I can’t begin to describe just how relieved and happy I am to present the best albums of 2025 list, because damn was this a challenge to put together. Easily the hardest list I’ve had to winnow down in all the years of doing The Metal Pigeon, I had twenty one shortlisted nominees and it took me weeks of listening, relistening, and making notes (that I couldn’t make heads or tails of when reading back later) just to narrow them down to ten. I spent another week or so tooling around with the top ten list order several times, just to make this even more difficult for myself. At one point, I was flipping coins to decide who to put at the number ten spot just because I couldn’t decide and felt guilty — thankfully, I ceased this madness and decided to put in the actual work of relistening to the albums in question back to back and having them compete against each other to decide who would make it. Yes I realize I have a problem. And the thing is, I didn’t see this coming, because these lists over the past few years have come together relatively easily in comparison, but for whatever reason 2025 had a slew of great albums that when it came down to it were very hard to rank amongst each other, with the exception of perhaps the top three on this list. I’ll keep this short and sweet, only to mention a reminder to check out the Best Songs list if you haven’t yet, subscribe to the MSRcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and to thank anyone and everyone who came to this blog and read something I wrote. I’m always amazed and grateful that people do so. Hope everyone has a great new year!
10. Avantasia – Here Be Dragons
I know what you’re thinking, big surprise, an Avantasia album lands on The Metal Pigeon’s year end list, but hear me out for a sec — even I’m surprised that Here Be Dragons landed in the top ten. Up until I started reviewing this year’s releases in preparation to assemble nominees for this list, I didn’t think this album was a serious contender for most of this past year. When the album first came out in early spring, I expressed quite a bit of criticism towards it, and much of that still stands in my opinion as I write this. Roy Khan was squandered as a guest vocalist on “Everybody’s Here Until the End”, Geoff Tate’s guest spot on the title track was underwhelming, causing me to wonder if his role in the cast of guest vocalists is really necessary anymore, and I longed for this album to hit harder and heavier than it did (largely due to the intentionally rounded 80s prog influenced production approach). There were two songs here that were solo sung Tobias Sammet tunes in “Creepshow” and “Unleash the Kraken”, thus calling into question their presence on an Avantasia album where the whole schtick is supposed to be guest vocalists on every track. But for all its frustrations, this was also a collection of seriously brilliant songwriting, some of Sammet’s best in years actually. He conjured up magic for Bob Catley once again in “Bring On the Night”, delivered a Best Songs listee in the awesome rocker “The Witch”, delivered a convincingly heavy Priest-ian turn in the aforementioned “Unleash the Kraken” (shades of Edguy’s “Nailed to the Wheel” on that one), and crafted one of those trademark magical, epic choruses in the title track that just made it an undeniably awesome song. This entire album was in my Spotify generated Your Top Songs of 2025 playlist, and that fact snuck up on me, that this album stuck with me throughout the year despite my most critical eye on it. Easily his best effort since Ghostlights, Sammet’s talent as a songwriter is the high tide that raises all ships, even if they’re leaky.
(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2025)
9. Novembers Doom – Major Arcana
Its probably not a surprise to see this one here given how much we were raving about Novembers Doom’s twelfth album Major Arcana a couple months back on the MSRcast, and even here on the blog; but this was clearly a shoe-in for this list, the question was where it would land. Don’t think that because its back here at the nine spot that my affection for it has lessened, because it did not — however there is a likelihood that I played this so much in September and October that I burned myself out on it and it fell back a touch when I went back to review all the nominees. The unfortunate quirk about having to cobble together these lists is that you have to defend against recency bias and not forget about older records, but also consider how often you kept coming back to an album throughout the year, and if you go hard on listening to an album when it comes out and overplay it, that latter facet may begin to suffer. There’s also the reality that Novembers Doom do not make bad albums. They consistently make very good to great albums, and that kinda works against them sometimes because no one will be surprised to learn that Major Arcana is the most satisfyingly heavy record on this list, just hitting you repeatedly with sledgehammer riffs and a thunderous rhythm section. The best songs listee title track should be proof enough of this, but that wasn’t the only song that could’ve made that list, consider the empowering “Ravenous” and its teeth gritting circular riff progression. Vocalist Paul Kuhr is a titanic force throughout, and his ability to blend together harsh and clean vocals as a result of some mystifying physiological freak of nature ability is a singular talent, there’s no one else quite like him in the extreme metal space. Consider this one of the band’s truly great albums, a top three for me alongside Hamartia and The Pale Haunt Departure. The execution here was perfect, the thematic framework of the songs representing the major arcana cards in a tarot deck was truly inspired, and this band seemingly has no bottom to their well of creativity.
