ninehertz

As we reach the end of 2025, it is perfectly natural to say good riddance to a nightmare twelve months. Politically and socially, it has been an abhorrent time. What happened to that Covid lockdown collective feeling that when we return to normal living we’d try to do things better as a global populous, work towards living harmoniously? Instead, we’re here with wall-to-wall news of fascism on the rise, sponsored genocide and immigration blamed for the ills of capitalism.

Thankfully, heavy music remains an outlet, as strong as ever, likely flourishing in opposition to the times. Here at ninehertz our podcast ended early in the year, but we returned to the written medium, with 297 albums reviewed on the site this year (so far), largely through full length pieces but also on roundups, articles and the few podcasts we recorded – focussing primarily not on the albums you’ll know of and be listening to regardless but those you perhaps might not, as has been our objective since we were a collective of fresh face naïve young pups starting this website in 2003.

We’ve had all manner of AOTY list sizes and approaches in years past, but I decided to go for a succinct Top 10 this year, as a challenge. Many (us in the past included) go for vast lists, but where’s the jeopardy and consideration in that? Anyone can make a long list – re-listening to all contenders and making heart-wrenching decisions on what just misses out on the cream of the year’s crop is what these lists are about.

So here is the ninehertz Top 10 Albums of 2025…

10. Matraque – Nature Morte

(Belarus / Ashen Tree Records / Doom, Sludge / Review)

What we said: “a doom record of such impact you can't help but become immersed in its density”

Stand out track: Kola

What we say: The heaviest, darkest and most evil sounding sludge/doom album this year came not from one of the standard bearers of the genre but from a previously unknown band from Belarus, on the Lithuanian label Ashen Tree. To listen is to wilt under its blackened rumbling noise, to succumb to its will. It is sludge in the extreme, neighbouring death-doom, borrowing aesthetics from black metal, but always under the shroud of the weightiest of doom. It is a thrillingly oppressive experience, every time.

9. Ara – Mutterseelenallein und aus eigener Kraft

(Austria / Into Endless Chaos / Black Metal, Dark Folk / Review)

What we said: “the drawn back instrumentation is attractive, a sense of vulnerability in its musical narrative”

Stand out track: Tief und Laut

What we say: This is an album that seems to evolve and mutate every time I listen to it. I can hear it as a black metal frame on occasion, or a vaguely dungeon synth adaptation another. There are times I hear the doom, others the sheer innovation and weirdness to it all, and occasionally as a purely dark folk record. This is the magic of it, songs that take on an aura beyond their composite parts. It exists in this state for its full length, an odd but endearing recording I keep going back to.

8. Coltsblood – Obscured Into Nebulous Dusk

(England / Translation Loss, Dry Cough Records / Funeral Doom / Review)

What we said: “this is their defining statement, an album of prodigious darkness”

Stand out track: Waning of the Wolf Moon

What we say: It is of little surprise that it has taken fifteen years for Coltsblood to reach their third album. Each feels epochal, these monoliths in time that require years of crafting to unearth and animate. This is the greatest of all, the culmination of everything they have become through experience and dedication, a pure funeral doom record that stretches out and blackens the skies. It is an intense listen, as it should be, but also thrilling in its own perverse way.

7. Teleost – Atavism

(Scotland / Inverted Grim-Mill Recordings / Doom, Drone / Review)

What we said: “dense droning doom with well-dwelling vocals that echo through the cacophony”

Stand out track: Bari

What we say: Last year a short-lived promotion venture in Sheffield tried to run a monthly Tuesday night stoner rock gig in a shady venue. One month I spot Teleost are playing, a band I was fond of from their demos. They were incredible, even in front of about five people. It was doom bliss, ending with a perfect Floor cover. Fast forward to this month and their debut fill length is finally here and all the expectation I had of them has been met, a seriously mountainous album of doom drone, achingly slow even with its towering riffs, it is everything and more I’d hoped for from them.

6. Human Leather – Here Comes the Mind, There Goes the Body

(England / Wrong Speed Records / Noise Rock, Sludge / Review)

What we said: “it is riotously heavy at times, and brilliantly energetic”

Stand out track: Momentary Masters of a Fraction of a Dot

What we say: No album from 2025 has made me smile more. This is a simply joyous adventure through twelve tracks, a visit to Human Leather’s world – two best mates, a bass, a drumkit and a carnival of hardcore, sludge and noise-rock. It is chaotic, it is melodic, it is heavy. Songs don’t overstay their welcome, given just enough time to worm their way into your brain, dance around a bit, then on to the next catchy number. These are the albums you cherish, one for all occasions.

