JEREMY BECK

2025 was not a great year. At all. Fortunately for Metalheads, there were so many fantastically brutal albums that it made it almost bearable, and so what I did was scoop up all the music I subjected myself to and compiled this list. You may or may not agree with my choices, constant reader, but you know… whatever.

Overall Album of the Year

:Skull and Dawn: The Harvest (The Circle Music) No other album grabbed me the way that this one did. I love covering the odd ones, and this was like nothing I’ve covered before. So naturally it made AOTY, originality goes a long way, and The Harvest had originality pouring out of it like bullets from a Colt .45.

Best Death Metal Album

Internal Bleeding: Settle all Scores (Maggot Stomp) This record doesn’t allow for lollygagging, it forces you to get fuck up and form a worldwide circle pit. This is how it’s done, friends and neighbors. Runner up– Sanguisugabogg– Hideous Aftermath (Century Media Records)

Best Black Metal Album

Enterré Vivant: 悪罪 (Akuzaï) (Antiq) This album came out of nowhere and blew my mind with its emotional depth and the ferocity of the music contained within. Telling the story of the bombing of Japan at the end of WW2, and featuring radio broadcasts from the time, this haunting record doesn’t let up from the get-go.

Best Grindcore Album

CrusHuman: Besides EP (HPGD PRODUCTIONS) CrusHuman can do no wrong in my eyes. Despite being the songs that didn’t make their crippling debut, Besides is a neck-snapping beast of an album. Here’s looking at the future and dreaming of what is coming next. Runner up– Kosuke Hashida– Outrage (HPGD PRODUCTIONS). This album came out of nowhere and blew my ass away with its primal fury. That’s why it’s the runner-up for this category. Grind reigns supreme!

Best Thrash Album

Dark Angel: Extinction Level Event (Reversed Records) Dark Angel’s return to the scene was a long time coming, and without getting into the botched release and subsequent unavailability of the album; Dark Angel showed that they were still masters of their craft. I genuinely love Extinction Level Event, and I hope that there will be a follow-up sooner rather than later. Runner up– Testament: Parabellum (Nuclear Blast Records) Some will argue that this should be Thrash album of the year, but… I don’t like ballads, and it’s the ballad that gets this album Runner Up status, despite the blast beats.

Best Power Metal Album

Helloween: Giants and Monsters (Reigning Phoenix Music). No other Power Metal band has the longevity that Helloween does. They dominate the genre by releasing solid album after solid album, and Giants and Monsters is fucking SOLID.

Best Instrumental Album

Quadvium: Tetradōm (Agonia Records) Hands down the best Jazzgrind album ever (well, this year anyway).

Best of the rest in tidy categories:

Death Metal

1. Centinex– With Guts and Glory (Black Lion Records / Sound Pollution)
2. Unleashed– Fire upon Your Lands (Napalm Records)
3. Castrator– Coronation of the Grotesque (Dark Descent Records)
4. KHNVM– Cosmocrator (Testimony Records)
5. Chained to the Dead– Something Happened on the Way to Hell (HPGD PRODUCTIONS)
6. Torture Hammer– Torture Hammer (Creator-Destructor Records)
7. Ripping Remains– Necrodestiney (Satanik Royalty Records)
8. Hooded Menace– Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration (Season of Mist)
9. Plague Pit– A Whispered Curse (ROAD TO MASOCHIST)
10. Degrave– Metalithic (ShredHead Records)
11. Organ Dealer– Visceral Infection (HPGD PRODUCTIONS)
12. Leper Colony– Those of the Morbid (Testimony Records)
13. Imperial Triumphant– Goldstar (Century Media Records)
14. Act of Impalement– Profane Altar (Caligari Records)
15. Dead and Dripping– Nefarious Scintillations (Transcending Obscurity Records)
16. Eisregen– Krebskoloni (Massacre Records)
17. Crungus– Hollow (WormHoleDeath)
18. Profanatica– Wreathed in Dead Angels (Hells Headbangers)
19. Fleshbore– Painted Paradise (Transcending Obscurity Records)
20. Balefire– Balefire (Iron Bonehead)
21. Author and Punisher– Nocturnal Birding (Relapse Records)
22. Changeling– Changeling (Season of Mist)
23. Haemorrhage– Opera Medica (Hells Headbangers)
24. Sarmat– Upgrade (I, Voidhanger Records)
25. Weeping Sores– The Convalescence Agonies (I, Voidhanger Records)
26. World Eaters– Hounds of Blood (Independent Release)
27. Irae– In the Key of Twilight (Signal Rex)
28. Panzerchrist– Maleficium Part 2 ( Emanzipation Productions)
29. Byonoisegenerator– Subnormal Dives (Transcending Obscurity Records)
30. Lacabra– Lacabra (M-Theory Audio)
31. Midnight– Steel, Rust and Disgust (Metal Blade Records)
32. Tetragrammacide– Cyber-Tantric Paradigm of Radical Sri-Vidya (Iron Bonehead Productions)
33. Trivax– The Great Satan (Osmose Productions)
34. Xavleg-Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (Self-Release)