(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2025)
8. Opia – I Welcome Thee, Eternal Sleep
Sailing under the radar of most this year was this potent debut by new gothic doomsters Opia, its members hailing from Spain, the UK and elsewhere. Reminding me at times of Draconian’s lush melancholic melodies, and often of Swallow the Sun’s brutal heaviness during the more violent moments, Opia weave these influences into their own sonic brew of patient tempos and carefully painted atmospheres. Their greatest strength is in these modulating, gradual builds that interject washes of color into their nominally charcoal grey palette, as on “Man Proposes, God Disposes” (what a title!). It contains my favorite moment on the album just before the three minute mark where it seems like sunrays are slowly illuminating some unknown pit of darkness. That Swallow the Sun vibe really hits during “On Death’s Door Part I”, not only for vocalist Tereza Rohelova’s Mikko Kotamäki-ian screaming harsh vocal tone, but for guitarist and main songwriter Phoenix Griffiths’ penchant for crafting riff progressions that are sneaky earworms, operating as microhooks to counterbalance the permeating atmosphere they layer on via Jorge Afonso Rodríguez’s artful keyboard arrangements. This balancing act flourishes on “Days Gone By”, where Griffiths cuts loose with some sharp edged riffs that get close to outright heavy metal despite carefully navigating through the somber atmosphere. On “The Eye”, Rohelova’s clean vocals are rich and clear, carrying with her performance a feeling of introspection that reminds me of some of Martina Astner’s vocals on Therion’s Vovin album. I think that my immersion into old gothic metal over the past year and a half really put me in the headspace to be receptive to Opia, because their music requires patience for sure, and I don’t always have that in great supply. I had been keeping my ears open for interesting goth metal or even gothic tinged metal, and Opia has a take on the genre that certainly is a crossover to a more extreme interpretation of it as opposed to say Sentenced and Charon, but like their fellow gothic doomsters in Messa, they are redefining the boundaries of the genre in subtle but important ways.
7. Saor – Amidst the Ruins
Scotland’s Andy Marshall returned this year with yet another album of spiritually powerful, epic folk metal in Amidst the Ruins. Even that description fails in adequately describing the kind of all encompassing musical journey that Saor takes you on as you sit back and let this album wash over you. Like its best albums list making predecessor Origins three years ago, this albums most unforgettable moments are not necessarily its heaviest, but more its elegant sweeps into blissful melodic transcendence. Whether intentionally or not, Marshall managed to combine Origins bagpipe draped, cinematic epic grandeur with the grounded, earthen toned warmth of 2019’s Forgotten Paths. This merging of these two approaches is heard straight away on the opening title track, where a juxtaposition of the beautifully melancholic sweep of violin, viola, and cello artfully play counterpoint to the tumultuous violent metallic sequences layered underneath. Marshall’s magic talent lies in being able to bring together these apparently dichotomous elements, sounds, and moods together in perfect harmony, rather than separating things out into heavier and softer passages. The ending minutes of this song were one of my favorite bits of ear candy this year, that beautiful melody line echoed on lead guitar and Ella Zlotos’ beautiful low whistle playing. And while it narrowly missed landing on the best songs list, album closer “Rebirth” is in the running for my favorite Saor composition ever, its blending of blackened folk metal with some progressive song structuring captivating me for its fourteen minute run (tellingly, it does not feel that long). Its coda, with Zlotos adding her gorgeous, sonorous vocals to the mix is one of those aforementioned transcendent moments, reminding me of shades of Enigma, and leaving you with an emotional ripple of peace, calm, and serenity, a very strange thing for even a folk metal record to achieve, let alone a metal record. But Saor are proving time and time again that they are not a typical folk metal band.