5. Rwake – The Return of Magik

(USA / Relapse Records / Doom / Review)

What we said: “all those strange layers open revealing Rwake's absolute uniqueness in the sludge realm”

Stand out track: The Return of Magik

What we say: There have been some seismic returns of giant US doom names in the last couple of years – Khanate, Acid Bath, Bongripper, Kylesa – but none made me happier than Rwake’s reappearance after a lengthy hibernation. They have always been out there on their own, crafting doom and sludge in their own mystical way, black magic at play in the teasing of the ugly and the ethereal, the heavy and the minimal. And now they return after eleven years and it is everything I remember and love about them, losing none of that uniqueness.

4. Codex Serafini – Mother, Give Your Children Sanity

(England / Riot Season Records / Psych, Jazz / Review)

What we said: “a joyous open market of wild, experimental and fun sounds”

Stand out track: Pitying Them for Giving Life

What we say: Already renowned for a carefree creative approach towards vibrant, eclectic and joyful music, Codex Serafini proved there’s still room for them to grow, to evolve and come back even stronger. This album is masterful – every time I listen I marvel at the fusion of jazz to doom, the bonds between world music and funk, the psychedelic patterns painted from a spectrum not even visible to other artists. I find it impossible not to be lifted by its bountiful charms.

3. Forged Relics – Portal

(Slovenia / Rope or Guillotine / Funeral Doom, Chamber Music / Review)

What we said: “I don't know what this album is doing to me… I've just sat down and taken in a ten minute long piano track and felt totally invested”

Stand out track: Borrowed Forms (Eternal Sea)

What we say: That something so unusual, bold and magnificent should arise from the ashes of doom/hardcore pioneers Leechfeast is of no surprise. Yet even still, nothing prepared me for this, particularly how much of an impact it would have on me. This is funeral doom taken to an unexpected extreme, stripped of guitars and replaced instead by organs, the doom as chamber music creating a vast, beautiful and spiritual experience.

2. Lower Slaughter – Deep Living

(England / Human Worth / Noise Rock, Stoner Rock / Review)

What we said: “they've lost nothing in terms of their individuality and ability to excite”

Stand out track: Year of the Ox

What we say: Lower Slaughter have a magic touch, bringing a rare warmth to the typically angular waves of noise-rock, consistently excellent since their first record but never better than here. They infuse their songs with strains of punk, hardcore and stoner rock to craft something distinctive, further offering variance across all twelve tracks which never allows for the album to wilt, as strong a collection you’ll hear all year. I loved this the first time I heard it, yet this has only increased over time. It is an album brimming with surprises, riffs and love.

Our ninehertz Album of the Year 2025 is...

1. Smote – Songs from the Free House

(England / Rocket Recordings / Drone, Folk / Review)

What we said: “it is album as ritual, and nigh on perfect”

Stand out track: Chamber

What we say: I massively over think these lists, every year. One factor of constant concern is of recency bias unbalancing my choices. But equally, you know that any release from earlier in the year that you are still listening to regularly is a deserving nominee, something that recent albums don’t have the benefit of – that wider assessment of lasting appeal. Smote’s was one of the latest released albums in this list this year, yet I have no fears over changing attitudes towards it. It instantly feels timeless.

There is a rare magic at work within, massaging its strange wonders. Strange in how individual noises that can feel so alien on their own combine into something organic, tangible and natural; strange how it can completely mesmerise you even in its quietest, ambient passages. And for all its bold uniqueness, it is its warmth that lingers – in The Linton Wyrm’s harmonious vocal pairing and overwhelming grandness, in the mournful climax of Wynne, even in the urgency of the flutes and deceptively doomy heaviness of Snodgerss.

Songs from the Free House transcends simple classifications, primarily through its collective ambition, where an album of vast reach knits so closely together and present as one. It is a record to listen to as a whole, to absorb as a single narrative. I feel transported listening to it, I hear new things every time – prodding at my emotions and imagination, occasionally with both an inner- and outer-space voyage outlook, more often a forest fire folk tale of a simpler time. Every time is a thrill, even now, many plays through. It is an extraordinary album.