OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 11): RIVERS OF NIHIL, FIMBUL WINTER, GRAVETAKER

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 162026
 

(written by Islander)

After today there will be 10 days left to complete this series before I stop at the end of January (unless I panic and post a segment on a weekend). I’m guessing some of you are wondering when I’m going to include more of the 2025 songs you played most often, because I’m confident there’s no way we’ve hit everyone’s favorites so far — there’s just way too many good candidates out there. But I also suspect that this list is already serving as a reminder of that very fact.

My own mind has reached the boggled stage where I know I’m going to have to leave off a great many songs that really got their hooks in me (and you) last year. I also know I’m incapable of ranking the remaining candidates in any way that will make the decisions easier, even with 10 more installments to come after this one.

Well, I’ll leave those agonies for another day and focus instead on today’s trio of addictives tracks. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 9): IN MOURNING, CYTOTOXIN, JORDSJUK

 Exceptions to the Rule, MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 142026
 

(written by Islander)

We’re at another installment of this list where I don’t really have any organizing principle to explain why I put these three songs together. They’re just three songs I thought deserved to be on the list, and they happen to come from three really good 2025 albums too, but each one sounds very different from the other two. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 8): THEMATA, VICTIM OF FIRE, HVRT

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  4 Responses »
Jan 132026
 

(written by Islander)

As I’ve repeatedly stated (to protect the innocent), this is MY list, not some kind of list of THE SITE. But while my own tastes and listening habits drive things, I do try to pay attention to what our readers have suggested, as well as what got our other writers pumped up. That’s pretty much what drove me to package these next three songs together:

Yesterday’s segment was likely to make DGR happy, and today’s installment should make Andy Synn happy… unless he thinks I fucked up and picked the wrong songs from these three albums. Well, we’ll see….

But what I really hope is that these selections will make YOU happy when you hear them. And to be clear, I’m still driving this bus. While my co-writers helped steer me toward these albums and songs, I genuinely did find them very catchy, memorable, infectious in different ways. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 7): CRYPTOPSY, LIK, SYNAPTIC

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 122026
 

(written by Islander)

A new week begins and so we resume the rollout of this 2025 Most Infectious Song list. With this Part 7 the number of songs climbs to 21.

For this installment I decided to lean into death metal, very different flavors of death metal to be sure, but each track a neck-wrecker. These choices ought to make my comrade DGR particularly happy, but hopefully many of you as well — though I quickly admit that the three albums from which I extracted these songs were home to lots of other infectious ones too. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 6): GAAHLS WYRD, BEASTWARS, CHAMBER MAGE

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  No Responses »
Jan 092026
 

(written by Islander)

As a reminder to people that our site’s name isn’t really the ironclad rule that it pretends to be, I always include songs on this list that include… singing.

I mean, the site’s name isn’t a complete joke. The vast majority of the music we feature has no singing in it — only growls, howls, or screams — and most of the time sung vocals don’t hold a lot of appeal for me. Given my tastes in metallic extremity, I find that they often tend to diminish or distract from the emotional and sonic intensity I’m after.

On the other hand, I readily admit that singing can enhance a song’s power, or add contrasting or complementary “colors” that elevate a song’s impact beyond what it could achieve with harsh vox or no vocals at all. The three songs I’ve added to this list today are examples of what I’m getting at. Of course, there are other aspects to the songs which make them addictive, but the voices — which are dramatically different from each other — are a key reason why they got their hooks in me last year. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 5): KANONENFIEBER, ONE OF NINE, ORDEALS

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  1 Response »
Jan 082026
 

(written by Islander)

In this fifth installment of my Most Infectious Song list I’ve concentrated on tracks that create varying intersections of black and death metal. No two of them are quite alike, but all three have left lasting impressions. I’ve included the first one despite the fact that the album it comes from will be a 2026 release, because the song itself was released as a single last August.

Without further ado, let’s get straight to them. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 4): MASTIFF, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, KOSTNATĚNÍ

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  4 Responses »
Jan 072026
 

(written by Islander)

There will be days when an installment of this list has a theme, something that connects the songs, at least in my head. The connections may not mean the songs live in the same musical time-zone or camp out in the same sub-genre territory. There might be some similarities of sound, but there might not. It might just be that the bands went off on their own unexpected and hard-to-classify jaunts. Yesterday’s installment was an example of that.

But even in my own addled head I had no connecting theme for today’s trio of songs. I was just scanning my long list of candidates and for no identifiable reason (other than the fact that they’re infectious) I decided to put these three together. If you perceive some connecting theme, please speak up in the Comments. That would be cheaper for me than booking time with a psychotherapist. Continue reading »

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

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  5 Responses »
Jan 062026
 

(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. Continue reading »

OUR LIST OF 2025’S MOST INFECTIOUS EXTREME METAL SONGS (PART 2): DORMANT ORDEAL, ANCIENT DEATH, ASIDHARA

 MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2025  1 Response »
Jan 052026
 

(written by Islander)

As a reminder, I plan to post a new installment of this Most Infectious Song list every weekday until January ends, and so here’s another one to begin the first full week of the month.

If you’re like me, this is a dismal day. The holidays are over, jobs command obedience again, and the calendar just seems to stretch endlessly ahead into this new year, one footfall after another into whatever new miseries or joys 2026 holds for us. (Hopefully it won’t bring a war in Venezuela, but bozos are running this country so who knows?)

However, although the day has a dismal cast from that perspective, these next three songs in our list should brighten it, and by “brighten” I mean bust it into fragments and set it on fire. Continue reading »

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