballot, should it make it through.
Thunderbolts*+
I loved this movie A LOT, you guys, and it made me very sad that it flopped at the box office. I don’t blame people for being fatigued with Marvel’s mediocre superhero slop, but they should have given this movie a chance at the very least, because it might not have been the movie we wanted, but it was definitely the movie we needed right now.
(c) Disney/Marvel Studios, 2025I was very surprised with how deep it went into the trauma our various superheroes and anti-heroes have sustained through their previous adventures, and the level of empathy with which it treated them all:
- Yelena Belova, the last surviving Black Widow5, starts off depressed and morose, aimless, dissatisfied with running around and blowing things up for people with nothing to show for it except a path of destruction.
- Her and Natasha Romanoff’s father figure, Alexei Shostakov, is facing the music that his “Red Star” superhero persona is nothing but a figment of a bygone era, and is living a meagre life as a limo driver while reminiscing about his glory days.
- John Walker, the temporary Captain America replacement later dubbed “U.S. Agent”, is dealing with guilt after slaughtering innocent bystanders using Cap’s vibranium shield during the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all while struggling through early parenthood.
- The Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—is running for office, in an attempt to turn his newfound and shaky inner peace into something productive. Yet, something keeps niggling at him about the power vacuum left in the wake of the Avengers disappearing, and he can’t help but get involved in ways political candidates really shouldn’t. See: taking a huge machine gun and riding a motorbike out to the desert to find out who is behind these shenanigans. Tut tut, Mr Congressman.
- Oh, there’s also Ava Star/Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp, probably my least favourite Marvel movie to date, whom I completely forgot about before watching this movie and while writing this review. Oops! Her thing is that she is constantly phasing in and out of a solid existence, and she has to keep shouting about how traumatised she is with no need for subtext because they know we’ve all forgotten about her and need to be reminded of her struggles. Normally I’d be mad at that, but they are not wrong this time 😅
And then, there’s Bob.
(c) Disney/Marvel, 2025Bob is a new guy, recruited to be experimented on in hopes of becoming a superhero. He seems normal, average even, and he reluctantly joins our motley crew as they escape from a trap set by their employer—but under the surface he carries a deep wound, a gash that opens up to swallow him whole and turns him into The Void, his mysterious alter ego who awakens when Bob’s absolutely OTT superpowers kick in. The rest, as they say, is plot.
There’s a lot of (predictably dark) humour in this, and I was surprised with how much I liked these characters once they were given enough room to be protagonists, rather than minor antagonists in someone else’s story. While they haphazardly join forces into a makeshift team, their trauma is taken seriously, coalescing into the film’s climactic battle that pits the reluctant heroes against The Void, who weaponises each of their subconscious against them. The Void is Depression, by any other name—it’s the dark voice inside that tells each of our anti-heroes that they are worthless, unlovable, guilty, and alone. In order to beat him they have to reach out with empathy to themselves first and then to each other, and literally hold each other in a tight embrace as a reminder that they are not alone. What wins the day is friendship, empathy, and love, not unlike the last season of My Hero Academia, which I also loved last year, or Superman, which I’m about to get into below.
I cried BUCKETS while watching Thunderbolts* in the UK’s largest IMAX screen alongside my Bucky Barnes-obsessed friend, who has since made this film her entire personality (affectionate), and honestly, I’ve also been thinking about it ever since. Again, it’s a delightful little irony that the megalithic Disney/MCU would come out with a narrative so introspective and empathetic, especially at a time that loneliness and isolation is rampant among the film’s core audience of young men. I really hope that watching this film inspired people to reach out and be less alone in their struggles, and that the financial hit Disney took with it won’t keep us from seeing more of these characters in the future.
Also! A fun fact I noticed while listening to the soundtrack was that the film’s main theme is a reversed version of the main Avengers theme; just listen to the first few seconds of both themes and you’ll hear it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Jzgp1jNiQ
Superman+
A good Superman movie?? In this economy?? Hallelujah!
I love a lot about what this film does with the core Superman premise. It gets Clark right, down to his farm boy roots and dorky kindness. It gets Superman right: his power isn’t unbeatable, and it isn’t even the most powerful thing about him (spoiler: it’s the dorky kindness). It gets Lex Luthor right—especially for our times—by having him be a smart but petty tech billionaire with an overinflated ego, someone who funds an invasion and even starts a pocket dimension on a whim, without once thinking of the consequences. It even gets Jimmy Olsen right simply by bringing him out of the margins where he’s been relegated for the last several Superman adaptations—and it’s actually really funny that he’s the one guy with the most game in this film, and that that’s how he gets to help out.
The structure of the film is an absolute delight, too. From the very start, we are thrown into the midst of a losing fight for Superman, which is a bold choice, as is having Clark’s relationship with Lois Lane already set up (and she even knows about him being Superman!). We don’t spend any time whatsoever on origin stories, budding relationship exploration, or long-winded exposition—we simply hit the ground running, and find out the particulars as we go along. It is assumed we know who Superman is, because… we all know who Superman is. And the themes around identity, responsibility, community, and how we should treat each other are laid bare without pretence, very directly speaking to the audience about contemporary problems we’re all facing day to day. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air not to be treated like an idiot, frankly.
There are a couple of things I don’t like about it though. For one, the film feels very busy, with so many characters and subplots and easter eggs thrown in, that if you blink you’ll definitely miss something. Relatedly, not all of those characters or subplots are treated equally, because there simply isn’t enough screen time to go around for everything. So the Justice Friends get the short shrift, as do Papa and Mama Kent, as does Krypton6, so that we can focus on the personal and political stakes that Clark/Superman has to overcome.
This is another superhero story with empathy at its heart, where the answer to even the most cosmic problems is… just be kind. Kindness is punk rock. As one of my favourite YouTube video essayists put it, this Superman is the American hero we desperately need right now. Someone who will stand up for what’s right even when the rest of the world tells him not to, someone with an unshakeable moral compass that only points to goodness. Watch that whole video actually, Dove does such a fantastic job analysing the cultural geography that plays into this film, and how it all ties together to bring us this ray of f*cking sunshine:
All this to say, I love that James Gunn can make a superhero movie that aims to appeal broadly but doesn’t feel like it panders to the lowest available denominator, and that he had the guts to (a) make the story feel relevant to our current times, what with all the invasions/”wars” going on right now that are purely happening for profit and that no one is doing anything to stop 🙄, and (b) leave us with a message of hope, that we can imagine a kinder world and that we can be the instruments of making that vision a reality. That kindness can be punk rock.
Dare I say, this was the movie that made me go, “huh, maybe the genre isn’t dead yet”, which… please, let it not be dead, I really like superheroes!
Honourable mentions/near misses+
- Mickey 17: I enjoyed this a lot, particularly for its world-building and Robert Pattinson’s performance. Unfortunately I think the Bong Joon-Ho-ness of it all kind of undercuts the story in favour of very on-the-nose political commentary, which was fun in the moment but in retrospect kinda leaves me a bit… “meh!”, probably because the current climate is so much worse than when this movie was made, and making fun of things/people just isn’t enough right now. So I don’t think this will be getting one of my spots, but it’s still totally worth seeing, if you haven’t!
- Fantastic Four – First Steps: I also enjoyed this a lot, especially in light of B-Mask’s excellent Fantastic Four video from a few years back which explained the classic comics and got me up to speed on the characters. It’s an honest-to-God decent, good Marvel movie, which as I keep saying is a rare sight these days, but that being said… I liked the stuff I talked about up top way more than this one, not to mention the TV seasons, so I just think it gets edged out by the competition.
- Hamnet: Technically an SFF movie! The trailer had me weeping, but the movie left me cold somehow, perhaps because it’s a little too obvious in its attempts to make people cry (Mark Kermode said it best! The bit with the song at the very end irked me too because I recognised it, and the moment was actually completely ruined for me.) It does have some wonderful and atmospheric visuals where it comes to the speculative aspect of it, and the soundtrack by Max Richter is predictably phenomenal (if only they’d used his original song for the climactic ending of the film!!), but it just didn’t move me in the ways I thought it would, so it’s a miss.
The “I haven’t seen these yet” caveat+
- K-Pop Demon Hunters: Yes, I know, somehow, I still haven’t seen this movie. I’m assuming it’ll get nominated to high heaven, so I’ll watch it ahead of voting, I promise.
- Weapons: I’ve heard fantastic things about this, and my husband is a big WKUK fan, so I might be watching this soon and revising my thoughts.
- Wicked: For Good: I liked the first film well enough, and I hear that a LOT happens in the second half of the musical, so I’m tentatively putting this on a hold list until I watch it. I don’t know if it would edge out any of my favourites, realistically speaking, but I suppose there is always room for surprises!
Long Form: Non-Film/TV
B-Mask’s “The REAL Thunderbolts Story: Marvel’s Greatest Scam“*
This is a 2.5 hour love letter to comics, and the first in a five-part series that tells the story of the real Thunderbolts from the comic books (a team that bears very little resemblance to the one portrayed in the recent MCU film discussed above). It features complex animations drawing from the original comic book art, as well as a full cast of voice actors bringing the characters to life with their performances.
* I’m personally torn on whether this would qualify for BDP-LF or BRW (seeing as it is technically a fanwork, and not an original work), but either way it is nothing short of a masterpiece—I wrote more about it in my 2025 underrated Hugo picks post, if you’re interested.
Short Form: TV Episodes
A caveat: my reasoning around nominating a particular episode is kind of like nominating my favourite chapter of a novel. Especially with how a lot of the prestige TV shows are made nowadays, individual episodes function as chapters in a longer story, so they have to be considered in the context of the wider narrative they’re a part of. If they are from a second, third, or even last season of a long-running show, even more so.
Also—and this might be a slightly spicy take—I personally don’t like that a lot of Hugo voters seem to only watch the individual episodes on the eventual shortlist without any context, and then complain that they didn’t get what was going on. That’s because context matters, and while I understand that it would take a lot of time to watch an entire season (or even several!) to be able to appreciate a single episode… if you want your vote to be informed, that’s the job, innit?
This has happened several times to me, where there’s an episode on the shortlist from a show I don’t watch (and have no intention of watching—sorry Lower Decks), so I just skip it and don’t put it in my ballot at the end, or rank it below my own favourites. I do the same with sequels to books I haven’t read, out of respect for the work itself as well as its author, but that’s just me I guess! 🤷🏻♀️
Anyway, here are some thoughts about my favourite episodes of speculative TV from this year, under spoiler tags for obvious reasons.
Two episodes from Stranger Things, Season 5+
‘Chapter Four: Sorcerer’
I loved, loved, loved this episode. The moment Will uses his new power… it gave me goosebumps, it was so good—and the fight sequence in front of the gate to the Upside Down is incredible. Rather than the writing, though, I want to praise the actors’ performances and the work of the crew who worked on the practical effects, stunts, and complicated cinematography in this episode. Especially given more recent revelations about how the Duffers went into production with season 5 without having ironed out the ending, and the stress that added to the poor production crew, I think any flowers should really be going to them for making such an outstanding piece of TV despite the challenges.
‘Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz’
Yes, the scene in this photo feels a little ludicrously long considering they’re both on the run and about to be caught by the Big Bad, but I loved the heart of this relationship and the character development for both Holly and Max in this episode. I had also seen the Stranger Things play in London a couple of years back, and this episode eliminated the issues I had with the world-building in that, which at first had seemed to contradict the revelations in season 4 about Vecna/Henry Creel’s agency as a villain and his role in shaping the Upside Down… I was glad to see that in fact all the loose threads from the various seasons did connect, and that the strands from the play were relevant too.
Various episodes from Severance, Season 2+
S2E4: ‘Woe’s Hollow’
I mentioned this episode in my discussion of the series earlier, but let me get into it here: this is one of the best episodes of TV ever made, period, and I will fight you on this. I don’t know if it would stand alone in any capacity, considering the weird tone is already a lot to deal with and there’s a lot of plot and character interaction that picks up from where the last season left off, not to mention a big-time betrayal that ends up echoing through the rest of season 2.
I spent a good chunk of the beginning wondering if this was a simulator or a dream sequence because it didn’t fully make sense for our protagonists to be outside the Lumon offices, and the uncanny doppelgangers guiding them through the forest seemed almost dreamlike, but the reality was much more sinister in the end, which tracks. If there’s a single episode from this show I’d nominate, it’d be this one.
S2E8: ‘Sweet Vitriol’
People hate this episode because it’s slow and follows an unlikeable antagonist whom we are invited to empathise with, and that’s precisely the reason I like it. First of all, we get way more insight into the Lumon cult corporation from Harmony Cobel, who ostensibly grew up in the cult and has invested her whole life into the company’s welfare. This is also where we begin to see cracks form in her resolve as an antagonist, as she has realised that the company sees her as an expendable cog despite her lifelong investment and dedication, and so she decides to fight them, to prove that this little cog is actually so important, it might well bring the whole house down.
It’s interesting also for thematic reasons, outside of the show’s world. On an individual level, the image of someone who grew up in poverty while idolising a particular company, then making their entire life revolve around it so as to gain favour and socioeconomic mobility, gaining that and then losing it when the company no longer sees them as valuable, is unfortunately too relatable. So is seeing a small town that once had its own industry and community be taken over by a mega corporation and become completely dependent on it, eventually falling into destitution once the corporation pulls their activities out of the town. The actual commentary here is silent, but extremely powerful.
I don’t think Cobel’s about-turn is enough to fully make her an anti-hero, but I really enjoyed this episode for all the insight it gave us both into her and the world of Severance outside of Lumon HQ.
S2E10: ‘Cold Harbor’
There is a strong argument to be made that the season two finale is absolutely worth a nomination as well, making this a really tough choice. Two seasons’ worth of mystery solving and internal corporate espionage culminate in this one-hour episode where our protagonists clash with one another and with the antagonists, and it’s just adrenaline all the way down.
Some spoilery thoughts here.While the big questions have been answered (where is Mark’s wife? what is Cold Harbor? what are they doing with all those sheep?), so many more remain. Is there a way to save the innies at all, if Lumon ends up falling? Can Mark S. and Helly R. ever hope to have a life outside these walls? And what happens to Gemma now that she’s out, even though she has 24 distinct, hand-crafted personalities inside her?
There’s actually a great take I hadn’t come across before I sat down to write this, and that is that the finale actually inverts the Orpheus & Eurydice narrative of Mark and Gemma, by having Mark’s innie actually choose to stay behind in Lumon so he can be with Helly. It’s less of a lack of faith and more of a conscious decision, which perhaps makes it even more tragic as Gemma watches her husband (sort of) run toward danger and another woman, leaving her alone at the exit, screaming for him to come back.
Having written about the other episodes already, I do think ep4 is a stronger contender purely from a craft/vibes standpoint, whereas the finale is more typical in many ways, as it focuses on exposition and plot and is faster paced. YMMV here, for sure, but I’m inclined to pick ep4 over this one, now that I think about it.
Two episodes from Pluribus, Season 1+
Episode 1: “We is Us”
It’s not often that a TV pilot stands on its own two feet well. It’s even less common for the film-making to be so good that one must gasp in awe at the choreography, cinematography, and editing, multiple times throughout the course of the episode. One of my biggest peeves is when a TV pilot is so mired in exposition that there is no room for characters or atmosphere until the next episode because they simply have to give you the setup quickly—it ends up feeling flat and boring and frankly, it puts me off more than it entices me to keep watching until it gets better.7
Well, this episode does none of that.
Gilligan’s forte is silent scenes that actually speak volumes. There is so much storytelling in this episode that has no words; we watch an intergalactic viral hive mind sequence take over the Earth in perfectly synchronised movement, and the storytelling is in the silence, the perfect unison, and the eerie smiles as the hive mind consciousness flattens the individuals inside. A lesser writer would put exposition in dialogue, possibly giving too much information for where we are in the story, but Gilligan knows that less is more. We get just enough to hook us in, and the rest is pure atmosphere and of course, character.
Carol is introduced as a grumpy romantasy author, a lesbian in a loving relationship who constantly finds reasons to be miserable, much to her partner’s chagrin. When the hive mind sequence is spread via planes in the air, Carol loses her partner, and simultaneously the world. The panic that ensues is completely understandable, and it gets worse at every turn as she is met with more and more hive mind people, but no one else like her. What a place for a pilot to leave us in! Aren’t you hooked just by reading this?? GO WATCH THIS SHOW!
Episode 7: “The Gap”
The title refers to a real place that Manousos (pictured) has to cross, but also I suppose to the gap between Carol and others at this point in the show. This is another masterfully crafted episode with a dual narrative point of view, where Carol continues her life in Albuquerque while Manousos is making his slow way up through South and Central America towards Carol, crossing cities, climbing mountains, and trudging through thick, treacherous jungles, all while refusing the hive mind’s help at every opportunity.
Some spoilery thoughts here.At first, it’s admirable; he won’t even take gas without paying for it somehow, even though everything he comes across is at his disposal. Soon enough, however, his steadfastness turns into stubbornness that does more harm to him than good. When he gets seriously injured in the jungle (something that was completely preventable, had he accepted the hive mind’s help and transited through safer means),
Meanwhile, Carol stoically endures complete and total isolation for a long time as a result of the hive mind evacuating the whole metro area of Albuquerque, which happened when Carol hurt one of them (and by extension, all of them) quite badly while trying to find answers. She is given resources and sustenance remotely, and for a while enjoys her peaceful environment, going around town and doing whatever she feels like… until she finally cracks under the pressure of extreme loneliness, and asks the hive mind to come back.
It’s an incredibly powerful moment actually, seeing someone as stubborn sturdy as Carol finally admit that she can’t live her whole life completely cut off from other people, even though she hates the hive mind on principle, and can’t wrap her mind around accepting this status quo. In fairness, she makes it to about a month and a half, which is pretty long, but her isolation was also so complete that there were zero people around her for that whole time—an unfathomable experience that’s so well depicted on screen. I personally love the rooftop golf scene as an example of how utterly devoid of people the landscape is, a mundane sort of post-apocalyptic image.
This is probably my favourite episode in season 1, and even think it could be presented without context and still mostly work alright for new viewers… Though I’d still hope that people would watch the whole season anyway. If I had to pick one episode to represent the series as a whole, I’d say it’s this one.
Short Form: Non-TV
‘Songs No One Will Hear’ by Arjen Lucassen (music album)
I wrote a fair amount about this pre-apocalyptic concept album in my underrated Hugo recommendations post; here’s a snippet:
The result is an album that grapples with the essence of the human condition (something Lucassen is very adept at), asking what makes life worth living from the perspectives of a bunch of different characters as they try to come to terms with the impending end of the world—including those who think it’s all a hoax, those who embrace it, and those who rage against the dying of the light. It straddles a weird and fun line between diegetic/in-world music that’s on the radio and telling the story as a sung-through musical, which is a little different than what you might expect, particularly for a progressive rock album. But that’s the Arjen Lucassen guarantee: big questions, big emotions, and a sound that isn’t afraid to change dramatically when necessary, even mid-song. Full of theatricality, Songs No One Will Hear is in some ways very similar to Lucassen’s Ayreon albums, but retains its own identity both musically and thematically.
We’ve been known to nominate SFF music albums when they arise, and on occasion those musicians have even responded to being recognised by fandom—seeing Clipping live in Helsinki was fun!—so this wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, though perhaps it is a bit of a left field suggestion for most Hugo voters as a progressive rock concept album.
While he’s extremely popular in his own niche, most of Lucassen’s fans aren’t in SF fandom and vice versa, something that I would love to help shift by talking about his work more to Hugo voters and talking to Ayreon/Lucassen fans more about joining our community and coming to Worldcon, especially as the next few years are looking quite international. Lucassen’s very obvious Golden Age influences are bound to have pointed many of his fans to the genre, so the bridge is already half-built.
I’m sure that I’ll be one of very few people longlisting this album, but 🤷🏻♀️! I really think If you see just a single, solitary vote for it in the full data, know that it was me!
