LISTMANIA 2025: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS”

(written by Islander)

We aren’t quite finished with our 2025 LISTMANIA series, but we’re getting very close. As we’ve neared the end in many previous years, we’ve included a “List of Lists” assembled by Dutch writer Peter van der Ploeg for his To the Teeth metal blog, which began life in May of 2016, originally on Facebook and eventually expanding to SubStack, and this year we’re sharing his List of Lists again.

As in the past, Peter explains that he began the exercise by assembling a population of year-end lists from an international group of music sites. For the 2025 endeavor, he identified the following sources:

This year I’ve counted the relevant lists from Album of the Year, Angry Metal Guy (AN Grier, Steel Druhm), Bandcamp, Brooklyn Vegan, Consequence of Sound, Decibel, Invisible Oranges (Colin Dempsey, Josh Rioux), Meat Mead Metal, Metal Hammer, Metal Injection, Metal Storm, MetalSucks, No Clean Singing (Gonzo, Will Cifer), No Echo, Popmatters, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, The Needle Drop, The Quietus, To The Teeth, Toilet ov Hell, Treble and Zes Losse Tanden. Some magazines or blogs publish a lot of personal lists: I included a maximum of two, to prevent publication bias.

Altogether, these lists included a total of almost 300 albums. Peter then assigned point values to the selections based on the rankings they received at their original locations. He explains:

I gave every number one position 10 points. Numbers two got 8 points, numbers three got 6 and the rest of the top-10 positions got 5 points. A top-25 was 3 points, and everything below 1 point. When two records had equal points, the amount of list mentions prevailed. When those were equal as well, the amount of number 1’s (or, subsequently number 2’s) counted.

Through those calculations, he came up with a “List of Lists”. And, with Peter’s permission, we’re re-posting it as we’ve done before — all 53 titles. You can read Peter’s discussion about the outcomes at To the Teeth here (in that discussion he points out, for example, that Ancient Death and Hedonist released the highest-scoring debut albums last year). You can follow To the Teeth at both its Substack and Facebook locations, and Peter also mantains an evolving playlist at Spotify.

1. Deafheaven – Lonely People with Power (80)
2. Messa – The Spin (75)
3. Yellow Eyes – Confusion Gate (64)
4. Coroner – Dissonance Theory (51)
5. Deftones – Private Music (45)
6. Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound (43)
7. Rwake – The Return of Magik (“)
8. Paradise Lost – Ascension (35)
9. Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar (33)
10. Deadguy – Near Death Travel Services (“)
11. Turnstile – Never Enough (29)
12. Havukruunu – Tavastland (27)
13. Ghost – Skeletá (26)
14. Ancient Death – Ego Dissolution (25)
15. Primitive Man – Observance (“)
16. Testament – Para Bellum (24)
17. Der Weg Einer Freiheit – Innern (23)
18. Blackbraid – Blackbraid III (“)
19. Sumac & Moor Mother – The Film (“)
20. Lamp of Murmuur – The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy (22)
21. Hedonist – Scapulimancy (“)
22. Blut Aus Nord – Ethereal Horizons (“)
23. Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – In The Earth Again (“)
24. Spiritbox – Tsunami Sea (21)
25. Sanguisugabogg – Hideous Aftermath (20)
26. Sallow Moth – Mossbane Lantern (“)
27. Terzij de Horde – Our Breath is Not Ours Alone (19)
28. Lorna Shore – I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me (“)
29. Evoken – Mendacium (18)
30. Castle Rat – The Bestiary (15)
31. Psychonaut – World Maker (“)
32. Wode – Uncrossing the Keys (14)
33. Conjurer – Unself (“)
34. Halestorm – Everest (13)
35. Weeping Sores – The Convalescence Agonies (“)
36. Revocation – New Gods New Masters (12)
37. Warbringer – Wrath and Ruin (11)
38. Teitanblood – From the Visceral Abyss (“)
39. Cryptopsy – An Insatiable Violence (“)
40. Hell – Submersus (“)
41. Igorrr – Amen (“)
42. Abigail Williams – A Void Within Existence (“)
43. Gaahls Wyrd – Braiding the Stories (10)
44. Dream Theater – Parasomnia (10)
45. Blood Abscission – II (10)
46. Lust Hag – Irrevocably Drubbed (“)
47. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Death Hilarious (9)
48. Sleep Token – Even in Arcadia (“)
49. Vacuous – In His Blood (“)
50. Nite – Cult of the Serpent Sun (“)
51. Zeicrydeus – Le Grande Heresie (“)
52. Species – Changelings (“)
53. The Callous Daoboys – I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven (“)