Every year I try to listen new albums and create a ranking of the best, 2025 was really prolific, too much music, I am pretty sure I missed a lot of great records, so, here is the list of the best metal albums of 2025 based on my personal taste.
1. An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City
Style: Progressive Death Metal
Origin: Sweden
Atmospheric and emotionally dense, blending technical precision with expansive compositions and a strong sense of melancholy.
2. Coroner – Dissonance Theory
Style: Technical Thrash Metal
Origin: Switzerland
What a comeback!! After many years Coroner delivered a great thrash metal album.
3. Gruesome – Silent Echoes
Style: Death Metal
Origin: USA
A faithful tribute to early Death, featuring raw riffing, old-school brutality, and classic death metal aesthetics.
4. One of Nine – Dawn of the Iron Shadow
Style: Melodic Black Metal
Origin: Germany
Epic and atmospheric black metal with strong symphonic elements, deeply inspired by the world and mythology of J.R.R. Tolkien.
5. Helloween – Giants & Monsters
Style: Power Metal
Origin: Germany
Melodic, energetic, and polished, delivering massive choruses and classic power metal spirit.
6. Blackbraid – Blackbraid III
Style: Atmospheric Black Metal
Origin: USA
Raw and spiritual, blending nature-inspired themes with haunting melodies and aggressive execution.
7. Testament – Para Bellum
Style: Thrash Metal
Origin: USA
They keep doing well combining classic thrash energy with modern production.
8. Dream Theater – Parasomnia
Style: Progressive Metal
Origin: USA
Back to the roots, great song-writing, featuring complex arrangements and virtuosic musicianship.
9. Lights of Vimana – Neopolis
Style: Progressive Instrumental Metal
Origin: USA
Futuristic and cinematic, driven by technical precision and sci-fi atmosphere.
10. Allegaeon – The Ossuary Lens
Style: Technical Death Metal
Origin: USA
Fast, melodic, and intellectually driven, blending brutality with scientific themes.
11. Beholder – In the Temple of the Tyrant
Style: Heavy / Doom Metal
Origin: USA
Dark and epic, rooted in traditional heavy metal with doom-laden heaviness.
12. Hazzerd – The 3rd Dimension
Style: Thrash Metal
Origin: Canada
High-speed, aggressive, and firmly rooted in old-school thrash traditions.
13. Igorrr – Amen
Style: Avant-Garde Metal
Origin: France
Chaotic and experimental, mixing extreme metal with electronic, classical, and baroque influences.
14. Rivers of Nihil – Rivers of Nihil
Style: Progressive Death Metal
Origin: USA
Atmospheric and emotional, focusing on mood, melody, and evolving song structures.
15. Messa – The Spin
Style: Doom Metal
Origin: Italy
Dark and elegant, blending doom with jazz, psychedelic, and occult influences.
16. Havukruunu – Tavastland
Style: Epic Black Metal
Origin: Finland
Melodic and triumphant, rooted in pagan themes and historical storytelling.
17. Warbringer – Wrath and Ruin
Style: Thrash Metal
Origin: USA
Relentless and aggressive, delivering pure old-school thrash intensity.
18. Void – Forbidden Morals
Style: Speed / Thrash Metal
Origin: USA
Raw, fast, and unapologetically old-school in sound and attitude.
19. Benediction – Scriptures
Style: Death Metal
Origin: United Kingdom
Heavy and crushing, staying true to classic British death metal roots.
20. Behemoth – The Shit Ov God
Style: Blackened Death Metal
Origin: Poland
Massive, blasphemous, and cinematic, with dark atmosphere and monumental production.
I created a Spotify playlist if you want to check any from this list: