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Primitive Man at Psycho 2019, photo by Ben Stas

Primitive Man at Psycho 2019, photo by Ben Stas

It’s been another great year for metal its many, many forms. After years of death metal seeming like the extreme metal subgenre of choice, black metal had its biggest year in a while, and in fact, a black metal album topped the BrooklynVegan list of the 55 best albums of 2025. There were a few other metal albums on that list as well, but for much more heaviness, here’s our list of the 33 best metal albums of 2025. Various versions of black and death metal are both here, along with various versions of thrash, sludge, doom, metallic hardcore, and a handful of out-there records that defy easy categorization. Narrowing this down to 33 wasn’t easy, and we decided to leave off Deftones (our #5 album of 2025 overall), mainly because it feels more like a rock album than a metal album anyway.

Read on for the list, in alphabetical order…

The Acacia Strain – You Are Safe From God Here (Rise)

It’s a great feeling when a veteran band is as immersed in the current culture as they were when they started out, and that’s been the case for The Acacia Strain for all 24 years of their career. Having cruised through the metalcore and deathcore booms of the 2000s and early 2010s, The Acacia Strain are now artist forebears to the current hardcore/death metal crossover movement, and they remain champions of all different corners of the heavy music underground. Their new album You Are Safe From God Here features contributions from God’s Hate bandmates Brody King & Colin Young on “The Machine That Bleeds” and Blackwater Holylight’s Sunny Faris on “Eucharist II: Blood Loss,” and the album also just might be the best thing they’ve made this decade. The Acacia Strain’s music keeps evolving, and founding vocalist Vincent Bennett keeps welcoming fresh new faces into the band’s lineup too. This album is their first with new drummer Matt Guglielmo, who joins guitarist Devin “Big Slime” Shidaker (who joined in 2013), bassist Griffin Landa (who joined in 2015), and guitarist Mike Mulholland (who joined in 2022 and made his debut on TAS’ two 2023 albums, Step Into the Light and Failure Will Follow). Throughout its 12 songs, The Acacia Strain touch on hardcore, death metal, doom/sludge metal, black metal, and more, all swirled together in a way that defies subgenre and just sounds like The Acacia Strain. It’s a whiplash of songs that all clock in right around two minutes, up until the album closer, the aforementioned “Eucharist II: Blood Loss.” It’s a shapeshifting, 14-minute, multi-part suite that could stand alone as its own EP, and it’s incredibly effective as the climactic finale of this album. It’s the perfect closer, the kind that makes you excited to hear the album in full because you know the last song hits the hardest after the journey it takes to get there. [A.S.]

Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound (The Flenser)

Agriculture’s 2023 debut album positioned them as the rightful heirs to the “ecstatic black metal” throne, and their sophomore album The Spiritual Sound finds them transcending that title entirely. It’s an album that doesn’t really fit neatly into any genre, with elements of black metal, sludge metal, screamo, folk, slowcore, post-rock, and more, often with two or three of those weaved seamlessly into the same song. The musical melting pot is matched by lyrical themes that make The Spiritual Sound qualify as a dual concept album, with bassist/screamer Leah B. Levinson taking on queer history and trans life while guitarist/screamer/singer Dan Meyer reflects on themes of Zen Buddhism. It would seem like too much to fit into one album if Agriculture didn’t make it all sound so enjoyable. Each individual song brings something distinctly different to the table, and even as it ends with the album’s most triumphant, climactic song, The Spiritual Sound leaves you wanting more. [A.S.]

Ancient Death – Ego Dissolution (Profound Lore)

For me, the best death metal feels like a location, a literal spatial world made accessible through music. There’s something about Ego Dissolution, Ancient Death’s incredible debut, that feels like open, dimensional space, and particularly movement through that space. The drums rumble and roll like the shifting rubble of a desolate land, the ominous bass booms like distant weather, the guitars judder like harsh winds or peal across the sky in starry streaks, the vocals howl and hunt like unseen denizens of the surrounding peaks… and the riffs. Oh, the riffs. Riffs that describe the falling of empires and the rise of new ones. Riffs that cut holes in space for solos to lance through like newborn gods (“Breaking the Barriers of Hope”, my goodness). The spatial quality of the songs provides a lot of room to breathe; Ancient Death aren’t afraid to jam out, then slow down and make some time to vibe in their alien atmosphere, then rip one star-sailing solo after another.

There’s an inquisitiveness to this record, a patience that takes a lot of confidence to give full rein to, which is why such a relatively short album feels so complete, and so endlessly explorable. The siren-like clean vocals that appear here and there call you deeper into the unknown lands, the lapping waves like alien tides on interstitial track “Discarnate” (Unlike some, I’m a real believer in the power of a good interstitial) are touches that reveal a band trusting their listeners to be willing to sit and savour the details. Maybe more than any record this year, *Ego Dissolution *was pure pleasure for me, a death metal record with an explorer’s heart and a poet’s soul that’s one of the best debuts in years. [Josh Rioux]

Biohazard – Divided We Fall (BLKIIBLK)

Let’s be honest: when Biohazard announced their first album in 13 years, expectations were not exactly through the roof. As important and influential as the Brooklyn metallic hardcore / rap metal crew were in the early ‘90s, they’ve had their fair share of less essential albums over the years, and their last album, 2012’s Reborn In Defiance, was not exactly received as the rebirth that it claimed to be. So it came as a bit of a (very pleasant) surprise that Divided We Fall might very well be the band’s best record in at least 30 years. It captures everything that was great about Biohazard in the Urban Discipline era, from the ass-beating riffs to Evan Seinfeld and Billy Graziadei’s gritty dual vocals, and it’s topped off with crisp, modern production that makes Divided We Fall sound as fresh as any of the current hardcore/metal bands that look up to Biohazard’s classic records. [A.S.]

Blackbraid – Blackbraid III (self-released)

Blackbraid III opens with the crackle of a fire pit, followed shortly by a haunting, gentle acoustic guitar. The track is called “Dusk (Eulogy),” and you can practically picture the sun setting over the Adirondack mountains, where the Native American one-man band that is Blackbraid lives. Once the scene is set, Blackbraid III comes pummeling in with the gorgeously ferocious melodic black metal of lead single “Wardrums at Dawn on the Day of my Death,” and we’re off. From there, Blackbraid takes us on a ride through some of his most towering black metal compositions yet, breaking up the fury with a few other acoustic interludes, chirping birds, and some hypnotic flute. It’s his third album in four years, and each one has sounded like a natural progression from the last. On this one, Blackbraid beefs up the production and brightens the melodies without letting up on any of his usual harsh intensity. [A.S.]

Caustic Wound – Grinding Mechanism of Torment (Profound Lore)

If cavernous death metal hung out with squatters and played basement shows, it’d sound like Grinding Mechanism of Torment, the second album from this Mortiferum offshoot. Despite being vile deathgrind, a large part of the appeal here is that Caustic Wound preserve death metal’s lack of elegance. This is a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing affair, and delightfully so. [Colin Dempsey]

Cold Steel – Discipline & Punish (Spinefarm)

Hailing from the land of Florida death metal, Tampa’s Cold Steel have released one of this year’s wildest rides. After two kickass EPs that were greatly influenced by Power Trip, the six-piece band take things to another level for their Spinefarm-released, Power Trip producer Arthur Rizk-produced debut album that has them mixing a plethora of ’80s & ’90s hardcore & metal into a thrilling mix of crossover thrash, metalcore, hardcore, groove metal, and maybe even a bit of nu metal. Metallica, Slipknot & Machine Head are among the influences the band proudly reference on the album (which also got an assist by Trivium’s Matt Heafy who contributed to pre-production and arrangements), and there’s no lack of fast riffs, and heavy breakdowns, and even what sounds like a bit of rap, along with three great guest appearances on the album including a heavy-as-hell one from Jesus Piece vocalist Aaron Heard. Lead vocalist and lyric writer Jose Menendez has something extra special in his voice that brings the band over the top in a year that also brought us likeminded great records from Species, Coroner & Drain. Obituary, Kreator & Carcass are among their tourmates this year and next, and they fit right in there too. [Dave]

