2025: My Favourites

You may notice I didn't post any recommendations for December of 2025. That's because I don't have any. I had a couple of new releases in my spreadsheet but I didn't listen to them. I was too busy going through the rest of the year to pick out more important albums for this post (December 2025 Playlist); my favourite albums of 2025. It's kind of a Top 25 of 2025 but broken up into a top 3 within a top 10 and then another 15 or so. I valued my time even more this year and dismissed a lot of bands and/or albums quickly and mercilessly. If I don't connect with it, gone. I'm done "trying" to like things. And I don't have to apologize. The albums/releases below represent what did connect with me. Easily and repeatedly. Matching frequencies. Some albums just happen. Some albums become part of you. Some part of you for their runtime (with residuals). Some become part of a memory, a particular time or event. Some become part of you forever. There's a bit of all that to be found every year. Here's what found me in 2025.

My 10 Favourite Albums of 2025. On any given day I felt like this was the best album of the year. Did I feel it THAT hard? If the answer was yes...

AAWKS - On Through the Sky Maze: I saw AAWKS play at least one song from this album months before it came out. "Celestial Magick". They had just shot the video and were SO freaking excited to talk about it. I was too! (Heavy on the Cosmic) was great and I had no reason to believe On Through the Sky Maze wouldn't be too. But it was even better! Bringing in a new bassist ("Grimepup") gave AAWKS a cool new element in his demonic screams and extra filth. That new vocal dynamic really made a difference. Otherwise AAWKS as a whole simply got better. The riffs are just a bit cooler, the vibe is just a bit more psychedelic but also heavier, it hits just a little harder. Psychedlic doom sums it up pretty well. They'll beat you over the head with a flower and the resulting dream trip comes blasting out the speakers. Their use of samples on Sky Maze is very well done. Perfect even. Sky Maze feels more like how it felt seeing them play live in a wine cellar. One of those straight-from-the-amps, on the floor, no monitors shows where the world ceases to exist outside those walls. That's how it feels listening to On Through the Sky Maze; like nothing else exists. I listen to music to block out the rest of the world and I listened to On Through the Sky Maze more than anything else in 2025. What does that tell you? That it's likely my favourite album of the year. Why this isn't at the top of every doom fan's list is beyond me. Dynamic and trippy, heavy-ass psych brilliance.



Dead Meadow - Voyager to Voyager: There's a big sentimentality factor at play here. Bassist Steve Kille passed away from cancer in 2024 but not before laying down his bass tracks for what is arguably Dead Meadow's best album to date. Time will tell but I've got zero complaints. The title track is based on the Voyager spacecrafts but also about connections between voyagers. And I mean, it really hits when you think of the completed album as a message to Steve. From one voyager to another. Even if the late Mr. Kille was still with us this album is mind-blowing regardless. As every Dead Meadow album is, but still. Like AAWKS above, Dead Meadow and this album become all that's necessary to exist when it's playing. Being a long time and literally instant Dead Meadow fan I can feel all the years pulled into one. Tell me "Not The Season" doesn't sound like it could have been on Howls From The Hills for example. I think about music in terms of frequency and Dead Meadow is always tuned to a frequency that resonates with mine. Over decades they've honed this sense of flow, of airiness, of cool that lifts a weigh off my shoulders and hypnotizes me into a state of calm and contentedness. Anxiety fades away and all is good. Voyager to Voyager is so good that I bought the CD AND the vinyl. Psychedelic stoner rock doesn't get any better than this. (okay, maybe Colour Haze.) I do hope they keep going with a new bassist (outside of the few shows they've done since Kille's passing). Or Jason Simon and Mark Laughlin keep going in some capacity because their talents are too good to lose. Take the voyage.



