#ferdelance — Public Fediverse posts

Picture it. Asheville, North Carolina, 2024. A devastating hurricane had just ripped through my region, wiping out entire sections of our richest cultural centers and critical economic staples, not to mention forever impacting the lives and homes of hundreds of thousands of residents (myself included). But, as the absorbent and resilient sponge I know myself to be—and with the help of hordes of kind and loving friends and family—I persisted. Not even a full month after disaster struck, I resumed my writership by covering Greek heavy metal quintet Triumpher’s sophomore epic Spirit Invictus. An eternity spans between then and now, but like myself, Triumpher persists, Piercing the Heart of the World in 2026.

Those who heed Triumpher’s call as I do will be happy to know that the MegatonManowarsword righteousness these Greeks wield like Olympians remains as stalwart as ever. In fact, Piercing the Heart of the World marks the high-water mark of the Triumpher troupe’s songwriting skill and performative prowess. Mars Triumph puts down a vocal showcase of a singular passion, his wild and animalistic delivery reminiscent of Riot City’s early work. That invigorating spirit finds loyal and unflinching support from stellar guitar leads, galloping riffs, and scorching tremolo waves courtesy of guitarists Christopher Tsakiropoulos and Mario Ñ Peters. Meanwhile, Stelios Zoumis rumbles like a thunderous storm, throwing hefty bass bolts through every measure to anchor every one of Piercing’s 45 minutes in righteous metal. Driving the march toward inevitable WICTORY, Agis Tzoukopoulos tumbles, pounds, and stomps his way through every technique known to metalkind in the pursuit of maximum awesomeness, and finds it with alarming regularity here.

Piercing The Heart Of The World by TRIUMPHER

Piercing the Heart of the World proves that Triumpher achieved the next stage of evolution in their still-young career. With the massive one-two punch of “Black Blood” and “Destroyer,” Piercing launches with a ferocity that would intimidate the finest specimen of any apex predator family. The former song recalls the vampiric darkness that inked Storming the Walls, which is a welcome introduction, but fails in the most exhilarating way to prepare me for the sword-raising spirit of the latter. That, in turn, fails to prepare me for the epic beauty that is “The Mountain Throne.” The first of two Song o’ the Year contenders, this sub-seven-minute odyssey traverses a calming plucking melody to dive right into blackened speed and a thrashy gallop, all while Mars croons and wails atop a storm of double bass runs and blasts. Yet, the whole is smoother than chrome and sharper than scalpels, resulting in an utterly astounding listening experience. However, even it feels understated when faced with the late-album highlight “Erinyes.” Punky and thrashy in a way I never thought traditional heavy metal could be, but still possessed of that chest-thumping, fist-pumping flame that lights hearts and souls ablaze, “Erinyes” is an unqualified success of excess, exuberance, and excitement.

In the past, Triumpher’s greatest weakness was always that the highlights far outstripped the supporting cast. Not so with Piercing. Even the slow and metered “Ithaca (Return of the Eternal King),” ballad interlude “Vault of the Immortals,” and two-act closer “Naus Apidalia” find ways to make memories and stand with distinction in Triumpher’s catalog. In all cases, those memories are founded in storytelling, either by establishing new characters (as is the case with “Ithaca”), shifting the tone (“Vault”), or by resolving arcs and tying up loose ends (“Naus Apidalia”). This strategy, in turn, makes more traditional heavy metal crowd pleasers like “The Flaming Sword”—which boasts a sleeper chorus that will get stuck in your head—feel more impactful than they might’ve otherwise.

With this in mind, I found very little to complain about. If it weren’t for his sheer charisma, I would say that Mars’ vocal performance teases the “Too Much” button far more often than I prefer. Were it not for the presence of endless barnstormer solos and affecting melodies, I would bemoan the protracted runtime of the closer. The meaty bass presence foils my bubbling rant against the more aggressive compression and increased loudness of this master. The caveats persist, leaving behind a wake of hobbled criticisms that would conspire to chip away at Triumpher’s final score. The damage they perpetrated amounts to mere flesh wounds in the end. Put simply, Piercing the Heart of the World is Triumpher’s greatest triumph yet, and you’d do well to hear it!

Rating: Great!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: No Remorse Records
Websites: triumpher.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/Triumpher.official
Releases Worldwide: March 6th, 2026

Steel Druhm

I was unaware of Greek mega-trve metal warriors Triumpher until Kenstrosity tackled their Storming the Walls debut back in 2023. I was immediately intrigued by the Manowar-meets-Megaton Sword-meets-Primordial sound they brought to the battlefield, and though there were some trials, tribulations, and rough spots to their presentation, the core of something bigger was there. Things improved on 2024s Spirit Invictus, as the Triumpher sound became more potent and consistently enthralling, and they seemed poised to usurp the throne of trve metal through sheer might and mayhem. Fast-forward to 2026, and their third crusade is set to kick off with Piercing the Heart of the World. I came into this hoping and expecting to be shocked and awed by sword, shield, and steroidal masculinity. Could Triumpher be the Manowar for this new age? That’s a mighty big loincloth to fill, but hope hung thickly in the air.

My anticipation of excessive glory overload was slaked by ginormous opener “Black Blood,” and woe to those who don’t bend the knee. It’s a volatile mash-up of Manowar, Primordial, and Doomsword, with a structure that starts out larger-than-life and tries to stack vainglorious and titanic moments upon one another like a grand memorial to the Elder Gods. Vocalist Mars Triumph channels Manowar’s legendary Eric Adams while also referencing Primordial’s A.A. Nemtheanga. This makes the song a total barn burner and exactly what I was hoping for. They follow this up with the uber-beefy, badass “Destroyer,” which reeks of Manowar’s The Triumph of Steel era. Grandiose choral segments and black metal influences elbow their way in, but this is a trve metal chariot ride through the Nine Worlds. Keeping the sword between the ribs, “The Mountain Throne” finds Triumpher pushing every lever to MAX GLORY as the false and weak flee for the safety of their fortifications. This one brings a lot of the same energy as the recent Fer De Lance, and there are touches of Lost Horizon, too. Mars stretches his vocals to the very edge of madness, and the chorus is as mighty as a barrel full of Wotans. Those who make it through this will be gifted a lifetime supply of wisdom, power, and back hair.

What could stop such a mighty and righteous host after such a rousing start? A soft and flabby middle, that’s what. “Ithaca (Return of the Eternal King)” is a slow-burning epical ballad that keeps building toward a massive release of rage and wiolence, but the release never arrives, and you’re kept on the edge of something for nearly 7 minutes with no somethings in sight. This results in the condition known as Blue Baldur. “Ithaca” is immediately followed by the 2-minute interlude “Vaults of Immortals,” which is equally restrained and subdued, making for 9 minutes stuck in emo-fied low-gear. This blunts the album’s momentum, taking you out of battle rage and into resource management. Steel cares not for resource herding when they are enemies left to be smottened! While things pick up with “The Flaming Sword,” and especially the trve-meets-semi-black-thrash of “Erinyes,” it feels like the album never fully regains its war footing, and 9-minute plus closer “Naus Apidalia” is merely good, not great, and suffers from some very Virgin Steele-esque compositional sinkholes and ego bloat. At a reasonable 44:44, Piercing the Heart of the World feels much longer than that, and though the first 16 or so minutes are massive, the rest of the album can’t sustain the prolonged siege.

I’m impressed with Mars Triumph’s performance. He’s gotten more proficient from album to album, and he has a crazy broad range. Anyone who can approximate Eric Adams is talented, and his black and death vocals are good as well. That said, he can and does overdo things at times, pushing his tonsils beyond human control. I can’t even suggest he dial things back, since that is not what Triumpher is all about. You just take the good with the weird and ride on. The guitar work from Christopher Tsakiropoulos and Mario Ñ Peters brings the thunder to the tundra, borrowing from a raft of trve and heavy influences while injecting enough blackened edges to make things extra deadly and dangerous. As the riffs roar and soar, Agis Tzoukopoulos delivers Scott Columbus-approved war drumming that embiggens the sword and spirit. This is a talented horde, and it’s the songwriting missteps that ultimately derail their relentless advance.

Triumpher have all the tools to forge a world-beating heavy metal monsterpiece, but Piercing the Heart of the World fails to penetrate my armor and score a critical hit. I heartily enjoy the opening trilogy, and there’s solid stuff later on, but this isn’t an album that captivates me from start to finish, despite my fervent wishes that it did. Piercing loses some of the ground won by Spirit Invictus, but I haven’t lost heart. The warrior spirit will endure and rise again if Crom wills it. Onward to great deeds!

Rating: 3.0/5.0

https://www.europesays.com/ie/264808/ Steel Druhm’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 #2025 #Ambush #Amorphis #AnTóramh #Anchorite #BlackSoulHorde #BlogPost #Brainstorm #DarkAngel #Depravity #Diabolizer #Disembodiment #Éire #Entertainment #FerDeLance #guts #Helstar #IE #Ireland #lists #Music #Nite #ParadiseLost #Phobocosm #Plasmodulated #ProfessorEmeritus #StarlightRitual #SteelDruhm'sTopTen(ish)Of2025 #structure #UnderRuins #WytchHazel

https://www.europesays.com/uk/669358/ Steel Druhm’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025 #2025 #Ambush #Amorphis #AnTóramh #Anchorite #BlackSoulHorde #BlogPost #Brainstorm #DarkAngel #Depravity #Diabolizer #Disembodiment #Entertainment #FerDeLance #GUTS #Helstar #lists #music #Nite #ParadiseLost #Phobocosm #Plasmodulated #ProfessorEmeritus #StarlightRitual #SteelDruhm'sTopTen(ish)Of2025 #structure #UK #UnderRuins #UnitedKingdom #WytchHazel

First things first: 2025 was not what I consider a lodestar of great metal. I was much more miserly than usual with my high scores, and though there were a lot of albums I liked, there were not many I truly loved. I had fewer issues curating my Top Ten than usual, with a smaller pool of contenders jockeying for slots. That likely means 2026 will be an overwhelming pornocopia of metal goodness, as flat years are usually followed by market booms. Let’s hope the historic trends continue.