Coroner – Dissonance Theory (Century Media)

Swiss tech-prog-thrash vets Coroner returned with their first new album since 1993’s Grin, and as Brandon Corsair put it on Invisible Oranges, it “sounds not at all like classic Coroner and instead like a completely different beast entirely. This is a modern record and, to quote a good friend, it almost sounds like they went in determined to show all the people who mismanaged these influences how it’s done. Modern prog done right. Amazing stuff.”

Corpus Offal – Corpus Offal (20 Buck Spin)

Last year, Seattle death metal band Cerebral Rot broke up and two members (lead guitarist/vocalist Ian Schwab, and guitarist Clyle Lindstrom) formed Corpus Offal, alongside Jesse Shreibman (Bell Witch, Autophagy) and bassist Jason Sachs (ex-Demoncy). They dropped a demo in March (that Power Trip’s Chris Ulsh called one of the year’s 10 best releases), and this year they followed it with their self-titled debut LP. The demo was a gnarly display of gruesome, ghastly death metal, and the album delivers on that promise. The production on the LP is ever-so-slightly less swampy production than the demo, thanks to the famed Billy Anderson (Neurosis, Eyehategod, High On Fire, etc), but a little sonic clarity didn’t stop Corpus Offal from becoming one of 2025’s filthiest records.

Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power (Roadrunner)

15 years and six albums into their career, Deafheaven released the ultimate Deafheaven album. Sunbather may always be the classic, but Sunbather doesn’t capture the full scope of this band the way Lonely People With Power does. That album’s gorgeous atmospheric black metal soundscapes are all over this one, as are the heaviest aspects of New Bermuda, the cleanest, shoegaziest aspects of Infinite Granite, and the post-genre ambition of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. Lonely People With Power is everything Deafheaven are capable of, on top of being one of the most cohesive statements of their career and some of the best songs they’ve ever written. It’s an important album for Deafheaven, and an album that dominated 2025 in general. Even in what was one of the best years for US black metal in a while, Lonely People With Power towered over the world of heavy music and beyond. [A.S.]

Decendent – For Those In Shallow Graves (Iron Fortress)

If old school death metal is your bag, For Those In Shallow Graves by Mount Pleasant, Michigan’s Decedent is a 2025 debut album that’s not to miss. It follows two EPs a split with Piss Leech, and it’s got about 35 minutes of ass-kicking OSDM filth, with a sci-fi synth interlude for good measure. Fans of anything from Incantation and early Gorguts to current torch-carriers like Outer Heaven and Maul, dive in. [A.S.]

Der Weg einer Freiheit – Innern (Season of Mist)

German atmospheric black metal band Der Weg einer Freiheit have touted their latest album Innern as one of their most introspective. It “offers a meditation on human fragility and existential transformation,” according to the band’s album description, and even if you don’t speak German, the LP’s final track “Forlorn” is fueled by clean-sung English vocals that put the album’s vulnerability on display: “Please don’t let me know if anybody’s hurt, ’cause I don’t wanna know if anybody’s hurt.” These five lengthy songs (plus one interlude) find Der Weg einer Freiheit delivering uplifting passages of brightly melodic black metal, injected with post-rock, shoegaze, and other non-metal influences like Radiohead and The Cure. It’s an album as harsh and heavy as it is heart-wrenchingly beautiful. [A.S.]