6. Ancient Bards – Artifex
It’s a credit to the talents of keyboardist/main songwriter Danielle Mazza and the incredibly talented Sara Squadrani that not even a six year gap since their last release, Origine – The Black Crystal Sword Saga Part 2, could derail what has been a picture of consistency in quality if not quantity. Picking up where they left off on the last album, Ancient Bards sound is indeed more cinematic and expansive than their earlier days where you could decipher out influences such as Rhapsody of Fire, Luca Turilli, Derdian, and Vision Divine. Those days of virtuosic guitar driven power metal have been slowly scaled back over the years into a more symphonic metal driven style that reminds one more of Epica and perhaps even Dark Moor’s mid-career transition post Alfred Romero joining the band. This album had a relatively quiet release reflecting perhaps the change in the band’s status as a touring outfit to a more stationary, studio based project, with little fanfare leading up to it (after years of speculative silence) and little press done to promote it save a few revealing Mazza interviews where he hints that more albums are to come (fist pump). This is a dazzling, adventurous, and emotional listening experience, from the Nightwish-ian dramatic pulse of “My Prima Nox”, through Squadrani’s passionately sung paean to devotion in the glorious ballad “Unending”, to the stately aura of “Minsters of Light”. The virtuosity is still a part of the band’s dynamic (bassist Martino Garattoni’s work is stellar in particular, he also of Ne Obliviscaris), with guitarists Claudio Pietronik and Simone Bertozzi spinning off Luca Turilli approved blasts of neoclassical shred, particularly on the soaringly epic single “Soulbound Symphony”. The bards may not travel the adventurous roads as often as they used to, but they’re still telling fine tales.
(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2025)
5. Månegarm – Edsvuren
I don’t think I had as much fun and pure joy listening to any album in 2025 the way I did with Manegarm’s Edsvuren. This is not the Swedish folk metal trio’s first time on the best albums list, landing on it with their previous two albums in 2019 and 2022, and they manage the hat trick here, a run that I’m not sure any band has accomplished in the history of me writing this blog. There’s something about Manegarm’s approach over the past half decade plus that has set it apart from even their older, more blisteringly black metal tinged albums that I enjoyed back in the day. Modern Manegarm is the sound of a band that knows who they are sound wise, never tries to be anything other than that, and yet finds a way to broaden their sound within that framework in a way that sounds natural, welcoming even. My favorite byproduct of the band’s experimenting in this way has been all the beautifully recorded and produced acoustic Swedish folk music that weaves its way in and out of this album, both on the heavier songs as a dynamic change of pace, and on its own as standalone balladry. They’ve employed a cast of excellent singers to contribute to these more lush, beautiful moments, one of whom over the past two albums has been vocalist Erik Grawsiö’s own daughter Lea, and Ellinor Videfors who has been a frequent contributor over the past four albums. The latter’s performance on “Rodhins hav” alongside Erik Grawsiö is a magical duet, a piece of music I figured had to be a traditional Scandinavian folksong, but no, its a Manegarm original, that’s just how good these guys are. Yet lets not ignore the metal in folk metal, because Manegarm continues their incorporation of straight ahead heavy metal songwriting into their mix, scaling back on extremity a bit to allow their music to breathe more. The instrument separation that occurs as a result allows masterpieces such as “En nidings dåd” to have swelling, monumental emotional build ups with epic payoffs. There is a case to be made that Manegarm is crafting the best music of their career right now, as well as some of the finest folk metal ever recorded.