On the AMG front, we had a great many seasoned staffers bow out and take time away from the site, which is always a sad event, but we got a healthy infusion of new blood, too. Hopefully, the blend of new and old will provide new perspectives, but it’s sure to result in some awful takes, too. We apologize for that in advance. Fear not, though, for I have it on good authority that a few long-absent writers will be making a shocking return in the new year.

Personally, 2025 was my least productive year in a while as far as the sheer number of reviews churned out. This was mostly due to my taking on the enormous duties of promo sump management, which takes up a significant amount of time weekly. I’ve gotten faster and more efficient at the promo herding over the year, so I hope to push my review production back up to massive aggressive levels in 2026. I love this little blog, and I invest a lot of myself in it each day. It gives me peace and comfort through challenging times, and more importantly, it keeps me off the streets looking for seedy, low-rent metal blogs to write for.

As I do every year, I want to extend a big thank you to all the readers who grace our pages, comment on our reviews, complain about scores, and generally raise a ruckus. We appreciate you, tolerate you, and continue to do our best to entertain you. Behind the scenes, though, we think you are a bunch of overrating, high-maintenance, diva do-nothings. Keep up the good work and tell your friends about us!

I’d also like to thank all the old and new staff members and AMG Himself for their efforts to keep AMG the bastion of high opinions that it has become. It’s easy to suffer burnout here, and there are times when the words all seem to blur together, and it becomes a battle to formulate new ways to describe shitty, lo-fi death metal. There’s something highly satisfying about the work, though, and doing it with a bunch of lovable rejects makes it all the more so. We have a good group of misfits here, and though we bicker and argue, we love one another most of the time. Because of all this goodwill and affection, I hope none of them make me sabbaticalize them this year. The wood chipper is still clogged from last year’s bonanza of retirements, and I’m just too busy to take cadavers apart the old-fashioned way. Onward to new horizons we fly!

#ish: Nite // Cult of the Serpent Sun – Nite is a strange band that challenges me to look past some very one-dimensional vocals to find the beauty in their guitar-driven righteousness. The music they create is so perfectly in my wheelhouse, mixing the classic 80s sound of Mercyful Fate with the burly badassery of Grand Magus, then they slather their compositions with a blackened snarl that rarely shifts or adapts to the epic music. Sometimes it seems this choice holds them back from greatness, but I just kept returning to Cult of the Serpent Sun time and again in 2025. Songs like “Crow (Fear the Night),” “Carry On,” and “The Winds of Sokar” got spun to death this year, and the guitar work across the album is stellar and so metal it hurts. In a nutshell, I’m hooked on this weird little album despite the shortcomings in the vocal department. Give yourself to the Nite.

#10. Disembodiment// Spiral Crypts – One of the death metal albums that really stuck to ribs this year, Spiral Crypts just wouldn’t unstick itself or go away. Disembodiment brings the OSDM hammer down on you with a stinky, putrid sound that rips organs from all the big names to create a shambling monstrosity all their own. It’s Incantation and Autopsy up front, with a vaguely Death-like prog sheen hidden in the back. Yet this won’t impress with techy wanking, because they’re too busy fucking cadavers and eating human flesh. Nasty first wins in the House of Steel, and this shit is gross but so listenable and entertaining. The riffs are slithery, slappy, and powerful, and those vocals are as much like an industrial garbage disposal as you can get without permanent throat disaster. Get yourself some unsanitary napkins and blast this filth really loud. It’s worth the revolting mess.

#9. Helstar // The Devil’s Masquerade – I grew up loving Helstar, and their Burning Star and Remnants of War albums were in constant rotation during my high school years. They’ve had an up-and-down career since 1989’s Nosterfatu, so them hitting their stride again in 2025 on The Devil’s Masquerade was a huge thrill for Yours Steely. Their textbook blend of US power metal and prog burns bright once more, with nods to thrash mixed in liberally for added asskickery as the guitars shred and impress. Vocal legend James Rivera still sounds enormous and powerful, and the songcraft is shockingly good and consistent. Certain moments scream classic Helstar while also hinting at Rivera’s criminally underrated Destiny’s End project, and there are several nods to prime Nevermore as well. The Devil’s Masquerade does the Helstar legacy proud, and it’s easily the best thing they’ve done since Nosferatu. Let this one in for a bite.

#8. Brainstorm // Plague of Rats – Brainstorm have been one of, if not the most reliable metal acts of the last few decades. Album after album brings a muscular, burly blend of classic metal and power, and time after time they kill it with massive anthems and sick hooks you just can’t shake. Plague of Rats follows the great Wall of Skulls and almost equals it in terms of memorable songs and metal magic. Andy B. Franck continues to be one of the best vocalists in all of metal, and when given tremendous songs to work with like “Garuda (Eater Of Snakes),” The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda),” and “Beyond Enemy Lines,” you get molten metal gold. The writing is rock solid with several Songs o’ the Year contenders, and the riffs and vocals are a thing of savage beauty. I love these guys more than I love red meat and hobo wine (almost).

#7. Under Ruins // Age of the Void – Formed by members of the highly underappreciated Lansfear and the cheesy King Diamond wannabes, Them,1 Under Ruins bring a polished, super slick form of epic power metal to the party on their Age of the Void debut. What makes their sound so immediate for me is how it ranges from Manowar-esque chest-thumping anthems to massive epic metal like Atlantean Kodex, and on to old-timey prog metal akin to the early days of Fates Warning, with some other interesting stops along the way. It’s enough like Lansfear to hook me in, but Under Ruins operate with a much broader vision and scope. “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” is my Song o’ the Year, full of melancholic emotion but still bringing the thunder in the way vintage Tad Morose and Pryamaze did. The chorus has been ringing through my head all year, and I can’t escape it. Nor should you. Get under these ruins.

#6. Ambush // Evil in All Dimensions – When traditional and power metal are done properly, they can kick your ass and provide a massive jolt of fun at the same time. That’s exactly what Sweden’s Ambush does all over Evil in All Dimensions. Taking equal measurements of trad and power, they craft rip-roaring anthems to thunder, fire, steel, and make sure the hooks are plentiful. I defy you to blast the title track, “Maskirovka,” or “Bending the Steel” and not feel a rush of power in your veins. The riffs are pure 80s magic, and let me just mention Oskar Jacobsson’s vocals, because they are HUGE. This shit is 100% balls-to-the-walls energy; the songs have legs and demand repeat spins. This is one of the most infectious albums of 2025, and I think I may have underrated it a tad. Get your sack to the partition, pronto.

#5. Anchorite // Realm of Ruin – Taking the classic doom template of Candlemass and Solitude Aeternus and injecting it with the burly machismo of trve metal usually works, and in the case of Anchorite’s Realm of Ruin, it works extra hard! Beefy riffs drive the material to epic heights as doomy harmonies decorate the war wagon. Over the top of it all, Leo Stivala delivers strident, commanding vocals to embiggen the spirit. Cuts like the massive “The Lighthouse Chronicles” merge Paradise Lost with Crypt Sermon and deliver emotional doom with a touch of Nevermore’s moody power. Standout “The Apostate’s Prayer” is a top moment of 2025, and Stivala soars to grand heights, carrying the listener along with him, and “Kingdom Undone” brings in a touch of power metal with grand results and a killer chorus. A surprisingly varied and nuanced album, and one of the top doom platters of the year.

#4. Professor Emeritus // A Land Long Gone – Professor Emeritus may have one of the worst names in the metalverse, but their take on trve epic metal and doom more than make up for that oversight. A Land Long Gone is everything a fan of the trve genre could want, with big, bombastic compositions with hooks, bells, and whistles aplenty. This stuff brings the Manowar to the Candlemass recording session, with big loincloth energy adding to the slow-burning doom power. There are hints of Doomsword and Manilla Road along the road to high adventure, and everything is kept sword-friendly and mighty. “A Corpse’s Dream” is one of my favorite songs of the year, and I love the blending of styles they achieve, and “Zosimos” brings in copious Iron Maiden influences to bedazzle the Crypt Sermon-esque doom they deliver with aplomb. This is the kind of Professor I wish I had during my school years, so listen and learn!

#3. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I’ve followed Paradise Lost since 1991s Gothic release, and I stuck with them until they became Depeche Lost circa 2000. I came back when they went metal again, and though none of their third-stage albums floored me, I liked them enough to keep buying what they sold. That pattern changed with Ascension, which is every bit as powerful, heavy, and vibrant as their glory days, while showing a maturity and sophistication even the classics lack. Let me just come out and say it: I underrated this album, and for that, I feel some degree of fault. Ascension plays like a grand tour of the varied Paradise Lost eras, but nothing ends up feeling recycled. “Serpent on the Cross” is a killer opener featuring everything I ever loved about the band, and cuts like “Tyrants Serenade” and “Salvation” are amongst the best songs of their long-running career. Where I originally felt like the back half of the album was less stellar, I’ve come to love the complete package, and I think this is among the best Paradise Lost albums. Olde dogs can still bite!

#2. Fer De Lance // Fires on the Mountainside – Competing with Anchorite and Professor Emeritus for the best trve doom album of 2025, Fer De Lance brought the biggest sword to the warfield. Fires on the Mountainside has it all; massive trveness, battle-ready classic metal, nods to black and Viking metal, it’s all here and ready for action. Take one listen ot the mammoth title track, and you’ll accumulate more back hair in 7 minutes than you did in all of 2025 as the music takes you from Crypt Sermon-esque classic doom on through Hammerheart era Bathory with touches of folk along the way.2 This is music for heroes who laugh in the face of death. When the black metal element comes forward, you get gems like “Ravens Fly (Dreams of Daidalos),” and when they dial down to the epic doom side, you get monsters like “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” where vocal maniac MP Papai goes all in, and channels Lost Horizon’s Daniel Heiman. If you spin this thing and don’t gain 2 inches on your biceps, you have Chronic Untrveness Disorder.

