2025 has been a fantastic year for hard and heavy music – be it alternative, doom, or hardcore. Need some proof? Here are ten albums released this year that you just must hear. Words: Christina Wenig
1. Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power
What a comeback! Deafheaven were never really gone, of course – still, there were some questions regarding the future of the band after their 2021 shoegaze/post-rock album Infinite Granite. But the Californians came back swinging in 2025, fully committing to blackgaze/black metal again. Lonely People With Power contains some of the most sinister and gnarly material the band has released since New Bermuda (2015), if not ever. Say goodbye to the brightness and classic rock licks of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love (2018) and prepare to even enter death metal territory at times. There are some clean vocals and noise/ambient experiments in here as well, resulting in a beautifully dark record that shows Deafheaven are still a force to be reckoned with in extreme metal.
2. Scowl – Are We All Angels?
Having emerged from the Bay Area hardcore scene alongside bands like Drain and Gulch, Scowl already used their Psychic Dance Routine EP from 2023 to indicate that they were peering towards the realms of alternative rock – and they fully entered this territory with their sophomore album Are We All Angels?. This record has undeniable pop appeal, catchy hooks, amazing songwriting, and a lot of firsts for the band from Santa Cruz. Most of all, they celebrate the contrast between heavy, sad lyrics and the sweet, fun melodies they are wrapped up in. Kat Moss’ newly discovered clean vocals further solidify her reputation as one of the best front persons out there right now, and the production by living legend Will Yip helps realize this record’s full potential.
3. Sumac & Moor Mother – The Film
Two heavyweights of abstraction and free improvisation meet – and the result is nothing short of breathtaking. On their collab album The Film, Sumac and Moor Mother enter common ground from the directions of doom metal, spoken word poetry and jazz. It’s a shared exploration of sonic textures, distortion and repetition, a meditation on modern life, marked by oppression and war. Trapped between restlessness and tranquility, these pieces (songs? scenes?) build, deconstruct themselves, rear up again – a constant ebb and flow of emotions, thoughts and energy.
4. Deftones – private music
Their first new single my mind is a mountain had already proven: Deftones are back! On their tenth studio album private music, California’s alternative metal icons present themselves rejuvenated and bursting with energy. This is probably no coincidence: Alongside early peers like Korn and Slipknot, the band found new popularity among a young generation of fans thanks to TikTok and Y2K trends. And we all benefit from this, as private music contains some of the best material Deftones have released this millennium. It’s nostalgic without sounding outdated and familiar without sounding boring, making at a quintessential Deftones record.
5. Castle Rat – The Bestiary
Who would have thought one of the most hyped new metal bands of 2025 would be as old school as this? Castle Rat from Brooklyn, New York, are drenched in nostalgia: They play classic doom rock, laced with some psychedelic and epic metal. The Bestiary is their second album within one year and exists, like everything they do, in their own fantasy realm with an elaborate lore and distinct characters embodied by the band members who are being led by their singer/guitarist, the Rat Queen. It’s an album full of epic, big riffs and gestures, theatrics and plain fun that make you feel like you’re in the middle of a scene from Conan the Barbarian or Xena: Warrior Princess.
6. Drain – … Is Your Friend
Is it possible to sound more Bay Area than Drain? This band embodies everything the Californian West Coast stands for: hardcore punk energy and thrash riffs, surf and skate vibes, and a whole lotta PMA and communal fighting spirit. Their third album … Is Your Friend is not a reinvention but a definite statement on who this band is and what they stand for. These songs go hard and are meant to be celebrated in the pit – no matter if you’re a headbanger or a mosher. And let’s not forget the incredible pop-punk-hook/pinched harmony/mega guitar solo mash-up Who’s Having Fun?. Silly question – we are!
7. Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound
Haters might see Agriculture’s “ecstatic black metal” as a provocation, some sort of anti-trve rage bait. But the truth is: Without caring about scene codes in the first place, the band has transcended black metal altogether with The Spiritual Sound, merging shoegaze, sludge, folk and more in their eclectic mix. This myriad of ideas and styles turns their second album into their most dense, dynamic and intense release yet – as well as one of the most remarkable releases of the year. Obviously, the band doesn’t waste time on genre clichés, instead using extreme music to explore different emotions and states of mind while searching for the divine and the sublime in our everyday lives. This album just might help us find it.
8. Primitive Man – Observance
There must be music for the really dark days – those times you’re just waiting for a black hole to swallow the earth. Observance sounds just like that. Primitive Man have established themselves as annihilating forces of nature in doom metal for more than a decade, and their newest offering is another blistering wound they rip open. These riffs and guttural growls have the power to shift the axis of the earth; this caustic noise the potency to corrode everyone and everything in its way. At times, there is some more tempo, some semblance of hypnotizing melodies – but nothing can eradicate the pitch black, monolithic core of this album.
9. Fleshwater – 2000: In Search Of The Endless Sky
It’s more than a happy accident that the title of Fleshwater’s sophomore album sounds like it was meant for a fantasy/sci-fi epic. 2000: In Search Of The Endless Sky is a record of nostalgic, hazy, cinematic scope. Far more than just a Vein.fm side project by now, their alternative/post-hardcore mash-up (call it grunge-gaze if you like) entangles you in reverb and wistful melodies – imported from the turn of the millennium, modernized and refined with a decent amount of crushing heaviness. It’s a record to dream to, to yearn to, to make you feel like a teenager again.
10. End It – Wrong Side Of Heaven
This album has been a long time coming: End It have been celebrated in the hardcore punk scene for the better part of a decade with their EP releases. In 2025, they finally released their debut album. This is 15 songs in 22 minutes, so you know you’re in for a wild ride. Wrong Side Of Heaven is an album for the moshers with a contagious no-bullshit, in-your-face energy. There’s much to love here: the rampant classic hardcore borrowings, the thrashy riffs sprinkled in for maximum havoc-wreaking, or their blunt outspokenness on social and political issues.