Footnotes
- Per the WSFS Constitution, clauses 3.8.2 and 3.8.3. ↩︎
- In addition to the more fannish post I linked above, I found another really cool essay about the Barbican as Coruscant from an architect who works in film and TV. ↩︎
- A special shoutout to Joshua James, who played the doctor who tortured Bix Caleen with the sounds of distant massacres; I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him in Treasure Island at the National Theatre back in 2015 or so, and make a point to see him in every play he’s in when I can. He had a stint as Dr Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow recently which I unfortunately missed, but I bet he was perfect! ↩︎
- I’d like to thank Octothorpe’s Alison Scott for her recommendation to see the film in an IMAX theatre, as the experience was truly spectacular. ↩︎
- There is another Black Widow character played by Olga Kurilenko who turns up for literally five minutes, but she is so not present in the rest of the film that I’m not even going to go into it. If it weren’t for Yelena and Alexei, I’d say that movie had zero lasting impact on the MCU, given how late into Natasha’s journey we got it (literally after she was canonically killed off), lol (sarcastic). ↩︎
- I still don’t know how to feel about the plot twist around Krypton and Clark’s biological parents, brief as it was. I think it is intended to maximise the contrast between where Clark hails from and where he grew up and how that affected his identity, and the discomfort it creates is probably very intentional from Gunn. ↩︎
- I call this “pilot syndrome”, and it’s one of my least favourite phenomena in media. ↩︎
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Major Parkinson – Valesa – Chapter II: Viva the Apocalypse! Review By Killjoy
At first blush, pop music and progressive rock might seem too contradictory to be combined effectively. While the former prioritizes immediate accessibility, the latter prizes unconventional artistic expression. Even so, several Norwegian bands are finding immensely original ways to reconcile these differences. Moron Police and Meer have been showered with heaps of deserved praise by my colleagues, but I discovered my personal favorite of the bunch tucked at the very end of GardensTale’s Top Ten(ish) of 2022 list. Major Parkinson’s Valesa – Chapter I: Velvet Prison quickly became one of my most beloved records of all time with its inimitable charm and wit. All permanent band members have returned for Valesa – Chapter II: Viva the Apocalypse!, which is particularly relieving given vocalist Jon Ivar Kollbotn’s heart attack while performing on stage a few years ago. I’m grateful that the full crew is still here to delight audiences once more.
If there’s anything predictable about Major Parkinson, it’s their unpredictability. While the chimeric fusion of synth-pop and prog rock of Velvet Prison was drenched in 80s nostalgia, Viva the Apocalypse! feels somewhat more modernized. The guitar lines (Øystein Bech-Eriksen and Sondre Skollevoll1) are much more prominent and flashy, with full-on solos in “Showbiz” and “Superdad.” In fact, pretty much everything about Viva the Apocalypse! is flashy. Lars Christian Bjørknes’s2 piano keys that featured prominently in prior albums are mostly replaced by glitzy synths, frequently underscored by blazing trumpets3 and smooth saxophone.4 Brand-new guest vocalist Halie’s husky singing complements Kollbotn’s gravelly yet velvety tones extremely well. His voice has only become richer over time, bathing my ears as if with warm honey.
Valesa – Chapter II: Viva the Apocalypse! by Major Parkinson
Major Parkinson has always been defined by duality, but on Viva the Apocalypse! it’s sharper than ever. The first half of the record is full of ridiculously catchy, quirky arrangements and carefree curiosity. There are even sprinklings of funk (“Superdad”) and gospel (“Showbiz”). “Viva the Apocalypse!” is the climax of this feverish party, as trumpets, upbeat electronic tunes, and guitar riffs blast with reckless abandon. But something about all this mirth doesn’t feel quite genuine, and the second half of Viva the Apocalypse! grows more hostile as the mask starts to slip. “Karma Supernova” begins with ominous bass notes that intertwine with guitar and synth lines to signal something sinister approaching, with Sondre Veland’s drumming sporadically becoming frantic as tension builds and releases. His frenzied kitwork and the whirring synth tone at the end of “Maybelline” give the vivid impression that the record is about to self-destruct.
As different as the individual elements are on Viva the Apocalypse!, Major Parkinson again weaves them together into a unified and unique experience. I miss the eccentric interludes from Velvet Prison, but other songwriting tricks have carried over. As before, Viva the Apocalypse! leans on simple recurring lyrics to tie the tracks together with tickling déjà vu. Examples include “The world is on fire, and you look so beautiful” (“Superdad,” Kiss Me Now!”), and “Free drinks for everyone!” (“Showbiz,” “Karma Supernova”). I particularly love the one-two punch of “Superdad” and “Father Superior,” which (as their titles suggest) are deliciously complementary, both musically and lyrically. However, I’m less enthralled by Kollbotn’s unsettling shouting match with returning vocalist Peri Winkle in “Maybelline,” which contrasts starkly with their gentle duet in “Kiss Me Now!” Despite the powerful artistic statement, these closing tracks are more difficult to appreciate musically.
In many ways, Viva the Apocalypse! is Major Parkinson’s most incendiary chapter to date. It’s more technically impressive—the drums and guitars in particular get their chance to shine brightly. Once again, they have cleverly evolved their sound and leveraged a diverse supporting cast to enrich the musical environment. The first half of Viva the Apocalypse! is a fantastic dream from which I don’t want to wake, but the second half is meaner and less emotionally gripping for me. Still, there is something special going on here, just like in Norway’s prog scene as a whole. If the world is on fire, I’m glad that Major Parkinson is around to give us a good time as it goes up in flames.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2026 #35 #ApollonRecords #MajorParkinson #Mar26 #Meer #MoronPolice #NorwegianMetal #PeriWinkle #ProgressiveRock #Review #Reviews #SynthPop #ValesaChapterIIVivaTheApocalypse
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Apollon Records
Websites: majorparkinson.bandcamp.com | majorparkinson.com | facebook.com/majorparkinson
Releases Worldwide: March 13th, 2026 -
Allegaeon – The Ossuary Lens Review
By Maddog
Allegaeon’s six albums have received tumultuous marks in these halls. After their fantastic 2010 debut Fragments of Form and Function broke the score counter, Allegaeon sank as low as a 2.0 for 2016’s Proponent for Sentience in the eyes of then-tadpole GardensTale. While their latest outing recovered to a more respectable score, Allegaeon’s techy brand of melodeath has polarized socialites and critics alike. The band excelled with their riffier onslaughts and soaring melodies, but fell for the forbidden fruit of proggy excess. The Ossuary Lens showcases a leaner, meaner Allegaeon. I won’t be listening to it in a decade, but it’s a worthy soundtrack for today.
Allegaeon have trimmed their bloat but not their ambitions. For the uninitiated, Allegaeon’s brand of death metal resembles a noodlier Arsis, with its melodicism matched only by its technicality. That said, Allegaeonites will recall that these Coloradans would rather cover Yes or Rush than classic death metal. Allegaeon’s career has sometimes descended into a vulgar display of prog, combining protracted tracks with a penchant for flamenco breaks. These proggy elements live on, as Allegaeon gallops from punchy riffs to melodic leads to clean jams and back again. However, The Ossuary Lens displays newfound restraint. At 45 minutes, this is the band’s shortest album by a full eight minutes. Allegaeon’s escapades no longer leave a salty aftertaste, and the band’s forays into other genres no longer feel like pleas for a yardstick. The Ossuary Lens preserves its identity without getting lost in its own reflection.
Accordingly, The Ossuary Lens hits across both its bigly riffs and its creative tangents. The album’s fierier cuts are a refreshing return to form, with “The Swarm” reviving Elements of the Infinite’s infectious riffcraft. As hoped, these sections still ooze technicality, as guitarists Greg Burgess and Michael Stancel dominate their fretboards even in their most explosive moments. Meanwhile, Allegaeon’s genre-bending experiments feel creative but not overwrought. Most notably, “Dark Matter Dynamics” pulls a First Fragment stunt of seamlessly transitioning between jubilant strumming (courtesy of Adrian Bellue) and formidable death metal melodies. Indeed, The Ossuary Lens hits hardest when these forces unite. For instance, “Carried by Delusion” voyages from serene melodies to Revocation worship to blackened tremolos to upbeat bass and guitar solos to downcast crunchy riffs, eviscerating both my heartstrings and my neck. The Ossuary Lens’ moderation goes a long way. Rather than clobbering the listener with decades-long Spanish guitar jams, The Ossuary Lens presents its creative side through measured four-minute tracks. Tech, prog, melody, and home sweet death metal unite into a potent concoction.
While each piece of The Ossuary Lens is impressive in isolation, the album sometimes loses my interest. One reason is its lack of climactic moments. During tracks like “Scythe” and “Wake Circling Above,” I zoned out and had to abuse the rewind button, because there weren’t enough valleys, buildups, and peaks to keep me engaged. Another reason is sequencing; while the five middle tracks from “Driftwood” through “Dark Matter Dynamics” shine, the bookends fall short. The most predictable reason is production. Despite aiming for creativity and dynamism in their songwriting, Allegaeon continues to brickwall their albums into tepid gruel. As a result, The Ossuary Lens often loses my focus despite its seemingly manageable length. Conversely, the album’s highlights show how it’s done. Most strikingly, “Driftwood” has colonized my brain with a soulful mix of melodeath and metalcore that recalls Venom Prison. With highs this high, it’s a shame that The Ossuary Lens often slips into uniformity.
Allegaeon is a relatively new band, but they inspire nostalgia. I vividly recall pimply nights with the addictive Fragments of Form and Function. I still think that “Accelerated Evolution” and “Genocide for Praise” are two of the greatest album closers of this millennium. And the iconic 2014 music video for “1.618” sealed Allegaeon’s place in my heart forever. Measured against Allegaeon’s first three albums, The Ossuary Lens falls short, hampered by its dearth of standout moments. Still, it isn’t a stinker. It still bangs; it still shreds; it still progs. Warts and all, it earns its keep.
Rating: Good
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records
Websites: allegaeon.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Allegaeon
Releases Worldwide: April 4th, 2025Iceberg
Allegaeon are something of a known quantity around here, having been nodded at by Steel, eviscerated by GardensTale, and patched up by Cherd. The Colorado crew helmed by guitarist Greg Burgess have amassed a legion of rabid followers (who are sure to raise a ruckus in the comment section) for their signature style of Gothenburg-meets-tech-death. I’ll admit to being a fan of 2016’s Proponent for Sentience, one of the first reviews I read on this site, but got lost amidst the dense material of Apoptosis and frankly didn’t even give Damnum a shot. Allegaeon’s latest LP, The Ossuary Lens, sees the return of original vocalist Ezra Haynes and a much-welcomed stripped-down runtime, two intriguing changes in my book. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been excited about an Allegaeon release, can The Ossuary Lens be the record to change that?
Allegaeon’s style of melo-tech-death needs little introduction here, but for those of you who haven’t been following the past decade’s worth of drama, I’ll provide the CliffsNotes. Sweeping, scalar guitar riffs courtesy of Burgess and Michael Stancel form the backbone of most tracks, and the dual guitars make for an indulgent offering of solos (“Driftwood,” “Wake Circling Above”). The drums here, while dripping with modern production sheen, are compelling and energetic without being overly technical, a sincere compliment for Jeff Saltzman. Allegaeon have never strayed from highlighting their bass players, and standout moments in “Chaos Theory” and “Carried by Delusion” show Brandon Michael has as much a command of melody as he does of relentless, galloping rhythms. Ezra Haynes, of Elements of the Infinite fame, comes roaring back to life on The Ossuary Lens, employing a gritty death roar alongside commendable clean vocals on “Driftwood” and “Wake Circling Above.” The performances on The Ossuary Lens are everything one would come to expect from a band nearly two decades into their career, and make for a wholly engaging listening experience.
Allegaeon albums tend to have similar issues holding them back, and the band have largely addressed them on The Ossuary Lens. First and foremost is the 45-minute runtime, a nearly 25% reduction in music from their last three records. The renewed focus on editing shines, with tracks that hit fast and get out of the way while still managing to be memorable (“The Swarm,” “Imperial”). This represents the first major improvement in The Ossuary Lens; Allegaeon have not only figured out that less is more, but they’ve also magnified the parts that work. Sing-along melodeath choruses lurk throughout the album (“Driftwood,” “Dies Irae”) but none so impactful as penultimate track “Wake Circling Above.” Clearly the best Insomnium track released this year, Allegaeon’s ode to all things Gothenburg is a monumental testament to what this band can do when they stop doing so much and let the music dictate the song’s course.
The hits don’t stop there. The Ossuary Lens takes a while to really get moving, with the first three tracks treading familiar territory. But then comes “Dies Irae,” a barnburner that incorporates the three-note musical motif for the Dies Irae text of the Requiem Mass, a nice music nerd Easter Egg that only enhances the ripping triplet-infused breakdown sitting in the song’s center. And Burgess’ requisite flamenco guitar, something sorely overused in Proponent for Sentience, is here condensed into the driving groove of “Dark Matter Dynamics,” a powerfully infectious rhythm ripped straight from a Rodrigo y Gabriela record, or the breath-before-the-plunge moments of the darkly harrowing “Carried by Delusion.” Whereas previous Allegaeon records were dense, academic affairs that required shoveling through noise and notes to discern, The Ossuary Lens presents a barebones masterclass on Allegaeon’s modus operandi.
This isn’t to say that The Ossuary Lens is infallible. Early tracks “Chaos Theory” and “Driftwood” are technically proficient, but fail to reach the emotional highs of the rest of their brethren. Final track “Scythe,” while holding some excellent verse grooves, feels underbaked after the astonishing “Wake Circling Above,” and its cropped ending leaves the album on more of a question mark than a statement. And there’s the lingering issue of the DR5 master and production, which, while not as obscene as earlier records, is still crushed and fatiguing. But overall, The Ossuary Lens represents a massively successful repositioning for the Coloradoans, making it one of my favorite spins of the year for its precision, refinement, and memorability. If Allegaeon continue on this trajectory, we may see their best work yet just over the horizon.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
#2025 #30 #35 #Allegaeon #AmericanMetal #Apr25 #Arsis #DeathMetal #FirstFragment #Insomnium #Melodeath #MelodicDeathMetal #MetalBlade #MetalBladeRecords #ProgressiveDeath #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveTechnicalDeathMetal #Review #Reviews #Revocation #RodrigoYGabriela #Rush #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheOssuaryLens #VenomPrison #Yes
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Mystfall – Embers of a Dying World Review By Kenstrosity
Once again, I return to my roots. That opulent, gem-encrusted egg from which my metalhead nascency spawned, symphonic power metal. Cloaked in velvet drapery as I return to these cobbled alleys I used to haunt, those early years steeping in Nightwish, Leaves’ Eyes, Epica, and Xandria wash over me, evoking a nostalgic bliss. Enter Greece’s Mystfall and their sophomore effort Embers of a Dying World. Relatively fresh on the scene, and competing with newer champions like Elvellon or Dialith, do Mystfall have what it takes to make waves?
If nothing else, Mystfall have two big things going for them: a (relatively) meaty guitar tone and the most convincing death growls and blackened rasps in the genre right now. Thanks to a moderately-better-than-industry-standard mix and master, you can clearly hear the bass guitar thundering underneath lush strings and prominent choirs as well. These are items that countless acts in this space neglect or shortchange, but not Mystfall. Thankfully, those items don’t detract from the usual suspects. Operatic mezzo-soprano lead vocals, heavily accented; hooky verse work and soaring choruses; galloping drums and brisk pacing; rich orchestrations; the gang’s all here, and in fine form for the most part. And, in another unexpected breath of fresh air, Embers of a Dying World clocks in at a tidy 38 minutes, with the longest song just barely brushing past five minutes. It seems that on paper, Mystfall fully understood their assignment and gave me everything the world needs in a modern symphocheese record.
Embers Of A Dying World by Mystfall
In practice, Embers of a Dying World acquits itself quite nicely as well. Enlisting the help of studio bassist and harsh vocalist Stelios Varotsakis was an inspired choice, as his counterpoint on both instruments elevates everything it touches (“Embers of a Dying World,” “Fading Memories”). It is my assertion that Mystfall make him a full-fledged member of the band immediately. However, his contributions aren’t so astounding as to distract from Marialena Trikoglou’s siren song, Aris Baris’ chuggy riffs, or Dimitris Miglis’ expressive percussion. Hints of old school Epica melodies (“Crimson Dawn,” “Echoes of Arcadia”), Leaves’ Eyes/Xandria adventurism (“Whispers of the Tempest,” “Guardians of the Earth,” “Cosmic Legends”) and Nightwish double bass bounce (“Sleeper in the Abyss”) coalesce into a fun variety of moods and motifs, all smartly woven together to allow each performer their spotlight. With such a bizarrely tight runtime, Embers of a Dying World is also ridiculously easy to spin multiple times in one session, assisting greatly with long-term memorability.
Unfortunately, Mystfall still struggles to find a distinct identity in the homologous plague the symphonic power metal scene perpetuates. While crafting an enjoyable album that is undoubtedly fun and wholly engaging, its similarity to those bands that originally forged the style is undeniable and obvious. Partly due to the strict and restrictive nature of operatic singing techniques—and the physiological difficulties that committing to that style poses to the exploration of any other kind of singing—Marialena’s technically competent performance here lacks impact and power when pinned against singers who can and do work in multiple disciplines (Simone Simons, Floor Jansen, Veronica Bordacchini). On the instrumental front, Aris Baris’ riffs rarely venture outside of the conventions long upheld in this field, often allowing the orchestrations to take point when leading melodies or initiating motifs. Even the dramatic orchestrations lack the showstopping quality they could have if they were either recorded with a full orchestra or more unique in composition or arrangement.
As a result, Embers of a Dying World feels misplaced in time. Were it released in 1996 or thereabouts, it would’ve constituted an instant hit, a direct competitor to the pack leaders at the time. In 2026, it’s one in a million, albeit better made and brilliantly edited. As maligned by songwriting issues and stylistic banality as symphonic power metal often is, competing for acclaim and attention in that crowded place requires a fierce, striking showing. Mystfall have everything they need to make that showing, but Embers of a Dying World falls just short of that elusive threshold. That said, I’m impressed with it enough to wait avidly for what Mystfall might come up with next!
Rating: Good
#2026 #30 #Dialith #Elvellon #EmbersOfADyingWorld #Epica #GreekMetal #LeavesEyes #Mar26 #Mystfall #Nightwish #PowerMetal #Review #Reviews #ScarletRecords #SymphonicMetal #SymphonicPowerMetal #Xandria
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Scarlet Records
Websites: mystfallofficial.com | facebook.com/mystfallofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 20th, 2026 -
What is a Fluid Condenser? (Part 1 – Liquid Condensers)
Jump to Lesson:
- Part 1 – Liquid Condensers (current lesson)
- Part 2 – Solid and Gaseous Condensers
- Part 3 – More Recipes
- Part 4 – Advanced Techniques (coming soon)
When I first heard the term “Fluid Condenser,” I’ll admit I was picturing a large apparatus akin to a still – something that could condense a vapor into a liquid. If you’re perusing occult texts, particularly the writings of P. B. Randolph or Franz Bardon, you may come across the term in something that sounds like a complicated alchemy experiment. I believe there are some misconceptions with this knowledge, so today I will seek to clarify what fluid condensers are, how to make them, and how to use them. In short, a fluid condenser is a substance that can store magickal energy just like a battery holds an electrical charge, but this is a gross oversimplification.
FLUID CONDENSERS DO NOT HAVE TO BE LIQUID
The complexity of producing a fluid condenser varies wildly. Although the simplest and cheapest fluid condenser recipes often use water as the main ingredient, fluid condensers do not have to be liquid. There are also fluid condensers that are made out of solids.
So, what the heck? How can you have a solid that is also fluid? Okay, this isn’t weird science. It’s actually just weird naming. The “fluid” in “fluid condenser” isn’t referring to what the condenser is made out of. Instead, it’s referring to what it conducts. “Fluid” in this case, is short for “electromagnetic fluid” which was basically a Hermetic/Bardonic term for spiritual energy. Bardon was borrowing some of these ideas from Franz Mesmer and his work on animal magnetism in the 18th century, which is also called Mesmerism. You can check out Initiation Into Hermetics for more information on this.
In accordance with the information given in the theoretical part of this book, there are two principle fluids in existence which have their source in the four elements, and they are the electric and magnetic fluids.
The electric fluid originates from the Fire element, whereas the magnetic fluid has its origin in the Water element. The Air element is the equilibrating element between Fire and Water. The Earth element is bipolar; therefore it contains both fluids and is electromagnetic; in the center it is electric and on the periphery it is magnetic. These two fluids are effective in all spheres with the described lawfulness, in the mental and in the astral sphere as well as in the material world. They are the cause of all existence.According to Bardon, who was really trying to scientifically quantify magick, the elements of fire and water each give off their own energy type, air sits between them and earth contains both. You can research his theories more if you’d like, but I will attempt to summarize in the language of modern neo-paganism. The electric fluid has the properties of the active elements and the magnetic fluid has the properties of the passive elements; therefore, the electromagnetic fluid is the summation of all of the elements, which we would just call “Spirit,” “Ether,” or maybe even just “energy.”
The Five Elements, Original Image
So now, before we delve into this a bit more expansively, I will give my own definition. A fluid condenser can be defined as any substance or combination of substances, in any state of matter, that have a high capability to conduct energy between planes (ie – the astral and the physical).
Fluid Condenser: Any substance or combination of substances, in any state of matter, that have a high capability to conduct energy between planes (ie – the astral and the physical).
Yes, we’re not just talking about something that just stores energy — we’re talking about something that is generally accepted to be a better conductor of energy.
Think of it this way. I have a battery and a lightbulb. I have to connect the two in order to turn on the light. Shall I connect them with wood? Perhaps with rubber? Obviously not. Those substances are not good conductors. We use copper wire in our electrical systems because it is a good conductor for the type of energy we’re trying to transmit.
Now pretend that the battery gets moved to the astral realm and the lightbulb remains in the mundane. How do I connect them? In this case I would use a fluid condenser. Copper, by the way, is a great fluid condenser and I’ve even heard it referred to as “the universal conductor.” Imagine, if you will, that I’m capable of running a length of wire from the astral realm to my lightbulb in the mundane.