#1. Structure // Heritage – In a year when I was merely whelmed by much of what I heard, Structure came out of nowhere to drop an industrial earth mover of atmospheric doom on my life. The brainchild of Bram Bijlhout (ex-Officium Triste), Heritage finds him delivering a massive treatise on emotionally harrowing sadness and grief, aided by the killer vocals of Pim Blankenstein (Officium Triste, ex-The 11th Hour). Over the 50 minutes of Heritage, the duo drag you to the heart of sadness, loss, and despair as only thoughtful, well-executed doom can. Yet there are faint rays of light and hope in the inky black, mostly in the form of Bram’s beautiful, delicate guitar work, which weaves ethereal magic through the dour, downtrodden material. Heritage is a very dark album, but it’s rife with genuine beauty too, just as life often is. I’ve spun this thing more than any other 2025 release, and it keeps calling me back to its black womb. There’s something truly special here, and you shouldn’t miss out on experiencing it. This is your Heritage now.

Honorable Mentions:

• An Tóramh // Echoes of Eternal Night – Massive, crushing funereary doom with a great sense of atmosphere
• Phobocosm // Gateway – One of the best slabs of oppressive cavern-core death metal you’ll be squished by this year
• Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell – One of the oddest and endearing death metal albums of late
• Depravity // Bestial Possession – Brutal, blasting, splatterifying death metal that cannot be contained or reasoned with
• Diabolizer // Murderous Revelations – Fast, brutal, burly death metal that gives no fucks as it activates your dental plan
• Guts // Nightmare Fuel – Groove-heavy death metal with big stoner rock vibes should not work, but it does here
• Black Soul Horde // Symphony of Chaos – Epic heavy/power metal with more hooks than the local meat packery run by I. M. Pinhead
• Starlight Ritual // Rogue Angels – Imagine Lemmy joined Di’Anno era Iron Maiden and wrote some epic shit
• Amorphis // Borderlands – Amorphis return to form in a fan service release full of hooks and classic Amorphy moments
• Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations – Maybe not their best album, but you can’t escape the ear glue of their NWoBHM meets 70s prog rock style

Triumph o’ the Year:

Our little blogworks received a glowing mention in none other than Rolling Stone Magazine, and no one was more surprised than we here at AMG International. It’s nice to see our efforts getting noticed, even in the world of professional music journalism, which we don’t discuss with fans.

Tragedy o’ the Year:

The passing of Ozzy Osbourne. We all knew it was coming, but not this soon. I didn’t expect it to hit me quite as hard as it did, or for the feeling of loss to linger as long as it has. This marks the definitive end of an era and the loss of a Founding Father of metal without peer. At least he went out the way he wanted: with a loud bang and crash. Have a glorious journey into eternity, Ozzman. You will always be missed.

Song(s) o’ the Year:

Under Ruins – “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” – Massive epic goodness with big emotions.



Brainstorm – “The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda)” – So damn metal it gives me an iron hangover.



Disappointment o’ the Year:

Dark Angel // Extinction Level Event – What a prophetic album title this was, eh? After 1991s Time Does Not Heal, Dark Angel promised a new album. They promised it while I was in college, then grad school, then law school, during my first marriage, after my divorce, and over the next several decades. When they finally deliver something, and it’s the equivalent of third-rate re-thrash with only vague nods to their original sound, calling it disappointing doesn’t begin to cover it. We received the promo for Extinction Level Event in time to review it, and I was eager to do the job. After one listen, however, I realized the public was going to brutally savage this thing, and I didn’t see the point in adding another head stomp to a band I grew up worshipping. This is now the primary example of why it’s best to leave a legacy safely in the past, where it can live evergreen.

Show 2 footnotes

1. Yes, I said that, Grier. ↩
2. Yes, there’s a vague hint of Ed Sheeran’s “I See Fire” in the chorus, but don’t talk about it! ↩

First things first: 2025 was not what I consider a lodestar of great metal. I was much more miserly than usual with my high scores, and though there were a lot of albums I liked, there were not many I truly loved. I had fewer issues curating my Top Ten than usual, with a smaller pool of contenders jockeying for slots. That likely means 2026 will be an overwhelming pornocopia of metal goodness, as flat years are usually followed by market booms. Let’s hope the historic trends continue.

On the AMG front, we had a great many seasoned staffers bow out and take time away from the site, which is always a sad event, but we got a healthy infusion of new blood, too. Hopefully, the blend of new and old will provide new perspectives, but it’s sure to result in some awful takes, too. We apologize for that in advance. Fear not, though, for I have it on good authority that a few long-absent writers will be making a shocking return in the new year.

Personally, 2025 was my least productive year in a while as far as the sheer number of reviews churned out. This was mostly due to my taking on the enormous duties of promo sump management, which takes up a significant amount of time weekly. I’ve gotten faster and more efficient at the promo herding over the year, so I hope to push my review production back up to massive aggressive levels in 2026. I love this little blog, and I invest a lot of myself in it each day. It gives me peace and comfort through challenging times, and more importantly, it keeps me off the streets looking for seedy, low-rent metal blogs to write for.

As I do every year, I want to extend a big thank you to all the readers who grace our pages, comment on our reviews, complain about scores, and generally raise a ruckus. We appreciate you, tolerate you, and continue to do our best to entertain you. Behind the scenes, though, we think you are a bunch of overrating, high-maintenance, diva do-nothings. Keep up the good work and tell your friends about us!

I’d also like to thank all the old and new staff members and AMG Himself for their efforts to keep AMG the bastion of high opinions that it has become. It’s easy to suffer burnout here, and there are times when the words all seem to blur together, and it becomes a battle to formulate new ways to describe shitty, lo-fi death metal. There’s something highly satisfying about the work, though, and doing it with a bunch of lovable rejects makes it all the more so. We have a good group of misfits here, and though we bicker and argue, we love one another most of the time. Because of all this goodwill and affection, I hope none of them make me sabbaticalize them this year. The wood chipper is still clogged from last year’s bonanza of retirements, and I’m just too busy to take cadavers apart the old-fashioned way. Onward to new horizons we fly!

#ish: Nite // Cult of the Serpent Sun – Nite is a strange band that challenges me to look past some very one-dimensional vocals to find the beauty in their guitar-driven righteousness. The music they create is so perfectly in my wheelhouse, mixing the classic 80s sound of Mercyful Fate with the burly badassery of Grand Magus, then they slather their compositions with a blackened snarl that rarely shifts or adapts to the epic music. Sometimes it seems this choice holds them back from greatness, but I just kept returning to Cult of the Serpent Sun time and again in 2025. Songs like “Crow (Fear the Night),” “Carry On,” and “The Winds of Sokar” got spun to death this year, and the guitar work across the album is stellar and so metal it hurts. In a nutshell, I’m hooked on this weird little album despite the shortcomings in the vocal department. Give yourself to the Nite.

#10. Disembodiment// Spiral Crypts – One of the death metal albums that really stuck to ribs this year, Spiral Crypts just wouldn’t unstick itself or go away. Disembodiment brings the OSDM hammer down on you with a stinky, putrid sound that rips organs from all the big names to create a shambling monstrosity all their own. It’s Incantation and Autopsy up front, with a vaguely Death-like prog sheen hidden in the back. Yet this won’t impress with techy wanking, because they’re too busy fucking cadavers and eating human flesh. Nasty first wins in the House of Steel, and this shit is gross but so listenable and entertaining. The riffs are slithery, slappy, and powerful, and those vocals are as much like an industrial garbage disposal as you can get without permanent throat disaster. Get yourself some unsanitary napkins and blast this filth really loud. It’s worth the revolting mess.

#9. Helstar // The Devil’s Masquerade – I grew up loving Helstar, and their Burning Star and Remnants of War albums were in constant rotation during my high school years. They’ve had an up-and-down career since 1989’s Nosterfatu, so them hitting their stride again in 2025 on The Devil’s Masquerade was a huge thrill for Yours Steely. Their textbook blend of US power metal and prog burns bright once more, with nods to thrash mixed in liberally for added asskickery as the guitars shred and impress. Vocal legend James Rivera still sounds enormous and powerful, and the songcraft is shockingly good and consistent. Certain moments scream classic Helstar while also hinting at Rivera’s criminally underrated Destiny’s End project, and there are several nods to prime Nevermore as well. The Devil’s Masquerade does the Helstar legacy proud, and it’s easily the best thing they’ve done since Nosferatu. Let this one in for a bite.

#8. Brainstorm // Plague of Rats – Brainstorm have been one of, if not the most reliable metal acts of the last few decades. Album after album brings a muscular, burly blend of classic metal and power, and time after time they kill it with massive anthems and sick hooks you just can’t shake. Plague of Rats follows the great Wall of Skulls and almost equals it in terms of memorable songs and metal magic. Andy B. Franck continues to be one of the best vocalists in all of metal, and when given tremendous songs to work with like “Garuda (Eater Of Snakes),” The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda),” and “Beyond Enemy Lines,” you get molten metal gold. The writing is rock solid with several Songs o’ the Year contenders, and the riffs and vocals are a thing of savage beauty. I love these guys more than I love red meat and hobo wine (almost).

#7. Under Ruins // Age of the Void – Formed by members of the highly underappreciated Lansfear and the cheesy King Diamond wannabes, Them,1 Under Ruins bring a polished, super slick form of epic power metal to the party on their Age of the Void debut. What makes their sound so immediate for me is how it ranges from Manowar-esque chest-thumping anthems to massive epic metal like Atlantean Kodex, and on to old-timey prog metal akin to the early days of Fates Warning, with some other interesting stops along the way. It’s enough like Lansfear to hook me in, but Under Ruins operate with a much broader vision and scope. “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” is my Song o’ the Year, full of melancholic emotion but still bringing the thunder in the way vintage Tad Morose and Pryamaze did. The chorus has been ringing through my head all year, and I can’t escape it. Nor should you. Get under these ruins.

