Mark Young's Top 15 Of The Year

Personally, these are my top albums of 2025, generally they are in no order apart from the following which share my favourite albums of the year:

1. Azell – Astralis (Absolutely monstrous sound, a real step up from Scud in terms of arrangement and having such an expansive sound.)

2. The Great Old Ones – Kadath (From January and it’s not come off my playlist since then.)

3. Malefic Throne – The Conquering Darkness (A very late arrival, one that I’d missed on initial release. It’s a barnburner, one that shows that there are still things to be said in Death Metal.)

The following make up the remainder of the list, presented in date order:

4. Harakiri For The Sky – Scorched Earth

5. Grief Ritual – Collapse

6. Crown Of Madness – Memories Fragmented

7. Diatheke – And The Word Was God

8. Grey Mountain – Grey Mountain

9. For The Pyres – At the Pyres of Sin

10. The Callous Daoboys – I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven

11. Baelfyr – Empowered By Hatred

12. Hexrot – Ruin Of Oblivion

13. Nicolas Cage Fighter – I Watched You Burn

14. Coroner – Dissonance Theory

15. Ghold – Bludgeoning Simulations

All told, its been a good year for me, a decent mix of genre and style and those highlighted (specifically 1 and 2) have been a constant since their review. Malefic Throne was a late entry but deserved of that top placing.