The above example isn’t really so far from the truth. The source of magickal energy is the astral. When we connect a fluid condenser to a mundane object, we’re really giving the astral energy an anchor point in the physical world. In my tradition, we make our wands out of wood — honestly, they’re pretty plain and lack decoration, but we bore a hole in the bottom, add a drop of blood, and seal it back up. On the surface this seems like binding a tool to yourself through DNA, and yes it does have that effect, but blood is also the best liquid fluid condenser on the market. In other traditions, wands might be made out of hollow metal tubing, filled with solid or liquid fluid condensers, or wrapped with metal wire to help them conduct energy.
Now let’s focus on three of the Seven Hermetics Principles:
- The Principle of Correspondence – “As Above So Below.” Every object that exists in the mundane also has a correspondence in the astral.
- The Principle of Vibration – “Everything vibrates.” Some things, like fluid condensers, just transfer that vibration better than others.
- The Principle of Rhythm – “Everything flows, out and in.” Magickal energy is like an electrical circuit, there’s a flow in and a flow out. Everything that comes out of the astral returns to the astral.
When reflecting on the above principles, try to picture the condenser simultaneously existing in both the astral and the mundane.
Technically, a slightly more complete map of energy flow is shown below. For an even more detailed map, you can look at the Qabalistic Tree of Life. But now I’m afraid I’ve gone too far.
In short, the condenser is a blank slate capable of transmitting vast amounts of spiritual current. It stands by, ready to receive whatever type of energy or intention you want to charge it with. They are frequently used for anointing talismans, constructing magick mirrors, and more. Bardon makes mention that the complicated “Elixirs of Life” of the alchemists were merely fluid condensers. P. B. Randolph, it seems, manufactured bottles of condensers charged with treating specific ailments — he even referred to them as “drugs.” The applications are really quite endless. We’ll go over several uses for condensers later, but first we need to discuss their basic types and how to prepare them. Oh, and please don’t actually drink any of this stuff. Alchemists went insane from doing that.
Types of Condensers
As stated by my definition above, a fluid condenser can exist in any state of matter. A simple mixture of water and chamomile can be a liquid fluid condenser. Gold is a solid fluid condenser. Incense is a gaseous fluid condenser. For practical purposes, examples of each are given below.
Solid
Metals, resins, and plant material. The highest ranking of all solid fluid condensers is gold.
Liquid
Oils, extracts, elixirs, lacquers, etc. The highest ranking of all liquid fluid condensers are blood and sexual fluids.
Gas
Incense, fragrances, vapors, etc. The highest ranking of all gaseous fluid condensers is breath.
According to some stories, gold was fed to the Egyptian Pharaohs to grant them immortality. Transmutation to gold was the secret quest of ancient alchemists. Gold is so steeped in occult myth and legend, it should come as no surprise that it is mentioned quite frequently while preparing fluid condensers. It harnesses the power of the sun and represents pure creative force. In the world of condensers, Gold is one of the most powerful substances.
For Part 1, we will be limiting our discussion to the preparation and usage of simple liquid fluid condensers. In Part 2, we will discuss solid and gaseous fluid condensers as well as advanced techniques.
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My Condenser Recipes
Fluid condenser recipes are as varied as their authors. Before we get into the more complicated (albeit, classic) recipes, we’re going to start out with some simple ones that I put together. Quite frankly, they’re easy to make and use common herbs that just about every witch has on-hand. It’s important to realize that they can be just as effective as the more complicated alchemy experiments we will discuss later. Condensers can be made with one specific element in mind or a compound “universal” condenser can be made and charged with the energy of all elements at once.
These recipes use basic elemental correspondences. One herb should suffice, but if you prefer complicated recipes, you may choose to add many different herbs from the same elemental category. It is recommended to use distilled water because this will cut down on any outside contaminants. When properly stored, condensers can last for years or more.
You will notice that all recipes call for Gold Chloride. You may find this listed as Auric Chloride or AuCl3. I’m no chemist, but we’re basically talking about gold dissolved in acid, then diluted. Gold Chloride is used in photography for toning baths. You want the liquid solution and not the solid form. Think of this, literally, as liquid gold, allowing you to easily add this powerful element to any other fluid condenser. Even adding microscopic amounts of gold will greatly enhance your work.
You may also choose to further enhance any condenser with the addition of blood or sexual fluids. We’re only talking small amounts here — one drop, collected via cotton swap. Lancets are also good to have. Keep things sterile, people. This should only be done if the condenser will not be shared with other individuals. Never let another person use a Fluid Condenser that has been enhanced by your own bodily fluids. You will become karmically responsible for any operations of magick they perform with it.
Warning: Never let another person use a Fluid Condenser that has been enhanced by your own bodily fluids. You will become karmically responsible for any operations of magick performed.
Keep things safe and use good judgement. If you have the kitchen skills to make mac and cheese, you should be able to undertake the following preparations. Now that we’ve got the warnings out of the way, let’s move on to the actual work.
Earth Condenser
Condensers of the Earth element are suitable for matters of prosperity or stability. They can also be used to enhance physical sensation, touch, and Clairsentience. You may choose to combine Earth Condensers with mundane earth (dirt) or bury them.
Ingredients:
- Mugwort or Vervain (1/4 cup)
- Distilled Water (1 cup)
- Gold Chloride (10 drops)
Air Condenser
Condensers of the Air element are suitable for matters of thoughts or communication. They can also be used to enhance hearing, Clairaudience, and Clairalience. You may choose to evaporate an Air Condenser.
Ingredients:
- Anise or Lavender (1/4 cup)
- Distilled Water (1 cup)
- Gold Chloride (10 drops)
Water Condenser
Condensers of the Water element are suitable for matters of emotion, intuition, and healing. They can also be used to enhance Clairgustance. You may choose to add a Water Condenser to a large body of water.
Ingredients:
- Thyme of Chamomile (1/4 cup)
- Distilled Water (1 cup)
- Gold Chloride (10 drops)
Fire Condenser
Condensers of the Fire element are suitable for matters of passion, creativity, and will. They can also be used to enhance eyesight and Clairvoyance. You may choose to burn a Fire Condenser.
Ingredients:
- Basil or Cinnamon (1/4 cup)
- Distilled Water (1 cup)
- Gold Chloride (10 drops)
Universal Liquid
A universal condenser is appropriate for any act of magick.
Ingredients:
- Mugwort (1 tbsp)
- Anise (1 tbsp)
- Basil (1 tbsp)
- Thyme (1 tbsp)
- Distilled Water (1 cup)
- Gold Chloride (10 drops)
Preparation
All of the above recipes can be prepared in the same manner.
The final yield for my stated quantities is approximately 1 cup fluid condenser.
Estimated Time: 1.5 Hours
- Add approx. 1/4 cup plant ingredients to a small pot
- Add water until the plant material is completely covered (approx. 1 cup)
- Cover with lid and bring to boil
- Simmer for 20 minutes
- Keep covered and allow mixture to cool, about 15 minutes
- Strain mixture through fine mesh cheese cloth
- Restrain mixture a second time into a clean pot, ensuring no particulates remain
- Cover with lid and bring to boil
- Simmer for 20 minutes or until the liquid reduces by half
- Keep covered and allow mixture to cool, about 15 minutes
- Strain again for good measure
- Combine with an equal part alcohol (clear and high proof, vodka works)
- If desired, you may collect blood, sexual fluids, or both onto a cotton swab and submerge into the mixture. Shake well. Be sure to restrain.
- Add 10 drops of gold chloride
- Bottle the condenser in a dark container and keep in a cool, dim place until needed.
Why Is this Not a Potion?
You may wonder why this is different from something like a concoction, decoction, potion, etc. In fact, the process with these simple recipes may seem alarmingly similar to brewing a cup of tea.
THE PRIMARY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PREPARATION OF A FLUID CONDENSER AND A POTION IS WHETHER OR NOT YOU ADD AN INTENTION
Indeed, although our fluid condenser recipes require some additional steps, like filtering, adding alcohol, and adding gold chloride, the beginning certainly seems the same as making a basic herbal remedy; however, there’s on key distinction
The primary difference between the preparation of a fluid condenser and your run-of-the-mill herbal remedy is whether or not you add an intention. With a fluid condenser, the final product remains receptive, ready to take an intention or purpose at a later date.
Allow me to clarify with practical examples.
- If I boil chamomile leaves to make a brew for aiding my sleep, this is technically a Decoction of Chamomile, but I have basically just made a cup of tea. If you want it to sound fancy, call it a Sleeping Potion.
- If I boil chamomile leaves to remain receptive and later receive an intention, I’m probably making a fluid condenser.
Hopefully this clears things up.
Visual Aid
Fire Condenser, Final Product. Original Image.
Would you believe I just happened to have sunflowers and a sun-colored tablecloth conveniently on the table? Because I totally did. I couldn’t not take that picture.
For those of you that are visually stimulated, I’ve included a slideshow of pictures that highlight the process from start to finish.
I had a lot of extra basil lying around, so I decided to make a fire condenser.
What is a Fluid Condenser? (Part 1 – Liquid Condensers)Practical Applications
Magic Mirrors
This is probably one of the most frequent uses for fluid condensers. Magic Mirrors (or Dark Mirrors) typically employ the use of a fluid condenser during their construction. When you gaze into the mirror, you are actually gazing into a condenser.
Talismans
Talismans of any type can be anointed with a liquid fluid condenser prior to consecration. Sometimes, especially in the case of planetary talismans, they may be constructed out of a corresponding planetary metal, making the entire talisman a condenser.
Atmosphere
The smoke from burning incense or vapors from oils create a ritual space where energy can flow.
Breathing
Your breath is your life force. Even simple magick like knotwork can be enhanced by breathing into it. I frequently use breath on candles and runes. Use your imagination.
Petitions
Petition papers can be anointed with a drop of liquid condenser prior to being burned.
Wands
The wand is one of the classic tools for directing energy. As such, it seems apt to include a fluid condenser in some way. This could be even be something small, like a drop of blood.
Paints
Pigments can be added to liquid condensers, which turns them into a paint. This paint can be used to draw sigils or even to cover deity statues, further enhancing their energy capabilities.
Astral Sight
Certain fluid condensers can be applied to the body (eyes or third eye) to enhance astral sight and divination. We will discuss this more in the next lesson.
Until Next Time
Thank you for tuning into Part 1 of this series. In the next installment, we’ll discuss things like:
- The “Classic” Fluid Condenser Recipe
- Complicated Liquid Fluid Condensers
- Solid Fluid Condensers
- Gaseous Fluid Condensers
- Advanced Applications
- Substitutes for Gold Chloride
How do you use fluid condensers in your magickal practice? What’s your favorite recipe? Give me a shout and maybe we’ll discuss it in Part 2.
#bardonics #condensers #electromagneticFluid #fluidCondenser #hermetics #magick #mesmerism #occult #potion #witchcraft
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Review: HyperioN – “Cybergenesis”
Release date: January 15th, 2026
Label: Fighter Records
4 minutesPablo Rumel
Cybergenesis marks a new chapter for HyperioN—a rebirth within traditional heavy metal that fuses the legacy of bands like Metal Church, Queensrÿche, and Judas Priest with a modern, progressive energy. After several lineup changes, guitarist and main composer Davide Cotti leads this return with a tighter sound, sharp riffs, and refined production that solidifies the band’s identity. With the addition of vocalist Max Morelli, the album stands as a work of maturity and renewal, preserving the classic essence while propelling HyperioN into the future.
Review
Deafening: A neoclassical lick in high notes and a spiraling, fast riff open the first movement of Cybergenesis. Quick shifts between galloping rhythms and power chords create an energetic track, with slow, emotional sections midway through. The guitar solo weaves with the rhythm guitar, building harmonies and opening a dynamic palette of colors that expand with every listen.
Max Morelli’s voice isn’t that of a virtuoso, but he hits the high notes well and delivers the narratively charged, theatrical parts with clarity. His tone leans closer to the heavy prog of the eighties than to the operatic techniques of nineties power metal.
It’s on Rewire, Rebuild where Morelli’s strength truly shines. He handles falsettos and sustains notes with a steady vibrato, adding rougher, raspier refrains, moving far more comfortably in mid and aggressive registers than in excessively high ones.
As for percussion, we’re dealing with a drummer who knows how to handle rhythmic changes, pounding the snare with force in the most intense parts, giving space to the lead guitars through clever snare work, never overplaying fills or crashing cymbals.
The neoclassical solos and shifting structures bring progressive versatility, breaking monotony with every turn and riff. If you listen closely to Yet We Still Fight, you’ll hear its progressive opening before it downshifts into traditional heavy metal, adding timeless power chords and bursts of rapid single-string picking, layered choirs full of grandeur, and a powerful close between verses, with a thunderous snare and stellar artificial harmonics. One of the album’s highlights.
The Shackles of Chronitus is the classic slow, heavy track, perfect for lowering the pace and entering a darker, more powerful realm. Yet, it must be said, the vocal reverb is too high, which hurts the final mix. It doesn’t sound bad, but the voice borders on saturation, and while it doesn’t drown the guitars, its brightness breaks the balance that worked so well in the other songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U57MUq5Bf8A
Until the fifth track, Blood Over Chrome, the bass lines were barely audible, something corrected here with an intro led by sharp, bright, pick-driven bass. It takes the lead in rhythmic sections, with quick scales and greater presence in the composition. The song takes a classic heavy metal route, with tight rhythmic sections, razor-edged twin guitars trading rapid runs, and Simone Cauli’s bass at the forefront. The closing with stadium-style choruses gives it the epic vibe the track demands.
Grain of Sand shows HyperioN fully owning their style. A fast riff spirals and twists through chromatic breaks, heading straight into solo guitars and another furious charge: all within thirty seconds. The vocal phrasing, as noted, is raw and not technically extravagant, yet it bursts with force and grit, especially in the chorus and atmospheric clean-guitar parts.
We reach Rhizoma Rider, what a title! With a pure metal intro crafted in progressive fashion, it develops into a mid-tempo song, thick and pounding, recalling Judas Priest’s Ripper Owens era and much of Grave Digger’s raw energy. What The Shackles of Chronitus aimed for is achieved here. The percussion hits like a hammer, the twin guitars attack in unison, supported by strong bass lines, and everything sounds at full power, on a professional level. This track is the gem for fans of heavier metal… Listen to that palm-muted section in the final third! Classic as a leather jacket, as effective and simple as a hammer striking an anvil.
The journey ends with the ultra-epic The Whole of Time. As a closing piece, it’s clear the band gives everything here: a cybernetic voice intro, memorable choirs backed by synths, martial-like percussion, and a mid-tempo rhythm that narrates the story in pure heavy metal form. It’s a dramatic song with guitar-hero solos and an excellent finale.
Conclusion
We’ve focused on the musical aspects of the album, but attention must also be paid to its concept, to the narrative unfolding between songs. Of course, the music takes precedence, since a song can hold a poem or a novel within it, but if the music fails, nothing else matters. That’s not the case here. Music and concept, from the artwork onward, move as one. The album runs close to forty minutes, which is always a good sign.
TheNwothm Score: 8.5/10
Links
Bandcamp:https://hyperionbandheavy.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hyperionbandheavy
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/hyperionband
Label:https://www.fighter-records.com/
Read More Reviews
#FighterRecords #HeavyMetal #italian #ItalianHeavyMetal #JudasPriest #metalChurch #NewAlbum #NWOTHM
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Laughs, Cries and Deception: The Complex Lives of Birds
#Birds can certainly get very angry – and the owner of a galah or corella would be well advised not to get near this bird when the head feathers are raised — but birds can be joyful and playful, can get depressed and, as studies have shown, a neglectful or bare environment can even make them pessimistic.
Birds may feel for others (have empathy) and even console them, may have a sense of justice, may show deep affection for their partner and grieve for their loss. I witnessed the mate of a fatally injured tawny frogmouth not moving from the spot next to their dead partner for three days, and then dying on the fourth. 🌴🩸🧐 Be #vegan for them! ❌ #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife
#Parrot #cockatoo lovers will tell you, #birds 🦤🦃🦜🪿🦆🕊️ get angry, feel empathy, have a deep sense of justice and affection for their partners #Bird #intelligence 🌴🩸🧐 Be #vegan for them! ❌#Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2021/10/20/laughs-cries-and-deception-birds-emotional-lives-are-just-as-complicated-as-ours/
Share to BlueSky Share to TwitterJuly on the Northern Tableland, near Armidale in New South Wales, is usually the beginning of the breeding season and field observations start early.
I sat and watched in freezing temperatures. The sun was just rising above the horizon of this 1000m-high plateau when through binoculars I saw a young lone magpie, walking gingerly, literally tip-toeing, occasionally interrupted by little bouts of running and, unusually, heading straight for its territorial boundary.
In the last stretch to the border, the bird edged along a row of pine trees, staying low, and kept looking over its shoulder, especially when crossing the neighbour’s border. Shortly afterwards, a female was seen in his company.
Later, the male backtracked and, when far enough into his own territory, started foraging rather aimlessly as if nothing had happened.
What had I witnessed? Did this young male magpie understand that he was breaking several important magpie social rules and could face punishment for this transgression if caught? Did he have a sense of morality?
Science has traditionally shunned the idea of emotions in animals, not just for fear of anthropomorphism or over-interpretation, but also because there is a very long cultural history that played out a divide between mind and body and reason and emotions.
Reason, thinking and making judgements were stubbornly thought to be outside the capacity of animals. For a long time it was not believed that animals were even capable of feeling pain, let alone complex emotions. We now know that is far from the truth.
Birds with feelings
Pet owners have always known that their pets can be affectionate, sulky, jealous, sad, excited and deliberately naughty, as well as doing extraordinary things for their owners. The animals we know best in this regard are obviously dogs and cats.
Charles Darwin was the first to discuss emotions in animals in the mid-19th century. A century later, Niko Tinbergen addressed the vexing question of emotions.
Following on from Darwin, he identified “four Fs” as part of survival: fight, flee, fornicate and feed. These translate into basic feelings of fear, hunger and sexual drive – now called motivational states.
Tawny frogmouths are monogamous. cskk/Flickr, CC BY-NC-NDBut there is a lot more to bird emotions. Dangerous and horrible experiences are usually remembered. Memory helps survival. Modern urban birds have been shown to remember faces of people considered dangerous and threatening.
We now know that the bird brain is lateralised (each side of the brain controls a different set of functions) as in humans and other vertebrates. The right hemisphere expresses intense emotions (such as fear and attack). The left hemisphere has routine, considered responses and may inhibit some of the strong responses of the right hemisphere.
So birds are more similar to humans than had ever been thought, but with an important difference: birds are generally not aggressive without cause. Technically, aggression is an emotion that is dysfunctional, has no purpose and often even harms the individual displaying it.
Timneh Parrot Psittacus timnehBirds can certainly get very angry – and the owner of a galah or corella would be well advised not to get near this bird when the head feathers are raised — but birds can be joyful and playful, can get depressed and, as studies have shown, a neglectful or bare environment can even make them pessimistic.
Birds may feel for others (have empathy) and even console them, may have a sense of justice, may show deep affection for their partner and grieve for their loss. I witnessed the mate of a fatally injured tawny frogmouth not moving from the spot next to its dead partner for three days, and then dying on the fourth.
Social smarts
Australian native birds have an unusually high percentage of pair-bonding (over 90% of species) and the highest concentrations of cooperative species (relatives or siblings helping at the nest) anywhere in the world. Cockatoos bonding for life often have intense close partnerships, which are nurtured by constant grooming and attention to each other’s needs.
Such intense cohabitation of individuals, often for many years (how about 60 years of “marriage” in sulphur-crested cockatoos?), may also create frictions and dissatisfactions that require solutions to keep the pair or group together.
For instance, the lazy helper at the nest who only pretends to help in feeding, as happens among white-winged choughs, may get scolded by an adult. A group of apostlebirds building a mud nest together, transporting mud to the nest in relays, may spot an individual that is not pulling its weight.
Apostlebirds breed in families, and all are expected to pull their weight. Gisela Kaplan, Author providedI have witnessed on several occasions near Copeton Dam (in Inverell, NSW) apostlebirds become so outraged that they approach the individual with heightened calling and may even peck it until the intimidated individual falls back into line and does its share.
Empathy, altruism and consoling the injured or vanquished have all been observed in birds, thought to be the ultimate in consideration for another individual’s state of mind.
For instance, there are observations of dusky wood-swallows (belonging to the same family of birds as butcherbirds and magpies) in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt hassling a restless flycatcher with a larva in his beak, perched on a branch. One wood-swallow flew above the flycatcher, while the other simultaneously flew directly at it, snatched the larva from its beak while it was distracted by the other bird hovering overhead, and took it away. So who got the prize?
If all behaviour in animals is selfish, then the one who caught it should have gulped it down, but it did not. It gave it to the bird that had distracted the flycatcher. Perhaps the two birds reversed roles in the next, similar, situation. But it still meant overcoming the temptation to eat.