Evoken – Mendacium (Profound Lore)

Evoken’s first album in seven years found the NJ funeral doom/death-doom vets returning in towering form with slow-paced yet tricky rhythms, gargantuan riffs, haunting interludes, and the eerie growls of John Paradiso. It’s a concept album that, according to the album bio, “tells the tale of a 14th century elder Benedictine monk with malady from illness preventing him from leaving his room within the monastery he dwells within.” As Kevin Zecchel put it for Invisible Oranges earlier this year, “It’s delivered with the appropriate abyssal melodrama inherent to Evoken’s music. The songs increase in malevolence as the story progresses, monolithic riffs ring out in the vast space, and ghostly keyboards appear from time to time to accent the hauntings found within.”

The Great Old Ones – Kadath (Season of Mist)

The title of The Great Old Ones’ mammoth fifth album is a reference to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and the structure and flow of the album is said to mirror the classic horror tale, giving Kadath the arc and scope of a vast, immersive concept album. From moments that rival the blackened gothy theatrics of Tribulation (“Me, the Dreamer”) to a 15-minute prog-sludge epic that could sit next to classic Isis (“Leng”), Kadath kicks off on a thrilling note and continues to twist and turn and constantly surprise you. [A.S.]

Hedonist – Scapulimancy (Southern Lord)

Is that a lost Bolt Thrower B-side? No, it’s “Cremator” off the debut album by Victoria, BC death metal band Hedonist. The band, who were formed in 2020 with members of blackened thrash vets Iskra, aren’t reinventing the early ‘90s death metal formula; they’re just doing it really fucking well. Scapulimancy barrels you down with all the mind-melting riffage, burly growls, and haunting atmosphere you could ask for. This is OG death metal done right. [A.S.]

Hooded Menace – Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration (Season of Mist)

One of Finland’s finest metal exports in recent years has been embracing the wonderful element of melody, first with The Tritonus Bell in 2021 and continuing that trend with Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration. Hooded Menace sound like a death doom band that has an Andy LaRocque-type of guitarist at their disposal. It gives needed depth to a genre that can be depressingly one-note at times.

“Pale Masquerade”, “Portrait Without a Face,” and “Lugubrious Dance” do a supreme job of showing off the multi-faceted nature of Hooded Menace, never allowing for the listener to get comfortable at one rhythm, instead inviting another transition into doom, death, gothic, or traditional heavy metal. They check all the boxes, even covering a Duran Duran classic like “Save a Prayer” when they want to, but only these fine Finns know when to push it. Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration is one of Hooded Menace’s best albums to date. [Tom Campagna]

Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar (Century Media)

With an art deco aesthetic that reveals itself in the band’s vivid album covers and even more striking golden masks, Imperial Triumphant are a sight to behold and their music backs it up. Goldstar is the latest in a line of over-the-top albums that combine black metal, death metal, avant-garde jazz, prog freakouts, and lyrical themes that hold a mirror up to the band’s New York City hometown. This one also ropes in a drum solo from ex-Slayer skinsmaster Dave Lombardo, creepy vocals from Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake, and fellow NYC metal scene staple Yoshiko Ohara (of Bloody Panda and Hathenter), the last of whom provides indiscernible lead vocals as the band veers into grindcore on the 47-second “NEWYORKCITY.” Interludes are spliced throughout that mimic the chaos of NYC, but never is Goldstar more chaotic than when the three members of Imperial Triumphant lock in and let loose. [A.S.]

Lamp of Murmuur – The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy (Wolves of Hades)

In a year that was full of great black metal offerings, Lamp of Murmuur’s latest album stood out from all of them. As on Lamp of Murmuur’s great 2023 album Saturnian Bloodstorm, the harsh black metal parts are cut with elements of speed/thrash metal, NWOBHM, and classic rock, but The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy goes far deeper into post-genre territory than its predecessor. It makes its way through progressive rock, gothic metal, dark folk, symphonic interludes, and more, and the title track(s) is a three-part suite that clocks in at over 20 minutes. Even if a nearly-hour-long black metal album isn’t usually your thing, I think you’d be hard-pressed to deny how intense and unpredictable of a listen this one is. [A.S.]