#6. Ambush // Evil in All Dimensions – When traditional and power metal are done properly, they can kick your ass and provide a massive jolt of fun at the same time. That’s exactly what Sweden’s Ambush does all over Evil in All Dimensions. Taking equal measurements of trad and power, they craft rip-roaring anthems to thunder, fire, steel, and make sure the hooks are plentiful. I defy you to blast the title track, “Maskirovka,” or “Bending the Steel” and not feel a rush of power in your veins. The riffs are pure 80s magic, and let me just mention Oskar Jacobsson’s vocals, because they are HUGE. This shit is 100% balls-to-the-walls energy; the songs have legs and demand repeat spins. This is one of the most infectious albums of 2025, and I think I may have underrated it a tad. Get your sack to the partition, pronto.

#5. Anchorite // Realm of Ruin – Taking the classic doom template of Candlemass and Solitude Aeternus and injecting it with the burly machismo of trve metal usually works, and in the case of Anchorite’s Realm of Ruin, it works extra hard! Beefy riffs drive the material to epic heights as doomy harmonies decorate the war wagon. Over the top of it all, Leo Stivala delivers strident, commanding vocals to embiggen the spirit. Cuts like the massive “The Lighthouse Chronicles” merge Paradise Lost with Crypt Sermon and deliver emotional doom with a touch of Nevermore’s moody power. Standout “The Apostate’s Prayer” is a top moment of 2025, and Stivala soars to grand heights, carrying the listener along with him, and “Kingdom Undone” brings in a touch of power metal with grand results and a killer chorus. A surprisingly varied and nuanced album, and one of the top doom platters of the year.

#4. Professor Emeritus // A Land Long Gone – Professor Emeritus may have one of the worst names in the metalverse, but their take on trve epic metal and doom more than make up for that oversight. A Land Long Gone is everything a fan of the trve genre could want, with big, bombastic compositions with hooks, bells, and whistles aplenty. This stuff brings the Manowar to the Candlemass recording session, with big loincloth energy adding to the slow-burning doom power. There are hints of Doomsword and Manilla Road along the road to high adventure, and everything is kept sword-friendly and mighty. “A Corpse’s Dream” is one of my favorite songs of the year, and I love the blending of styles they achieve, and “Zosimos” brings in copious Iron Maiden influences to bedazzle the Crypt Sermon-esque doom they deliver with aplomb. This is the kind of Professor I wish I had during my school years, so listen and learn!

#3. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I’ve followed Paradise Lost since 1991s Gothic release, and I stuck with them until they became Depeche Lost circa 2000. I came back when they went metal again, and though none of their third-stage albums floored me, I liked them enough to keep buying what they sold. That pattern changed with Ascension, which is every bit as powerful, heavy, and vibrant as their glory days, while showing a maturity and sophistication even the classics lack. Let me just come out and say it: I underrated this album, and for that, I feel some degree of fault. Ascension plays like a grand tour of the varied Paradise Lost eras, but nothing ends up feeling recycled. “Serpent on the Cross” is a killer opener featuring everything I ever loved about the band, and cuts like “Tyrants Serenade” and “Salvation” are amongst the best songs of their long-running career. Where I originally felt like the back half of the album was less stellar, I’ve come to love the complete package, and I think this is among the best Paradise Lost albums. Olde dogs can still bite!

#2. Fer De Lance // Fires on the Mountainside – Competing with Anchorite and Professor Emeritus for the best trve doom album of 2025, Fer De Lance brought the biggest sword to the warfield. Fires on the Mountainside has it all; massive trveness, battle-ready classic metal, nods to black and Viking metal, it’s all here and ready for action. Take one listen ot the mammoth title track, and you’ll accumulate more back hair in 7 minutes than you did in all of 2025 as the music takes you from Crypt Sermon-esque classic doom on through Hammerheart era Bathory with touches of folk along the way.2 This is music for heroes who laugh in the face of death. When the black metal element comes forward, you get gems like “Ravens Fly (Dreams of Daidalos),” and when they dial down to the epic doom side, you get monsters like “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” where vocal maniac MP Papai goes all in, and channels Lost Horizon’s Daniel Heiman. If you spin this thing and don’t gain 2 inches on your biceps, you have Chronic Untrveness Disorder.

#1. Structure // Heritage – In a year when I was merely whelmed by much of what I heard, Structure came out of nowhere to drop an industrial earth mover of atmospheric doom on my life. The brainchild of Bram Bijlhout (ex-Officium Triste), Heritage finds him delivering a massive treatise on emotionally harrowing sadness and grief, aided by the killer vocals of Pim Blankenstein (Officium Triste, ex-The 11th Hour). Over the 50 minutes of Heritage, the duo drag you to the heart of sadness, loss, and despair as only thoughtful, well-executed doom can. Yet there are faint rays of light and hope in the inky black, mostly in the form of Bram’s beautiful, delicate guitar work, which weaves ethereal magic through the dour, downtrodden material. Heritage is a very dark album, but it’s rife with genuine beauty too, just as life often is. I’ve spun this thing more than any other 2025 release, and it keeps calling me back to its black womb. There’s something truly special here, and you shouldn’t miss out on experiencing it. This is your Heritage now.

Honorable Mentions:

• An Tóramh // Echoes of Eternal Night – Massive, crushing funereary doom with a great sense of atmosphere
• Phobocosm // Gateway – One of the best slabs of oppressive cavern-core death metal you’ll be squished by this year
• Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell – One of the oddest and endearing death metal albums of late
• Depravity // Bestial Possession – Brutal, blasting, splatterifying death metal that cannot be contained or reasoned with
• Diabolizer // Murderous Revelations – Fast, brutal, burly death metal that gives no fucks as it activates your dental plan
• Guts // Nightmare Fuel – Groove-heavy death metal with big stoner rock vibes should not work, but it does here
• Black Soul Horde // Symphony of Chaos – Epic heavy/power metal with more hooks than the local meat packery run by I. M. Pinhead
• Starlight Ritual // Rogue Angels – Imagine Lemmy joined Di’Anno era Iron Maiden and wrote some epic shit
• Amorphis // Borderlands – Amorphis return to form in a fan service release full of hooks and classic Amorphy moments
• Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations – Maybe not their best album, but you can’t escape the ear glue of their NWoBHM meets 70s prog rock style

Triumph o’ the Year:

Our little blogworks received a glowing mention in none other than Rolling Stone Magazine, and no one was more surprised than we here at AMG International. It’s nice to see our efforts getting noticed, even in the world of professional music journalism, which we don’t discuss with fans.

Tragedy o’ the Year:

The passing of Ozzy Osbourne. We all knew it was coming, but not this soon. I didn’t expect it to hit me quite as hard as it did, or for the feeling of loss to linger as long as it has. This marks the definitive end of an era and the loss of a Founding Father of metal without peer. At least he went out the way he wanted: with a loud bang and crash. Have a glorious journey into eternity, Ozzman. You will always be missed.

Song(s) o’ the Year:

Under Ruins – “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” – Massive epic goodness with big emotions.



Brainstorm – “The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda)” – So damn metal it gives me an iron hangover.



Disappointment o’ the Year:

Dark Angel // Extinction Level Event – What a prophetic album title this was, eh? After 1991s Time Does Not Heal, Dark Angel promised a new album. They promised it while I was in college, then grad school, then law school, during my first marriage, after my divorce, and over the next several decades. When they finally deliver something, and it’s the equivalent of third-rate re-thrash with only vague nods to their original sound, calling it disappointing doesn’t begin to cover it. We received the promo for Extinction Level Event in time to review it, and I was eager to do the job. After one listen, however, I realized the public was going to brutally savage this thing, and I didn’t see the point in adding another head stomp to a band I grew up worshipping. This is now the primary example of why it’s best to leave a legacy safely in the past, where it can live evergreen.

First things first: 2025 was not what I consider a lodestar of great metal. I was much more miserly than usual with my high scores, and though there were a lot of albums I liked, there were not many I truly loved. I had fewer issues curating my Top Ten than usual, with a smaller pool of contenders jockeying for slots. That likely means 2026 will be an overwhelming pornocopia of metal goodness, as flat years are usually followed by market booms. Let’s hope the historic trends continue.

On the AMG front, we had a great many seasoned staffers bow out and take time away from the site, which is always a sad event, but we got a healthy infusion of new blood, too. Hopefully, the blend of new and old will provide new perspectives, but it’s sure to result in some awful takes, too. We apologize for that in advance. Fear not, though, for I have it on good authority that a few long-absent writers will be making a shocking return in the new year.

Personally, 2025 was my least productive year in a while as far as the sheer number of reviews churned out. This was mostly due to my taking on the enormous duties of promo sump management, which takes up a significant amount of time weekly. I’ve gotten faster and more efficient at the promo herding over the year, so I hope to push my review production back up to massive aggressive levels in 2026. I love this little blog, and I invest a lot of myself in it each day. It gives me peace and comfort through challenging times, and more importantly, it keeps me off the streets looking for seedy, low-rent metal blogs to write for.

As I do every year, I want to extend a big thank you to all the readers who grace our pages, comment on our reviews, complain about scores, and generally raise a ruckus. We appreciate you, tolerate you, and continue to do our best to entertain you. Behind the scenes, though, we think you are a bunch of overrating, high-maintenance, diva do-nothings. Keep up the good work and tell your friends about us!

I’d also like to thank all the old and new staff members and AMG Himself for their efforts to keep AMG the bastion of high opinions that it has become. It’s easy to suffer burnout here, and there are times when the words all seem to blur together, and it becomes a battle to formulate new ways to describe shitty, lo-fi death metal. There’s something highly satisfying about the work, though, and doing it with a bunch of lovable rejects makes it all the more so. We have a good group of misfits here, and though we bicker and argue, we love one another most of the time. Because of all this goodwill and affection, I hope none of them make me sabbaticalize them this year. The wood chipper is still clogged from last year’s bonanza of retirements, and I’m just too busy to take cadavers apart the old-fashioned way. Onward to new horizons we fly!

