TRANSMISSIBILE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES — AN INFECTIOUS ADDENDUM PART 3 OF 3

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Feb 252026
 

(We concluded the rollout of our 2025 Most Infectious Extreme Metal Song list at the end of January, but our South African contributor Vizzah Harri has prepared a three-part Addendum of infectious songs that weren’t included in our main list. The complete title of this Part 3 is: Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies – An infectious Addendum Part 3 of 3 (Shit’s about to get weird; BSL-4 entities + 1 bonus track).

 A lot of work goes into art. “Good art is that which brings meaning to reality. Creation is that what brings forth substance and truth.” A lot of us who look for new music become excited with new tones akin to being painted with colors imaginary, palettes that don’t yet exist. If that is all Leet-speak to you, then I’ll just say that you don’t need to fear this turning into the wheat and chessboard problem.

There’s one writer who perpetually fails to adhere to time constraints while jokingly asserting it’s nothing but a construct in this plagued rodent race. One that in aspirational pseudo-linguistical fashion was able to fool the underground in hacking his favorite metal blog by an enforced coup d’état on the infectious series 2 years ago. Sheeit, jokes aside, this is the infectious addendum nobody asked for (except for the fact that Islander has a Desert Eagle .50 pointed at my shiny head to get this shit done before the eschaton arrives). Here are the last infectious cuts you haven’t heard yet from last year. Continue reading »

TRANSMISSIBILE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES — AN INFECTIOUS ADDENDUM PART 2 OF 3

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Feb 242026
 


(We concluded the rollout of our 2025 Most Infectious Extreme Metal Song list at the end of January, but our South African contributor Vizzah Harri has prepared a three-part Addendum of infectious songs that weren’t included in our main list. The complete title of this Part 2 is: “Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies – An Infectious Addendum Part 2 of 3 (Blackened reaches, To stars and beyond, Unclassified viral infections, Queer cuts for bygone moons.”)

Wikipedia only lists around 1555 albums across all genres including metal for 2025 and only around 468 on the page for ‘heavy metal’. If you have Catamarcan dune sands’ worth of time on your hands you should really give the big list a scroll cos cool stuff like the Malatu Astatke’s reimagining and improvisation on old hits popped up. The encyclopedia for the archives of metal lists 32,613 releases for last year: Continue reading »

TRANSMISSIBILE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES — AN INFECTIOUS ADDENDUM PART 1 OF 3

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Feb 232026
 

(We concluded the rollout of our 2025 Most Infectious Extreme Metal Song list at the end of January, but our South African contributor Vizzah Harri has prepared a three-part Addendum of infectious songs that weren’t included in our main list. The complete title of this Part 1 is: “Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies – An Infectious Addendum Part 1 of 3 (Prog, tech, avant, death, schedule 1 drvgs, gospel music?).”)

2025 had a lot of people feel like it was out to get them, like we were all engineers in the Starfleet wearing red shirts (for the uninitiated: a trope oft parodied that has to do with people wearing red in a sci-fi show predestined to die before the third act). If you’re reading this, the scars might be real, hell does exist on earth, there are still monsters and beasties out there, but somehow and somewhere there is also a balancing counter effect.

The 26th year of the 3rd millennium is already well underway, and even though African shores that follow Gregorian calendars are where these words are writ, I still tend to live partially or at least in spirit, on Eastern shores where the year of the fire horse only commences in the middle of February.

Superstitions can have far-reaching effects if a whole populace gets hyped up by it. 1966, the last occurrence of the red horse, induced a significant drop in fertility in Japan because of oral traditions relating this astrological occurrence with misogynistic overtones. One origin story is of a real woman who was burned at the stake for an apparent attempt to commit arson, and though there are varying accounts, Yaoya Oshichi was born in the very metal year of the fire horse, 1666. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS: THE COMPLETE LIST

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  3 Responses »
Feb 032026
 

(written by Islander)

Last Friday I posted the final installment in our list of 2025’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs, the one part of our year-end LISTMANIA series that I alone am responsible for. In compiling that list I wound up with 64 songs before forcing myself to stop. That compares to 69 songs on the 2024 list.