Messa – The Spin (Metal Blade)

Italian band Messa’s latest album is a haunting witches brew that stirs together doom, goth, post-punk, psychedelia, and a little jazz, and fueling it all is Sara Blanchin’s soaring voice. A lot of modern doom bands get by on riffage alone, but Messa have a singer who understands what Ozzy and Dio and Jinx Dawson all understood: having a wailing powerhouse singer really takes this kind of stuff to the next level. [A.S.]

One of Nine – Dawn of the Iron Shadow (Profound Lore)

Tolkien-obsessed, medieval-themed, US black metallers One of Nine did it again on Dawn of the Iron Shadow, their second album and Profound Lore debut. The album injects the band’s black metal fury with harps, horns, chimes, chants, dungeon synth, and other shimmering embellishments, and there’s a real beauty to their melodies that brings some light to this often-dark style of music. [A.S.]

Paradise Lost – Ascension (Nuclear Blast)

Ascension is proof positive that certain bands can age like fine wine, and with tracks like “Serpent On The Cross”, “Tyrant’s Serenade,” and “Silence Like The Grave,” it may be the band’s best album in a long time, even in a stretch that included some of their strongest work. The wonderful layering of the Paradise Lost’s guitar gives ample depth to their sound, one that has become as associated with gothic metal as a whole, as it has the band itself. “Tyrant’s Serenade” could fit into the band’s now legendary Icon, and it’s not the only one that can make this claim. As it plays, Ascension reveals itself to be a near spiritual successor to 1995’s Draconian Times as it balances rock sensibilities with darker elements. Needless to say, it’s Paradise Lost’s best record this century. [Tom Campagna]

Pissgrave – Malignant Worthlessness (Profound Lore)

The balance of immediacy and extremity is the key to the Pissgrave experience. In one of the vanishingly rare and brief interviews the band has given (from 2015, if you’re wondering just how rare,) they describe their desire to create ‘reality-based death’. This approach is why it works, the concrete and dirt mangled through their music wouldn’t be as impactful attached to a prog-death concerto about aliens: life and death are the subject matter, the surface, and the substance, as it was on Suicide Euphoria and Posthumous Humiliation, and so it is on Malignant Worthlessness.

Seconds into “In Heretic Blood Christened,” and what you wanted from this album has been handed to you, the sense of hellish energy entirely preserved, the sound impressively consistent other than a new and sparingly deployed fondness for echo. What this reliability in sound does is allow us to focus on the songwriting, and it’s in this regard the band retains their greatest creative strength: from the tremolo parts on “Three Degrees of Darkness” that you will have you whistling a Pissgrave song, to the stop-start dynamics and pauses on “Dissident Amputator”, and the downward stomp of the title track’s lead riff: when faced with the level of craft and genre understanding here, Pissgrave transcend the other extreme signifiers of their existence, and become the ugliest, deadest death metal you’ve ever heard. And they do it all with sound. [Luke Jackson]

Primitive Man – Observance (Relapse)

There’s a case to be made that Primitive Man are the heaviest doom/sludge band of the past 15 years, and each new record they put out only makes that claim feel stronger and stronger. Observance is their first full-length album since 2020’s Immersion (and it also follows their collaborative 2023 album with Full of Hell, Suffocating Hallucination), and it offers up six lengthy, punishing, thunderous tracks of ten-ton sludge (plus one noise interlude) that’ll leave you flat on your face. It’s negative music for a negative world, and it’s more proof that “planet earth’s first and only Death Sludge band” just doesn’t miss.

Pupil Slicer – Fleshwork (Prosthetic)

After pushing their music to a poppy extreme on 2023’s Blossom, Pupil Slicer go in the opposite direction and deliver their heaviest album yet with Fleshwork. It owes as much to mathy, metallic hardcore as it does to black and death metal, and the darker tone is matched by the bleak subject matter. As Kate Davies shrieks on one of its songs, “Feel this exquisite rage.” [A.S.]