#ish: Nite // Cult of the Serpent Sun – Nite is a strange band that challenges me to look past some very one-dimensional vocals to find the beauty in their guitar-driven righteousness. The music they create is so perfectly in my wheelhouse, mixing the classic 80s sound of Mercyful Fate with the burly badassery of Grand Magus, then they slather their compositions with a blackened snarl that rarely shifts or adapts to the epic music. Sometimes it seems this choice holds them back from greatness, but I just kept returning to Cult of the Serpent Sun time and again in 2025. Songs like “Crow (Fear the Night),” “Carry On,” and “The Winds of Sokar” got spun to death this year, and the guitar work across the album is stellar and so metal it hurts. In a nutshell, I’m hooked on this weird little album despite the shortcomings in the vocal department. Give yourself to the Nite.

#10. Disembodiment// Spiral Crypts – One of the death metal albums that really stuck to ribs this year, Spiral Crypts just wouldn’t unstick itself or go away. Disembodiment brings the OSDM hammer down on you with a stinky, putrid sound that rips organs from all the big names to create a shambling monstrosity all their own. It’s Incantation and Autopsy up front, with a vaguely Death-like prog sheen hidden in the back. Yet this won’t impress with techy wanking, because they’re too busy fucking cadavers and eating human flesh. Nasty first wins in the House of Steel, and this shit is gross but so listenable and entertaining. The riffs are slithery, slappy, and powerful, and those vocals are as much like an industrial garbage disposal as you can get without permanent throat disaster. Get yourself some unsanitary napkins and blast this filth really loud. It’s worth the revolting mess.

#9. Helstar // The Devil’s Masquerade – I grew up loving Helstar, and their Burning Star and Remnants of War albums were in constant rotation during my high school years. They’ve had an up-and-down career since 1989’s Nosterfatu, so them hitting their stride again in 2025 on The Devil’s Masquerade was a huge thrill for Yours Steely. Their textbook blend of US power metal and prog burns bright once more, with nods to thrash mixed in liberally for added asskickery as the guitars shred and impress. Vocal legend James Rivera still sounds enormous and powerful, and the songcraft is shockingly good and consistent. Certain moments scream classic Helstar while also hinting at Rivera’s criminally underrated Destiny’s End project, and there are several nods to prime Nevermore as well. The Devil’s Masquerade does the Helstar legacy proud, and it’s easily the best thing they’ve done since Nosferatu. Let this one in for a bite.

#8. Brainstorm // Plague of Rats – Brainstorm have been one of, if not the most reliable metal acts of the last few decades. Album after album brings a muscular, burly blend of classic metal and power, and time after time they kill it with massive anthems and sick hooks you just can’t shake. Plague of Rats follows the great Wall of Skulls and almost equals it in terms of memorable songs and metal magic. Andy B. Franck continues to be one of the best vocalists in all of metal, and when given tremendous songs to work with like “Garuda (Eater Of Snakes),” The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda),” and “Beyond Enemy Lines,” you get molten metal gold. The writing is rock solid with several Songs o’ the Year contenders, and the riffs and vocals are a thing of savage beauty. I love these guys more than I love red meat and hobo wine (almost).

#7. Under Ruins // Age of the Void – Formed by members of the highly underappreciated Lansfear and the cheesy King Diamond wannabes, Them,1 Under Ruins bring a polished, super slick form of epic power metal to the party on their Age of the Void debut. What makes their sound so immediate for me is how it ranges from Manowar-esque chest-thumping anthems to massive epic metal like Atlantean Kodex, and on to old-timey prog metal akin to the early days of Fates Warning, with some other interesting stops along the way. It’s enough like Lansfear to hook me in, but Under Ruins operate with a much broader vision and scope. “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” is my Song o’ the Year, full of melancholic emotion but still bringing the thunder in the way vintage Tad Morose and Pryamaze did. The chorus has been ringing through my head all year, and I can’t escape it. Nor should you. Get under these ruins.

#6. Ambush // Evil in All Dimensions – When traditional and power metal are done properly, they can kick your ass and provide a massive jolt of fun at the same time. That’s exactly what Sweden’s Ambush does all over Evil in All Dimensions. Taking equal measurements of trad and power, they craft rip-roaring anthems to thunder, fire, steel, and make sure the hooks are plentiful. I defy you to blast the title track, “Maskirovka,” or “Bending the Steel” and not feel a rush of power in your veins. The riffs are pure 80s magic, and let me just mention Oskar Jacobsson’s vocals, because they are HUGE. This shit is 100% balls-to-the-walls energy; the songs have legs and demand repeat spins. This is one of the most infectious albums of 2025, and I think I may have underrated it a tad. Get your sack to the partition, pronto.

#5. Anchorite // Realm of Ruin – Taking the classic doom template of Candlemass and Solitude Aeternus and injecting it with the burly machismo of trve metal usually works, and in the case of Anchorite’s Realm of Ruin, it works extra hard! Beefy riffs drive the material to epic heights as doomy harmonies decorate the war wagon. Over the top of it all, Leo Stivala delivers strident, commanding vocals to embiggen the spirit. Cuts like the massive “The Lighthouse Chronicles” merge Paradise Lost with Crypt Sermon and deliver emotional doom with a touch of Nevermore’s moody power. Standout “The Apostate’s Prayer” is a top moment of 2025, and Stivala soars to grand heights, carrying the listener along with him, and “Kingdom Undone” brings in a touch of power metal with grand results and a killer chorus. A surprisingly varied and nuanced album, and one of the top doom platters of the year.

#4. Professor Emeritus // A Land Long Gone – Professor Emeritus may have one of the worst names in the metalverse, but their take on trve epic metal and doom more than make up for that oversight. A Land Long Gone is everything a fan of the trve genre could want, with big, bombastic compositions with hooks, bells, and whistles aplenty. This stuff brings the Manowar to the Candlemass recording session, with big loincloth energy adding to the slow-burning doom power. There are hints of Doomsword and Manilla Road along the road to high adventure, and everything is kept sword-friendly and mighty. “A Corpse’s Dream” is one of my favorite songs of the year, and I love the blending of styles they achieve, and “Zosimos” brings in copious Iron Maiden influences to bedazzle the Crypt Sermon-esque doom they deliver with aplomb. This is the kind of Professor I wish I had during my school years, so listen and learn!

#3. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I’ve followed Paradise Lost since 1991s Gothic release, and I stuck with them until they became Depeche Lost circa 2000. I came back when they went metal again, and though none of their third-stage albums floored me, I liked them enough to keep buying what they sold. That pattern changed with Ascension, which is every bit as powerful, heavy, and vibrant as their glory days, while showing a maturity and sophistication even the classics lack. Let me just come out and say it: I underrated this album, and for that, I feel some degree of fault. Ascension plays like a grand tour of the varied Paradise Lost eras, but nothing ends up feeling recycled. “Serpent on the Cross” is a killer opener featuring everything I ever loved about the band, and cuts like “Tyrants Serenade” and “Salvation” are amongst the best songs of their long-running career. Where I originally felt like the back half of the album was less stellar, I’ve come to love the complete package, and I think this is among the best Paradise Lost albums. Olde dogs can still bite!

#2. Fer De Lance // Fires on the Mountainside – Competing with Anchorite and Professor Emeritus for the best trve doom album of 2025, Fer De Lance brought the biggest sword to the warfield. Fires on the Mountainside has it all; massive trveness, battle-ready classic metal, nods to black and Viking metal, it’s all here and ready for action. Take one listen ot the mammoth title track, and you’ll accumulate more back hair in 7 minutes than you did in all of 2025 as the music takes you from Crypt Sermon-esque classic doom on through Hammerheart era Bathory with touches of folk along the way.2 This is music for heroes who laugh in the face of death. When the black metal element comes forward, you get gems like “Ravens Fly (Dreams of Daidalos),” and when they dial down to the epic doom side, you get monsters like “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” where vocal maniac MP Papai goes all in, and channels Lost Horizon’s Daniel Heiman. If you spin this thing and don’t gain 2 inches on your biceps, you have Chronic Untrveness Disorder.

#1. Structure // Heritage – In a year when I was merely whelmed by much of what I heard, Structure came out of nowhere to drop an industrial earth mover of atmospheric doom on my life. The brainchild of Bram Bijlhout (ex-Officium Triste), Heritage finds him delivering a massive treatise on emotionally harrowing sadness and grief, aided by the killer vocals of Pim Blankenstein (Officium Triste, ex-The 11th Hour). Over the 50 minutes of Heritage, the duo drag you to the heart of sadness, loss, and despair as only thoughtful, well-executed doom can. Yet there are faint rays of light and hope in the inky black, mostly in the form of Bram’s beautiful, delicate guitar work, which weaves ethereal magic through the dour, downtrodden material. Heritage is a very dark album, but it’s rife with genuine beauty too, just as life often is. I’ve spun this thing more than any other 2025 release, and it keeps calling me back to its black womb. There’s something truly special here, and you shouldn’t miss out on experiencing it. This is your Heritage now.

Honorable Mentions:

• An Tóramh // Echoes of Eternal Night – Massive, crushing funereary doom with a great sense of atmosphere
• Phobocosm // Gateway – One of the best slabs of oppressive cavern-core death metal you’ll be squished by this year
• Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell – One of the oddest and endearing death metal albums of late
• Depravity // Bestial Possession – Brutal, blasting, splatterifying death metal that cannot be contained or reasoned with
• Diabolizer // Murderous Revelations – Fast, brutal, burly death metal that gives no fucks as it activates your dental plan
• Guts // Nightmare Fuel – Groove-heavy death metal with big stoner rock vibes should not work, but it does here
• Black Soul Horde // Symphony of Chaos – Epic heavy/power metal with more hooks than the local meat packery run by I. M. Pinhead
• Starlight Ritual // Rogue Angels – Imagine Lemmy joined Di’Anno era Iron Maiden and wrote some epic shit
• Amorphis // Borderlands – Amorphis return to form in a fan service release full of hooks and classic Amorphy moments
• Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations – Maybe not their best album, but you can’t escape the ear glue of their NWoBHM meets 70s prog rock style

Triumph o’ the Year:

Our little blogworks received a glowing mention in none other than Rolling Stone Magazine, and no one was more surprised than we here at AMG International. It’s nice to see our efforts getting noticed, even in the world of professional music journalism, which we don’t discuss with fans.