Rwake - The Return of Magik: There are few bands that tear my body apart from the inside out and Rwake are one of them. That sounds visceral, and it is, but it's a beautiful viscerality. I might have made that word up. It fits though. This Arkansas sludge-with-twists outfit took their time bringing this album to us. Their last effort, Rest, was released in 2011. It was more than worth the weight, oops, wait. Besides, Rest was enough to keep me occupied for way longer than 14 years. When you listen to The Return of Magik and feel its density, its scope, its primal heaviness and raw, almost cosmic emotion twisting and churning and expanding and contracting, the time between albums becomes irrelevant. I really wish I wasn't so shit at discerning lyrics though. I'd also have to write them down to make sense of them. Which is a shame because I haven't seen a lyric sheet anywhere and I know this shit is DEEP. I can make out that much. I can feel that much. Rwake has always been that way. I enjoy their long compositions that move and flow from ethereal and thoughful to earth-splitting sonic assaults with abstract, poetic lyrics that tickle my nervous system. The title track especially reshapes my atoms. It's crazy. I mean, I just found the lyrics for that one and goddamn there's a lot to unpack there. Spiritual and philosophical in ways that feel true in ways too complex to explain here, or fully comprehend even. Feeling. That's what it's mostly about. Rwake makes me FEEL. Pain is simply an intense stimulus interpreted by our brain. Pain is an energy necessary for balance and survival. For me, The Return of Magik is all about energy. As a reflection of life, multi-directional and multi-dimensional, some of that energy is painful. Rwake take the painful and pleasureable energies to craft psychedelic sludge masterpieces as complex and interconnected as the captivating album cover. This album has definitely been woven into my being. I am grateful for its existence and thankful to its creators.



Conan - Violence Dimension: All the friggin' time when I'm on reddit someone in the doommetal subreddit will post something about looking for FUCKING HEAVY bands, not necessarily in those exact words. Every time, without fail, someone brings up Conan. With good reason! Conan are FUCKING HEAVY! Tuned down to the floor with hammerblow riffs driving a permanent sense of turmoil and dread, Conan crack the very firmament into a million jagged shards, blowing a hole in the event horizon into the abyss. You cannot escape the Violence Dimension.



Goya - In the Dawn of November: I've been a Goya fan for years. Their style of sludge appeals to me very much. It doesn't hurt that I'm almost the exact same age as frontman Jeff Owens (+/- a day I think) and I seem to connect to his lyrics quite a bit. At least the ones about like, depression and stuff. Maybe not being in love with a corpse. This album has a nice of mix of "fun" feeling and definitely not fun. It kinda comes down to the riffs too though. These riffs are cool, dudes. The tone is bonkers too. Gnarly. Conan-level gnarly at times. Those solos can rip too!



Hell - Submersus: Oh, sweet Satan, what could be heavier than Conan? HELL!!! Hell, Submersus could be the heaviest album on this whole list. Earthquaking, bone-breaking, brain-smoothing heaviness. Plodding riffs and feral screams send shivers down your spine and stimulate baser senses. It's not pure oppression however. The second half of "Gravis" shifts the gloom and doom into more choral territory. Harmonized monk-ish voices chant as one imagines the world ending outside the cathedral walls, fireballs raining from the sky. Meanwhile, peace inside. Accepting fate. That's why we listen to heavy, nuanced blackened sludge doom laced with tortured emotion. To feel at peace on the inside with chaos and suffering all around.



M.E.L.T. - Innervate/Obliterate: And now for something completely different. I not even sure how to classify Pittsburgh's M.E.L.T.. High-energy psych-leaning garage/fuzz rock with plenty of ambition? Like a more acidic version of The Atomic Bitchwax. A little crazy but tight as fuck. I tell ya, when those rippin' riffs and fucking sick bass grab hold of you, your body will move. It will groove, it will sway, hips will shake, heads will bob, toes will tap. It's impossible to remain still. It's just incredibly fun to listen to while letting the dynamic tunes directs how your mind and body move through the ether. It's one of those albums that sounds less serious than it is. It's a little kooky at times but that's what's so great about it. A seriously and deliriously great time.



Turtle Skull - Being Here: Until the vocals come in on the title track that opens the album you might think it was another Dead Meadow song. That's where the "pop" in the "psych doom pop" comes from in the descriptor on Turtle Skull's bandcamp page. Their bright and soothing creating a care-free feeling with something of a nostalgic edge. Fuzzed-out guitars generate waves through the flowerchild atmosphere of "Apathy". Even a song like "Heavy as Hell" with its drony, dark riff is lifted up by the harmonized vocals. I mean, take a look at that artwork. It's pretty cool, mate. It captures the music too. Complex, balanced, flowing, trippy, grounds you in the present. Let go of distraction and be here, with Being Here.