Black Metal

1. Mystic Circle– Hexenbrand 1486 (ROAR)
2. Hammerfilosofi– Signum (Osmose Productions)
3. Esoctrilihum– Ghostigmatah – Spiritual Rites of the Psychopomp Abxulöm (I, Voidhanger Records)
4. Embers Of Ouroboros– The Autumnal Decline and Hermetic Maturation (Horror Pain Gore Death Productions)
5. Der Weg Einer Freiheit– Innern (Season of Mist)
6. Tombstone– The Philosophy of Eternal Recurrence (Independent Release)
7. Sargeist– Flame Within Flame (W.T.C.Productions)
8. Lvthn– The Devil’s Bridge (Amor Fati)
9. Lenax– Infection (Self-Release)
10. Blutsauger– Nocturnal Blood Tyrants (De Tenebrarum Principio)
11. Aldaaron– Par-delà les cimes (Ordre du Givre / Paragon Records (co-release)
12. Lamp of Murmuur– The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy (Wolves of Hades)
13. Blackbraid– III (Independent Release)
14. Master’s Hammer– Maldorör Disco (Darkness Shall Rise)
15. Teitanblood– From the Visceral Abyss (NoEvDia)
16. Rotting Christ– 35 Years of Evil Existence – Live in Lycabettus (Season of Mist)
17. Barshasketh– Antinomian Asceticism (W.T.C.Productions)
18. Nightfall– Children of Eve (Season of Mist)

Power Metal

1. Elvenking– Reader Of The Runes (Reaper Entertainment)
2. Armoured Knight– The Quest for the Sacred Melody (Dying Victims Productions)
3. Terra Atlantica– Oceans (Scarlet Records)
4. Havamal– Age Of The Gods (Art Gates Records)

Traditional Heavy Metal

1. Dirkschneider– Balls to the Wall RELOADED (CS Squared Music)
2. Dirkschneider and the Old Gang– Babylon (Reigning Phoenix Music)
3. Savage Lands– Army of the Trees (Season of Mist)

Folk Metal

1. Mandragora Titania– In Fabulis (MDD Records)
2. Eluveitie– Ànv (Nuclear Blast Records)
3. Rum Runners– Wreck and Revere (Independent Release)

Instrumental Metal

1. Sowulo– Niht (Season of Mist)
2. Agropelter– The Book of Hours (The Lasers Edge)

DOOOOOM Album-

1. Today is the Day– Never Give In (Supernova Records)
2. Tribunal– In Penitence And Ruin (20 Buck Spin)

Label of the Year

Season of Mist

R.I.P. Ozzy Osbourne and Tomas Lindberg. Gone too soon.

Best Live Experience- Corrosion of Conformity, Judas Priest, and Alice Cooper.