Tragedy o’ the Year:

The passing of Ozzy Osbourne. We all knew it was coming, but not this soon. I didn’t expect it to hit me quite as hard as it did, or for the feeling of loss to linger as long as it has. This marks the definitive end of an era and the loss of a Founding Father of metal without peer. At least he went out the way he wanted: with a loud bang and crash. Have a glorious journey into eternity, Ozzman. You will always be missed.

Song(s) o’ the Year:

Under Ruins – “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” – Massive epic goodness with big emotions.



Brainstorm – “The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda)” – So damn metal it gives me an iron hangover.



Disappointment o’ the Year:

Dark Angel // Extinction Level Event – What a prophetic album title this was, eh? After 1991s Time Does Not Heal, Dark Angel promised a new album. They promised it while I was in college, then grad school, then law school, during my first marriage, after my divorce, and over the next several decades. When they finally deliver something, and it’s the equivalent of third-rate re-thrash with only vague nods to their original sound, calling it disappointing doesn’t begin to cover it. We received the promo for Extinction Level Event in time to review it, and I was eager to do the job. After one listen, however, I realized the public was going to brutally savage this thing, and I didn’t see the point in adding another head stomp to a band I grew up worshipping. This is now the primary example of why it’s best to leave a legacy safely in the past, where it can live evergreen.

First things first: 2025 was not what I consider a lodestar of great metal. I was much more miserly than usual with my high scores, and though there were a lot of albums I liked, there were not many I truly loved. I had fewer issues curating my Top Ten than usual, with a smaller pool of contenders jockeying for slots. That likely means 2026 will be an overwhelming pornocopia of metal goodness, as flat years are usually followed by market booms. Let’s hope the historic trends continue.

On the AMG front, we had a great many seasoned staffers bow out and take time away from the site, which is always a sad event, but we got a healthy infusion of new blood, too. Hopefully, the blend of new and old will provide new perspectives, but it’s sure to result in some awful takes, too. We apologize for that in advance. Fear not, though, for I have it on good authority that a few long-absent writers will be making a shocking return in the new year.

Personally, 2025 was my least productive year in a while as far as the sheer number of reviews churned out. This was mostly due to my taking on the enormous duties of promo sump management, which takes up a significant amount of time weekly. I’ve gotten faster and more efficient at the promo herding over the year, so I hope to push my review production back up to massive aggressive levels in 2026. I love this little blog, and I invest a lot of myself in it each day. It gives me peace and comfort through challenging times, and more importantly, it keeps me off the streets looking for seedy, low-rent metal blogs to write for.

As I do every year, I want to extend a big thank you to all the readers who grace our pages, comment on our reviews, complain about scores, and generally raise a ruckus. We appreciate you, tolerate you, and continue to do our best to entertain you. Behind the scenes, though, we think you are a bunch of overrating, high-maintenance, diva do-nothings. Keep up the good work and tell your friends about us!

I’d also like to thank all the old and new staff members and AMG Himself for their efforts to keep AMG the bastion of high opinions that it has become. It’s easy to suffer burnout here, and there are times when the words all seem to blur together, and it becomes a battle to formulate new ways to describe shitty, lo-fi death metal. There’s something highly satisfying about the work, though, and doing it with a bunch of lovable rejects makes it all the more so. We have a good group of misfits here, and though we bicker and argue, we love one another most of the time. Because of all this goodwill and affection, I hope none of them make me sabbaticalize them this year. The wood chipper is still clogged from last year’s bonanza of retirements, and I’m just too busy to take cadavers apart the old-fashioned way. Onward to new horizons we fly!

#ish: Nite // Cult of the Serpent Sun – Nite is a strange band that challenges me to look past some very one-dimensional vocals to find the beauty in their guitar-driven righteousness. The music they create is so perfectly in my wheelhouse, mixing the classic 80s sound of Mercyful Fate with the burly badassery of Grand Magus, then they slather their compositions with a blackened snarl that rarely shifts or adapts to the epic music. Sometimes it seems this choice holds them back from greatness, but I just kept returning to Cult of the Serpent Sun time and again in 2025. Songs like “Crow (Fear the Night),” “Carry On,” and “The Winds of Sokar” got spun to death this year, and the guitar work across the album is stellar and so metal it hurts. In a nutshell, I’m hooked on this weird little album despite the shortcomings in the vocal department. Give yourself to the Nite.

#10. Disembodiment// Spiral Crypts – One of the death metal albums that really stuck to ribs this year, Spiral Crypts just wouldn’t unstick itself or go away. Disembodiment brings the OSDM hammer down on you with a stinky, putrid sound that rips organs from all the big names to create a shambling monstrosity all their own. It’s Incantation and Autopsy up front, with a vaguely Death-like prog sheen hidden in the back. Yet this won’t impress with techy wanking, because they’re too busy fucking cadavers and eating human flesh. Nasty first wins in the House of Steel, and this shit is gross but so listenable and entertaining. The riffs are slithery, slappy, and powerful, and those vocals are as much like an industrial garbage disposal as you can get without permanent throat disaster. Get yourself some unsanitary napkins and blast this filth really loud. It’s worth the revolting mess.

#9. Helstar // The Devil’s Masquerade – I grew up loving Helstar, and their Burning Star and Remnants of War albums were in constant rotation during my high school years. They’ve had an up-and-down career since 1989’s Nosterfatu, so them hitting their stride again in 2025 on The Devil’s Masquerade was a huge thrill for Yours Steely. Their textbook blend of US power metal and prog burns bright once more, with nods to thrash mixed in liberally for added asskickery as the guitars shred and impress. Vocal legend James Rivera still sounds enormous and powerful, and the songcraft is shockingly good and consistent. Certain moments scream classic Helstar while also hinting at Rivera’s criminally underrated Destiny’s End project, and there are several nods to prime Nevermore as well. The Devil’s Masquerade does the Helstar legacy proud, and it’s easily the best thing they’ve done since Nosferatu. Let this one in for a bite.

#8. Brainstorm // Plague of Rats – Brainstorm have been one of, if not the most reliable metal acts of the last few decades. Album after album brings a muscular, burly blend of classic metal and power, and time after time they kill it with massive anthems and sick hooks you just can’t shake. Plague of Rats follows the great Wall of Skulls and almost equals it in terms of memorable songs and metal magic. Andy B. Franck continues to be one of the best vocalists in all of metal, and when given tremendous songs to work with like “Garuda (Eater Of Snakes),” The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda),” and “Beyond Enemy Lines,” you get molten metal gold. The writing is rock solid with several Songs o’ the Year contenders, and the riffs and vocals are a thing of savage beauty. I love these guys more than I love red meat and hobo wine (almost).

#7. Under Ruins // Age of the Void – Formed by members of the highly underappreciated Lansfear and the cheesy King Diamond wannabes, Them,1 Under Ruins bring a polished, super slick form of epic power metal to the party on their Age of the Void debut. What makes their sound so immediate for me is how it ranges from Manowar-esque chest-thumping anthems to massive epic metal like Atlantean Kodex, and on to old-timey prog metal akin to the early days of Fates Warning, with some other interesting stops along the way. It’s enough like Lansfear to hook me in, but Under Ruins operate with a much broader vision and scope. “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” is my Song o’ the Year, full of melancholic emotion but still bringing the thunder in the way vintage Tad Morose and Pryamaze did. The chorus has been ringing through my head all year, and I can’t escape it. Nor should you. Get under these ruins.

#6. Ambush // Evil in All Dimensions – When traditional and power metal are done properly, they can kick your ass and provide a massive jolt of fun at the same time. That’s exactly what Sweden’s Ambush does all over Evil in All Dimensions. Taking equal measurements of trad and power, they craft rip-roaring anthems to thunder, fire, steel, and make sure the hooks are plentiful. I defy you to blast the title track, “Maskirovka,” or “Bending the Steel” and not feel a rush of power in your veins. The riffs are pure 80s magic, and let me just mention Oskar Jacobsson’s vocals, because they are HUGE. This shit is 100% balls-to-the-walls energy; the songs have legs and demand repeat spins. This is one of the most infectious albums of 2025, and I think I may have underrated it a tad. Get your sack to the partition, pronto.

#5. Anchorite // Realm of Ruin – Taking the classic doom template of Candlemass and Solitude Aeternus and injecting it with the burly machismo of trve metal usually works, and in the case of Anchorite’s Realm of Ruin, it works extra hard! Beefy riffs drive the material to epic heights as doomy harmonies decorate the war wagon. Over the top of it all, Leo Stivala delivers strident, commanding vocals to embiggen the spirit. Cuts like the massive “The Lighthouse Chronicles” merge Paradise Lost with Crypt Sermon and deliver emotional doom with a touch of Nevermore’s moody power. Standout “The Apostate’s Prayer” is a top moment of 2025, and Stivala soars to grand heights, carrying the listener along with him, and “Kingdom Undone” brings in a touch of power metal with grand results and a killer chorus. A surprisingly varied and nuanced album, and one of the top doom platters of the year.

#4. Professor Emeritus // A Land Long Gone – Professor Emeritus may have one of the worst names in the metalverse, but their take on trve epic metal and doom more than make up for that oversight. A Land Long Gone is everything a fan of the trve genre could want, with big, bombastic compositions with hooks, bells, and whistles aplenty. This stuff brings the Manowar to the Candlemass recording session, with big loincloth energy adding to the slow-burning doom power. There are hints of Doomsword and Manilla Road along the road to high adventure, and everything is kept sword-friendly and mighty. “A Corpse’s Dream” is one of my favorite songs of the year, and I love the blending of styles they achieve, and “Zosimos” brings in copious Iron Maiden influences to bedazzle the Crypt Sermon-esque doom they deliver with aplomb. This is the kind of Professor I wish I had during my school years, so listen and learn!

