OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 3): IGORRR, FLOATING, GORLEBEN

(written by Islander)

As I’ve explained before, I think a song can be infectious because it’s catchy but also because it’s memorable, and those two qualities aren’t necessarily the same thing. Even when “catchiness” is a stand-out quality, that doesn’t necessarily mean the song is straightforward. Even quirky, twisted, and otherwise unorthodox songs can be catchy, though it might take a band with a special kind of creative lunacy to make that work.

These thoughts were running around my head as I decided to stitch together the following three songs in this third installment of the list, and if you haven’t heard all of them before, you may understand why if you listen to all of them now.

 

IGORRR

We gave a fair share of attention to Igorrr’s new album Amen last year. Hell, I alone wrote about three different songs from the album in three weekend roundups, though it was Gonzo who penned our full review. To quote from that:

Sonically, you can’t get much more diverse than the one-man act known as Igorrr. His ability to smash musical genres into each other like a 10-car pileup and maintain coherence — let alone intrigue — isn’t for everyone. But I had way too much fun with Amen to not mention it here…. In the hands of someone less skilled in the art of fusing genre fragments like some kind of demented Dr. Frankenstein, Amen would be a disheveled mess…. The trick to Igorrr is to just leave your expectations at the door.

I definitely had Igorrr in mind when writing the first paragraph above, because so many of the songs on Amen are both catchy and memorable, and also quirky and unorthodox. A prime example is the head-spinning one I’ve chosen for this list — “Headbutt“.

It really does begin like a startling headbutt delivered to the bridge of the nose… and then immediately switches to vividly rippling piano keys, vividly blasting drums, and vividly whirring guitar… and then switches again to solemn and soaring choral voices… and then switches again to vocal flame-throwing, viscerally throbbing grooves, and bursts of skittering guitar mania.

The twists and turns don’t stop there either. A syncopated beat provides the backing for a solo operatic singer and the resurgence of the piano. Further vocal and instrumental convulsions ensue, including spastic spices of glitchiness, spidery fretwork, guttural bellows, some terrific drumming — and of course a closing headbutt (two of them).

The video for the song is also fantastic.

https://www.metalblade.com/igorrr/
https://www.facebook.com/IgorrrBarrroque/

 

FLOATING

Floating’s latest album Hesitating Lights drew rave reactions from multiple writers at our site. It made the year-end lists of Gonzo, Chile, Wil Cifer, and Andy Synn (on the list reserved for 2025’s “Great” albums). It might also appear on Daniel Barkasi’s forthcoming year-end list, because he gave it a very enthusiastic review here.

Using different verbiage, all of these writers highlighted how well Floating had intertwined their death metal with other genres of music, most prominently post-punk, and did so in ways that produced constant surprises as the songs morphed. It’s also pretty clear that all these writers also found the music addictive.

I confess I was a bit late in discovering what all the hub-bub was about. I managed to compile about 50 new-music roundups during the year without including any of the songs from Hesitating Lights. But once I finally did give the album a full listen, my reaction was equally enthusiastic. I knew I had to include something from the album on this list, even though it wasn’t obvious to me which one it should be. Pretty much based on sheer impulse, I chose “Cough Choir“.

The song’s opening is striking, a combination of riveting drum- and bass-work and immersive waves of sound that shine and shimmer. But then the band put in a very big (and bouncy) hook. You’ll see. Oh, it’s still (sort of) a death metal song, mainly because of the ravaging growls, but the booming and rocking beats and the throbbing riffage come from other places. And the post-punk shift in the song’s penultimate phase is definitely from another place, but doesn’t seem out of place.

It’s so much fun to listen to this song, and to the album as a whole, especially for a listener like me, who was into punk and New Wave way before I got into metal. But you might like it too!

https://floating-label.bandcamp.com/album/hesitating-lights
https://www.facebook.com/floatingdeathmetal/

 

GORLEBEN

Through Comrade Aleks’ September 2025 interview of a member of Gorleben I learned that this German band named themselves after a municipality in Saxony, next to which an infamous radioactive waste storage facility is located. Hence the nicknames of the participants taken from the names of radionuclides, hence the themes of the songs. Their 2025 album Menetekel came out last October via Darkness Shall Rise Productions.

When Aleks introduced the interview, he wrote: “I would probably note one characteristic feature of the entire album: it is interesting to listen to. This puzzle of styles sounds attractive, it is original, and, what is important, the proportions are chosen in such a way that the material sounds digestible”. I wholeheartedly agree.

Not long after hearing the title song to Menetekel, I was convinced I should find a place for it on this list. As you may know, that title word is a contraction of the phrase “mene mene tekel upharsin”, an ominous warning that appears on a wall in the palace of Belshazzar, the acting king of Babylon, as recounted in The Book of Daniel. It is the origin of the phrase, “the handwriting is on the wall”, and it connects to the album in this way, as described by the band:

Menetekel is a warning about the destruction of our civilization and that the countdown on it is already running. Using time as a central element, GORLEBEN bring the predicted apocalypse into our present and makes it tangible from two temporal dimensions. The four tracks inevitably reflect the path of an uncertain future, marked among other things by the voracity of humanity. GORLEBEN divides, peering from an unknown future into the bleak present – mene tekel upharsin.

As for the song itself, the menacing, fuzz-coated riffing lurches and heaves alongside heavy bass moans, cracking beats, and shrill sonic contortions. The song also incorporates sprightly keyboard arpeggios reminiscent of the New Wave era, rhythmic flurries of clawing scratchiness, and maniac vocals that traverse a range between gritty malignant growls and wild, splintering cries.

It’s a seriously head-moving song and a seriously trippy one, augmented by the fluid flow of mysterious and mellifluous ambient melodies as well as double-bass rumbles, doubled roars, and garroted screeches. The drumming is excellent throughout and eventually becomes faster and more vivid; the toms also tumble and the snare rattles as the music and vocals grow more chaotic. But the music also grows more jubilant and vast, and by the end, the song sounds glorious.

https://gorleben.bandcamp.com/album/menetekel
https://www.facebook.com/GorlebenUran236/