LISTMANIA 2025: POPMATTERS’ LIST OF “THE 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2025”

(written by Islander)

We’ve all now breached the wall into December and the year-end lists will start rolling like an avalanche. For example, later today we’ll post our annual invitation to readers to share their YE lists with all of us. But for now we’ve got another installment in a different segment of the NCS YE extravaganza.

As part of our annual LISTMANIA orgy we re-publish lists of the year’s best metal that appear on web sites which appeal to vastly larger numbers of readers than we do — not because we believe those readers or the writers have better taste in metal than our community does, but more from a morbid curiosity about what the great unpoisoned masses are being told is best for them. It’s like opening a window that affords an insight into the way the rest of the world outside our own disease-ridden nooks and crannies perceives the music that is our daily sustenance.

One of those sites is PopMatters. It has been in existence since 1999. In its own words, the site “is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis” with a scope that includes “most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet”. PopMatters, which has been independently owned and operated since its inception, claims that it is “the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world”.

As in past years, PopMatters recently published a list of “The 20 Best Metal Albums” of the year, again under the by-line of Spyros Stasis and Antonio Poscic. You’ll find that list below.

After perusing the 2019 version of this list one of my NCS colleagues remarked — and I continue quoting this becaudse it still holds — “The PopMatters list feels MUCH more like the author actually cares about what is ‘best’ and not just ‘what our readers want us to choose’”. Much else of what I’ve written about the PopMatters list in past years also continues to apply this year.

The lists of these two writers is always very interesting, and that includes the one for 2025. It covers a very broad swath of genres, some of which will not personally appeal to every reader who comes our way, but the list again appears to be the result of genuine effort and honest thought — and it dives very deep.

If you’re keeping count, there are only three overlaps (Coroner, Teitanblood, Evoken) with the list from Decibel that we re-published to start this year’s LISTMANIA orgy, even though the Decibel list is twice as big as this one. All the rest are different.

There’s another reason why I enjoy looking at the list. As someone who tries to keep up with what’s happening in extreme underground music, I’m usually surprised by how many entries on the PopMatters list I haven’t heard, or in some cases haven’t even heard of. We did pay attention to many of the selections this year — I’m happy to see all three of those Decibel overlaps on this list, as well as Dephosphorus, Malthusian, Nekrodeus, Author & Punisher, Antiversum, Sallow Moth, Retromorphosis, and Yellow Eyes — but roughly half of this year’s picks we either didn’t get to or missed altogether.

As usual, the write-ups by Stasis and Poscic about each of the choices are enjoyable to read, and you can find those HERE, along with stream embeds. This, for example, is part of the mini-essay accompanying the album that took the No. 1 spot on the list:

Following 2023’s Master’s Murmur, a descent into industrial folk territory, it has been six years since Yellow Eyes last released a black metal record. The seasoned, New York-based act are a trusted force in the scene, boasting a substantial discography, and yet their new record, Confusion Gate, is a revelation. Not in the sense that Yellow Eyes deviate from the path, but in that they are doing everything better…. In a robust discography, Confusion Gate stands apart. It feels like this is the record that Yellow Eyes were working towards all along. The album that required 15 years of practice and experience to reach.

And with that, here’s the entire PopMatters list. What do you think?

20. Dephosphorus – Planetoktonos (Selfmadegod)

19. Blind Equation – A Funeral in Purgatory (Prosthetic)

18. Malthusian – The Summoning Bell (Relapse)

17. Ava Mendoza / Gabby Fluke-Mogul / Carolina Pérez – Mama Killa (Burning Ambulance)

16. Sulfuric Cautery – Killing Spree (Blast Addict)

15. Evoken – Mendacium (Profound Lore)

14. Nekrodeus – Ruaß (FDA)

13. Barren Path – Grieving (Willowtip)

12. OvO – Gemma (Artoffact)

11. Author & Punisher – Nocturnal Birding (Relapse)

10. Coroner – Dissonance Theory (Century Media)

9. Alicia Cordisco – Burden of I (Fiadh)

8. Zeicrydeus – La Grande Heresie (Independent)

7. Antiversum – De Nemesis Omnes Et Omnia (Amor Fati)

6. Vauruvã – Mar de Deriva (Independent)

5. Sallow Moth – Mossbane Lantern (I, Voidhanger)

4. Teitanblood – From the Visceral Abyss (NoEvDia)

3. Retromorphosis – Psalmus Mortis (Season of Mist)

2. Stygian Ruin – Stygia II: Ancient and Arcane (Independent)

1. Yellow Eyes – Confusion Gate (Gilead Media)