As always, putting together the list was both fun and stressful — fun to re-listen to lots of good music and get reminded of what a good year it was for metal, stressful because list-making of any kind is so difficult for me. Also as usual, my list didn’t cover the entire waterfront of metal genres, given the limitations of my own (still very expansive) tastes,

And of course, as is true every year, I really wasn’t finished when I stopped. A lot of candidates just as worthy as the 64 I chose were left by the wayside when I hit the February wall. Maybe some others will be honored by other writers (last year, for example, both DGR and Andy Synn added addenda to the list), but I don’t know if or when that might happen this year, so I’m doing this wrap-up post now. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 21): PELICAN, DEMONIC DEATH JUDGE, BEWARE OF THE GODS, DAWN OF A DARK AGE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 302026
 

(written by Islander)

Well, here we are, at the last installment of this 2025 Most Infectious Song list. On the one hand, I’m breathing a big sigh of relief because I’ve been preparing these segments every weekday since January 1st, and it’s been a lot of fucking work to do that. On the other hand, even though I’ve managed to list 64 songs (including the ones today), I’ve still had to close down without yelling about all the songs worth yelling about from last year.

Given that this is the end, I expected I’d feel a lot of anxiety when picking this last match of songs. But in actuality I didn’t knot up my guts and brains over it. I just kind of let go and allowed impulse to take the wheel, content with the idea that these last four are really good and really infectious songs, even if I’ve had to leave many equally infectious ones off on the side of the road. I also think there’s a bit of a “rock the fuck out” connection between the first three, and how can you go wrong with that?, plus a “what the hell, I’m doing this!” predicate for the last one.

On Monday I’ll do a wrap-up post that lists all the songs in this 2025 collection and includes links to each segment. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 20): PSYCHONAUT, YAROSTAN, FLUISTERAARS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  2 Responses »
Jan 292026
 

(written by Islander)

We’re getting very close to the end of this list. There’s today, there’s tomorrow, and that’s it. With so little time left I’ve been repeatedly scanning through my giant list of song possibilities and just grabbing things that jump out at me from memory — but also still listening to things recommended by others that I’ve never heard before.

That process resulted in choosing the three songs below. There’s not a straight through-line connecting all three, but I do think the first two, one of which is a song I’d never heard before, fit together pretty well. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 19): YELLOW EYES, TRIVAX, TEITANBLOOD

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 282026
 

(written by Islander)

As I’ve said before, this list isn’t intended to honor complete records like most year-end lists. Instead, it focuses on songs that got stuck in my head (and the heads of other listeners), songs which might be, but often are not, from widely heralded records.

Yet sometimes I’ve been moved by the need to honor great albums in this list, and that desire was a factor in today’s three choices. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 18): MESSA, MATALOBOS, AMORPHIS

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  2 Responses »
Jan 272026
 

(written by Islander)

Some fashionings of extreme metal are so brutally downtuned or launch such ruinous percussive assaults that melody doesn’t seem to play a role in the songs. But in truth, melody almost always plays some role, though it might be very subtle or heavily obscured. Melody probably plays a more prominent role in songs we think of as infectious. Although grooves can be very catchy on their own, it’s usually melodies of one kind or another that make metal songs memorable.

The three songs I’ve put together for today’s installment of this list have strong melodic components. Unlike the majority of what’s on the list at this point, the voices carry the melodies in important ways in two of them, which is to say they have earned exceptions to the not completely serious rule in our site’s name. Two of them also have unusual instrumental features that help carry the melodies. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 17): UMBRÍO, DEATH OBVIOUS, INFERNAL THORNS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 262026
 

(written by Islander)

Now we begin the final week of this month-long song rollout. I know most of what this week’s last five segments will include, but not everything. I still have some agonizing decisions to make before calling a halt.

If you set your clocks by our posts (and of course you do), you’ll know that we got a late start today, and that this newest installment of our Most Infectious Song list is especially tardy in appearing. And so I’ll cut this intro short and plunge straightaway into these next three songs. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 16): VALLETTA, LACABRA, MANTAR

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 232026
 

(written by Islander)

In yesterday’s segment of this list I was explaining about the challenges I face in preparing it. Even though not one solitary soul asked me to do that, I knew you were hungry for the information — though maybe I was sensing a desire for pita bread and a big tub of hummus or a rack of ribs, and I just misinterpreted things. Desires don’t always reach me through the ether in their original form.

Anyway, I mentioned that one of the challenges was figuring out how to group together songs in these daily segments. Even within my odd mind there’s no particular rhyme or reason to many of the groupings, but sometimes there is, and today is one of those times. The first and third songs below just rock the fuck out, and even the one in the middle felt like it belonged, albeit for somewhat different reasons than rocking the fuck out.

All three of these songs were ones I was convinced I’d have to find a place for in this list from the first time (of many times) I heard them. Continue reading »

 Older Entries