#3. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I’ve followed Paradise Lost since 1991s Gothic release, and I stuck with them until they became Depeche Lost circa 2000. I came back when they went metal again, and though none of their third-stage albums floored me, I liked them enough to keep buying what they sold. That pattern changed with Ascension, which is every bit as powerful, heavy, and vibrant as their glory days, while showing a maturity and sophistication even the classics lack. Let me just come out and say it: I underrated this album, and for that, I feel some degree of fault. Ascension plays like a grand tour of the varied Paradise Lost eras, but nothing ends up feeling recycled. “Serpent on the Cross” is a killer opener featuring everything I ever loved about the band, and cuts like “Tyrants Serenade” and “Salvation” are amongst the best songs of their long-running career. Where I originally felt like the back half of the album was less stellar, I’ve come to love the complete package, and I think this is among the best Paradise Lost albums. Olde dogs can still bite!

#2. Fer De Lance // Fires on the Mountainside – Competing with Anchorite and Professor Emeritus for the best trve doom album of 2025, Fer De Lance brought the biggest sword to the warfield. Fires on the Mountainside has it all; massive trveness, battle-ready classic metal, nods to black and Viking metal, it’s all here and ready for action. Take one listen ot the mammoth title track, and you’ll accumulate more back hair in 7 minutes than you did in all of 2025 as the music takes you from Crypt Sermon-esque classic doom on through Hammerheart era Bathory with touches of folk along the way.2 This is music for heroes who laugh in the face of death. When the black metal element comes forward, you get gems like “Ravens Fly (Dreams of Daidalos),” and when they dial down to the epic doom side, you get monsters like “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” where vocal maniac MP Papai goes all in, and channels Lost Horizon’s Daniel Heiman. If you spin this thing and don’t gain 2 inches on your biceps, you have Chronic Untrveness Disorder.

#1. Structure // Heritage – In a year when I was merely whelmed by much of what I heard, Structure came out of nowhere to drop an industrial earth mover of atmospheric doom on my life. The brainchild of Bram Bijlhout (ex-Officium Triste), Heritage finds him delivering a massive treatise on emotionally harrowing sadness and grief, aided by the killer vocals of Pim Blankenstein (Officium Triste, ex-The 11th Hour). Over the 50 minutes of Heritage, the duo drag you to the heart of sadness, loss, and despair as only thoughtful, well-executed doom can. Yet there are faint rays of light and hope in the inky black, mostly in the form of Bram’s beautiful, delicate guitar work, which weaves ethereal magic through the dour, downtrodden material. Heritage is a very dark album, but it’s rife with genuine beauty too, just as life often is. I’ve spun this thing more than any other 2025 release, and it keeps calling me back to its black womb. There’s something truly special here, and you shouldn’t miss out on experiencing it. This is your Heritage now.

Honorable Mentions:

• An Tóramh // Echoes of Eternal Night – Massive, crushing funereary doom with a great sense of atmosphere
• Phobocosm // Gateway – One of the best slabs of oppressive cavern-core death metal you’ll be squished by this year
• Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell – One of the oddest and endearing death metal albums of late
• Depravity // Bestial Possession – Brutal, blasting, splatterifying death metal that cannot be contained or reasoned with
• Diabolizer // Murderous Revelations – Fast, brutal, burly death metal that gives no fucks as it activates your dental plan
• Guts // Nightmare Fuel – Groove-heavy death metal with big stoner rock vibes should not work, but it does here
• Black Soul Horde // Symphony of Chaos – Epic heavy/power metal with more hooks than the local meat packery run by I. M. Pinhead
• Starlight Ritual // Rogue Angels – Imagine Lemmy joined Di’Anno era Iron Maiden and wrote some epic shit
• Amorphis // Borderlands – Amorphis return to form in a fan service release full of hooks and classic Amorphy moments
• Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations – Maybe not their best album, but you can’t escape the ear glue of their NWoBHM meets 70s prog rock style

Triumph o’ the Year:

Our little blogworks received a glowing mention in none other than Rolling Stone Magazine, and no one was more surprised than we here at AMG International. It’s nice to see our efforts getting noticed, even in the world of professional music journalism, which we don’t discuss with fans.

Tragedy o’ the Year:

The passing of Ozzy Osbourne. We all knew it was coming, but not this soon. I didn’t expect it to hit me quite as hard as it did, or for the feeling of loss to linger as long as it has. This marks the definitive end of an era and the loss of a Founding Father of metal without peer. At least he went out the way he wanted: with a loud bang and crash. Have a glorious journey into eternity, Ozzman. You will always be missed.

Song(s) o’ the Year:

Under Ruins – “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” – Massive epic goodness with big emotions.



Brainstorm – “The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda)” – So damn metal it gives me an iron hangover.



Disappointment o’ the Year:

Dark Angel // Extinction Level Event – What a prophetic album title this was, eh? After 1991s Time Does Not Heal, Dark Angel promised a new album. They promised it while I was in college, then grad school, then law school, during my first marriage, after my divorce, and over the next several decades. When they finally deliver something, and it’s the equivalent of third-rate re-thrash with only vague nods to their original sound, calling it disappointing doesn’t begin to cover it. We received the promo for Extinction Level Event in time to review it, and I was eager to do the job. After one listen, however, I realized the public was going to brutally savage this thing, and I didn’t see the point in adding another head stomp to a band I grew up worshipping. This is now the primary example of why it’s best to leave a legacy safely in the past, where it can live evergreen.

First things first: 2025 was not what I consider a lodestar of great metal. I was much more miserly than usual with my high scores, and though there were a lot of albums I liked, there were not many I truly loved. I had fewer issues curating my Top Ten than usual, with a smaller pool of contenders jockeying for slots. That likely means 2026 will be an overwhelming pornocopia of metal goodness, as flat years are usually followed by market booms. Let’s hope the historic trends continue.

On the AMG front, we had a great many seasoned staffers bow out and take time away from the site, which is always a sad event, but we got a healthy infusion of new blood, too. Hopefully, the blend of new and old will provide new perspectives, but it’s sure to result in some awful takes, too. We apologize for that in advance. Fear not, though, for I have it on good authority that a few long-absent writers will be making a shocking return in the new year.

Personally, 2025 was my least productive year in a while as far as the sheer number of reviews churned out. This was mostly due to my taking on the enormous duties of promo sump management, which takes up a significant amount of time weekly. I’ve gotten faster and more efficient at the promo herding over the year, so I hope to push my review production back up to massive aggressive levels in 2026. I love this little blog, and I invest a lot of myself in it each day. It gives me peace and comfort through challenging times, and more importantly, it keeps me off the streets looking for seedy, low-rent metal blogs to write for.

As I do every year, I want to extend a big thank you to all the readers who grace our pages, comment on our reviews, complain about scores, and generally raise a ruckus. We appreciate you, tolerate you, and continue to do our best to entertain you. Behind the scenes, though, we think you are a bunch of overrating, high-maintenance, diva do-nothings. Keep up the good work and tell your friends about us!

I’d also like to thank all the old and new staff members and AMG Himself for their efforts to keep AMG the bastion of high opinions that it has become. It’s easy to suffer burnout here, and there are times when the words all seem to blur together, and it becomes a battle to formulate new ways to describe shitty, lo-fi death metal. There’s something highly satisfying about the work, though, and doing it with a bunch of lovable rejects makes it all the more so. We have a good group of misfits here, and though we bicker and argue, we love one another most of the time. Because of all this goodwill and affection, I hope none of them make me sabbaticalize them this year. The wood chipper is still clogged from last year’s bonanza of retirements, and I’m just too busy to take cadavers apart the old-fashioned way. Onward to new horizons we fly!

#ish: Nite // Cult of the Serpent Sun – Nite is a strange band that challenges me to look past some very one-dimensional vocals to find the beauty in their guitar-driven righteousness. The music they create is so perfectly in my wheelhouse, mixing the classic 80s sound of Mercyful Fate with the burly badassery of Grand Magus, then they slather their compositions with a blackened snarl that rarely shifts or adapts to the epic music. Sometimes it seems this choice holds them back from greatness, but I just kept returning to Cult of the Serpent Sun time and again in 2025. Songs like “Crow (Fear the Night),” “Carry On,” and “The Winds of Sokar” got spun to death this year, and the guitar work across the album is stellar and so metal it hurts. In a nutshell, I’m hooked on this weird little album despite the shortcomings in the vocal department. Give yourself to the Nite.

#10. Disembodiment// Spiral Crypts – One of the death metal albums that really stuck to ribs this year, Spiral Crypts just wouldn’t unstick itself or go away. Disembodiment brings the OSDM hammer down on you with a stinky, putrid sound that rips organs from all the big names to create a shambling monstrosity all their own. It’s Incantation and Autopsy up front, with a vaguely Death-like prog sheen hidden in the back. Yet this won’t impress with techy wanking, because they’re too busy fucking cadavers and eating human flesh. Nasty first wins in the House of Steel, and this shit is gross but so listenable and entertaining. The riffs are slithery, slappy, and powerful, and those vocals are as much like an industrial garbage disposal as you can get without permanent throat disaster. Get yourself some unsanitary napkins and blast this filth really loud. It’s worth the revolting mess.

#9. Helstar // The Devil’s Masquerade – I grew up loving Helstar, and their Burning Star and Remnants of War albums were in constant rotation during my high school years. They’ve had an up-and-down career since 1989’s Nosterfatu, so them hitting their stride again in 2025 on The Devil’s Masquerade was a huge thrill for Yours Steely. Their textbook blend of US power metal and prog burns bright once more, with nods to thrash mixed in liberally for added asskickery as the guitars shred and impress. Vocal legend James Rivera still sounds enormous and powerful, and the songcraft is shockingly good and consistent. Certain moments scream classic Helstar while also hinting at Rivera’s criminally underrated Destiny’s End project, and there are several nods to prime Nevermore as well. The Devil’s Masquerade does the Helstar legacy proud, and it’s easily the best thing they’ve done since Nosferatu. Let this one in for a bite.

