The 6 Best Metal Albums of January 2025
Before 2024 ended, I saw one final show to close out the year, a stacked five-band bill that included noise MVP Pharmakon and industrial metal group Uniform in a Richmond DIY space called The Warehouse, which is very literally a warehouse. It’s the kind of space that’s always hot no matter the season; in winter, even when it’s below freezing out, somehow the temperature inside goes up at least 35 degrees. In summer, it’s a sweat lodge. But I’ve never had a bad time there, and this was no exception. I’ve seen Uniform several times before, but playing the entirety of last year’s American Standard, they’ve never sounded better or had a more powerful presence, particularly during the epic title track when Michael Berdan shouted the intro in a silent room, paired with a responsive strobe light that illuminated with each strained bark. It was a hell of a way to finish the year, and I felt energized, invigorated, ready for the next chapter.
The first show I saw in 2025 was a couple of local bands at an Edgar Allan Poe-themed art show—not a bad way to start, but within a couple days, the year immediately took a harsh turn. My city underwent a water outage that left hundreds of thousands of residence without drinkable water for a week (including me) and for at least a day, no water at all. Immediately thereafter, I had a pet emergency that only compounded the stress (he’s fine, but still!), and a little over a week later, the worst people in the world got the keys to the country and every day there’s some fresh hell to discover. I’d like to trade in my 2025—I think this one’s broken.
With flowing water, a cat in recovery and a renewed sense of defiance, I found myself ready to get back out there and have my wig blown off by some loud music again, so naturally I returned to the Warehouse to see City of Caterpillar, Young Widows and Thou—all of whom absolutely ripped (first time seeing C of C, and holy shit!). But once Thou (who I also saw last year) began tearing through the sludgy standouts from last year’s Umbilical, I immediately felt that sense of hope creep back in. There’s something about hearing a band play loud, aggressive music, in a hot room full of people all there to celebrate the same feeling of catharsis and community, that makes you feel better, that reminds you that maybe a few less technofascists would be created if they just came out to a DIY show and had a good time instead of taking their daily supplements of white supremacist orthodoxy. All that malaise, all those bad feelings that crept in immediately after the year began, it started to fade, and I got excited about being in the presence of some great metal again. So let’s start this year right.
Most of the time when this column goes up, I’ve got a theme in mind, something that ties together each of these albums thematically or aesthetically (like when I go back to one of my favorite combos, sci-fi and metal). But this month? I’m just embracing the chaos, enjoying the eclecticism, and renewing my excitement for a new year of metal. It’s been a long year, and it’s only the first week of February. I’ll take all the musical catharsis I can get. Here are my picks for the best metal albums of January.
The Great Old Ones – Kadath
France’s The Great Old Ones—as Langdon Hickman recently reminded me in our monthly Crate Digging roundup—have a stellar track record of horror-influenced metal, swirling Lovecraftian imagery into progressive, dramatic post-black metal epics. As it is likewise with Kadath, an ambitious collection of ornate malevolence and breathtaking supernatural noir. Yet what stands out to me is not so much the thematic horror nor even the magnitude of the songs—two of the best of which surpass 10 minutes in length—but the band’s ability to craft songs that balance striking melodies while holding fast to a sense of overbearing darkness. The 15-minute “Leng” is perhaps the most exaggerated example, or the powerful opener “Me, the Dreamer,” but the driving “Those from Ulthar” and the dizzying “In the Mouth of Madness” more than hold their own, some of the best offerings from a band steadily expanding their stunningly strange and harrowing body of work.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Besna – Krásno
The most exciting part of writing this column every month is, without fail, the bands I’d never heard of before that cross my headphones and reinvigorate my enthusiasm for a genre I’ve been covering in detail for nearly a decade. I don’t know that much about Slovakia’s Besna; they were featured on a Fiadh compilation that also featured bands that have made appearances in this column, such as Spectral Lore and Falls of Rauros, which is about as much information as I had. But the group’s sophomore record immediately felt like a kick to the gut, balancing post-hardcore immediacy with a Deafheaven-like density and grace. There’s a distinct protest element to the album, which they describe on their Bandcamp page as “a powerful reflection on human resilience and a call for cultural and societal renewal.” And while I don’t speak Slovak, the sense of defiance and hope is nonetheless universal.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Uulliata Digir – Uuliata Digir
And here we have another band that I knew nothing about before hearing them in preparation for this month’s picks, but then again, this is their inaugural release—so let’s get in on the ground floor. Poland’s Uuliata Digir have only this month released their first proper album, the group featuring former members of Blast Rites and Heresy Denied, as well as a penchant for unconventional sounds. The album features three lengthy songs and two interludes, though within those monoliths are a vast spectrum of sounds, like with the colossal opener “Myrthys,” which blends a haunted, avant garde post-metal style with elements of jazz—an immediate comparison could be drawn to Ukraine’s White Ward, though the use of trumpet at times reminds me of the great art-punk group Dog Faced Hermans. Nonetheless, what’s here is strange, cryptic and mesmerizing, something wholly unexpected, merging various strains of metal, prog and jazz into a dazzlingly mind-boggling whole.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Trauma Bond – Summer Ends. Some Are Long Gone
What’s more cathartic than a manic blend of grindcore and powerviolence with a heaping dose of sludge? Why, nothing! At least not during the 29 minutes of Trauma Bond’s new album. The UK duo go for heft as much as relentless speed and intensity, the album’s longer and slower tracks emphasizing the sheer weight of what they do. But in their 90-second blasts of skin-searing violence, the duo put build concise but compelling structures of powerviolence blast and metalcore dynamics that are intricate despite their brevity, only to ease off the throttle for something even more brutal in the form of slower slabs of sludge like “Chewing Fat.” Summer Ends. Some Are Long Gone is both marathon and sprint, the best kind of training course for endurance I’ve heard in some time.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Pale – Our Hearts In Your Heaven
Blackgaze is a little like metal’s version of Soundcloud Rap, often cutting edge and capable of producing innovative breakthroughs but just as often an incubator for indistinguishable artists coasting on aesthetic. Tokyo’s Pale is not that kind of blackgaze band. Their debut full-length, following a handful of promising EPs, blends gorgeous instrumental passages with scorching surges of power and abrasion, which when done well can be more than enough on their own. But there’s a soaring post-rock sensibility to songs like “Almost Transparent Blue,” and a heroic progressivism throughout that reveals an influence of earlier ’80s metal icons that aren’t overbearing but color their sound enough to prove this band is the real deal. I’m not saying every vibey metal band with a Bandcamp page needs to listen to more Iron Maiden but… well, yeah, that is what I’m saying.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Century – Sign of the Storm
On the note of old-school heavy metal, you can’t really get more old school than Century. The Swedish group play heavy metal. Let me say that again: Heavy metal. Galloping rhythms, melodic vocals, soaring leads, questing, heroism, leather, denim, vocal harmonies. It’s glorious. Sign of the Storm is the kind of record that reiterates one of my long-held beliefs that sometimes the best metal isn’t that distinct from the best rock, and if you heard Century’s latest between songs by Thin Lizzy and Boston, it wouldn’t be out of place in the slightest. But the group clearly descend from the lineage of Priest and Maiden and Dio and Diamond Head—classic riffage with a reverence for melody and songwriting, and honest-to-Lucifer anthems. As much as I love leftfield experimentation and wild diversions from the expected, sometimes you just gotta rock, y’know?
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
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