Verona Florrist - Verona Florrist: Having just wrote about Toronto's Verona Florrist in November words are not coming easy. Part of that is this debut album of powerful and psyched-up doom/sludge has a tendency to leave you speechless. The way things ebb and flow and swell and blow your hair back is tremendous. It's hard not to get hypotized by this aura of cool creativity. The kind of cool that's cool because it's not trying to be cool. These are dynamic songs from musicians that were pretty fuckin' locked in when I saw them live. Vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Joe Narducci obviously put a lot of effort into this but it feels so effortless to listen to it. Debut album of the year in my opinion.



Witchcraft - Idag: Ah, epic, '70s-inspired, folk-tinged proto-doom from one the biggest names in Swedish stoner rock. You could say they helped shape the sound of European stoner rock as a whole as recognizably distinct from their US counterparts. As I've read elsewhere, Idag has all the elements that make Witchcraft the band they are. Wicked tone, powerful face-making riffs, and a mix of Swedish and English vocals crystallize with fluid percussion and psychedelic atmosphere. It's heavy but at the same time you feel like your feet aren't even touching the ground. I hadn't actually listened to Witchcraft in a while but Idag is so invigorating that it shines a brighter light on their whole body of work. How much better would knowing Swedish make it!



Here's where I highlight my most expensive purchase of 2025, especially in dollars per minute. But the digital purchase is Name Your Price.

That would be the very limited lathe-cut 10" vinyl for Uncle Woe's Folded in Smoke, Soaked and Bound. 17 minutes and 18 seconds of doom and gloom. As with most Uncle Woe releases you can feel this fog and general greyness hanging in the air. The solo section on "One is Obliged" can spiral you out of the darkness in a way. It's hard to fully escape at any time with the desperately emotional vocals firmly but gently grabbing hold to lay you down amongst soft mosses in acceptance while a dance of emotion plays out with a backdrop of light and shadow. It's a dense listen, the air made thick but tone and ambiance. Like most Uncle Woe releases, for me at least, it's oppressive but it feels the world world expands outward from your core.



The best of the rest.

Budos Band - Budos VII: Funky instrumental rock centered around a slamming brass section! Not all sax though so I really dig it! Noir movie soundtrack feel but more fun. Listen here.
bunsenburner - Reverie: Slightly weird, heavy-psychic, instrumental stoner rock building momuments of sounds in your mind. Listen here.
Causa Sui - In Flux: More instrumental stoner rock with a heavy psychedelic element. They'll pack a punch and send you on a voyage. Listen here. Or on El Paraiso Records' Youtube channel.
Danko Jones - Leo Rising: This power trio continues to just flat out rock, baby! Listen here.
Dhyana - Four releases!: This Louisiana one-man instrumental sludgy drone doom outfit makes music for practicing Mahayana Buddhism with. Which I do! 2025 saw four great volumes Mozhao, Arahant, Mu, and Madhyamaka. Listen to them all on Bandcamp.
Dope Smoker - Seven releases!: A banner year for the repetitive stoner trio. An EP, The Wolfe and its instrumental version, LXST CΛSSXTTX and its instrumental version and its "purple version", and finally DOOM SHOP and its intrumental version. They've brought in hip-hop influences (and guests) to spice things up from the usual tweaking of their old standards. You either get it or you don't. Listen to them all on Bandcamp.
Futuropaco - Fortezza DI Vetro, Vol. 2: Kind of like Budos, Causa Sui, and bunsensurner all rolled into one. Instrumental, percussion-driven, synth-laden, and psychedelic funky fuzz. It's a retrofied beauty of a soundtrack to a movie that's only in your mind. Listen Here.
Hawklords - Faith: This long-running Hawkwind offshoot has been quite active lately! Epic psychedelic space rock and I love it! Listen here.
Kungens Män - Resande i rockmusik: Would you be surpised if I said this was more instrumental psychedelic stoner rock? Well, it is. And it's worth your time. Listen here.
Miss Mellow - Dancing Through The Earth: No sophomore curse from the psychy, funky, krauty, stoner sounding Miss Mellow! Think sort of like a German version King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Listen here.
Mizmor and Hell - Alluvion: A massive collaboration between two titans of blackened sludge doom! Although I do need to spend more time with Mizmor's own separate release. Listen to Alluvion here.

Honourable mentions to Naxatras, Soufly, Biohazard, Space Witch, and Year of the Cobra.

Stay tuned to this space right here for Playlists of my Favourites of 2025!