The noisy miner who defended a puppy. Gisela Kaplan, Author providedA noisy miner, one of the cooperative honeyeaters, I had hand-raised grew up over several weeks in the company of very young ridgeback pups near the edge of a nature reserve in a NSW coastal area.
One pup was sleeping on the porch in the sun and I was some distance away. I was alerted by the alarm calls of the noisy miner and turned around to see it swooping right down to a lace monitor’s head – doing so over and over again. I ran as quickly as I could, by now also shouting once the risk to the pup was more than apparent.
When the monitor spotted me, it turned and fled. The noisy minor had risked its life to save the pup. At no other occasion did the bird attempt to swoop a lace monitor. Its response was very specific to this situation.
And, as I have been asked often, could birds have a sense of humour? Perhaps.
Our gallah, Philip, deeply affectionate (and jealous!) had learned the names of all our dogs and was such a good mimic of our voices that he could easily and effectively call the dogs to attention.
Imagine the picture: a bird less than a foot tall, standing on the floor and calling four massive Rhodesian ridgebacks to attention. Then, when he got them all in line in front of him, he walked away, swaying his head and even making little chuckling sounds.
The degree to which emotions and complex feelings for others were developed may well depend on social organisation. It may be that birds with long-term social bonds show more complex behaviour and brains than those whose associations are only fleeting.
What they get out of it is perhaps not debatable — more joy, more grief, but also a greater degree of safety and usually a longer life. There are clear benefits of sticking together in a difficult and fickle continent.
Gisela Kaplan, Professor of Animal Behaviour, University of New England This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
#animalBehaviour #AnimalBiodiversityNews #animalExtinction #animals #Bird #birdOfPrey #birds #Birdsong #BlueBirdOfParadiseParadisornisRudolphi #BlueEyedCockatooCacatuaOphthalmica #BorneanPeacockPheasantPolyplectronSchleiermacheri #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottPalmOil #cockatoo #cognition #GoldieSBirdOfParadiseParadisaeaDecora #intelligence #Parrot #songbird #songbirds #SumatranLeafbirdChloropsisMedia #vegan
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By Baguette of Bodom
Electronic music and metal joining forces is often treated with suspicion. Not electronic in the ‘band member finds a Casio keyboard in their cellar’ sense,1 but a genuine fusion of the two with synthesizers on the forefront. Esprit D’Air is one of the more recent bands making waves with their take on this mix. A Japanese band formed in London in 2010 and spearheaded by Kai (The Sisters of Mercy—yes, that one), they’ve quickly formed their identity around a catchy blend of alternative metal, J-rock, and trance, among other stranger things. One break-up and reformation later, debut album Constellations finally appeared in 2017, followed by 2022’s Oceans and 2024’s Seasons.2 Fourth full-length Aeons is looking to delve deeper into Esprit D’Air’s niche, attempting a more varied package without any of their usual guest features help. How do they handle this melting pot of genres alone?
Aeons is here to have fun, first and foremost. While the resurrected post-2016 incarnation of Esprit D’Air is technically a solo project—Kai being the only ‘official’ full-time member—they do function as a band in practice. Frontman Kai and partner-in-crime Takeshi Tokunaga are behind most of the album’s writing and instrumentation, with Jan-Vincent Velazco handling the drum department. It’s difficult to pin down simple comparison points to Esprit D’Air’s genre soup shenanigans, but the majority of Aeons is built around alternative metal filtered through an anthemic, rock-oriented quality, the likes of X Japan (“Like a Phoenix”). Occasionally, their sound even leans towards the AOR, power-ish metal soar of newer Battle Beast (“Shadow of Time,” “Silver Leaf”). The guitar work usually resides next to or behind the keyboards, but it does a fine job adding extra heaviness to the album, and the instrumentation in general is tight and snappy. Kai’s vocal chops also play a major role on the record, further decorating strong choruses with melodic, J-rock-inspired vocal lines (“Chronos,” “羽ばたけ”).
Esprit D’Air has a penchant for strong hooks, especially on keyboards. Tracks like “Silver Leaf” and “Like a Phoenix” highlight the album’s greatest strengths, fusing together J-rock with extremely catchy synth patches that borrow from both techno and trance. Crucially, its multifaceted arsenal of keyboard and guitar styles makes the songs distinct from one another. Though the guitars could be more prominent, their relatively simplistic rhythmic role is complemented by powerful leads and intricate solo work when needed. The band’s attitude on instrumentation and songwriting is at times reminiscent of the way Elyose fuses early 2000s electronic and metal influences together, occasionally drifting towards their modern djentier alt-metal sound (“Chronos,” Lost Horizon”) or even the melodic downtuned attack of Periphery (“Quetzalcoatl”). Through their spectrum of styles, Aeons fulfills the band’s threat to feature more variety in a sleeker form.
The variety of Aeons, while intriguing, is a double-edged sword. There’s a particular spot around tracks 8–10 where the album’s alternative edge morphs into an edgier, nu-informed sound, both instrumentally and vocally (“Broken Mirror,” “絶望の光”). Despite Esprit D’Air kind of pulling it off, it doesn’t fit the album’s mood, especially not with all of it centered on one region. Half-ballad “Stardust” also quiets the album’s thunder somewhat, its bright but melancholic soundscape causing Kai to overstep his optimal vocal range. Fortunately, the majority of Aeons is memorable and at times even infectious. Its brevity softens its missteps; where Oceans landed at almost an hour, Aeons does more in nearly half the amount of time. This slick 35-minute runtime means its speed bumps aren’t fatal, but the middle of the album does still sag in comparison to the powerful start and finish.
Aeons ends up being an entertaining, tight bundle of melodic genre-defying goodness. Its catchy rock/metal attack blends together everything ’00s, and the electronic influences are particularly satisfying. The record’s inconsistency does leave something to be desired, and its sonical direction is unfocused at points, but the positives ultimately outweigh its stumbles. When I picked up the promo for Aeons, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into or what to expect. Now, it’s apparent Esprit D’Air have made an album that amounts to more than its components imply. I reckon their appeal can reach beyond their cited genre tags, and there’s plenty of room to further expand on their best qualities in the future.
Rating: Good!
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: FLAC
Label: Starstorm Records (self-run)
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025#2025 #30 #aeons #alternativeMetal #battleBeast #electronicMetal #electronicore #elyose #espritDair #jRock #japaneseMetal #nov25 #periphery #review #reviews #starstormRecords #theSistersOfMercy #tranceMetal #xJapan
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Angry Metal Guy’s Top 10(ish) of 2025 By Angry Metal GuyEvery year has been shitty for a while, and in some ways, 2025 was the shittiest of them all. The widespread sense that the End Is Nigh is what I would charitably call our zeitgeist.1 And I feel comfortable saying, it’s a shitty zeitgeist. But in defiance of the shit burger we’re all eating every day while we wait for the AI drone war to start, 2025 was my best year in a while. It did, in fact, see me more involved on the front and back ends of AngryMetalGuy.com than I’d been in a long time. And like those lists we’ve already published, AMG, both as a persona and community, has been a refuge for me during difficult times. The joy of discovery and the eclecticism inherent in what we do here have been a major part of why I love this blog. So, honestly, that’s been nice.
In terms of the blog’s health, AngryMetalGuy.com is holding steady. We’ve got a growing team of n00bs covering some of the holes we’ve had in the schedule.2 I worked very hard on training them in combination with Druhm, and it’s fair to say we were both happy with the result. We had some of our best candidates to date, and that made me proud and happy. There’s still room for a few more, so we might dig into the pool in the early part of 2026. So if you applied, all hope is not lost. We continue to attract around 1.25 million views a month, and that’s held steady for three years running. Obviously, we would like to continue to grow. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re actually seeing a slight downturn in visitors because of Generative AI. There are, of course, a lot of people who go to Google and write “My Favorite Band – New Album Review,” and they will be greeted by an AngryMetalGuy.com link that tends to place pretty highly on the Google Machine and awaits their complaints with open arms. But I suspect there are other kinds of views we’ve accrued – those which end up in people grabbing album art or looking for release dates – that disappear when people are requesting that ChatGPT do that for them. And while LLMs will link you after plagiarizing you, they’ll only do it if you let them, and we do not. And so any conversions of people checking linked resources are probably lost.3 There have been some weird months here and there with seemingly anomalously low numbers, so who even knows.
The active n00bs have allowed us to revive the three-posts-a-day pace,4 and we only went dark for five days during 2025. As a collective, we posted 699 posts—down from the very peak of 2019’s nearly 1,000 posts!—but in line with where we’ve been since Covid. And, our posts continue to be longer than they were in 2019, averaging 901 words for a total of 629,905 words that we produced for free in 2025. That’s a 2600-page term paper—Times New Roman, 12 point font, double-spaced on A4 paper.5 This dedication to quantity derives from the whip of an analytics-driven Steel Druhm, but wouldn’t be possible without our amazing staff putting their shoulders to the Eternal Boulder ov Metal™ and rolling it uphill every day, saying “One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
We continue to have international appeal, as well, though the country rankings haven’t changed much from 2024. Like last year, our top five is made up of the English-speaking world (US, UK, CAN, AUS at five) + Germany (at four).6 Weirdly, we are getting a sizable amount of traffic from China, which clocks in at six for the first time. There are almost certainly shenanigans at play with those numbers, as I am not aware of any influx of Chinese fans here recently. Maybe that’s AI traffic. Maybe that’s VPN traffic. Maybe we’ve been infiltrated and are now a communist honey pot. Maybe Druhm is buying traffic. Or, maybe, Winnie the Pooh has finally discovered how excellent the realm of heavy metal really is, and China is going through a different kind of cultural revolution! Regardless, 7-10 is made up of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, and France, with Spain and Finland dropping out of the top ten. The biggest news, however, when it comes to our international readership, is that signs point strongly to Pope Francis having been our solitary reader in the Holy See. The venerable Franciscan passed away in April of 2025, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that no one appears to have made the pilgrimage from the Vatican to Angry Metal Guy this year.
It’s worth noting that we lost more than a few stalwarts along the way in 2025,7 largely due to the #Cursed-Boomer-Posting chat on Slack, which has torn us apart. There may also have been some other influences, such as marriages, having high-paying jobs, running TV shows, having actual lives, or resenting me.8 Regardless, for all those who have worked hard to make AngryMetalGuy.com go, but who are not here with us anymore, I just want to say thank you. Despite my autistic isolation and standoffishness, I do love you all and miss you. The door is, of course, always open. And I am happy to see some special little guys who’ve been in deep freeze popping their heads out of the sand and grabbing promo. It’s a wonderful sight to behold, and maybe we’ll see some newfound productivity from old friends in 2026.
To close, I want to thank everyone – readers and writers alike – for your enthusiasm, your dedication to AngryMetalGuy.com as an institution, and your undying fealty to me, Angry Metal Guy.9 I know I can come off as harsh. And I know that some people grumble that I’m too hard on them when I read their texts or when they have divergent opinions in the comments, but that’s only true if you’ve never met a passive construction you didn’t love or if you’re wrong about metal. And, as I tell my students, we’re a team. Our goal is to make sure that AMG produces the very highest quality writing, while covering as much of the scene as possible.10 And given the loyalty of our readers, your comments, and “the eye test,” as it were, we are achieving that goal consistently. I’m still very proud of that and, if I stop to think about it, humbled by it, too.
While it feels like there’s a lot to dread after the 2025 that was, we still have a lot to be excited about here. So let’s hope that 2026 isn’t all like it’s felt in the first five days or so. Anyway, I have gone on far too long, have a wordy, overwrought list.
#(ish) 3: Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon [June 20th, 2025 | Nameless Grave Records | Bandcamp] — Chasing the Dragon is super fun. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it’s a little stupid in a way that I find endearing. And, as I remarked in June, while US Power Metal has been getting a lot of love around these parts, Helms Deep has not been on the receiving end of nearly enough of that love. While other bands showed up to a back alley knife fight, these Florida men showed up with a bejet-packed dragon and a collection of songs that burned hotter than dragonsfire, melting the competition down and shaming their lineages for decades to come. And joking hyperbole aside, Helms Deep doesn’t feel like a novelty act. They aren’t just good ’cause I find them funny. Chasing the Dragon features playing that’s sharp and vital across the board, with guitars that never stand still, a singer who sells every chorus with the right balance of chops, cheese, and buckets of swagger. Said differently, Helms Deep is just dudes playing good, honest heavy metal while having a great time. What more do you need?
#(ish) 2: Vittra // Intense Indifference [September 19th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — Vittra’s Intense Indifference shows up hungry, plays fast, hits hard, and gets out before you have time to get bored. Thirty-three minutes of riff-first, bethrashened melodeath go by in a blur; the hooks are sticky, the harmonies are sharp, and the energy is manic and adventurous. While the At the Gates lineage is obvious,11 Vittra pulls in enough Soilwork polish and Mors Principium Est flash to songwriting that’s focused on momentum rather than atmosphere, and the result is addictive. And what really pushes this record from really good to great are the flashes of the unexpected: honkytonk piano, bluesy acoustic passages, and classic rock phrasing that shouldn’t work, but does. It’s great listening to an album this full of piss and vinegar. I get excited when bands pop up that make the kind of thrashy, intense melodic death that never begs for an Insomnium comp. And sure, these guys have room to grow, but Intense Indifference caused me to feel anything but.
#(ish) 1: Arjen Anthony Lucassen // Songs No One Will Hear [September 12th, 2025 | InsideOut Music | Bandcamp] — Arjen Lucassen has been a favorite of mine during the time that AngryMetalGuy.com has been up and running. The “poofy-haired cheesehead”12 behind many of my favorite albums during AMG’s time is still a gem even in 2025. Crazily, Arjen’s first ‘solo record’ Lost in the New Real was released in 2012,13 and Songs No One Will Hear is its direct successor. A true concept record—with Toehider’s god-tier singer, Michael Mills, voicing a radio DJ talking to listeners about impending doom—it reflects both our End Is Nigh Zeitgeist and Arjen’s particular… idiom. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, Songs No One Will Hear is both tongue-in-cheek and yet deeply aware of the nature of information, grifting, and societal collapse, while still displaying the kind of referential goofiness that made Lost in the New Real such a charming record.14 The thing that dinged Songs No One Will Hear a little for me is the sense of uncanny familiarity. At times, it sounds like Arjen was working specifically to emulate the structure of Lost in the New Real. That created a bit of cognitive dissonance that I have never quite gotten over. It also drove a lot of replays of its under-the-radar predecessor rather than the album I should have been reviewing. But is Songs one of the best 11 records o’ 2025? I certainly think so.
#10: An Abstract Illusion // The Sleeping City [October 17th, 2025 | Willowtip | Bandcamp] — The Sleeping City had two strikes against it. First, it had the unenviable task of following Woe, a record that could easily have been the template on which they built their sound. It’s hard to break away from an overwhelmingly popular sound, yet these Ore Islanders took a left turn, exhibiting a level of daring I admire. The shift in aesthetic is the story of The Sleeping City in a lot of ways; the synths, the vibe, and the mood lean into dystopian sci-fi, and it’s a choice that works. What I love about The Sleeping City is that it’s detailed and detail-oriented without distracting from the expansiveness of the songwriting, which remains evocative and carefully structured. And while they sound comfortable letting songs breathe, they never get lost in the quest for “atmosphere” that undermines many modern releases. Second,15 the real gripe about The Sleeping City was the mastering job. But even a mastering job that clips peaks and fills valleys shows just how strong the raw material is. And so, finally, The Sleeping City feels like the product of a band choosing growth over safety while being true to themselves. And that’s an admirable trait that I hope they never lose.
#9: Fallujah // Xenotaph [June 13th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — Fallujah landing on my list came as a genuine surprise to me, mostly because I really had quietly written them off. I used to like them, but they never carried that In Flames-style of eternal hope for me. Xenotaph pulled me back in by doing a deceptively simple thing: reintroducing attack. Everything about this record feels more immediate; guitars cut, compositions move with purpose, and songs are taut and sharp. The atmospheric elements remain, but they’re now integrated into something heavier and more immediate. I love the balance Fallujah finds, combining that late-Cynic energy with the aggression of brutal and technical death. And the deeper I got, the more Xenotaph rewarded me. Repetition revealed interlinked ideas and layered guitar work that shoots like a web throughout, creating a sinuous structure on which everything rests. As I wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb, “Fallujah has achieved a conceptual evolution on Xenotaph that feels true to their origins and yet develops their sound in ways that make it accessible, and yet, truly unique.” It isn’t exactly br00tal death metal, but it’s not so drenched in “atmosphere” that it lacks tension. Most importantly, it worked.
#8: Scardust // Souls [July 18th, 2025 | Frontiers Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Scardust landing at number eight sans review is another casualty of my 2025 Stack o’ Shame, though this was less neglect than simple overextension in a year where too many heavy hitters landed at once. July, yo, what a month. Unfortunately, I missed the review window, then I missed the window to pawn it off responsibly, and by the time I circled back, it was late. However, Scardust’s third full-length is a sharp, confident 42 minutes of symphonic power/prog that feels fully aware and unique. While it doesn’t quite lock together as tightly as Strangers did at a conceptual and compositional level, Souls more than compensates for that with sheer craft. The orchestral and choral arrangements are some of the strongest I heard all year, and Scardust’s chemistry is ridonkulous. The rhythm section especially deserves accolades, with basswork that should be forcing its way into “best of” conversations. As a band, Scardust exists in the interstices of genre, where comparisons kind of work but can’t capture their unique voice. And while the band is impressive, the compositions feel so coherent because of Noa Gruman, who carries the album with control, range, and an incomparable soprano. Her extreme register (that is, growls) stays mostly holstered here, but her presence—and sheer talent—is on constant display, balancing different styles, moods, and feels. And her vocal performance isn’t the only standout vocal performance on Souls. The closing “Touch of Life” trilogy finds Ross Jennings (Haken) popping up in full “weird Ross” mode, which ends up as the cherry on top. The result is smart, muscular, and memorable; an album I’m ashamed to have missed.
#7: Aephanemer // Utopie [October 31st, 2025 | Napalm Records | Bandcamp] — Aephanemer’s Utopie landed, as I mentioned in my Record o’ the Month blurb, squarely at the top of my Stack o’ Shame. I was honored to be able to get access to this and start listening early, and I was immediately impressed. Yet, I got sick. Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life age of the earth. Meanwhile, Utopie sat there reminding me of my failures until Grin Reaper saved my ass and gave Aephanemer’s newest opus the unhinged tongue bath it so rightfully deserved. Utopie takes everything these French melodic death metallers have been doing over the past couple of albums and tightens the screws until the whole machine purrs with confidence. The neoclassical elements have become a perfect blend that helps everything work perfectly. Utopie flows; songs connect, ideas develop, momentum carries everything forward, and yet Aephanemer does not sacrifice the immediacy and energy that makes melodic death metal such a fine dopamine mine. While I haven’t sat down and learned the parts, I feel like the guitars are more fluid and more expressive, resulting in special melodies propelled by a buoyancy reflected in the theme. And you know me, what I want from great records is a holistic sense of greatness. Happily, Aephanemer accomplishes just that on Utopie. Had I been operating at full capacity when it dropped, I would have written a review that kids would call “extra.”16
#6: Insania // The Great Apocalypse [June 13th, 2025 | Frontiers Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — The Great Apocalypse, contrary to its name, is sneaky. It doesn’t gallop in and smack you in the face with shock or novelty, but instead, it reveals its strength through confidence, craft, and an almost unfair level of replay value. What initially feels like—and has been so often written off as—a solid, familiar Europower record gradually opens up to be something richer and more rewarding. And it’s kept paying dividends the longer I’ve been sitting with it. Insania sounds, as I noted when I wrote the review, like a band fully aware of their lineage and completely at ease with it. But the truly confident understand themselves enough to think differently. The resulting record is full of massive, sticky hooks, choruses that hit with power metal optimism and momentum, and electrifying guitars throughout. In fact, while investigating their discography, I was struck by how much Insania upped their game on The Great Apocalypse. And key to that is the guitar, which elevates the record by resisting predictability and yet coexisting on a meta-level with the genre that they know so well. Songs evolve instead of looping, melodies get reshaped rather than repeated, and familiar ideas or tropes are nudged just enough off-center to stay engaging but familiar. The Great Apocalypse approaches with intention, and Insania performs like a band that’s rediscovering why they love playing this kind of music in the first place. This record is exhilarating, memorable, and deeply satisfying, which is why it belongs among these other great releases.
