Milo Lane’s Top Albums of 2025

Milo Lane

(according to vibes, weather, and emotional damage)

2025 seemed so forked (Catto still won’t let me swear, so The Good Place rules apply) that it felt like it would never end — and honestly, it still kind of does. I’m not entirely convinced it isn’t yet time for the apocalypse. If this list abruptly ends, please assume society collapsed or my attention span finally did. On a lighter note, there’s no better time to count your blessings than cold, cold December — the month of numb fingers, hot headphones, and staring out windows in contemplation. Hopefully this list leaves you more blessed than before you found it.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

This list is ranked, but don’t be weird about it. This could just as easily be called “2025 releases that made Milo Feel A Feeling™.” #2 is not objectively better than #9. These are emotional coordinates, not Olympic scores.

10. Obscura – A Sonication

Obscura made an album with melodies now. (I’m joking. Mostly.) A Sonication feels like sending a gifted child off to college: still brilliant, still complex, but now capable of eye contact and clear communication. The old maze of incomprehensible technicality is still there — it’s just better lit. The comfort of getting lost has turned into the calm of finding the way. Growth! Maturity! Character development!

9. Harakiri for the Sky – Scorched Earth

Emo. Emo. Emo.

What am I, if not forking emo — and so are these guys. They wear it proudly enough that I might finally stop feeling bad about myself (remains to be seen). In Black Metal circles this becomes “Post-Black Metal” when you don’t have the hair and use fancy chords (Joking – put that torch down. Don’t email me). My stand-up routine aside: Scorched Earth goes deep. It refines their sound and injects it directly into your bloodstream with absolute sincerity. If emotional masochism is a hobby of yours, congratulations — you’ve found your new favorite activity.

8. Agriculture – Spiritual Sound

To brighten things up: ecstatic, tender Black Metal. Yes, really.

(See? Agriculture = not emo. Totally different flavor of emotional devastation).

Spiritual Sound is joyful, chaotic, and weirdly comforting, like being screamed at lovingly. Yes, a paradox — I seem to be collecting those. Chaos and warmth coexist here in a way that feels startlingly human. You, know – Black Metal, misanthropy this, hate that, but relax. It’s okay. Try smiling sometimes.

7. Havukruunu – Tavastland

Simply put: Tavastland is monumental. Havukruunu tap into a mythic sense of place, merging melodic Black Metal with Heavy-Metal grandeur and pure pagan spirit. Every riff feels rooted in soil and memory, turning the album into a landscape that’s just as alive as it’s haunting. This one goes out to my friends, who spoon-fed me this record all year in frankly concerning amounts – there’s a big issue with playback monpolization in our circles. In this case, though, I most definitely owe someone a beer for it.

6. Decultivate – Decultivate

Raw, confrontational, and gloriously unpolished, Decultivate thrives on abrasion. It refuses comfort entirely (it’s just like me, FR), operating somewhere between noise, extreme metal, and ideological provocation. It sounds like a failed lab experiment where someone yelled “MORE ACID!” (can be taken in more ways than one) and then walked away cackling. It’s primal anger mixed with prophetic mistake, complete vocal and instrumental GORE. This is not an album you casually sip tea to. This is an album you survive, possibly while questioning more than fifty things about your life at a time. 

5. Tiktaalika – Gods of Pangaea

Charlie Griffiths’ Tiktaalika project reaches new heights here, blending prog, good old heavy metal, and psychedelic spice into something both cerebral and visceral. Gods of Pangaea feels like a love letter to the Darwinian-style family tree of Metal, filtered through modern precision. Still, it’s more than nostalgia. The atmosphere makes up perfect, distinct imagery that is somehow both novel and reminiscent. It kind of doesn’t make sense that this exact album hasn’t been made yet, and even with that said – it has arrived like a slap in the face for the shirtshow that is 2025. 

4. Vokodlok – The Egregious Being

Unsettling, abstract, and hostile to comfort, The Egregious Being is one of the year’s most alienating listens — and one of its most rewarding. Vokodlok embrace dissonance and fragmentation, crafting something that feels less like entertainment and more like an encounter with a beast you’d rather tattoo to look cool to your friends than have the pleasure to meet out in the open. “Grotesque catharsis” is its own genre at this point. A haunted house, but riffs are jump scares, and somehow it still feels polite. Tamable. Great for not thinking thoughts, better for throwing things meanwhile. You’re welcome.

3. Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar

If Catto hadn’t mentioned this on a Instagram story already, I might never have listened to it. As a known procrastinator, I rotate the same 50 albums until time collapses — but the cover art alone forced my hand. Imperial Triumphant continues its gilded descent into excess, and Goldstar is everything I want from them: grotesque, jazz-inflected, suffocating, meticulously composed, and just a tiny bit evil. Avant-metal at absolute peak decadence. It’s like a Gatsby party in Hell, and yes, I RSVPed.

2. Drudkh – Shadow Play

Drudkh remind us what vibes are, in case we forgot. Yes, atmosphere still matters. Shadow Play is so, so patient, melancholic, and quietly devastating, unfolding like a memory you can’t escape. It doesn’t demand attention — it earns it. Emotional depth outweighs innovation here, and that’s precisely why it forks hard. This album isn’t about innovation, it’s about color. It’s watching a painting being painted. And the paint used is just Pain with a T. 

1. Flummox – Southern Progress

To finish with a bang: no album in 2025 felt as urgent, fearless, or alive as Southern Progress. My first listen had me breathing fire into my bathroom mirror like I was about to unionize my reflection. Flummox obliterate genre boundaries (absolute legend behavior), fusing extreme metal, cabaret absurdity, and razor-sharp political commentary into something chaotic, confrontational, and deeply personal. Not just of its time — but something we genuinely needed.

Well, I sure as fork needed it. Final words (Or – why am I like this): if you’ve made it this far, congratulations: you survived my existential crisis disguised as an album review. Give yourself a high-five. Or a slow nod. Just don’t email me. Also, this: you don’t need a plan, a degree, or a functioning sleep schedule to face the apocalypse, but you’ll need a soundtrack. This has been my contribution. Cheers, and have a great forking New Year!