(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2025)
4. Messa – The Spin
Every year there seems to be an out of left field album that sidewinders its way onto this list, and this year Italy’s gothic doom quartet Messa were the culprit. Their strange and mysterious album The Spin is not a debut, its actually their fourth full length release since 2016, but it’s likely the album that most of us were introduced to the band with, and for good reason. Standing out from the field of bands in both the gothic and doom subgenres, Messa’s take on these styles is inspired and fresh, using elements of one to highlight the other via clever juxtaposition. The charcoal grey doom riffs that permeate “Fire on the Roof” stand in sharp contrast to singer Sara Bianchin’s eerie, goth drenched vocal melodies that ring of Cocteau Twin’s Elizabeth Fraser and even Siouxsie Sioux. Bianchin turns in incredible performances throughout the album, such as on the gorgeous “Immolation” where she borrows some of Kate Bush’s light etherealness to weave together melodies that are hypnotic and meditative. There are parts of this album that dabble in musical styles such as jazz and country (check the opening bars of “Reveal”), and those kinds of disparate elements usually will throw me completely of course while listening to most albums (I’ve had trouble with Ihsahn’s albums that do this for example), but they didn’t phase me at all throughout listening to The Spin. Why? Because from the opening minutes of “Void Meridian”, Messa get you to drop your guard, the song itself already unconventional and enticing, and my mind immediately went to Oh, this is different but good different, and you sit back and let the album wash over you instead of demanding something from it. I remember hearing this very shortly after its release and taking note of it as something to maybe discuss on the podcast as a charming breath of fresh air, but long before we recorded that episode I was binging it full time. It stuck with me throughout the rest of the year and it was among the first albums from the nominee pool that I was certain belonged on this list.
(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2025)
3. The Halo Effect – March of the Unheard
The Gothenburg legends that form the ranks of The Halo Effect crafted something in their sophomore album that lived up to the hope that many of us had for this band when they first came together a few years ago. That means an album that is permeated with the sonic characteristics that call to mind that incredible but all too brief era in the mid-to-late 90s when the melodeath explosion left incredible releases littered all across our collective laps. The Gothenburg scene was in retrospect a small circle of musicians who grew up knowing each other, lived near each other, and some have even been in the same band with one another before. So it wasn’t a complete shock that Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquility fame, ex-In Flames’ classic line-up members Peter Iwers, Daniel Svensson, and Jesper Stromblad, and ex-In Flames and ex-Gardenian member Niclas Engelin (an equally incredible band who is tragically overlooked) would want to play music together. What is a shock is that after a debut album where they seemed uncertain of what this band was supposed to sound like, they managed to lock onto a musical identity on March of the Unheard that is hard coded with classic Gothenburg melodeath DNA, yet still sounds of the moment, a reflection of modern melodic death metal. This album crackled with intensity and a familiar warmth, in songs such as the uber hooky “Our Channel To The Darkness” with its Stromblad-ian trademark acoustic guitarwork decorating the intro to a phenomenal lead figure serving as the hook during the chorus. That detail of the guitar melodies driving the songwriting instead of vocal melodies, connects these songs to the subgenre’s foundations, as on “March of the Unheard” where the expressive lead guitar coda acts as the exuberant payoff after a turbulent buildup. When the band switches gears to let Stanne steer things with his richly melodic clean singing, as on “Between Directions”, they utilize lead guitar melodies as part of an informal string section along with the cello and violin to serve as a counterpoint to his vocal lines. I was excited two years ago when the young Minneapolis upstarts in Majesties released Vast Reaches Unclaimed, a purposeful throwback to the late 90s melodeath sound, but I’m even more excited by March of the Unheard, because it feels like a wormhole connecting us to the past, bridging two eras of melodeath together.