#5: Kalaveraztekah // Nikan Axkan [May 2nd, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — In what I’m pretty sure is a first for me, an Ünsïgnëd Bänd Rödëö contestant has made my Top Ten(ish) list. I’ve had plenty of unsigned bands on my lists, but I walked into Kalaveraztekah’s masterful Nikan Axkan utterly unprepared for what I would find. Like a kid buying music in the ’90s, I just looked at that amazing cover art and decided that I was going to join the team reviewing this record instead of the other one. And that twist of fate has earned Mexico’s finest Aztec-themed death metal band a spot on the End o’ Year Metal List o’ Record™.17 As I cleverly wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb: “There’s no sense that these Hidrocálidos are some kind of novelty act. They aren’t a Mexican Eluveitie, just playing Dark Tranquillity riffs while putting a Ritual Death Flute over it for 40 seconds in every song.”18 Rather, Nikan Axkan is chock full of muscular riffing and the kind of grindy death metal that I’ve always associated with the Mexican scene. Combined with a high-concept connecting to Mexican pre-history and the judicious use of a fucking death flute, I just never quit listening to Nikan Axkan.19 And so here they are, in the Top 5 of my Top 10(ish) of 2025,20 and it couldn’t be more deserved.
#4: Impureza // Alcázares [July 11th, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I admit, I have tried to lead by example. I have attempted to become a servant leader. Rather than eating up a ton of oxygen and making everything actually about me (instead of just in jest) and what I want as Angry Metal Guy, I have, with time and wisdom, tried to allow others a chance to spread their wings. One of the things that means is that I can’t just bogart other writers’ “discoveries,” and I try not to block them if they grab something before I do.21 So, in that context, you’ll understand that I got pretty excited when I realized that I could review the newest Impureza without poaching it. The band’s approach to metal—infused with flamenco and semi-fantastical alternate-historical high concepts about colonial history—had entranced me previously, but I always felt like they were leaving a lot on the table. Their sound had not quite blended the flamenco and the metal, but rather, the genres sat side by side. Alcázares changes that. From start to finish, Alcázares is addictive, creative, musically impressive, and just a lot of fun. The artful ability of these Orléanais-via-España to marry such disparate styles with genuinely unique approaches to music that run as deeply as the very notion of meter is one of the most impressive feats accomplished in metal in 2025. But it’s not just a meta-concern of the artistic feat that excites me. Alcázares is a fucking banger that can stimulate your intellect, or that can leave your neck sore. Take your pick!22
#3: Phantom Spell // Heather & Hearth [July 18th, 2025 | Cruz del Sur Music | Bandcamp] — Phantom Spell has the benefit of being a genuine surprise. My happy place, when I can afford to be there, is digging through the promo bin and listening to everything I can get my hands on. I have made so many fantastic discoveries there, just immersed in my own little world, listening to samples to get a feel of what we’re being sent. Heather & Hearth looked like classic Steel Druhmcore: Cruz del Sur Records, retro metal, D&D Basic Set art. I popped it in, got dragged in, and totally distracted from the rest of what I was doing. I know that this might seem incongruent, but Heather & Hearth sounds fresh. In a world of hypercompressed, hyper-reamped, extremer-than-thou metal, the act of writing good songs with tons of vocal harmonies, instruments that sit in their sonic corridors, and—despite being recorded by one single dude—a convincingly live vibe feels “like a radical act.”23 I quickly grew to love Heather & Hearth, shared it with all the normies I know who love Ghost (“Isn’t this so much better?”), and began singing its praises. And I’ve been happy to see it popping up on lists throughout list season. It means a lot to me that people can hear just how good Phantom Spell is. And Phantom Spell also proved to be quite generative, in that I wrote the Spotify post as a response to a discussion about why Heather & Hearth wasn’t available there. Easily one of the best records I heard in 2025, and I’m looking forward to hearing so much more.
#2: In Mourning // The Immortal [August 29th, 2025 | Supreme Chaos Records | Bandcamp] — When a record is truly exceptional, the hardest part is often articulating why it has transcended other things without reducing it to a checklist. In Mourning’s fantastic The Immortal resists that kind of accounting in the best possible way. Its melodies are lush and emotionally evocative, capable of landing with equal force whether they’re carried by aching vocals or unfurled through long, expansive, yet intimate, trem-picked guitar passages. The riffing is punishing but disciplined, balancing weighty chug with sharper, blackened melodies, creating a constant tension between death metal heft and sadboi atmosphere without fully committing to drowning the production in reverb. And yet, none of this marks a radical departure from what In Mourning has done before—has been doing since 2008. The crucial difference here is in execution: every compositional choice seems to land exactly where it should be. In a sense, this calls attention to the role of probability, as much as inspiration or songcraft, in composition. Some records feel blessed from the outset, where one can go through the same process again and never produce the same results. The hooks here stick without feeling forced, climaxes are perfectly placed, and the pacing across the record gives each track room to breathe while contributing to the kind of flow reserved for only the best albums. Even moments that might feel familiar hit differently on The Immortal, like everything snaps into place. The Immortal succeeds, then, not just on craft but on feel: it feels heavier, sadder, and more resonant than its predecessors; and it stands comfortably among the strongest melodic death metal releases in years.
#1: Calva Louise // Edge of the Abyss [July 11th, 2025 | Mascot Records | Bandcamp] — Edge of the Abyss ran away with my listening this year in a way I genuinely don’t remember happening before, and that probably tells you most of what you need to know. The record is frantic, restless, and overloaded with ideas, moving between genres and feels with the speed of fast-cut editing; shifting at the drop of a dime. That both makes the record fun to listen to and keeps it surprising and fresh even after dozens of listens. The pace and density line up uncannily well with where my own brain tends to live, and I suspect that’s a part of why it lodged itself so firmly in my rotation. Calva Louise writes songs that feel driven by impulse and curiosity rather than caution or genre boundaries, and that creative energy and freedom are contagious. Jess Allanic’s pop instincts and melodic sense anchor the chaos, lending the lighter passages real emotional weight and memorability, rather than merely serving as connective tissue. Edge of the Abyss’s incorporation of Latin rhythmic elements and melodic sensibilities ended up also being a personal bonus; Latin music has been a refuge for me from musical monotony for years, and hearing them integrated naturally into Edge of the Abyss was exciting, and it generated affection for this wayward Venezuelan and her French and English bandmates. What really sealed the deal for me, though, was how committed the band sounds to its vision. The songwriting is ambitious and fun, but it doesn’t feel scattered. The album has a cinematic feel – complemented by literally cinematic music videos – but doesn’t feel bloated or melodramatic. And Calva Louise sports a swagger unique to bands who are just doing exactly what they want to be doing. Since July, I’ve kept coming back to Edge of the Abyss and forgetting I had even enjoyed other records this year. There’s a real sense of becoming here; of a band pulling its influences together into something that feels unique. And I also feel invested in Calva Louise in a way I haven’t been with many bands. I really am so happy to see them growing and succeeding. I love seeing them landing on people’s lists here and elsewhere. They have so much potential, and I am so eager to see what they do next. But should the worst befall them, I’ll always have Edge of the Abyss, and it already feels like an all-timer.
Honorable Mentions
Sarastus // Agony Eternal [July 1st, 2025 | Dominance of Darkness Records | Bandcamp] — Stolen from me by one Kenstrosity, Sarastus was a joyous discovery by me in the depths of the promo bin. One part black metal with a touch of death n’ roll for vibes, Agony Eternal strikes hard at modern conventions of black metal and sounds fresh by playing fast, unapologetic, engaging music with razor-sharp riffs. Melodic, without being sickly sweet or cheesy, with a ton of attack and great songwriting chops, Sarastus really threads the needle on Agony Eternal, making something that is driven and addictive, but undeniably black metal.
Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations [July 4th, 2025 | Bad Omen | Bandcamp] — I’ve been back and forth with Wytch Hazel in the past. I have enjoyed what they do, but in the past I’ve been more skeptical of specifically nostalgiacore records that don’t feel like they’re adding much “new.” First, I think I’m just getting past that problem, as the “new” in metal is emphasizing things I don’t love about the scene. But second, I think V: Lamentations is just a more engaging record. From the word ‘go,’ Wytch Hazel writes with a kind of urgency that gives their brand of ’70s-tinged metal an extra kick, and the energy sits so well with me. Maybe the songwriting is just a bit tighter, maybe it’s faster, I don’t know—I didn’t write the proper review. All I know is that I keep circling back to Lamentations in a way that I haven’t done as much with their earlier albums. And that made it easy to put in the running for Listurnalia and to give my personal Angry Stamp o’ Approval™.
Mors Principium Est // Darkness Invisible [September 26th, 2025 | Perception/Reigning Phoenix Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — Probably the grower of the year, Darkness Invisible surprised me by sticking around. When I started reviewing it, I expected not to like it much. I had been a big fan of the band’s previous output and of their former guitarist’s solo record from last year. But with familiarity—and time spent dissecting it—I became increasingly impressed with the album. While the production is busy and pulls it down, the writing forges a new path that better represents the vision of MPE’s founding member, Ville Viljanen. And that vision is bleak, blackened, and surprisingly sticky. No matter your opinion on the end of the previous incarnation, Darkness Invisible at least demonstrates that there is still a vital future for Finland’s most underrated melodic death metal powerhouse. And that’s a future to which I look forward.
Blackbraid // Blackbraid III [August 8th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — I have a Gollumesque distaste for modern black metal. I am physically incapable of starting a review or blurb of a black metal band without reminding readers how much I hate “atmosphere” in the post-Cascadian black metal era. “Give it to us raw and wriggling!” I growl at all the fat hobbitses who try to feed me empty, overcooked “atmosphere.” Blackbraid doesn’t want to feed me atmosphere. Instead, Blackbraid’s III trembles with a vibe that brings me back to discovering black metal; at times blistering, at times introspective, but rarely overstaying its welcome and never feeling like its primary goal is to be the band that defanged black metal for good to make it okay to listen to for kids in the suburbs. I’ll be listening to III for a long time.
Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria — This record is too long. It’s got too much hype among the staff. And also, it’s too damned good to be an honorable mention. And yet, there are only so many #(ish)es, and I got to Beyond Obsidian Eurphoria too late to really give it the kind of sustained love that it needs to properly list. Still, once I started listening, I’ve been swinging past it every day. Sometimes twice. The songwriting is a bit wandering, the album is a bit overwhelming, and yet there is an undeniable vibe that Tómarúm traffics in, and that’s sneakily sticky. Combine that techy Death with something akin to Disillusion, and maybe you’ve got your comp. The only complaint I have is that some of the melodies end up intentionally arch in a way that makes me think that they are actively trying not to give the ear something to latch onto. That’s dumb, but it’s also very 2025. And hey, at least there’s a really easy trick for them to sell out with.
…and Oceans // The Regeneration Itinerary [May 23rd, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] —The Regeneration Itinerary was a lot more controversial among fans than I expected, but I really enjoyed it. As I wrote in May, “It’s always fun to watch bands defy Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™, and while The Regeneration Itinerary isn’t their best record yet, 30 years after their debut, …and Oceans is still releasing vital music that’s impossible to overlook.” And that’s just true facts as stated by a metal-knower. While not quite the tour de force of its predecessors, this record is a solid bit of weirdo black metal with some of the best art in the biz. I recommend it highly.
Haxprocess24 // Beyond What Eyes Can See [July 25th, 2025 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — Four songs, three of which are over 10 minutes long, and a combo of what I’d call post-Opeth songwriting with OSDM aesthetics, Beyond What Eyes Can See deserved more attention this year and ended up, instead, on my Stack o’ Shame™. This isn’t a reflection on them; they play vital death metal and deserve accolades for their expansive vision and the way everything flows. They just got eaten up by the July where everything got released. Sorry, boys, but here’s your fig leaf!
Majestica // Power Train [February 7th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Back in like 2008, I saw a band called ReinXeed play a whole bunch of covers of Swedish dance/electronica “group” E-Type at a Culture Night in Umeå. I remember hearing from people in the local scene that they were “big in Japan,” and I listened to some stuff, but wasn’t super moved by it at the time. In 2019, ReinXeed changed their name to Majestica and got signed to Nuclear Blast. And damnit if they aren’t just a lot better than they were in 2008. Power Train, which is on our collective Stack o’ Shame™, is the band’s third full-length under the moniker, and it rocks the same kind of sickly sweet melodies, guitar gymnastics, and general sense of fun that makes power metal my go-to genre a lot of days. While not quite as sticky and addictive as some other things higher up the list, Power Train was a solid addition to the band’s discography and one of the better power records I heard this year. You’ve come a long way, baby!
Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail [April 18th, 2025 | Willowtip Records | Bandcamp] — While not as high on this record as others on the staff, Dormant Ordeal is undeniably vital. And I’m just never going to write a better blurb than I did when they got Record o’ the Month for April: “This record hits a sweet spot inside of me, best described as the ‘oh yeah, that’s how death metal is done’ spot. The riffs flow, and my brain just opens up the spigots, releasing a veritable tsunami of dopamine. Every riff that cuts, every transition that seethes, and every recognition of the slick, skilled ways that these guys construct songs, I get a nice big kick of that Happy Chemical. Tooth and Nail is dynamic, punishing, aggressive, and better yet, it’s smart.” Man, that guy can write!
Aversed // Erasure of Color [March 25th, 2025 | M-Theory Audio | Bandcamp] — Last, and I guess technically least – but that isn’t taking into account that there were like 10,000 albums released in 2025 and there are only like 25 on this list – is Aversed’s Erasure of Color. Part of the reason for its late arrival is that, despite being our Record o’ the Month for March, Erasure of Color didn’t actually make it onto my personal playlist until quite a bit later. And damn, that was kind of a big miss on my part. Great melodeath with a unique flavor and great intensity; there’s something thoughtful and sharp about this record. Combine that with excellent album art and the Dolphin Whisperer seal of approval, and Erasure of Color has everything fans of melodeath need to carry them through this wasteland. I will need to keep my eyes on Aversed going forward.
#AndOceans #2025 #Aephanemer #AnAbstractIllusion #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish #ArjenLucassen #Aversed #Blackbraid #CalvaLouise #ChasingTheDragon #DormantOrdeal #EdgeOfTheAbyss #Fallujah #Haxprocess #HelmsDeep #Impureza #InMourning #Insania #IntenseIndifference #Kalaveraztekah #Majestica #MorsPrincipiumEst #PhantomSpell #Sarastus #Scardust #Tómarúm #Vittra #WytchHazel -
Angry Metal Guy’s Top 10(ish) of 2025 By Angry Metal GuyEvery year has been shitty for a while, and in some ways, 2025 was the shittiest of them all. The widespread sense that the End Is Nigh is what I would charitably call our zeitgeist.1 And I feel comfortable saying, it’s a shitty zeitgeist. But in defiance of the shit burger we’re all eating every day while we wait for the AI drone war to start, 2025 was my best year in a while. It did, in fact, see me more involved on the front and back ends of AngryMetalGuy.com than I’d been in a long time. And like those lists we’ve already published, AMG, both as a persona and community, has been a refuge for me during difficult times. The joy of discovery and the eclecticism inherent in what we do here have been a major part of why I love this blog. So, honestly, that’s been nice.
In terms of the blog’s health, AngryMetalGuy.com is holding steady. We’ve got a growing team of n00bs covering some of the holes we’ve had in the schedule.2 I worked very hard on training them in combination with Druhm, and it’s fair to say we were both happy with the result. We had some of our best candidates to date, and that made me proud and happy. There’s still room for a few more, so we might dig into the pool in the early part of 2026. So if you applied, all hope is not lost. We continue to attract around 1.25 million views a month, and that’s held steady for three years running. Obviously, we would like to continue to grow. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re actually seeing a slight downturn in visitors because of Generative AI. There are, of course, a lot of people who go to Google and write “My Favorite Band – New Album Review,” and they will be greeted by an AngryMetalGuy.com link that tends to place pretty highly on the Google Machine and awaits their complaints with open arms. But I suspect there are other kinds of views we’ve accrued – those which end up in people grabbing album art or looking for release dates – that disappear when people are requesting that ChatGPT do that for them. And while LLMs will link you after plagiarizing you, they’ll only do it if you let them, and we do not. And so any conversions of people checking linked resources are probably lost.3 There have been some weird months here and there with seemingly anomalously low numbers, so who even knows.
The active n00bs have allowed us to revive the three-posts-a-day pace,4 and we only went dark for five days during 2025. As a collective, we posted 699 posts—down from the very peak of 2019’s nearly 1,000 posts!—but in line with where we’ve been since Covid. And, our posts continue to be longer than they were in 2019, averaging 901 words for a total of 629,905 words that we produced for free in 2025. That’s a 2600-page term paper—Times New Roman, 12 point font, double-spaced on A4 paper.5 This dedication to quantity derives from the whip of an analytics-driven Steel Druhm, but wouldn’t be possible without our amazing staff putting their shoulders to the Eternal Boulder ov Metal™ and rolling it uphill every day, saying “One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
We continue to have international appeal, as well, though the country rankings haven’t changed much from 2024. Like last year, our top five is made up of the English-speaking world (US, UK, CAN, AUS at five) + Germany (at four).6 Weirdly, we are getting a sizable amount of traffic from China, which clocks in at six for the first time. There are almost certainly shenanigans at play with those numbers, as I am not aware of any influx of Chinese fans here recently. Maybe that’s AI traffic. Maybe that’s VPN traffic. Maybe we’ve been infiltrated and are now a communist honey pot. Maybe Druhm is buying traffic. Or, maybe, Winnie the Pooh has finally discovered how excellent the realm of heavy metal really is, and China is going through a different kind of cultural revolution! Regardless, 7-10 is made up of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, and France, with Spain and Finland dropping out of the top ten. The biggest news, however, when it comes to our international readership, is that signs point strongly to Pope Francis having been our solitary reader in the Holy See. The venerable Franciscan passed away in April of 2025, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that no one appears to have made the pilgrimage from the Vatican to Angry Metal Guy this year.
It’s worth noting that we lost more than a few stalwarts along the way in 2025,7 largely due to the #Cursed-Boomer-Posting chat on Slack, which has torn us apart. There may also have been some other influences, such as marriages, having high-paying jobs, running TV shows, having actual lives, or resenting me.8 Regardless, for all those who have worked hard to make AngryMetalGuy.com go, but who are not here with us anymore, I just want to say thank you. Despite my autistic isolation and standoffishness, I do love you all and miss you. The door is, of course, always open. And I am happy to see some special little guys who’ve been in deep freeze popping their heads out of the sand and grabbing promo. It’s a wonderful sight to behold, and maybe we’ll see some newfound productivity from old friends in 2026.
To close, I want to thank everyone – readers and writers alike – for your enthusiasm, your dedication to AngryMetalGuy.com as an institution, and your undying fealty to me, Angry Metal Guy.9 I know I can come off as harsh. And I know that some people grumble that I’m too hard on them when I read their texts or when they have divergent opinions in the comments, but that’s only true if you’ve never met a passive construction you didn’t love or if you’re wrong about metal. And, as I tell my students, we’re a team. Our goal is to make sure that AMG produces the very highest quality writing, while covering as much of the scene as possible.10 And given the loyalty of our readers, your comments, and “the eye test,” as it were, we are achieving that goal consistently. I’m still very proud of that and, if I stop to think about it, humbled by it, too.
While it feels like there’s a lot to dread after the 2025 that was, we still have a lot to be excited about here. So let’s hope that 2026 isn’t all like it’s felt in the first five days or so. Anyway, I have gone on far too long, have a wordy, overwrought list.
#(ish) 3: Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon [June 20th, 2025 | Nameless Grave Records | Bandcamp] — Chasing the Dragon is super fun. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it’s a little stupid in a way that I find endearing. And, as I remarked in June, while US Power Metal has been getting a lot of love around these parts, Helms Deep has not been on the receiving end of nearly enough of that love. While other bands showed up to a back alley knife fight, these Florida men showed up with a bejet-packed dragon and a collection of songs that burned hotter than dragonsfire, melting the competition down and shaming their lineages for decades to come. And joking hyperbole aside, Helms Deep doesn’t feel like a novelty act. They aren’t just good ’cause I find them funny. Chasing the Dragon features playing that’s sharp and vital across the board, with guitars that never stand still, a singer who sells every chorus with the right balance of chops, cheese, and buckets of swagger. Said differently, Helms Deep is just dudes playing good, honest heavy metal while having a great time. What more do you need?
#(ish) 2: Vittra // Intense Indifference [September 19th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — Vittra’s Intense Indifference shows up hungry, plays fast, hits hard, and gets out before you have time to get bored. Thirty-three minutes of riff-first, bethrashened melodeath go by in a blur; the hooks are sticky, the harmonies are sharp, and the energy is manic and adventurous. While the At the Gates lineage is obvious,11 Vittra pulls in enough Soilwork polish and Mors Principium Est flash to songwriting that’s focused on momentum rather than atmosphere, and the result is addictive. And what really pushes this record from really good to great are the flashes of the unexpected: honkytonk piano, bluesy acoustic passages, and classic rock phrasing that shouldn’t work, but does. It’s great listening to an album this full of piss and vinegar. I get excited when bands pop up that make the kind of thrashy, intense melodic death that never begs for an Insomnium comp. And sure, these guys have room to grow, but Intense Indifference caused me to feel anything but.