#8. Brainstorm // Plague of Rats – Brainstorm have been one of, if not the most reliable metal acts of the last few decades. Album after album brings a muscular, burly blend of classic metal and power, and time after time they kill it with massive anthems and sick hooks you just can’t shake. Plague of Rats follows the great Wall of Skulls and almost equals it in terms of memorable songs and metal magic. Andy B. Franck continues to be one of the best vocalists in all of metal, and when given tremendous songs to work with like “Garuda (Eater Of Snakes),” The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda),” and “Beyond Enemy Lines,” you get molten metal gold. The writing is rock solid with several Songs o’ the Year contenders, and the riffs and vocals are a thing of savage beauty. I love these guys more than I love red meat and hobo wine (almost).

#7. Under Ruins // Age of the Void – Formed by members of the highly underappreciated Lansfear and the cheesy King Diamond wannabes, Them,1 Under Ruins bring a polished, super slick form of epic power metal to the party on their Age of the Void debut. What makes their sound so immediate for me is how it ranges from Manowar-esque chest-thumping anthems to massive epic metal like Atlantean Kodex, and on to old-timey prog metal akin to the early days of Fates Warning, with some other interesting stops along the way. It’s enough like Lansfear to hook me in, but Under Ruins operate with a much broader vision and scope. “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” is my Song o’ the Year, full of melancholic emotion but still bringing the thunder in the way vintage Tad Morose and Pryamaze did. The chorus has been ringing through my head all year, and I can’t escape it. Nor should you. Get under these ruins.

#6. Ambush // Evil in All Dimensions – When traditional and power metal are done properly, they can kick your ass and provide a massive jolt of fun at the same time. That’s exactly what Sweden’s Ambush does all over Evil in All Dimensions. Taking equal measurements of trad and power, they craft rip-roaring anthems to thunder, fire, steel, and make sure the hooks are plentiful. I defy you to blast the title track, “Maskirovka,” or “Bending the Steel” and not feel a rush of power in your veins. The riffs are pure 80s magic, and let me just mention Oskar Jacobsson’s vocals, because they are HUGE. This shit is 100% balls-to-the-walls energy; the songs have legs and demand repeat spins. This is one of the most infectious albums of 2025, and I think I may have underrated it a tad. Get your sack to the partition, pronto.

#5. Anchorite // Realm of Ruin – Taking the classic doom template of Candlemass and Solitude Aeternus and injecting it with the burly machismo of trve metal usually works, and in the case of Anchorite’s Realm of Ruin, it works extra hard! Beefy riffs drive the material to epic heights as doomy harmonies decorate the war wagon. Over the top of it all, Leo Stivala delivers strident, commanding vocals to embiggen the spirit. Cuts like the massive “The Lighthouse Chronicles” merge Paradise Lost with Crypt Sermon and deliver emotional doom with a touch of Nevermore’s moody power. Standout “The Apostate’s Prayer” is a top moment of 2025, and Stivala soars to grand heights, carrying the listener along with him, and “Kingdom Undone” brings in a touch of power metal with grand results and a killer chorus. A surprisingly varied and nuanced album, and one of the top doom platters of the year.

#4. Professor Emeritus // A Land Long Gone – Professor Emeritus may have one of the worst names in the metalverse, but their take on trve epic metal and doom more than make up for that oversight. A Land Long Gone is everything a fan of the trve genre could want, with big, bombastic compositions with hooks, bells, and whistles aplenty. This stuff brings the Manowar to the Candlemass recording session, with big loincloth energy adding to the slow-burning doom power. There are hints of Doomsword and Manilla Road along the road to high adventure, and everything is kept sword-friendly and mighty. “A Corpse’s Dream” is one of my favorite songs of the year, and I love the blending of styles they achieve, and “Zosimos” brings in copious Iron Maiden influences to bedazzle the Crypt Sermon-esque doom they deliver with aplomb. This is the kind of Professor I wish I had during my school years, so listen and learn!

#3. Paradise Lost // Ascension – I’ve followed Paradise Lost since 1991s Gothic release, and I stuck with them until they became Depeche Lost circa 2000. I came back when they went metal again, and though none of their third-stage albums floored me, I liked them enough to keep buying what they sold. That pattern changed with Ascension, which is every bit as powerful, heavy, and vibrant as their glory days, while showing a maturity and sophistication even the classics lack. Let me just come out and say it: I underrated this album, and for that, I feel some degree of fault. Ascension plays like a grand tour of the varied Paradise Lost eras, but nothing ends up feeling recycled. “Serpent on the Cross” is a killer opener featuring everything I ever loved about the band, and cuts like “Tyrants Serenade” and “Salvation” are amongst the best songs of their long-running career. Where I originally felt like the back half of the album was less stellar, I’ve come to love the complete package, and I think this is among the best Paradise Lost albums. Olde dogs can still bite!

#2. Fer De Lance // Fires on the Mountainside – Competing with Anchorite and Professor Emeritus for the best trve doom album of 2025, Fer De Lance brought the biggest sword to the warfield. Fires on the Mountainside has it all; massive trveness, battle-ready classic metal, nods to black and Viking metal, it’s all here and ready for action. Take one listen ot the mammoth title track, and you’ll accumulate more back hair in 7 minutes than you did in all of 2025 as the music takes you from Crypt Sermon-esque classic doom on through Hammerheart era Bathory with touches of folk along the way.2 This is music for heroes who laugh in the face of death. When the black metal element comes forward, you get gems like “Ravens Fly (Dreams of Daidalos),” and when they dial down to the epic doom side, you get monsters like “Death Thrives (Where Walls Divide)” where vocal maniac MP Papai goes all in, and channels Lost Horizon’s Daniel Heiman. If you spin this thing and don’t gain 2 inches on your biceps, you have Chronic Untrveness Disorder.

#1. Structure // Heritage – In a year when I was merely whelmed by much of what I heard, Structure came out of nowhere to drop an industrial earth mover of atmospheric doom on my life. The brainchild of Bram Bijlhout (ex-Officium Triste), Heritage finds him delivering a massive treatise on emotionally harrowing sadness and grief, aided by the killer vocals of Pim Blankenstein (Officium Triste, ex-The 11th Hour). Over the 50 minutes of Heritage, the duo drag you to the heart of sadness, loss, and despair as only thoughtful, well-executed doom can. Yet there are faint rays of light and hope in the inky black, mostly in the form of Bram’s beautiful, delicate guitar work, which weaves ethereal magic through the dour, downtrodden material. Heritage is a very dark album, but it’s rife with genuine beauty too, just as life often is. I’ve spun this thing more than any other 2025 release, and it keeps calling me back to its black womb. There’s something truly special here, and you shouldn’t miss out on experiencing it. This is your Heritage now.

Honorable Mentions:

• An Tóramh // Echoes of Eternal Night – Massive, crushing funereary doom with a great sense of atmosphere
• Phobocosm // Gateway – One of the best slabs of oppressive cavern-core death metal you’ll be squished by this year
• Plasmodulated // An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell – One of the oddest and endearing death metal albums of late
• Depravity // Bestial Possession – Brutal, blasting, splatterifying death metal that cannot be contained or reasoned with
• Diabolizer // Murderous Revelations – Fast, brutal, burly death metal that gives no fucks as it activates your dental plan
• Guts // Nightmare Fuel – Groove-heavy death metal with big stoner rock vibes should not work, but it does here
• Black Soul Horde // Symphony of Chaos – Epic heavy/power metal with more hooks than the local meat packery run by I. M. Pinhead
• Starlight Ritual // Rogue Angels – Imagine Lemmy joined Di’Anno era Iron Maiden and wrote some epic shit
• Amorphis // Borderlands – Amorphis return to form in a fan service release full of hooks and classic Amorphy moments
• Wytch Hazel // V: Lamentations – Maybe not their best album, but you can’t escape the ear glue of their NWoBHM meets 70s prog rock style

Triumph o’ the Year:

Our little blogworks received a glowing mention in none other than Rolling Stone Magazine, and no one was more surprised than we here at AMG International. It’s nice to see our efforts getting noticed, even in the world of professional music journalism, which we don’t discuss with fans.

Tragedy o’ the Year:

The passing of Ozzy Osbourne. We all knew it was coming, but not this soon. I didn’t expect it to hit me quite as hard as it did, or for the feeling of loss to linger as long as it has. This marks the definitive end of an era and the loss of a Founding Father of metal without peer. At least he went out the way he wanted: with a loud bang and crash. Have a glorious journey into eternity, Ozzman. You will always be missed.

Song(s) o’ the Year:

Under Ruins – “Whispered Curses, Woe Unleashed” – Massive epic goodness with big emotions.



Brainstorm – “The Shepherd Girl (Gitavoginda)” – So damn metal it gives me an iron hangover.



Disappointment o’ the Year:

Dark Angel // Extinction Level Event – What a prophetic album title this was, eh? After 1991s Time Does Not Heal, Dark Angel promised a new album. They promised it while I was in college, then grad school, then law school, during my first marriage, after my divorce, and over the next several decades. When they finally deliver something, and it’s the equivalent of third-rate re-thrash with only vague nods to their original sound, calling it disappointing doesn’t begin to cover it. We received the promo for Extinction Level Event in time to review it, and I was eager to do the job. After one listen, however, I realized the public was going to brutally savage this thing, and I didn’t see the point in adding another head stomp to a band I grew up worshipping. This is now the primary example of why it’s best to leave a legacy safely in the past, where it can live evergreen.

“The body aches
as it craves.”

🎶💟

#NowPlaying #LineaAspera #FerDeLance #MusicIsLife #Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/track/1Uf2vkNstkY387DWTF1Zes?si=lIJDILuPR1uKrh4mh16x8g