LISTMANIA BEGINS: THE DECIBEL TOP 40 FOR 2025

(written by Islander)

Well, holy shit, is it already time here on only the 13th day of November to begin our site’s annual LISTMANIA orgy? Lo and behold, it is.

It has become an annual (and reflexive) tradition at our putrid site to launch our year-end LISTMANIA orgy with the appearance of DECIBEL mag’s Top 40 list, because they always seem to burst from the starting gate sooner than anyone else — and they’ve done it again this year, even earlier (by one day) than they did in 2024.

I need to repeat, of course, that the reason we also use their list as the launching point for all of our own forthcoming YE features is because, in my humble opinion, DECIBEL is still the best print publication out there for fans of extreme metal. Their list also always generates healthy discussions (and sometimes unhealthy ones), so it’s still a fitting way to launch the latest LISTMANIA season apart from the list’s early-bird status.

The DECIBEL 2025 list will officially appear in the magazine’s January 2026 edition (which can be ordered here and includes a cover story about GWAR’s 40th anniversary, a Hall of Fame on Pallbearer’s debut, an exclusive new Morbikon flexi disc, and writers’ commentary about the Top 40 list), but DECIBEL again decided (for the 11th year in a row) to scoop their own list rather than letting leeches like me leak it. They published the list on-line yesterday, and so I can now again re-publish their list without too much guilt, beyond the sheepishness that comes from being one of the factors that forced them to start outing themselves in the first place.

This year I’ll again start by quoting part of DECIBEL honcho Albert Mudrian’s online introduction, to place the list in context:

Let’s be honest—2025 was fucking weird. As the world’s equilibrium never fully stabilized, that imbalance often extended to our beloved extreme music. Just revisit Decibel’s first issue of the year, which included our Top 21 Most Anticipated Albums of 2025 feature. Only 12 of those records included in the list were released this year (our lowest percentage in the piece’s history), illustrating just how 2025 rarely stuck to its original script.

In the end, those surprises are what defined 2025. Whether that was a band who formed just four years ago challenging for our #1 spot or multiple members of the old metal and hardcore guard who recorded their groundbreaking albums 30 years ago, returning with new music that rivaled their seminal works, this year’s greatest gift was its unpredictability.

Once again, I’m not going to complain about the DECIBEL list. I know that anyone’s list is necessarily a reflection of their personal tastes, and it would be a minor miracle if anyone else’s personal tastes matched my own. There’s also the fact that I never make a year-end list of my own (other than the infectious song list, which just goes on and on and on). It’s kind of hypocritical to publicly take pot-shots at other people’s lists when you’re not willing (or in my case mentally unable) to put your own out there.

But on top of that, this year I did enjoy a lot of the records on DECIBEL’s list, and the overall reaction of some of our other writers who shared their reactions with me is that it’s a decent list, while others disapproved of it. For now, I’ll repeat what I write every year about year-end lists and why our site includes not only those of our own writers but also (like this one) lists that appear on prominent platforms elsewhere:

“Year-end lists continue to serve several useful purposes. One, of course, is to introduce fans to albums they may have overlooked. I also know people who don’t buy much music during the year and actually wait to read year-end rankings before preparing their shopping lists. And, perhaps most obviously, they give us something to discuss and argue about. Because apparently we don’t have enough to argue about already, even within a viciously polarized society in which yelling about something (anything) seems to be the daily past-time of millions.

“Of course it’s easy to argue over year-end lists. No matter who compiles them, they’re going to leave out albums you think should be included, they’re going to include albums you don’t think belong, and they’re going to screw up the rankings. I mean, that’s a given, isn’t it? As I’ve mentioned, the only list that could possibly satisfy any individual fan from start to finish is the one they make for themselves.”

To get back to this year’s DECIBEL list, it is again a mix of prominent and venerable names (for example, Sodom, Biohazard, Testament, Blut Aus Nord, Cryptopsy, Evoken, Paradise Lost, Deadguy) and many much newer and less-heralded names (e.g., Ossuary, Terror Corpse, Species, Castle Rat, Ancient Death), as well as come-backs this year after significant time away (Biohazard, Coroner, Deadguy).

I spent almost no time with some of the albums on the list because they didn’t appeal to my personal tastes or because I just didn’t get around to them. Some of them I listened to in their entirety and thought were very good, and people at NCS (including myself) wrote favorably about many of them. How many were considered truly great remains to be seen. All of this tends to happen every year, with greater or fewer numbers of favored albums on the list from year to year.

I’ll remind you that, as always, our own LISTMANIA series will include some additional lists from so-called “big platform” sites as they surface, plus lists by our own writers (we don’t prepare a staff-wide site list) and a few guests, and then that infectious song list I mentioned above.

And with that, here’s the DECIBEL Top 40 for 2025. Feel free to share your reactions (I’m sure many of you will have some) in the comments.

40 Sodom, The Arsonist, Steamhammer

39 Ossuary, Abhorrent Worship, Me Saco un Ojo

38 Nyredolk, Barndommens Hjem, Styglyd

37 Dead Heat, Process of Elimination, Metal Blade

36 Biohazard, Divided We Fall, BLKIIBLK

35 Sanguisugabogg, Hideous Aftermath, Century Media

34 In the Company of Serpents, A Crack in Everything, Self-released

33 Morbikon, Lost Within Astral Crypts, Tankcrimes

32 Agriculture, The Spiritual Sound, The Flenser

31 Wode, Uncrossing the Keys, 20 Buck Spin

30 Havukruunu, Tavastland, Svart

29 Shearling, Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah,” Mishap

28 Testament, Para Bellum, Nuclear Blast

27 Hooded Menace, Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration, Season of Mist

26 Nite, Cult of the Serpent Sun, Season of Mist

25 Blut Aus Nord, Ethereal Horizons, Debemur Morti Productions

24 Terror Corpse, Ash Eclipses Flesh, Dark Descent

23 Coroner, Dissonance Theory, Century Media

22 (16), Guides for the Misguided, Relapse

21 Species, Changelings, 20 Buck Spin

20 Blackbraid, Blackbraid III, Blackbraid

19 Castle Rat, The Bestiary, King Volume

18 Haggus, Destination Extinction, Tankcrimes

17 Volahn, Popol Vuh, Crepúsculo Negro

16 Decrepisy, Deific Mourning, Carbonized

15 Eternal Darkness, Eternal Darkness, Pulverised

14 Teitanblood, From the Visceral Abyss, Norma Evangelium Diaboli

13 Imperial Triumphant, Goldstar, Century Media

12 One of Nine, Dawn of the Iron Shadow, Profound Lore

11 Tribunal, In Penitence and Ruin, 20 Buck Spin

10 Lamp of Murmuur, The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy, Wolves of Hades

9 Deafheaven, Lonely People with Power, Roadrunner

8 Tower, Let There Be Dark, Cruz Del Sur

7 Cryptopsy, An Insatiable Violence, Season of Mist

6 Evoken, Mendacium, Profound Lore

5 Rwake, The Return of Magik, Relapse

4 Ancient Death, Ego Dissolution, Profound Lore

3 Paradise Lost, Ascension, Nuclear Blast

2 Messa, The Spin, Metal Blade

1 Deadguy, Near-Death Travel Services, Relapse