#(ish) 1: Arjen Anthony Lucassen // Songs No One Will Hear [September 12th, 2025 | InsideOut Music | Bandcamp] — Arjen Lucassen has been a favorite of mine during the time that AngryMetalGuy.com has been up and running. The “poofy-haired cheesehead”12 behind many of my favorite albums during AMG’s time is still a gem even in 2025. Crazily, Arjen’s first ‘solo record’ Lost in the New Real was released in 2012,13 and Songs No One Will Hear is its direct successor. A true concept record—with Toehider’s god-tier singer, Michael Mills, voicing a radio DJ talking to listeners about impending doom—it reflects both our End Is Nigh Zeitgeist and Arjen’s particular… idiom. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, Songs No One Will Hear is both tongue-in-cheek and yet deeply aware of the nature of information, grifting, and societal collapse, while still displaying the kind of referential goofiness that made Lost in the New Real such a charming record.14 The thing that dinged Songs No One Will Hear a little for me is the sense of uncanny familiarity. At times, it sounds like Arjen was working specifically to emulate the structure of Lost in the New Real. That created a bit of cognitive dissonance that I have never quite gotten over. It also drove a lot of replays of its under-the-radar predecessor rather than the album I should have been reviewing. But is Songs one of the best 11 records o’ 2025? I certainly think so.
#10: An Abstract Illusion // The Sleeping City [October 17th, 2025 | Willowtip | Bandcamp] — The Sleeping City had two strikes against it. First, it had the unenviable task of following Woe, a record that could easily have been the template on which they built their sound. It’s hard to break away from an overwhelmingly popular sound, yet these Ore Islanders took a left turn, exhibiting a level of daring I admire. The shift in aesthetic is the story of The Sleeping City in a lot of ways; the synths, the vibe, and the mood lean into dystopian sci-fi, and it’s a choice that works. What I love about The Sleeping City is that it’s detailed and detail-oriented without distracting from the expansiveness of the songwriting, which remains evocative and carefully structured. And while they sound comfortable letting songs breathe, they never get lost in the quest for “atmosphere” that undermines many modern releases. Second,15 the real gripe about The Sleeping City was the mastering job. But even a mastering job that clips peaks and fills valleys shows just how strong the raw material is. And so, finally, The Sleeping City feels like the product of a band choosing growth over safety while being true to themselves. And that’s an admirable trait that I hope they never lose.
#9: Fallujah // Xenotaph [June 13th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — Fallujah landing on my list came as a genuine surprise to me, mostly because I really had quietly written them off. I used to like them, but they never carried that In Flames-style of eternal hope for me. Xenotaph pulled me back in by doing a deceptively simple thing: reintroducing attack. Everything about this record feels more immediate; guitars cut, compositions move with purpose, and songs are taut and sharp. The atmospheric elements remain, but they’re now integrated into something heavier and more immediate. I love the balance Fallujah finds, combining that late-Cynic energy with the aggression of brutal and technical death. And the deeper I got, the more Xenotaph rewarded me. Repetition revealed interlinked ideas and layered guitar work that shoots like a web throughout, creating a sinuous structure on which everything rests. As I wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb, “Fallujah has achieved a conceptual evolution on Xenotaph that feels true to their origins and yet develops their sound in ways that make it accessible, and yet, truly unique.” It isn’t exactly br00tal death metal, but it’s not so drenched in “atmosphere” that it lacks tension. Most importantly, it worked.
#8: Scardust // Souls [July 18th, 2025 | Frontiers Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Scardust landing at number eight sans review is another casualty of my 2025 Stack o’ Shame, though this was less neglect than simple overextension in a year where too many heavy hitters landed at once. July, yo, what a month. Unfortunately, I missed the review window, then I missed the window to pawn it off responsibly, and by the time I circled back, it was late. However, Scardust’s third full-length is a sharp, confident 42 minutes of symphonic power/prog that feels fully aware and unique. While it doesn’t quite lock together as tightly as Strangers did at a conceptual and compositional level, Souls more than compensates for that with sheer craft. The orchestral and choral arrangements are some of the strongest I heard all year, and Scardust’s chemistry is ridonkulous. The rhythm section especially deserves accolades, with basswork that should be forcing its way into “best of” conversations. As a band, Scardust exists in the interstices of genre, where comparisons kind of work but can’t capture their unique voice. And while the band is impressive, the compositions feel so coherent because of Noa Gruman, who carries the album with control, range, and an incomparable soprano. Her extreme register (that is, growls) stays mostly holstered here, but her presence—and sheer talent—is on constant display, balancing different styles, moods, and feels. And her vocal performance isn’t the only standout vocal performance on Souls. The closing “Touch of Life” trilogy finds Ross Jennings (Haken) popping up in full “weird Ross” mode, which ends up as the cherry on top. The result is smart, muscular, and memorable; an album I’m ashamed to have missed.
#7: Aephanemer // Utopie [October 31st, 2025 | Napalm Records | Bandcamp] — Aephanemer’s Utopie landed, as I mentioned in my Record o’ the Month blurb, squarely at the top of my Stack o’ Shame. I was honored to be able to get access to this and start listening early, and I was immediately impressed. Yet, I got sick. Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life age of the earth. Meanwhile, Utopie sat there reminding me of my failures until Grin Reaper saved my ass and gave Aephanemer’s newest opus the unhinged tongue bath it so rightfully deserved. Utopie takes everything these French melodic death metallers have been doing over the past couple of albums and tightens the screws until the whole machine purrs with confidence. The neoclassical elements have become a perfect blend that helps everything work perfectly. Utopie flows; songs connect, ideas develop, momentum carries everything forward, and yet Aephanemer does not sacrifice the immediacy and energy that makes melodic death metal such a fine dopamine mine. While I haven’t sat down and learned the parts, I feel like the guitars are more fluid and more expressive, resulting in special melodies propelled by a buoyancy reflected in the theme. And you know me, what I want from great records is a holistic sense of greatness. Happily, Aephanemer accomplishes just that on Utopie. Had I been operating at full capacity when it dropped, I would have written a review that kids would call “extra.”16
#6: Insania // The Great Apocalypse [June 13th, 2025 | Frontiers Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — The Great Apocalypse, contrary to its name, is sneaky. It doesn’t gallop in and smack you in the face with shock or novelty, but instead, it reveals its strength through confidence, craft, and an almost unfair level of replay value. What initially feels like—and has been so often written off as—a solid, familiar Europower record gradually opens up to be something richer and more rewarding. And it’s kept paying dividends the longer I’ve been sitting with it. Insania sounds, as I noted when I wrote the review, like a band fully aware of their lineage and completely at ease with it. But the truly confident understand themselves enough to think differently. The resulting record is full of massive, sticky hooks, choruses that hit with power metal optimism and momentum, and electrifying guitars throughout. In fact, while investigating their discography, I was struck by how much Insania upped their game on The Great Apocalypse. And key to that is the guitar, which elevates the record by resisting predictability and yet coexisting on a meta-level with the genre that they know so well. Songs evolve instead of looping, melodies get reshaped rather than repeated, and familiar ideas or tropes are nudged just enough off-center to stay engaging but familiar. The Great Apocalypse approaches with intention, and Insania performs like a band that’s rediscovering why they love playing this kind of music in the first place. This record is exhilarating, memorable, and deeply satisfying, which is why it belongs among these other great releases.
#5: Kalaveraztekah // Nikan Axkan [May 2nd, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — In what I’m pretty sure is a first for me, an Ünsïgnëd Bänd Rödëö contestant has made my Top Ten(ish) list. I’ve had plenty of unsigned bands on my lists, but I walked into Kalaveraztekah’s masterful Nikan Axkan utterly unprepared for what I would find. Like a kid buying music in the ’90s, I just looked at that amazing cover art and decided that I was going to join the team reviewing this record instead of the other one. And that twist of fate has earned Mexico’s finest Aztec-themed death metal band a spot on the End o’ Year Metal List o’ Record™.17 As I cleverly wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb: “There’s no sense that these Hidrocálidos are some kind of novelty act. They aren’t a Mexican Eluveitie, just playing Dark Tranquillity riffs while putting a Ritual Death Flute over it for 40 seconds in every song.”18 Rather, Nikan Axkan is chock full of muscular riffing and the kind of grindy death metal that I’ve always associated with the Mexican scene. Combined with a high-concept connecting to Mexican pre-history and the judicious use of a fucking death flute, I just never quit listening to Nikan Axkan.19 And so here they are, in the Top 5 of my Top 10(ish) of 2025,20 and it couldn’t be more deserved.
#4: Impureza // Alcázares [July 11th, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I admit, I have tried to lead by example. I have attempted to become a servant leader. Rather than eating up a ton of oxygen and making everything actually about me (instead of just in jest) and what I want as Angry Metal Guy, I have, with time and wisdom, tried to allow others a chance to spread their wings. One of the things that means is that I can’t just bogart other writers’ “discoveries,” and I try not to block them if they grab something before I do.21 So, in that context, you’ll understand that I got pretty excited when I realized that I could review the newest Impureza without poaching it. The band’s approach to metal—infused with flamenco and semi-fantastical alternate-historical high concepts about colonial history—had entranced me previously, but I always felt like they were leaving a lot on the table. Their sound had not quite blended the flamenco and the metal, but rather, the genres sat side by side. Alcázares changes that. From start to finish, Alcázares is addictive, creative, musically impressive, and just a lot of fun. The artful ability of these Orléanais-via-España to marry such disparate styles with genuinely unique approaches to music that run as deeply as the very notion of meter is one of the most impressive feats accomplished in metal in 2025. But it’s not just a meta-concern of the artistic feat that excites me. Alcázares is a fucking banger that can stimulate your intellect, or that can leave your neck sore. Take your pick!22
#3: Phantom Spell // Heather & Hearth [July 18th, 2025 | Cruz del Sur Music | Bandcamp] — Phantom Spell has the benefit of being a genuine surprise. My happy place, when I can afford to be there, is digging through the promo bin and listening to everything I can get my hands on. I have made so many fantastic discoveries there, just immersed in my own little world, listening to samples to get a feel of what we’re being sent. Heather & Hearth looked like classic Steel Druhmcore: Cruz del Sur Records, retro metal, D&D Basic Set art. I popped it in, got dragged in, and totally distracted from the rest of what I was doing. I know that this might seem incongruent, but Heather & Hearth sounds fresh. In a world of hypercompressed, hyper-reamped, extremer-than-thou metal, the act of writing good songs with tons of vocal harmonies, instruments that sit in their sonic corridors, and—despite being recorded by one single dude—a convincingly live vibe feels “like a radical act.”23 I quickly grew to love Heather & Hearth, shared it with all the normies I know who love Ghost (“Isn’t this so much better?”), and began singing its praises. And I’ve been happy to see it popping up on lists throughout list season. It means a lot to me that people can hear just how good Phantom Spell is. And Phantom Spell also proved to be quite generative, in that I wrote the Spotify post as a response to a discussion about why Heather & Hearth wasn’t available there. Easily one of the best records I heard in 2025, and I’m looking forward to hearing so much more.
#2: In Mourning // The Immortal [August 29th, 2025 | Supreme Chaos Records | Bandcamp] — When a record is truly exceptional, the hardest part is often articulating why it has transcended other things without reducing it to a checklist. In Mourning’s fantastic The Immortal resists that kind of accounting in the best possible way. Its melodies are lush and emotionally evocative, capable of landing with equal force whether they’re carried by aching vocals or unfurled through long, expansive, yet intimate, trem-picked guitar passages. The riffing is punishing but disciplined, balancing weighty chug with sharper, blackened melodies, creating a constant tension between death metal heft and sadboi atmosphere without fully committing to drowning the production in reverb. And yet, none of this marks a radical departure from what In Mourning has done before—has been doing since 2008. The crucial difference here is in execution: every compositional choice seems to land exactly where it should be. In a sense, this calls attention to the role of probability, as much as inspiration or songcraft, in composition. Some records feel blessed from the outset, where one can go through the same process again and never produce the same results. The hooks here stick without feeling forced, climaxes are perfectly placed, and the pacing across the record gives each track room to breathe while contributing to the kind of flow reserved for only the best albums. Even moments that might feel familiar hit differently on The Immortal, like everything snaps into place. The Immortal succeeds, then, not just on craft but on feel: it feels heavier, sadder, and more resonant than its predecessors; and it stands comfortably among the strongest melodic death metal releases in years.
#1: Calva Louise // Edge of the Abyss [July 11th, 2025 | Mascot Records | Bandcamp] — Edge of the Abyss ran away with my listening this year in a way I genuinely don’t remember happening before, and that probably tells you most of what you need to know. The record is frantic, restless, and overloaded with ideas, moving between genres and feels with the speed of fast-cut editing; shifting at the drop of a dime. That both makes the record fun to listen to and keeps it surprising and fresh even after dozens of listens. The pace and density line up uncannily well with where my own brain tends to live, and I suspect that’s a part of why it lodged itself so firmly in my rotation. Calva Louise writes songs that feel driven by impulse and curiosity rather than caution or genre boundaries, and that creative energy and freedom are contagious. Jess Allanic’s pop instincts and melodic sense anchor the chaos, lending the lighter passages real emotional weight and memorability, rather than merely serving as connective tissue. Edge of the Abyss’s incorporation of Latin rhythmic elements and melodic sensibilities ended up also being a personal bonus; Latin music has been a refuge for me from musical monotony for years, and hearing them integrated naturally into Edge of the Abyss was exciting, and it generated affection for this wayward Venezuelan and her French and English bandmates. What really sealed the deal for me, though, was how committed the band sounds to its vision. The songwriting is ambitious and fun, but it doesn’t feel scattered. The album has a cinematic feel – complemented by literally cinematic music videos – but doesn’t feel bloated or melodramatic. And Calva Louise sports a swagger unique to bands who are just doing exactly what they want to be doing. Since July, I’ve kept coming back to Edge of the Abyss and forgetting I had even enjoyed other records this year. There’s a real sense of becoming here; of a band pulling its influences together into something that feels unique. And I also feel invested in Calva Louise in a way I haven’t been with many bands. I really am so happy to see them growing and succeeding. I love seeing them landing on people’s lists here and elsewhere. They have so much potential, and I am so eager to see what they do next. But should the worst befall them, I’ll always have Edge of the Abyss, and it already feels like an all-timer.
Honorable Mentions
Sarastus // Agony Eternal [July 1st, 2025 | Dominance of Darkness Records | Bandcamp] — Stolen from me by one Kenstrosity, Sarastus was a joyous discovery by me in the depths of the promo bin. One part black metal with a touch of death n’ roll for vibes, Agony Eternal strikes hard at modern conventions of black metal and sounds fresh by playing fast, unapologetic, engaging music with razor-sharp riffs. Melodic, without being sickly sweet or cheesy, with a ton of attack and great songwriting chops, Sarastus really threads the needle on Agony Eternal, making something that is driven and addictive, but undeniably black metal.
Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations [July 4th, 2025 | Bad Omen | Bandcamp] — I’ve been back and forth with Wytch Hazel in the past. I have enjoyed what they do, but in the past I’ve been more skeptical of specifically nostalgiacore records that don’t feel like they’re adding much “new.” First, I think I’m just getting past that problem, as the “new” in metal is emphasizing things I don’t love about the scene. But second, I think V: Lamentations is just a more engaging record. From the word ‘go,’ Wytch Hazel writes with a kind of urgency that gives their brand of ’70s-tinged metal an extra kick, and the energy sits so well with me. Maybe the songwriting is just a bit tighter, maybe it’s faster, I don’t know—I didn’t write the proper review. All I know is that I keep circling back to Lamentations in a way that I haven’t done as much with their earlier albums. And that made it easy to put in the running for Listurnalia and to give my personal Angry Stamp o’ Approval™.
Mors Principium Est // Darkness Invisible [September 26th, 2025 | Perception/Reigning Phoenix Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — Probably the grower of the year, Darkness Invisible surprised me by sticking around. When I started reviewing it, I expected not to like it much. I had been a big fan of the band’s previous output and of their former guitarist’s solo record from last year. But with familiarity—and time spent dissecting it—I became increasingly impressed with the album. While the production is busy and pulls it down, the writing forges a new path that better represents the vision of MPE’s founding member, Ville Viljanen. And that vision is bleak, blackened, and surprisingly sticky. No matter your opinion on the end of the previous incarnation, Darkness Invisible at least demonstrates that there is still a vital future for Finland’s most underrated melodic death metal powerhouse. And that’s a future to which I look forward.
Blackbraid // Blackbraid III [August 8th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — I have a Gollumesque distaste for modern black metal. I am physically incapable of starting a review or blurb of a black metal band without reminding readers how much I hate “atmosphere” in the post-Cascadian black metal era. “Give it to us raw and wriggling!” I growl at all the fat hobbitses who try to feed me empty, overcooked “atmosphere.” Blackbraid doesn’t want to feed me atmosphere. Instead, Blackbraid’s III trembles with a vibe that brings me back to discovering black metal; at times blistering, at times introspective, but rarely overstaying its welcome and never feeling like its primary goal is to be the band that defanged black metal for good to make it okay to listen to for kids in the suburbs. I’ll be listening to III for a long time.
Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria — This record is too long. It’s got too much hype among the staff. And also, it’s too damned good to be an honorable mention. And yet, there are only so many #(ish)es, and I got to Beyond Obsidian Eurphoria too late to really give it the kind of sustained love that it needs to properly list. Still, once I started listening, I’ve been swinging past it every day. Sometimes twice. The songwriting is a bit wandering, the album is a bit overwhelming, and yet there is an undeniable vibe that Tómarúm traffics in, and that’s sneakily sticky. Combine that techy Death with something akin to Disillusion, and maybe you’ve got your comp. The only complaint I have is that some of the melodies end up intentionally arch in a way that makes me think that they are actively trying not to give the ear something to latch onto. That’s dumb, but it’s also very 2025. And hey, at least there’s a really easy trick for them to sell out with.
…and Oceans // The Regeneration Itinerary [May 23rd, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] —The Regeneration Itinerary was a lot more controversial among fans than I expected, but I really enjoyed it. As I wrote in May, “It’s always fun to watch bands defy Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™, and while The Regeneration Itinerary isn’t their best record yet, 30 years after their debut, …and Oceans is still releasing vital music that’s impossible to overlook.” And that’s just true facts as stated by a metal-knower. While not quite the tour de force of its predecessors, this record is a solid bit of weirdo black metal with some of the best art in the biz. I recommend it highly.
Haxprocess24 // Beyond What Eyes Can See [July 25th, 2025 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — Four songs, three of which are over 10 minutes long, and a combo of what I’d call post-Opeth songwriting with OSDM aesthetics, Beyond What Eyes Can See deserved more attention this year and ended up, instead, on my Stack o’ Shame™. This isn’t a reflection on them; they play vital death metal and deserve accolades for their expansive vision and the way everything flows. They just got eaten up by the July where everything got released. Sorry, boys, but here’s your fig leaf!
Majestica // Power Train [February 7th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Back in like 2008, I saw a band called ReinXeed play a whole bunch of covers of Swedish dance/electronica “group” E-Type at a Culture Night in Umeå. I remember hearing from people in the local scene that they were “big in Japan,” and I listened to some stuff, but wasn’t super moved by it at the time. In 2019, ReinXeed changed their name to Majestica and got signed to Nuclear Blast. And damnit if they aren’t just a lot better than they were in 2008. Power Train, which is on our collective Stack o’ Shame™, is the band’s third full-length under the moniker, and it rocks the same kind of sickly sweet melodies, guitar gymnastics, and general sense of fun that makes power metal my go-to genre a lot of days. While not quite as sticky and addictive as some other things higher up the list, Power Train was a solid addition to the band’s discography and one of the better power records I heard this year. You’ve come a long way, baby!
Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail [April 18th, 2025 | Willowtip Records | Bandcamp] — While not as high on this record as others on the staff, Dormant Ordeal is undeniably vital. And I’m just never going to write a better blurb than I did when they got Record o’ the Month for April: “This record hits a sweet spot inside of me, best described as the ‘oh yeah, that’s how death metal is done’ spot. The riffs flow, and my brain just opens up the spigots, releasing a veritable tsunami of dopamine. Every riff that cuts, every transition that seethes, and every recognition of the slick, skilled ways that these guys construct songs, I get a nice big kick of that Happy Chemical. Tooth and Nail is dynamic, punishing, aggressive, and better yet, it’s smart.” Man, that guy can write!
Aversed // Erasure of Color [March 25th, 2025 | M-Theory Audio | Bandcamp] — Last, and I guess technically least – but that isn’t taking into account that there were like 10,000 albums released in 2025 and there are only like 25 on this list – is Aversed’s Erasure of Color. Part of the reason for its late arrival is that, despite being our Record o’ the Month for March, Erasure of Color didn’t actually make it onto my personal playlist until quite a bit later. And damn, that was kind of a big miss on my part. Great melodeath with a unique flavor and great intensity; there’s something thoughtful and sharp about this record. Combine that with excellent album art and the Dolphin Whisperer seal of approval, and Erasure of Color has everything fans of melodeath need to carry them through this wasteland. I will need to keep my eyes on Aversed going forward.