In order of release (sort of) Favourites of 2025

Favourites of 2025 in Order of Love (coming soon)

Favourites of 2025 in Order of Love Full albums version (coming soon)

Album of the Month - July 2025: Hell - Submersus

On my older bass guitar I have a bunch of stickers all over it. On my newer guitar I have one. It says LOWER YOUR HEAD. And it came from Hell. It's their mantra, their ethos, their command. It's also an entirely rational thing to do when listening to the works of Hell's lord and creator, M.S.W.. New album Submersus is no exception. Crank it up, lower your head, and get doomed.

Led by a piercing stab of feedback "Hevy" delivers the first of five hammering blows spanning a tortured 41 minutes. Riffs march like trolls, menacing and fearless save for the light of day. Expansions of buzzing atmosphere bewilder and subjugate. Darkness becomes manifest. So much pain, so much release. Sliding right into "Gravis", gargantuan tone beckons across the wastes as if for war, yet already lamenting the fallen. Sickly rasps, bellows, and growls emanate from behind the wall of resolute energy. Tension leads to angelic clarity.

As the melancholy of "Factum" fades jagged peaks once again rise with towering might. Peaks reaching not for the sky. The domain of "Mortem" is deep and cavernous, stout riffs echoing inwards, pushing deeper and deeper into a realm removed from life. Slowly, gently, rising from the depths, "Bog". Breaking the surface a martial cadence takes hold, rot and black muck sucking at every footfall, fading back to darkness, alone and forgotten.



I hesitate anymore to use phrases like "best album to date" because context has so much to do with perception. But, Submersus is pure Hell. Everything that makes up the Hell experience is embodied here and has been refined to a deadly effectiveness. Best album of July 2025 is pretty easy to say however. Use it to siphon strength from doom and gloom, within and without.

Other releases at least worth mentioning: uh, Aank by Kombynat Robotron I guess.

As always, here's my Playlist for July 2025. One track from each release I listened to all the way through at least once. Lots of Black Sabbath and Scissorfight this month.

Hell/Thou split 7": Resurrection Bay

Back in April, the always reliable Gilead Media teamed with Pesanta Urfolk to release a limited (1000 copies) split 7' featuring the bands Hell and Thou entitled Resurrection Bay. How something like this escaped my notice until recently is a great mystery. Mystery solved.

Salem, Oregon's Hell contribute their track, "Sheol" on one side. I am shamefully ignorant of Hell's previous full lengths. So this split serves as my introduction to this Northwest duo. Should the uncompromising doom of "Sheol" be representative of their work, I need to dig into their back catalogue post-haste. One can practically smell the cobwebs festooned on the stalactites hanging overhead in the cavern in which the black metal shrieks of vocalist/multi-intsrumentalist M.S.W. must have been recorded. (Drums are handled by Adam Torrvella) If the lurching pace of the track is any indication, the floors of said cavern must be knee deep in rotting detritus. The filth sucking at the feet of the listener in their futile attempt to escape the darkness. Haunting noisescapes are injected to feed this misanthropic nightmare. Yet for a few tantalizing moments, a feeling of openness presents itself. Whether you view this as (misguided) hope or calm acceptance, the result is the same. No one breaks free from this Hell.

The ridiculously prolific Thou graces the other side of this white vinyl with the deceptively titled "Ordinary People". Ordinary people don't make this kind of music and ordinary people don't listen to this kind of music. Ordinary people don't know what they are missing. While still rooted in the same oppressively heavy doom as Hell, the overall feel of "Ordinary People" compared to "Sheol" is almost in opposition. "Sheol" felt very "under the ground" whereas "Ordinary People" feels more "above the ground". While Hell resides within the mountain, Thou strides across the range itself. The guitar tone is still bone-crushing but there is an airiness present as well. Almost a feeling of height. As if the riffs themselves tower over the feeble and weak, projecting authority. Within its six and a half minutes, the track contains a number of "movements". The cadence shifts from a foot-dragging crawl to periods of  half-gallop and purposeful march. Whatever the pace, the riffs remain muscular and full-bodied. Not to be outdone, vocalist Bryan Funck is equally as scathing in his delivery yet matches the difference in vibe given off by both bands.

More or less cut from the same cloth, the samples of Thou and Hell on each side of the 7" present as different shades in the same colour palette. Perfectly complimentary with a subtle contrast to define the edges between the two.

At this time, Gilead Media is sold out but it appears copies are still available from Pesanta Urfolk here. And they're only $8.50. (While you're there, check out the Ash Borer t-shirts. That logo is just as stellar as the music it represents.)