
Metalcatto
You know what you know. Let’s start
Suffering so you don't have to!

Metalcatto
You know what you know. Let’s start

Metalcatto
I don’t know what Willowtip Records is cooking most of the time, but somehow they keep delivering. So when Eximperitus – Meritoriousness of Equanimity (what does that even mean?) landed in my mailbox, for once I actually had expectations. I knew next to nothing about the band, and judging by the lack of noise around them, this still feels like a fresh act in an already hostile scene. Fearing I might be getting ahead of myself, I dove into uncharted territory hoping to find gold—like a proper colonialist—but enough context, let’s start the plunder.

Metalcatto
Welcome back—it’s been one day! So let’s get into what the new year already has in store for us. If you were hoping for brutal and merciless blackened death metal, then today is your lucky day, because I’m here to show you what Shine have to offer with Wrathcult. An album with a promo campaign more pagan than an Edda Reddit thread. So prepare your spells and animal bones, because this is going to be one of those mythological trips—or at least I hope so.

Metalcatto
Just like last year, I leave the subgenre that contains my album of the year for last. It’s been a great year for Prog, honestly. At first it didn’t seem that way, but just like a 20-minute-long track, it gained momentum little by little (who am I kidding, you can’t sit through 20 minutes of anything). Anyway, let’s get to it.

Metalcatto
It’s time to reward the albums that made us scratch our heads and wonder: what the heck just hit me? Is this even metal? And should I be having an identity crisis because this album makes me feel stuff I didn’t even know I could feel? Anyway, you don’t have the answers to these questions either, so why keep bothering you? Here are my favourite avant-garde albums of 2025.

Metalcatto
There’s one subgenre that almost never disappoints, and that’s the original extreme Metal style. I’m talking about Death Metal—the one that’s given us the best and worst reputation among the normies. But enough chatting; here are my picks for the best Death Metal albums of 2025.

Metalcatto
Well, you already know thanks to Vicky that this was a decent year for black metal. In fact, this is probably the top I struggled with the most, but in the end I came up with a few jewels for you to listen to in your darkest hours.

Vicky
I listened to Black Metal this year. And a lot of it. So, I’m here to tell you the things that worked, as well as the ones that did not impress me, in terms of music as an overall. Today we focus on the good, the mean, and the evil (or the less evil), in Black Metal. We’ve covered a part of these albums in the past (something that shouldn’t be a surprise), but I’m trying not to repeat what has been said before about these materials. This is just a ranking I’ve made very quickly, without browsing extensively for lyrics, so beware.

Metalcatto
You know the deal with the shout-out section, so go for it!

2025 was a year where we had a substantial number of decent post-metal releases. However, only a handful of albums really stayed with me for the rest of the year, so this list was easier to make than the previous one. Anyway, let’s get into it!