#AndOceans #2025 #Aephanemer #AnAbstractIllusion #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish #ArjenLucassen #Aversed #Blackbraid #CalvaLouise #ChasingTheDragon #DormantOrdeal #EdgeOfTheAbyss #Fallujah #Haxprocess #HelmsDeep #Impureza #InMourning #Insania #IntenseIndifference #Kalaveraztekah #Majestica #MorsPrincipiumEst #PhantomSpell #Sarastus #Scardust #Tómarúm #Vittra #WytchHazel -
Angry Metal Guy’s Top 10(ish) of 2025 By Angry Metal GuyEvery year has been shitty for a while, and in some ways, 2025 was the shittiest of them all. The widespread sense that the End Is Nigh is what I would charitably call our zeitgeist.1 And I feel comfortable saying, it’s a shitty zeitgeist. But in defiance of the shit burger we’re all eating every day while we wait for the AI drone war to start, 2025 was my best year in a while. It did, in fact, see me more involved on the front and back ends of AngryMetalGuy.com than I’d been in a long time. And like those lists we’ve already published, AMG, both as a persona and community, has been a refuge for me during difficult times. The joy of discovery and the eclecticism inherent in what we do here have been a major part of why I love this blog. So, honestly, that’s been nice.
In terms of the blog’s health, AngryMetalGuy.com is holding steady. We’ve got a growing team of n00bs covering some of the holes we’ve had in the schedule.2 I worked very hard on training them in combination with Druhm, and it’s fair to say we were both happy with the result. We had some of our best candidates to date, and that made me proud and happy. There’s still room for a few more, so we might dig into the pool in the early part of 2026. So if you applied, all hope is not lost. We continue to attract around 1.25 million views a month, and that’s held steady for three years running. Obviously, we would like to continue to grow. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we’re actually seeing a slight downturn in visitors because of Generative AI. There are, of course, a lot of people who go to Google and write “My Favorite Band – New Album Review,” and they will be greeted by an AngryMetalGuy.com link that tends to place pretty highly on the Google Machine and awaits their complaints with open arms. But I suspect there are other kinds of views we’ve accrued – those which end up in people grabbing album art or looking for release dates – that disappear when people are requesting that ChatGPT do that for them. And while LLMs will link you after plagiarizing you, they’ll only do it if you let them, and we do not. And so any conversions of people checking linked resources are probably lost.3 There have been some weird months here and there with seemingly anomalously low numbers, so who even knows.
The active n00bs have allowed us to revive the three-posts-a-day pace,4 and we only went dark for five days during 2025. As a collective, we posted 699 posts—down from the very peak of 2019’s nearly 1,000 posts!—but in line with where we’ve been since Covid. And, our posts continue to be longer than they were in 2019, averaging 901 words for a total of 629,905 words that we produced for free in 2025. That’s a 2600-page term paper—Times New Roman, 12 point font, double-spaced on A4 paper.5 This dedication to quantity derives from the whip of an analytics-driven Steel Druhm, but wouldn’t be possible without our amazing staff putting their shoulders to the Eternal Boulder ov Metal™ and rolling it uphill every day, saying “One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
We continue to have international appeal, as well, though the country rankings haven’t changed much from 2024. Like last year, our top five is made up of the English-speaking world (US, UK, CAN, AUS at five) + Germany (at four).6 Weirdly, we are getting a sizable amount of traffic from China, which clocks in at six for the first time. There are almost certainly shenanigans at play with those numbers, as I am not aware of any influx of Chinese fans here recently. Maybe that’s AI traffic. Maybe that’s VPN traffic. Maybe we’ve been infiltrated and are now a communist honey pot. Maybe Druhm is buying traffic. Or, maybe, Winnie the Pooh has finally discovered how excellent the realm of heavy metal really is, and China is going through a different kind of cultural revolution! Regardless, 7-10 is made up of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, and France, with Spain and Finland dropping out of the top ten. The biggest news, however, when it comes to our international readership, is that signs point strongly to Pope Francis having been our solitary reader in the Holy See. The venerable Franciscan passed away in April of 2025, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that no one appears to have made the pilgrimage from the Vatican to Angry Metal Guy this year.
It’s worth noting that we lost more than a few stalwarts along the way in 2025,7 largely due to the #Cursed-Boomer-Posting chat on Slack, which has torn us apart. There may also have been some other influences, such as marriages, having high-paying jobs, running TV shows, having actual lives, or resenting me.8 Regardless, for all those who have worked hard to make AngryMetalGuy.com go, but who are not here with us anymore, I just want to say thank you. Despite my autistic isolation and standoffishness, I do love you all and miss you. The door is, of course, always open. And I am happy to see some special little guys who’ve been in deep freeze popping their heads out of the sand and grabbing promo. It’s a wonderful sight to behold, and maybe we’ll see some newfound productivity from old friends in 2026.
To close, I want to thank everyone – readers and writers alike – for your enthusiasm, your dedication to AngryMetalGuy.com as an institution, and your undying fealty to me, Angry Metal Guy.9 I know I can come off as harsh. And I know that some people grumble that I’m too hard on them when I read their texts or when they have divergent opinions in the comments, but that’s only true if you’ve never met a passive construction you didn’t love or if you’re wrong about metal. And, as I tell my students, we’re a team. Our goal is to make sure that AMG produces the very highest quality writing, while covering as much of the scene as possible.10 And given the loyalty of our readers, your comments, and “the eye test,” as it were, we are achieving that goal consistently. I’m still very proud of that and, if I stop to think about it, humbled by it, too.
While it feels like there’s a lot to dread after the 2025 that was, we still have a lot to be excited about here. So let’s hope that 2026 isn’t all like it’s felt in the first five days or so. Anyway, I have gone on far too long, have a wordy, overwrought list.
#(ish) 3: Helms Deep // Chasing the Dragon [June 20th, 2025 | Nameless Grave Records | Bandcamp] — Chasing the Dragon is super fun. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it’s a little stupid in a way that I find endearing. And, as I remarked in June, while US Power Metal has been getting a lot of love around these parts, Helms Deep has not been on the receiving end of nearly enough of that love. While other bands showed up to a back alley knife fight, these Florida men showed up with a bejet-packed dragon and a collection of songs that burned hotter than dragonsfire, melting the competition down and shaming their lineages for decades to come. And joking hyperbole aside, Helms Deep doesn’t feel like a novelty act. They aren’t just good ’cause I find them funny. Chasing the Dragon features playing that’s sharp and vital across the board, with guitars that never stand still, a singer who sells every chorus with the right balance of chops, cheese, and buckets of swagger. Said differently, Helms Deep is just dudes playing good, honest heavy metal while having a great time. What more do you need?
#(ish) 2: Vittra // Intense Indifference [September 19th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — Vittra’s Intense Indifference shows up hungry, plays fast, hits hard, and gets out before you have time to get bored. Thirty-three minutes of riff-first, bethrashened melodeath go by in a blur; the hooks are sticky, the harmonies are sharp, and the energy is manic and adventurous. While the At the Gates lineage is obvious,11 Vittra pulls in enough Soilwork polish and Mors Principium Est flash to songwriting that’s focused on momentum rather than atmosphere, and the result is addictive. And what really pushes this record from really good to great are the flashes of the unexpected: honkytonk piano, bluesy acoustic passages, and classic rock phrasing that shouldn’t work, but does. It’s great listening to an album this full of piss and vinegar. I get excited when bands pop up that make the kind of thrashy, intense melodic death that never begs for an Insomnium comp. And sure, these guys have room to grow, but Intense Indifference caused me to feel anything but.
#(ish) 1: Arjen Anthony Lucassen // Songs No One Will Hear [September 12th, 2025 | InsideOut Music | Bandcamp] — Arjen Lucassen has been a favorite of mine during the time that AngryMetalGuy.com has been up and running. The “poofy-haired cheesehead”12 behind many of my favorite albums during AMG’s time is still a gem even in 2025. Crazily, Arjen’s first ‘solo record’ Lost in the New Real was released in 2012,13 and Songs No One Will Hear is its direct successor. A true concept record—with Toehider’s god-tier singer, Michael Mills, voicing a radio DJ talking to listeners about impending doom—it reflects both our End Is Nigh Zeitgeist and Arjen’s particular… idiom. Thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, Songs No One Will Hear is both tongue-in-cheek and yet deeply aware of the nature of information, grifting, and societal collapse, while still displaying the kind of referential goofiness that made Lost in the New Real such a charming record.14 The thing that dinged Songs No One Will Hear a little for me is the sense of uncanny familiarity. At times, it sounds like Arjen was working specifically to emulate the structure of Lost in the New Real. That created a bit of cognitive dissonance that I have never quite gotten over. It also drove a lot of replays of its under-the-radar predecessor rather than the album I should have been reviewing. But is Songs one of the best 11 records o’ 2025? I certainly think so.
#10: An Abstract Illusion // The Sleeping City [October 17th, 2025 | Willowtip | Bandcamp] — The Sleeping City had two strikes against it. First, it had the unenviable task of following Woe, a record that could easily have been the template on which they built their sound. It’s hard to break away from an overwhelmingly popular sound, yet these Ore Islanders took a left turn, exhibiting a level of daring I admire. The shift in aesthetic is the story of The Sleeping City in a lot of ways; the synths, the vibe, and the mood lean into dystopian sci-fi, and it’s a choice that works. What I love about The Sleeping City is that it’s detailed and detail-oriented without distracting from the expansiveness of the songwriting, which remains evocative and carefully structured. And while they sound comfortable letting songs breathe, they never get lost in the quest for “atmosphere” that undermines many modern releases. Second,15 the real gripe about The Sleeping City was the mastering job. But even a mastering job that clips peaks and fills valleys shows just how strong the raw material is. And so, finally, The Sleeping City feels like the product of a band choosing growth over safety while being true to themselves. And that’s an admirable trait that I hope they never lose.
#9: Fallujah // Xenotaph [June 13th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Bandcamp] — Fallujah landing on my list came as a genuine surprise to me, mostly because I really had quietly written them off. I used to like them, but they never carried that In Flames-style of eternal hope for me. Xenotaph pulled me back in by doing a deceptively simple thing: reintroducing attack. Everything about this record feels more immediate; guitars cut, compositions move with purpose, and songs are taut and sharp. The atmospheric elements remain, but they’re now integrated into something heavier and more immediate. I love the balance Fallujah finds, combining that late-Cynic energy with the aggression of brutal and technical death. And the deeper I got, the more Xenotaph rewarded me. Repetition revealed interlinked ideas and layered guitar work that shoots like a web throughout, creating a sinuous structure on which everything rests. As I wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb, “Fallujah has achieved a conceptual evolution on Xenotaph that feels true to their origins and yet develops their sound in ways that make it accessible, and yet, truly unique.” It isn’t exactly br00tal death metal, but it’s not so drenched in “atmosphere” that it lacks tension. Most importantly, it worked.
#8: Scardust // Souls [July 18th, 2025 | Frontiers Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Scardust landing at number eight sans review is another casualty of my 2025 Stack o’ Shame, though this was less neglect than simple overextension in a year where too many heavy hitters landed at once. July, yo, what a month. Unfortunately, I missed the review window, then I missed the window to pawn it off responsibly, and by the time I circled back, it was late. However, Scardust’s third full-length is a sharp, confident 42 minutes of symphonic power/prog that feels fully aware and unique. While it doesn’t quite lock together as tightly as Strangers did at a conceptual and compositional level, Souls more than compensates for that with sheer craft. The orchestral and choral arrangements are some of the strongest I heard all year, and Scardust’s chemistry is ridonkulous. The rhythm section especially deserves accolades, with basswork that should be forcing its way into “best of” conversations. As a band, Scardust exists in the interstices of genre, where comparisons kind of work but can’t capture their unique voice. And while the band is impressive, the compositions feel so coherent because of Noa Gruman, who carries the album with control, range, and an incomparable soprano. Her extreme register (that is, growls) stays mostly holstered here, but her presence—and sheer talent—is on constant display, balancing different styles, moods, and feels. And her vocal performance isn’t the only standout vocal performance on Souls. The closing “Touch of Life” trilogy finds Ross Jennings (Haken) popping up in full “weird Ross” mode, which ends up as the cherry on top. The result is smart, muscular, and memorable; an album I’m ashamed to have missed.
#7: Aephanemer // Utopie [October 31st, 2025 | Napalm Records | Bandcamp] — Aephanemer’s Utopie landed, as I mentioned in my Record o’ the Month blurb, squarely at the top of my Stack o’ Shame. I was honored to be able to get access to this and start listening early, and I was immediately impressed. Yet, I got sick. Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life age of the earth. Meanwhile, Utopie sat there reminding me of my failures until Grin Reaper saved my ass and gave Aephanemer’s newest opus the unhinged tongue bath it so rightfully deserved. Utopie takes everything these French melodic death metallers have been doing over the past couple of albums and tightens the screws until the whole machine purrs with confidence. The neoclassical elements have become a perfect blend that helps everything work perfectly. Utopie flows; songs connect, ideas develop, momentum carries everything forward, and yet Aephanemer does not sacrifice the immediacy and energy that makes melodic death metal such a fine dopamine mine. While I haven’t sat down and learned the parts, I feel like the guitars are more fluid and more expressive, resulting in special melodies propelled by a buoyancy reflected in the theme. And you know me, what I want from great records is a holistic sense of greatness. Happily, Aephanemer accomplishes just that on Utopie. Had I been operating at full capacity when it dropped, I would have written a review that kids would call “extra.”16
#6: Insania // The Great Apocalypse [June 13th, 2025 | Frontiers Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — The Great Apocalypse, contrary to its name, is sneaky. It doesn’t gallop in and smack you in the face with shock or novelty, but instead, it reveals its strength through confidence, craft, and an almost unfair level of replay value. What initially feels like—and has been so often written off as—a solid, familiar Europower record gradually opens up to be something richer and more rewarding. And it’s kept paying dividends the longer I’ve been sitting with it. Insania sounds, as I noted when I wrote the review, like a band fully aware of their lineage and completely at ease with it. But the truly confident understand themselves enough to think differently. The resulting record is full of massive, sticky hooks, choruses that hit with power metal optimism and momentum, and electrifying guitars throughout. In fact, while investigating their discography, I was struck by how much Insania upped their game on The Great Apocalypse. And key to that is the guitar, which elevates the record by resisting predictability and yet coexisting on a meta-level with the genre that they know so well. Songs evolve instead of looping, melodies get reshaped rather than repeated, and familiar ideas or tropes are nudged just enough off-center to stay engaging but familiar. The Great Apocalypse approaches with intention, and Insania performs like a band that’s rediscovering why they love playing this kind of music in the first place. This record is exhilarating, memorable, and deeply satisfying, which is why it belongs among these other great releases.
#5: Kalaveraztekah // Nikan Axkan [May 2nd, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — In what I’m pretty sure is a first for me, an Ünsïgnëd Bänd Rödëö contestant has made my Top Ten(ish) list. I’ve had plenty of unsigned bands on my lists, but I walked into Kalaveraztekah’s masterful Nikan Axkan utterly unprepared for what I would find. Like a kid buying music in the ’90s, I just looked at that amazing cover art and decided that I was going to join the team reviewing this record instead of the other one. And that twist of fate has earned Mexico’s finest Aztec-themed death metal band a spot on the End o’ Year Metal List o’ Record™.17 As I cleverly wrote in my Record o’ the Month blurb: “There’s no sense that these Hidrocálidos are some kind of novelty act. They aren’t a Mexican Eluveitie, just playing Dark Tranquillity riffs while putting a Ritual Death Flute over it for 40 seconds in every song.”18 Rather, Nikan Axkan is chock full of muscular riffing and the kind of grindy death metal that I’ve always associated with the Mexican scene. Combined with a high-concept connecting to Mexican pre-history and the judicious use of a fucking death flute, I just never quit listening to Nikan Axkan.19 And so here they are, in the Top 5 of my Top 10(ish) of 2025,20 and it couldn’t be more deserved.
#4: Impureza // Alcázares [July 11th, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] — I admit, I have tried to lead by example. I have attempted to become a servant leader. Rather than eating up a ton of oxygen and making everything actually about me (instead of just in jest) and what I want as Angry Metal Guy, I have, with time and wisdom, tried to allow others a chance to spread their wings. One of the things that means is that I can’t just bogart other writers’ “discoveries,” and I try not to block them if they grab something before I do.21 So, in that context, you’ll understand that I got pretty excited when I realized that I could review the newest Impureza without poaching it. The band’s approach to metal—infused with flamenco and semi-fantastical alternate-historical high concepts about colonial history—had entranced me previously, but I always felt like they were leaving a lot on the table. Their sound had not quite blended the flamenco and the metal, but rather, the genres sat side by side. Alcázares changes that. From start to finish, Alcázares is addictive, creative, musically impressive, and just a lot of fun. The artful ability of these Orléanais-via-España to marry such disparate styles with genuinely unique approaches to music that run as deeply as the very notion of meter is one of the most impressive feats accomplished in metal in 2025. But it’s not just a meta-concern of the artistic feat that excites me. Alcázares is a fucking banger that can stimulate your intellect, or that can leave your neck sore. Take your pick!22
#3: Phantom Spell // Heather & Hearth [July 18th, 2025 | Cruz del Sur Music | Bandcamp] — Phantom Spell has the benefit of being a genuine surprise. My happy place, when I can afford to be there, is digging through the promo bin and listening to everything I can get my hands on. I have made so many fantastic discoveries there, just immersed in my own little world, listening to samples to get a feel of what we’re being sent. Heather & Hearth looked like classic Steel Druhmcore: Cruz del Sur Records, retro metal, D&D Basic Set art. I popped it in, got dragged in, and totally distracted from the rest of what I was doing. I know that this might seem incongruent, but Heather & Hearth sounds fresh. In a world of hypercompressed, hyper-reamped, extremer-than-thou metal, the act of writing good songs with tons of vocal harmonies, instruments that sit in their sonic corridors, and—despite being recorded by one single dude—a convincingly live vibe feels “like a radical act.”23 I quickly grew to love Heather & Hearth, shared it with all the normies I know who love Ghost (“Isn’t this so much better?”), and began singing its praises. And I’ve been happy to see it popping up on lists throughout list season. It means a lot to me that people can hear just how good Phantom Spell is. And Phantom Spell also proved to be quite generative, in that I wrote the Spotify post as a response to a discussion about why Heather & Hearth wasn’t available there. Easily one of the best records I heard in 2025, and I’m looking forward to hearing so much more.
#2: In Mourning // The Immortal [August 29th, 2025 | Supreme Chaos Records | Bandcamp] — When a record is truly exceptional, the hardest part is often articulating why it has transcended other things without reducing it to a checklist. In Mourning’s fantastic The Immortal resists that kind of accounting in the best possible way. Its melodies are lush and emotionally evocative, capable of landing with equal force whether they’re carried by aching vocals or unfurled through long, expansive, yet intimate, trem-picked guitar passages. The riffing is punishing but disciplined, balancing weighty chug with sharper, blackened melodies, creating a constant tension between death metal heft and sadboi atmosphere without fully committing to drowning the production in reverb. And yet, none of this marks a radical departure from what In Mourning has done before—has been doing since 2008. The crucial difference here is in execution: every compositional choice seems to land exactly where it should be. In a sense, this calls attention to the role of probability, as much as inspiration or songcraft, in composition. Some records feel blessed from the outset, where one can go through the same process again and never produce the same results. The hooks here stick without feeling forced, climaxes are perfectly placed, and the pacing across the record gives each track room to breathe while contributing to the kind of flow reserved for only the best albums. Even moments that might feel familiar hit differently on The Immortal, like everything snaps into place. The Immortal succeeds, then, not just on craft but on feel: it feels heavier, sadder, and more resonant than its predecessors; and it stands comfortably among the strongest melodic death metal releases in years.
#1: Calva Louise // Edge of the Abyss [July 11th, 2025 | Mascot Records | Bandcamp] — Edge of the Abyss ran away with my listening this year in a way I genuinely don’t remember happening before, and that probably tells you most of what you need to know. The record is frantic, restless, and overloaded with ideas, moving between genres and feels with the speed of fast-cut editing; shifting at the drop of a dime. That both makes the record fun to listen to and keeps it surprising and fresh even after dozens of listens. The pace and density line up uncannily well with where my own brain tends to live, and I suspect that’s a part of why it lodged itself so firmly in my rotation. Calva Louise writes songs that feel driven by impulse and curiosity rather than caution or genre boundaries, and that creative energy and freedom are contagious. Jess Allanic’s pop instincts and melodic sense anchor the chaos, lending the lighter passages real emotional weight and memorability, rather than merely serving as connective tissue. Edge of the Abyss’s incorporation of Latin rhythmic elements and melodic sensibilities ended up also being a personal bonus; Latin music has been a refuge for me from musical monotony for years, and hearing them integrated naturally into Edge of the Abyss was exciting, and it generated affection for this wayward Venezuelan and her French and English bandmates. What really sealed the deal for me, though, was how committed the band sounds to its vision. The songwriting is ambitious and fun, but it doesn’t feel scattered. The album has a cinematic feel – complemented by literally cinematic music videos – but doesn’t feel bloated or melodramatic. And Calva Louise sports a swagger unique to bands who are just doing exactly what they want to be doing. Since July, I’ve kept coming back to Edge of the Abyss and forgetting I had even enjoyed other records this year. There’s a real sense of becoming here; of a band pulling its influences together into something that feels unique. And I also feel invested in Calva Louise in a way I haven’t been with many bands. I really am so happy to see them growing and succeeding. I love seeing them landing on people’s lists here and elsewhere. They have so much potential, and I am so eager to see what they do next. But should the worst befall them, I’ll always have Edge of the Abyss, and it already feels like an all-timer.