Ragana & Drowse – Ash Souvenir (The Flenser)

Black metal/slowcore duo Ragana and Kyle Bates’ shoegaze/slowcore/drone project Drowse (not to be confused with the Philly hardcore band of the same name) are both from the Pacific Northwest, both signed to the great dark music label The Flenser, and a pretty perfect pairing for a collaborative album. Ash Souvenir was named after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, which had a deadly impact on the Pacific Northwest, and you can just feel that PacNW air coming through in these songs. The album is broken up in four tracks, including the 14-minute, three-part suite “In Eternal Woods Pts. 1-3” (and the more interlude-like “In Eternal Woods Pt. 4”), and it’s a patchwork quilt of black metal, folk, slowcore, and heavy shoegaze, with both clean and harsh vocals from the trio coming together in a way that feels greater than the sum of its parts.

Rwake – The Return of Magik (Relapse)

On Little Rock, Arkansas psychedelic sludge band Rwake’s first album in nearly 14 years, the dual vocals of Chris Terry’s guttural roars and Brittany Fugate’s piercing shrieks sound as urgent and inspired as ever, and their softer moments of spoken word and hushed clean singing are just as impactful. With new lead guitarist Austin Sublett and the recorded debut of guitarist John Judkins (who joined shortly after Rest came out, but met Rwake when his old death metal band Denial of Grace opened for them in 1997), there’s both a freshness and a comforting familiarity to all the prog-psych-sludge riffage, and the longtime rhythm section of drummer Jeff Morgan and bassist Reid Raley remains absolutely gut-punching. Rwake make their Southern birthplace known by weaving elements of alt-country throughout the album and incorporating a spoken word segment by Jim “Dandy” Mangrum of the veteran Southern rock band Black Oak Arkansas, and lyrically the album reckons with distinctly Southern imagery, from witches in the woods to the towering presence of the Southern Baptist Church. On top of sounding as badass as it does, The Return of Magik resonates because it’s so incredibly vivid. [A.S.]

Scour – Gold (Housecore)

While Phil Anselmo stayed busy taking the current iteration of Pantera on tour this year, he also finally released the debut album by his supergroup Scour, nearly a decade after the band put out their first song. In Scour, Anselmo is backed by brothers John Jarvis (Agoraphobic Nosebleed, ex-Pig Destroyer) and Adam Jarvis (Pig Destroyer, Misery Index), Mark Kloeppel (Misery Index), and Derek Engemann (ex-Cattle Decapitation, Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals), with Exodus/Slayer’s Gary Holt providing a guest guitar solo, and this band finds Anselmo doing something a little more extreme than he does on the road with Pantera. Gold largely finds the members of Scour leaning into their shared love of black metal, something they capture so well that one reviewer claimed “you’d swear [second single ‘Blades’] came straight from Western Norway.” But it’s more than that. As another reviewer put it, Gold touches on “grindcore, melodic death metal, D-beat, thrash, black metal, techdeath… It sounds like Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Misery Index, but also Carcass and At The Gates, and yet further still Extreme Noise Terror and Cattle Decap and Discharge.” There’s clearly a lot in the band’s DNA, and it all swirls together into one dark, nasty storm that never lets up. [A.S.]

SUMAC & Moor Mother – The Film (Thrill Jockey)

One of the most interesting parts of post-metal trio SUMAC’s great 2024 album The Healer was a track that accompanied the album but wasn’t actually on it: a 4-minute remix of the 26-minute album opener “World of Light” by the experimental spoken word artist Moor Mother. It’s a genre-crossing rework that added a whole new dimension to the original track, and thankfully there’s much more where that came from; SUMAC and Moor Mother have now released an entire collaborative album together, The Film. On it, Moor Mother’s societal critiques sound as gripping over SUMAC’s blend of post-metal and noise rock as they do over all the other musical backdrops she’s known for, which range from free jazz to hip hop to experimental electronics. Her punk project Moor Jewelry is maybe the closest parallel to The Film, but even knowing that album wouldn’t prepare you for the musical journey that this new album takes you on. Moor Mother & SUMAC is a collaboration that’s truly greater than the sum of its parts, and The Film sounds like nothing else either artist has previously released. It also sounds like pretty much nothing else in general. The combination of SUMAC’s gargantuan instrumentals, Moor Mother’s desperate calls for action, and the occasional roar of SUMAC (and former Isis) vocalist Aaron Turner makes for an experience that constantly marches to the beat of its own thrilling drum.