2. Helloween – Giants & Monsters
Confident, assured, muscular, and joyfully playful at times, Helloween’s second album with the post Hansen/Kiske lineup is a gloriously vivid celebration of what makes this band so phenomenal in every aspect. Those of you with sharper memories might realize that I’m ranking this higher on this list than its self-titled predecessor was ranked on my 2021 list, and truth be told, I think I can confidently say that I think this is a better album front to finish. Is part of that due to its shorter run time? I do think that yes, things felt a little more tightened up this time around with its relatively short fifty minute run time (Helloween was by comparison an hour and thirteen minutes!), but it goes beyond album length — this is a collection of incredible songs, and while lacking something as jaw dropping as “Skyfall”, this feels like a more cohesive album overall. It begins with the charmingly Scorpions tinged “Giants on the Run”, with its flurry of tempo shifts reflecting its multiple personalities, its one of the best openers in Helloween history. Michael Wekiath’s “Savior of the World” is classic Helloween, the kind of high speed, off-kilter rocker that the Keepers were built on, and it feels like a sibling to Hansen’s own “We Can Be Gods”. The layered piano runs that underscore the chorus resound with pomp and grandiosity and also a sly wackiness that is in keeping with Helloween’s career long commitment to keeping their tongues firmly in cheek. When they do get somber, as on the epic power balladry of “Into the Sun” where Michael Kiske and Andi Deris cojoin their voices together to supreme goosebump inducing effect, the results are magical. I spoke at length about the best songs listee “A Little Is A Little Too Much”, but I’ll chime in to say that even though I played that song an untold number of times this year, it has lost none of its charm in doing so, and the same goes for the entirety of the album. This was an album that wormed into your head the more you played it, and Helloween has earned that kind of attention from me in a way that only a select few bands have.
(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2025)
1. Blackbraid – Blackbraid III
Like a bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky, Blackbraid’s third album struck with a primal energy unmatched by any other record I heard this year. This album didn’t just live up to the band’s potential hinted and teased out in moments on their first two records, it shattered all expectations completely. I simply did not feel that a black metal album could hit me with this kind of impact both as an emotionally charged experience, but also just as a metal fan wanting to proverbially bang my head. This album succeeds in achieving all of this because the songwriting of vocalist / guitarist / bassist Sgah’gahsowáh focuses on both crafting rich, evocative atmospheres and crafting finely honed metal tracks that are intentionally stripped down of anything unnecessarily complex to maximize headbangability (that’s a word isn’t it?). The former is integral to the album’s success as a complete listening experience, these interludes of acoustic guitars, crackling campfires, and animal sounds working together to create vivid sonic imagery that matches the evocative cover artwork. It gives this album a feeling of place, that rustic North American landscape that existed before highways and byways and gas stations. So much of the lyrical themes on this album are ruminations on the passage of time and the preservation of ancient memories of the way things were, or traditions that struggle to continue. These ideas are given life on the albums four instrumental pieces, each a vital part of this album’s connective tissue.
When the headbanging parts come up, they’re blistering in intensity, raw in their sheer rage and violence, yet delivered with the clarity that made latter day Immortal so damn awesome and compelling. The best song of the year, “Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of my Death” is black metal perfection, a concentrated blast of energy with precision focus. Drummer Neil Schneider’s work throughout the album is stellar, but he absolutely crushes on this song and is a huge part of its success, his frenetic pace feels on the verge of going off the rails but manages to cling on for dear life. The snarling, animalistic intro to “God of Black Blood” shouldn’t work for most bands who would dare to attempt it, but it feels entirely of a place within this album, the perfect set up for the albums most fist pumping, neck hurting riff sequence. I also loved that melody wasn’t eschewed aside for straight ahead riffing, but played a major part in the composition of tunes such as “The Dying Breath of a Sacred Stag” and “Tears of the Dawn”, not only in adding to the memorability of their hooks, but providing a dose of color to what could have been a monotonal experience in lesser hands. I loved every second of this album, and when I listened to it, I did so from start to finish every time, wanting to be pulled into the world it was inhibiting and exploring rather than skipping around for my favorite bits like a greatest hits album. In my initial review, I compared it to great conceptual albums I’ve loved in the past such as Nightfall in Middle Earth and Epica, but truth be told I do skip around on those records quite a bit to bypass interludes. With Blackbraid III, the songs and interludes were skillfully woven together to create a complete listening experience that felt natural and grounded, and yet achieved cinematic grandiosity, a rare duality in itself, and deservedly the album of the year.
(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2025)