Honorable Mentions
Sarastus // Agony Eternal [July 1st, 2025 | Dominance of Darkness Records | Bandcamp] — Stolen from me by one Kenstrosity, Sarastus was a joyous discovery by me in the depths of the promo bin. One part black metal with a touch of death n’ roll for vibes, Agony Eternal strikes hard at modern conventions of black metal and sounds fresh by playing fast, unapologetic, engaging music with razor-sharp riffs. Melodic, without being sickly sweet or cheesy, with a ton of attack and great songwriting chops, Sarastus really threads the needle on Agony Eternal, making something that is driven and addictive, but undeniably black metal.
Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations [July 4th, 2025 | Bad Omen | Bandcamp] — I’ve been back and forth with Wytch Hazel in the past. I have enjoyed what they do, but in the past I’ve been more skeptical of specifically nostalgiacore records that don’t feel like they’re adding much “new.” First, I think I’m just getting past that problem, as the “new” in metal is emphasizing things I don’t love about the scene. But second, I think V: Lamentations is just a more engaging record. From the word ‘go,’ Wytch Hazel writes with a kind of urgency that gives their brand of ’70s-tinged metal an extra kick, and the energy sits so well with me. Maybe the songwriting is just a bit tighter, maybe it’s faster, I don’t know—I didn’t write the proper review. All I know is that I keep circling back to Lamentations in a way that I haven’t done as much with their earlier albums. And that made it easy to put in the running for Listurnalia and to give my personal Angry Stamp o’ Approval™.
Mors Principium Est // Darkness Invisible [September 26th, 2025 | Perception/Reigning Phoenix Music | Stream or Buy on Qobuz] — Probably the grower of the year, Darkness Invisible surprised me by sticking around. When I started reviewing it, I expected not to like it much. I had been a big fan of the band’s previous output and of their former guitarist’s solo record from last year. But with familiarity—and time spent dissecting it—I became increasingly impressed with the album. While the production is busy and pulls it down, the writing forges a new path that better represents the vision of MPE’s founding member, Ville Viljanen. And that vision is bleak, blackened, and surprisingly sticky. No matter your opinion on the end of the previous incarnation, Darkness Invisible at least demonstrates that there is still a vital future for Finland’s most underrated melodic death metal powerhouse. And that’s a future to which I look forward.
Blackbraid // Blackbraid III [August 8th, 2025 | Self-release | Bandcamp] — I have a Gollumesque distaste for modern black metal. I am physically incapable of starting a review or blurb of a black metal band without reminding readers how much I hate “atmosphere” in the post-Cascadian black metal era. “Give it to us raw and wriggling!” I growl at all the fat hobbitses who try to feed me empty, overcooked “atmosphere.” Blackbraid doesn’t want to feed me atmosphere. Instead, Blackbraid’s III trembles with a vibe that brings me back to discovering black metal; at times blistering, at times introspective, but rarely overstaying its welcome and never feeling like its primary goal is to be the band that defanged black metal for good to make it okay to listen to for kids in the suburbs. I’ll be listening to III for a long time.
Tómarúm // Beyond Obsidian Euphoria — This record is too long. It’s got too much hype among the staff. And also, it’s too damned good to be an honorable mention. And yet, there are only so many #(ish)es, and I got to Beyond Obsidian Eurphoria too late to really give it the kind of sustained love that it needs to properly list. Still, once I started listening, I’ve been swinging past it every day. Sometimes twice. The songwriting is a bit wandering, the album is a bit overwhelming, and yet there is an undeniable vibe that Tómarúm traffics in, and that’s sneakily sticky. Combine that techy Death with something akin to Disillusion, and maybe you’ve got your comp. The only complaint I have is that some of the melodies end up intentionally arch in a way that makes me think that they are actively trying not to give the ear something to latch onto. That’s dumb, but it’s also very 2025. And hey, at least there’s a really easy trick for them to sell out with.
…and Oceans // The Regeneration Itinerary [May 23rd, 2025 | Season of Mist | Bandcamp] —The Regeneration Itinerary was a lot more controversial among fans than I expected, but I really enjoyed it. As I wrote in May, “It’s always fun to watch bands defy Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™, and while The Regeneration Itinerary isn’t their best record yet, 30 years after their debut, …and Oceans is still releasing vital music that’s impossible to overlook.” And that’s just true facts as stated by a metal-knower. While not quite the tour de force of its predecessors, this record is a solid bit of weirdo black metal with some of the best art in the biz. I recommend it highly.
Haxprocess24 // Beyond What Eyes Can See [July 25th, 2025 | Transcending Obscurity Records | Bandcamp] — Four songs, three of which are over 10 minutes long, and a combo of what I’d call post-Opeth songwriting with OSDM aesthetics, Beyond What Eyes Can See deserved more attention this year and ended up, instead, on my Stack o’ Shame™. This isn’t a reflection on them; they play vital death metal and deserve accolades for their expansive vision and the way everything flows. They just got eaten up by the July where everything got released. Sorry, boys, but here’s your fig leaf!
Majestica // Power Train [February 7th, 2025 | Nuclear Blast Records | Stream or Buy at Qobuz] — Back in like 2008, I saw a band called ReinXeed play a whole bunch of covers of Swedish dance/electronica “group” E-Type at a Culture Night in Umeå. I remember hearing from people in the local scene that they were “big in Japan,” and I listened to some stuff, but wasn’t super moved by it at the time. In 2019, ReinXeed changed their name to Majestica and got signed to Nuclear Blast. And damnit if they aren’t just a lot better than they were in 2008. Power Train, which is on our collective Stack o’ Shame™, is the band’s third full-length under the moniker, and it rocks the same kind of sickly sweet melodies, guitar gymnastics, and general sense of fun that makes power metal my go-to genre a lot of days. While not quite as sticky and addictive as some other things higher up the list, Power Train was a solid addition to the band’s discography and one of the better power records I heard this year. You’ve come a long way, baby!
Dormant Ordeal // Tooth and Nail [April 18th, 2025 | Willowtip Records | Bandcamp] — While not as high on this record as others on the staff, Dormant Ordeal is undeniably vital. And I’m just never going to write a better blurb than I did when they got Record o’ the Month for April: “This record hits a sweet spot inside of me, best described as the ‘oh yeah, that’s how death metal is done’ spot. The riffs flow, and my brain just opens up the spigots, releasing a veritable tsunami of dopamine. Every riff that cuts, every transition that seethes, and every recognition of the slick, skilled ways that these guys construct songs, I get a nice big kick of that Happy Chemical. Tooth and Nail is dynamic, punishing, aggressive, and better yet, it’s smart.” Man, that guy can write!
Aversed // Erasure of Color [March 25th, 2025 | M-Theory Audio | Bandcamp] — Last, and I guess technically least – but that isn’t taking into account that there were like 10,000 albums released in 2025 and there are only like 25 on this list – is Aversed’s Erasure of Color. Part of the reason for its late arrival is that, despite being our Record o’ the Month for March, Erasure of Color didn’t actually make it onto my personal playlist until quite a bit later. And damn, that was kind of a big miss on my part. Great melodeath with a unique flavor and great intensity; there’s something thoughtful and sharp about this record. Combine that with excellent album art and the Dolphin Whisperer seal of approval, and Erasure of Color has everything fans of melodeath need to carry them through this wasteland. I will need to keep my eyes on Aversed going forward.
#AndOceans #2025 #Aephanemer #AnAbstractIllusion #AngryMetalGuy #AngryMetalGuySTop10Ish #ArjenLucassen #Aversed #Blackbraid #CalvaLouise #ChasingTheDragon #DormantOrdeal #EdgeOfTheAbyss #Fallujah #Haxprocess #HelmsDeep #Impureza #InMourning #Insania #IntenseIndifference #Kalaveraztekah #Majestica #MorsPrincipiumEst #PhantomSpell #Sarastus #Scardust #Tómarúm #Vittra #WytchHazel -
CW: What is a "metaverse" or "the Metaverse"? A long piece of rambling
Since a couple months ago, you can read it all over the place: "The #Metaverse is dead." Everyone agreed, because for 99% of all people out there, "Metaverse" refers to the series of 3-D #VirtualWorlds (to be) launched by #Meta, formerly #Facebook. And as far as I know, Zuckerberg actually tried to use "Metaverse" as the registered, trademarked, exclusive brand name for his worlds until he learned that he can't trademark something already used in a commercially published novel, namely Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson from 1991.
Thus, he settled for names like #HorizonWorlds which nobody knows nor cares about because everyone still speaks of Meta's worlds as "the Metaverse". And I guess people would continue to do so even if Snow Crash was turned into a massive Hollywood blockbuster with a budget of $400M that makes $4B in theatres within the first week.
What we can take away from this is that Mark Zuckerberg did, in fact, not invent the term "metaverse".
Oh, and just recently, Linden Labs started a massive PR campaign for #SL20B, the 20th birthday of #SecondLife which has also only recently started referring to itself as a "metaverse" to try and jump into the gap that the Horizons leave behind as Meta drops them like they're hot in favour of #ArtificialIntelligence.
Many have rubbed their eyes in disbelief. Didn't Second Life, like, shut down in, what, 2008 or 2009? Because the rampant news coverage about it died down back then. Yeah, but that was because it was no longer viable for commercial mainstream mass media to have virtual offices in Second Life after what few big corporations had joined it had left again. And when journalists stopped using their avatars (said avatars are still there, only unused), they didn't know what was happening in Second Life anymore. Besides, what was still happening in Second Life was only of interest for Second Life residents, but not for casual mass media consumers.
Nonetheless, Second Life continued to exist, and it does so until today. It even developed and advanced greatly. Today's avatars look nothing like those from 2007 when the hype was the biggest and from when the most images and videos seem to have survived. Oh, and they blow everything that Horizons has ever dared to demonstrate clean out of the water while consisting entirely of user-generated content.
What we can take away from this is that the Metaverse (no capital M here) is not dead, and that #HorizonWorldsIsNotTheMetaverse and has never been "The Metaverse".
However, between Snow Crash and the renaming of Facebook (the corporation) into Meta, the term "metaverse" was still used a lot, only it was used in places which next to nobody even knew, which are still largely unknown today. I'm talking about the worlds based on #OpenSimulator, a sort of free and open-source implementation of Second Life, and its community.
To give you a few examples: Alternate Metaverse counts as the fifth-biggest #OpenSim grid by active users and the sixth-largest by land area. It was launched in late 2019 under this name. That already was well before Zuck implied having invented 3-D virtual worlds. And the name wasn't chosen to cash in on Snow Crash, but because the word "metaverse" had been all around OpenSim for years already.
The Infinite Metaverse Alliance is from 2016, if not even older. And it has always been all about OpenSim with two grids of its own, one named Metaverse Depot.
#Metropolis, launched in 2008 was one of the first OpenSim grids, it was the first mostly German-speaking OpenSim grid, and when it was shut down for good almost a year ago, it was the third-oldest still existing grid. Its full name was "Metropolis Metaversum" for which there's proof from as early as 2010.
I'm tempted to say the earliest uses of the term "metaverse" in conjunction with OpenSim go back until even earlier in 2008 when OpenSim introduced the #Hypergrid which federated grids much like Fediverse instances are federated: For the first and so far only time in the history of virtual worlds, it became possible for avatars to travel between separate worlds with separate operators. Some said the Hypergrid was worth being referred to as a metaverse.
This was when it was increasingly attempted to define what a metaverse or the Metaverse is. Another idea was that "the Metaverse" refers to the entirety of all virtual worlds, regardless of whether they're connected or not. It would include 3-D worlds like Second Life, There or the various OpenSim grids, it would include 2½-D isometric worlds like Furcadia, it would include 2-D worlds and maybe even text-only worlds, and it would include out-right games like Minecraft or World of Warcraft, even if the worlds in the former are created procedurally. Basically, "metaverse" became the new "cyberspace".
And then there were those who had probably read Snow Crash and who knew what the Metaverse in that book is: a centralised, monolithic, corporate-owned walled garden. Essentially, that Metaverse was a vision of an Internet that had evolved into a 3-D world, but in 1991, the Internet largely consisted of corporate-owned walled gardens such as AOL and CompuServe itself, and Microsoft tried to establish its own one. That was three years before the World-Wide Web.
So while the requirement of being corporate-run and even a walled garden wasn't pursued further, "metaverse" was defined as being one single world. According to this definition, there isn't "the Metaverse", but there are many metaverses. Each OpenSim grid would be its own metaverse. No wonder not few grids actually refer to themselves as metaverses.
Sometimes, another criterium is added to the definition: It's only truly a metaverse when it's possible to move between separate locations (rooms, spaces, lands, call them whatever) by natural means. Usually, a virtual world has to be divided into smaller units, especially if these smaller units can be run by someone else than the creators/owners of the whole world. Now, this criterium means that these units have to at least be able to directly border on one another. An avatar standing near the border between two units must be able to look into the neighbouring unit. And in order to enter the neighbouring unit, the avatar must be able to walk or ride a vehicle that's actually moving instead of being a teleporter in disguise (I've seen both in OpenSim). Teleportation must not be a requirement out of basic technological limitations.
Now, imagine a virtual world that's IRC or Discord ported to 3-D just like the Metaverse in Snow Crash is AOL ported to 3-D, a world that only consists of separate, enclosed chatrooms which are built in-world as virtual conference rooms which you enter by logging into them and leave by logging out again. It probably doesn't have any windows. It definitely doesn't have a door working as such; either there is no door, or the door is decoration, or the door is the logout button, but there's nothing outside that door. If your avatar runs into that door, provided your avatar can walk and isn't bound to a chair at the conference table (yes, there are virtual worlds in which avatars can't walk around), it'll log out of that conference room and back into a kind of lobby. By the above criterium, this cannot be a metaverse.
However, if the door actually opens, and your avatar can look and walk through it into a hallway, from there into the lobby and even leave the building, then we're getting closer to a metaverse, probably even more so if the conference room is actually a separate virtual location operated by someone else than the lobby and the hallways.
Second Life fulfills this definition. You can walk around the mainland for hours, constantly crossing from one sim into another, all rented and designed by different residents, even though they all run on the same server cluster under Linden Labs' control. Sure, you can teleport, but that's only necessary if there's no other way to get somewhere. That might be because your current location and/or your destination is too remote, i.e. isolated by empty regions with no sims running in them which can't be crossed, or out of convenience because your destination is too far away.
OpenSim grids fulfill it, too, while the Hypergrid doesn't. The Hypergrid requires teleportation because it connects separate worlds and not different places within the same world. Otherwise, it's like Second Life while sometimes taking the "separate places with separate owners" part even further: Between renting land on grids and running a whole grid of your own, you can host your own sims and have them attached to certain existing grids. As a visitor, it might actually happen that you walk not only from one sim to another, but onto someone else's machine.
Still, if you look around, if you look at the various platforms that have "metaverse" painted on them, whether they're operational or only vague concepts, each one of their creators has a different definition of what a metaverse or the Metaverse is, always corresponding on what they plan their worlds to be like. Corporations that place all their bets on #VirtualReality claim that "pancake" worlds which can be accessed through conventional devices with 2-D screens like Second Life or the OpenSim grids can't be metaverses. Those who want to include the real life and #AugmentedReality or #MixedReality claim that this is part of the very definition of "metaverse" so that they can also deny VR-only platforms such as #VRchat or #RecRoom any metaverse status. At the same time, even companies that offer nothing more than e.g. concerts in virtual reality claim that their secluded concert venues make up a metaverse, too.
Corporate definitions of "metaverse" almost always amount to, "A metaverse is what we call a metaverse; all metaverse definitions by our competitors are false, they don't have/work on true metaverses." Exceptions are limited to Meta ("We're inventing the Metaverse from scratch. Wait, what do you mean, we can't trademark that word?") and Linden Labs ("We've had a metaverse before any of you even had computers. And our very own Philip Rosedale has actually read Snow Crash. Your arguments are invalid.").
Sometimes the definition of "metaverse" even goes hand-in-hand with a declaration of what makes a virtual world, and what's necessary to build and operate one. Cryptobros, for example, insist that the Metaverse/metaverses/virtual worlds can impossibly function without a blockchain, a cryptocurrency and NFTs. Others who invest in AI currently state that virtual worlds won't and can't be possible without AI. Second Life has been proving them all wrong by successfully and continually running a virtual world without a blockchain, without crypto, without NFTs and without AI for two decades now, but they build their business model on their customers either never having even heard of Second Life or believing it was shut down before summer 2009.
The IEEE even has a scientific paper on the definition of "metaverse". No, really.
This leads us to a set of criteria for the Metaverse or a metaverse that may or may not be valid.
The first one is that it's 3-D. This is easy to agree upon unless pre-3-D worlds protest against that definition.
Persistence is another criterium. The world must not only exist on your end-user device and start up when you join it and shut down again when you leave. This is generally fulfilled. Generally because many OpenSim users run their own grids based on the #DreamGrid distribution on Windows computers at home. Some do leave them running 24/7, others only start them up when they're at home and awake. And then there are those who only own one functional computer which therefore serves as both the machine they run their viewer on and their grid server. Now, the typical Windows user starts up their machine when they need it and shuts it down when they're done. So there are actually public grids that are only online when their grid owners are, even if that's only two or three hours a day. But this only applies to a limited number of grids and not OpenSim as a whole. That said, even grid servers in data centres running larger public grids have to be restarted every once in a while.
Thirdly, some make a functioning economy an absolute requirement for a virtual world to call itself a metaverse. Second Life has one that works so well that Linden Labs makes more money per user and month than Meta, all without privacy breaches. It helps that nearly all in-world content is made by users, and Linden Labs doesn't take offering free content in larger quantities kindly.
Its younger open-source sibling, OpenSim, however, which has been referred to as a metaverse or multiple metaverses would fail this definition. It's technically impossible to implement an in-world economy both with "monopoly money" and with virtual currencies that can be exchanged with real money, either grid-independently (Gloebit, Podex) or grid-specific (like #Kitely or #WolfTerritoriesGrid handle it). But the vast majority of grids has chosen not to include any method of payment for anything. OpenSim in general doesn't even need an economy because most grids by far are run by hobbyists in their spare time. And openly for-profit grids are not only suspicious, but usually not very long-lived. In the meantime, OSgrid, the first, oldest and largest of all grids, celebrates its 16th birthday next month (I guess), and it's non-commercial and running on donations.
By the way, OpenSim also took over Second Life's set of item permissions. But since so many avatars in OpenSim have access to admin mode ("god mode") which can override them, they're symbolic at best and useless at worst.
Immersion is a point that's being debated. However, this lastly depends not only on the underlying technology, but also on how in-world places are designed. Immersion is something that I personally am very very interested in. But most OpenSim users neither know what it is, nor do they care, especially not if it stands in the way of convenience. For example, building an in-door club with no doors to the outside saves the sim owner the effort of a) cutting a hole into the walls of the building and b) scripting and configuring a door. Sim owners tend to believe that if they wouldn't use such a door, nobody would. But a building with no doors is not very credible and realistic, and having to teleport to get into it and back out is not very immersive.
If we're talking about "the Metaverse" instead of single virtual worlds as metaverses, decentralisation is of course important. Now, by this definition, everything else from Second Life to #Roblox to #Fortnite to Horizon Worlds is just a bunch of centralised walled gardens and not even close to being part of the Metaverse. The few exceptions are all not corporate-owned; they include the #HighFidelity fork #Vircadia, the Vircadia fork #Overte and OpenSim's Hypergrid. The latter is made up from hundreds, if not thousands of separate grids, and very very rarely do even two have the same owner. On top of that, there isn't even an "official grid" run by the developers; lead dev Ubit Umarov only owns one standard region that's externally attached to OSgrid.
On the other hand, OpenSim entirely runs on one and the same software product. Even if various versions and even a number of forks are in use, it's only one platform and not several. And besides, how can the Hypergrid be "the Metaverse" if only a tiny minority of the grids that make it up pass the "metaverse litmus test" themselves because they don't have an economy?
Not even Vircadia could comply with this definition. It's decentralised, and it's commercial. Also, it's said to be fully compatible with Overte, so we already have two different virtual world platforms interacting. But for one, Overte is still a Vircadia fork, a soft fork even, so they aren't as different as Second Life and #ThirdRoom, and Overte messes with the economy requirement by being decidedly non-commercial at platform level already.
But seriously, debating such details is kind of futile as long as it's even unclear if it's "a metaverse/multiple metaverses" or "the Metaverse". So no, nobody has the privilege of having that one single "official" definition of "metaverse".