Sanguisugabogg – Hideous Aftermath (Century Media)

Sanguisugabogg have followed in Cannibal Corpse’s footsteps and risen up as some of the gnarliest and most reliable torch-carriers for brutal, gory death metal. Their third album Hideous Aftermath is no exception, and this one’s extra exciting because it’s loaded with an impeccable cast of equally brutal guest vocalists from Defeated Sanity, Cattle Decapitation, Nails, Full of Hell, and PeelingFlesh. The whole thing is a total onslaught that delightfully asks you to check your nuance, tastefulness, and maturity at the door. [A.S.]

Species – Changelings (20 Buck Spin)

Changelings is perfect. The Polish power trio’s second record is an exemplar of agile, technical prog-thrash, the compositions intricate without being cluttered or wanky, everything lean and coiled as desert muscle. There are as many tight riffs to stinkface-headnod to here as there are progged-out warpholes to fall into–headnod stretching, pupils dilating–with every track finding different positions in space from which to leap between those valences. ”Born of Stitch and Flesh” is an obvious highlight on a record with zero dips, its swaggering lion king of an opening riff essentially a sun the rest of the track slingshots around to launch itself into series of accelerant jams and twisty passages that manage to feel both surprising and inevitable. Vocalist/lyricist Piotr Drobina’s dry raven’s rasp, somewhere on the Tim Baker-to-Chuck Schuldiner spectrum, suits the material perfectly, a taut sonic cable that takes up the exact right amount of space, but Changelings is ultimately guitarist Michał Kępca’s show; his single-axe athletics craft an almost weblike presence on this record, weaving wild, spiralling structures between and around the boiling rhythms his bandmates provide. Like with Ancient Death, Changelings falls into the pure pleasure zone for me. This is joy metal, a raised-fist fuck-yeah salute to the cosmos itself. [Josh Rioux]

Testament – Para Bellum (Nuclear Blast)

Of all the ’80s thrash veterans, very few are making consistently great new records the way Testament are. But Para Bellum isn’t just quality execution of an established sound, like Testament’s last few records have been; it’s a reinvention. As some of their darkest work, it prompted at least one reviewer to ask, “Is this Testament’s black metal album?” It rivals current thrashy bands far more often than it sounds like an ’80s thrash band resting on its laurels. I could be saying this out of recency bias, but it feels like Testament’s most noticeable shift since 1999’s death metal-infused The Gathering. Do not take this one for granted.

Tribal Gaze – Inveighing Brilliance (Nuclear Blast)

After putting out their killer debut LP The Nine Choirs on the trusty hardcore-adjacent death metal label Maggot Stomp, Tribal Gaze are now in the big leagues, signed to Nuclear Blast and opening tours for the likes of Cattle Decapitation and The Acacia Strain. They’re getting a much-deserved boost, and fortunately, that boost does not come with any artistic sacrifices. The Texas band’s sophomore LP Inveighing Brilliance finds them once again working with producer Taylor Young, and once again churning out slab after slab of hardcore-infused death metal. [A.S.]

Yellow Eyes – Confusion Gate (Gilead Media)

Confusion Gate sounds different than previous Yellow Eyes in so much that it’s “Yellow Eyes, but better.” The band’s key traits remain for the most part, now emboldened by more expansive songwriting, both interior and exterior to their woven black metal patchworks. Regarding the latter, the New York group employs medieval instrumentation and flairs to strengthen the record’s character and setting. Meanwhile, they’ve found the cure to their allergy to power chords; more power chords. By fattening their sides and bulking up the skeletons of their songs, Yellow Eyes sound more complete than they have before. [Colin Dempsey]

**

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