OUR TOP ALBUMS OF 2025

1) CRIPPLING ALCOHOLISM (Camgirl)

They describe themselves as "David Bowie in hell". Crippling Alcoholism are a dark hypnotic journey into body horror, lust, addiction, exploitation, and disintegration. Their music is a mashup of noise rock, goth, electro-punk, and trance. Drunken mumbled obscure confessions, a dark cavernous sound, and the ability to make their listeners feel like they've overheard something obscurely intimate, thrilling, and forbidden. An album that feels like a serial killer's love letter written in pink lipstick.

2) DEAFHEAVEN (Lonely People With Power)

A masterful synthesis of the blackgaze sound, blending aggressive black metal with ethereal beauty, showcasing intense drumming and guitar work, and exploring deep emotional themes of isolation and power. This is a record that can barely contain all the sounds the band holds, but it tries to in spectacular style. The band's approach is rich in progressive crescendos, structurally experimental, and thrilling and ferocious in the execution. When we look at the entire scope of the album, there is most definitely enough variation and experimentation, especially when they dip more in their shoegaze/post-rock sounds and use their contrasting dreamy/raging alternations. Their best album to date.

3)ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF (Iconoclasts)

In the last decade, composer, singer, producer and organist Anna von Hausswolff has cemented her name across many music genres, be it drone, art-rock, neo-folk, or celestial mysticism. "Iconoclasts" is her sixth studio album. With this record, she not only re-shapes the kind of gigantic and sacred surrealism she created with her mostly goth "Dead Magic" in 2018, but she aims to further own that space through spiritual maximalism, baroque theatrics, and an open and grandiose sense of cinematic space. This is an album that thrives on tension and intensity. It explores themes of emotional detachment, guilt, and transcendental rebirth. Mundane-sized things are built to reach towering proportions in sky-high productions.

4) BACKXWASH (Only Dust Remains) 

Zambian born, Montreal based rapper-producer Backxwash gifted us with an original trilogy of releases between 2020 and 2022, all suspended in the ghost haunted space between spiritual freedom and harsh realism, depicting the depth of hell and heavens as two sides of the same coin. If you could mesh the ritualistic folklore of Tristwch Y Fenywod, with the sacred self-immolating language of Lingua Ignota, and the explosive aggression and digital intricacies of Clipping, you would get something close to this album. However, this is not necessarily the sound of an artist finding a new set of aesthetics to play with for the sake of being different. This is still deeply rooted into the hip hop tradition, and it is an adventurous personal evolution.

5) MARUJA (Pain To Power)

Widely praised as an ambitious, genre-blending masterpiece. Punk energy meets jazz instrumentation, rap urgent vocals, and poetic social commentary. An album that is politically charged and emotionally resonant. Maruja are all about intricate rhythms and raw emotions.

6) BAMBARA (Birthmarks)

With a post-punk sound, Cinema Noir story telling, lush synths and textures, this album draws comparisons to DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, and Cocteau Twins. A true celebration of synthesisers, atmospheric soundscapes, and noise rock. A "pretty shade of grotesque".

7) DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT (Innern)

A fusion of raw black metal with atmospheric soundscapes, poignant piano melodies, and themes of suffering and transformation. A powerful blend of desolate anguish and fragile beauty.

8) ELDERWIND (Older Than Ancient)

Praised for its evolution in atmospheric black metal, this album blends frostbitten soundscapes, cold and visceral moods and furious symphonics. Melancholic yet triumphant, it goes way beyond typical atmoblack.

9) JOHN MAUS (Later Than You Think)

Musician and philosopher John Maus is widely recognised for his fierce belief in the emotional weight of sound and his oblique way of extrapolating academic rigour from lo-fi synthwave. This album has made him known as the ultimate artist of the future past. Music is not purely a medium to awaken the senses or project emotions, but it becomes a complex instrument of social and spiritual analysis. 

10) AFI (Silver Bleeds The Black Sun...)

The 12th studio album by American rock band AFI. A drastic goth/post-punk record heavily influenced by 80s bands like Bauhaus and The Cure. It displays great atmospheric ambition, dynamic layering, and stunning melodies.

11) THE ORCHESTRA (FOR NOW) Plan 76

A maximalist blend of post-punk with orchestral/classic arrangements.

12) PERTURBATOR (Age Of Aquarius)

A synthwave/dark synthwave album that blends intense industrial sounds with haunting melodies and themes of conflict.

13) NOCTAMBULIST (Noctambulist II: De Droom)

A record that feels both devastating, cathartic, and contrasting. Sonic Youth under the knife of a black metal crooner.

14) MARTIN DUPONT (You Smile When It Hurts)

A striking comeback for the legendary French coldwave band. This time they make an album that is anything but minimalistic. Contemporary luminous productions framing electronic textures, poetic lyrics, and orchestral/operatic elements.

15) CHAMALEONS (Arctic Moon)

Another triumphant mature return. This album balances their classic post-punk sound with fresh relevant themes of isolation and renewal. A significant comeback after two decades of no material.

16) AUTOMELODI (Cavallo)

A synth-pop/coldwave release that blends icy synths, throbbing percussions and massive hooks. it explores themes of cyclical illusions with a contemporary art approach.

17) CHAT PILE & HAYDEN PEDIGO (In The Earth Again)

A project that blends noise rock with Pedigo's distinctive fingerstyle guitar, exploring themes of rural decay as a shared human experience.

18) THE MURDER CAPITAL (Blindness)

Raw and emotionally intense eclectic post-punk with elements of grunge and indie-rock. It features poignant lyrics on themes like weaponised nationalism, solitude, and existential confusion.

19) FRAGRANCE (Kintsugi)

An album which is all about "embracing the cracks". Parisian synth-pop at its absolute best.

20) CREEPER (Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death)

A gothic horror narrative concept album that blends punk, glam and darkwave for a theatrical 80s arena rock sound.

21) BLUT AUS NORD (Ethereal Horizons)

22) BLOODY VALKYRIA (In Our Home, Across The Fog)

23) SWANS (Birthing)

24) OWLS (Death Games)

25) HEXVESSEL (Nocturne)

26) DALILA KAYROS (Khthonie)

27) ETHEL CAIN (Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You)

28) CLIPPING (Dead Channel Sky)

29) GRIMA (Nightside)

30) TURNSTILE (Never Enough)

31) EMINENTIA TENEBRIS (Whispers Of The Undying)

32) EMPEREUR (Eau Rouge)

33) BLOOD CULTURES (Skate Story: Vol. I)

34) AGRICULTURE (The Spiritual Sound)

35) A SHRINE TO FAILURE (Undone)

36) ROSALIA (Lux)

37) SUEDE (Antidepressants)

38) ARIEL PINK (With You Every Night)

39) NERO KANE (For The Love, The Death, And The Poetry)

40) VIAGRA BOYS (Viagr Aboys)

41) GIVE MY REMAINS TO BROADWAY (White Trash, Black Magick)

42) MORTUI VULTUS (Distant Echoes)

43) DITZ (Never Exhale)

44) NIGHTBUS (Passenger)

45) YEARS OF DENIAL (Love Cuts)

46) TOPOGRAPHIES (Brutality Of Facts)

47) TOUCHDOWN JESUS (It's All Feast Or Famine)

48) HEARTWORMS (Glutton For Punishment)

49) LAST DINNER PARTY (From The Pyre)

50) SQUID (Cowards)