Go and live your passion

  This is the last monthly top list for 2025! Next - the AOTY lists. November delivered some excellent albums, and I have at least 5-6 in mind that are landing on my various end-of-year lists.  For album of the month I am torn between Omnium Gatherum's May The Bridges We Burn Light The Way and Blut aus Nord's Ethereal Horizons . Both are just great. Omnium Gatherum album is quite a surprise, but it is catchy, memorable, uplifting, and sexy (ffs). You can sing along and enjoy a lot! Blut aus Nord is transcendental, out-of-this-earth, drifting you away again, making you forget reality with tears in your eyes... 1914 also released a brilliant album, so less cheesy than the previous.   And then the rest - yes, the below list contains good stuff out of the needless pile of releases that I go through every month. These 25 I selected are everything you need from the November'25 release schedule.  In less than a month, and as usual, I'll be publishing my 2025 favorites...

  A stacked October. Some great albums, and too many others that will be forgotten. I shortlisted 30 for the sake of abundance, as the month suggested. Easily, I could have drawn the line at 20, and, having in mind that the list below is roughly in order, you can see where it would have been.  Coroner's return is my album of the month. Of course. My first with the band was in 1989, and I have loved them since then. Exceptional musicianship and absolutely unfuckwithable with every album they put out. Now again, Dissonance Theory is a masterclass, just to slap all new tasteless bands in the face and show them how it must be done. When you are good, you are good. Age doesn't matter.  Right after Coroner comes Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration, the fantastic new album by Hooded Manace. Two things - I love HM too, and as a huge Paradise Lost fan, this album just blew me away. Gothic recreated, it is that much reminiscent of it.  Then the others. I must admit I was very ...

  September 2025. RIP Tompa. Another legend gone, another month gone.  It's been more hectic in terms of releases, and there are a few potential AOTY contenders that have been released this month that I definitely am going to take with me until the end of the year and beyond. Of course, I always make these lists based on what I enjoyed the most and what made a solid impression immediately after its release in the course of the given month. Most of the time, I don't have omissions or I am not mistaken about certain albums.  This is why you won't find new Amorphis in the present list. I bought the vinyl, but the album is soft, cheesy, super safe, and poppy. In one word -  needless. The direction Amorphis took is unnecessary for me, given the kvlt status of their early works and what the fanbase actually likes. No, I am not going to rant about their new album, just illustrating my point. Mors Principium Est did it so much better... Revocation couldn't make the cut for t...

  Another month gone, and here we are. It is that time of the month again when I gather my personal favourite albums of the month. This time I inserted 20+3 and it wasn't that hard, having in mind what was released in August 2025. Some worthy ones and a pile of forgettable fast food. You will say that I am criticizing again and repeating the same old story. And you will be completely right. There is no need of so many albums and bands to flood us with mediocre music.  Naturally, Helloween's Giants and Monsters is my album of the month. And again I'll repeat myself - we are so lucky to have the classic band still performing, still being super-strong and delivering these kinds of monster albums, that bring you to the good old times and make you smile that both you and the band are still alive and well! I'll write the same when the new Coroner appears in October, and I know it is going to be an AOTY candidate for sure. The rest in the chart are more or less in order, with ...

"...Unfortunately, it comes the final song...forever". Ozzy died. A whole era died, leaving thousands of musical successors, some great, others very, very poor.  We'll never ever have this kind of monster bands and monster artists, as the ones who were on stage in Birmingham for Back to the Beginning show (and in Hannover same day, same time). Soon, most will be gone forever.  The circus Fridays will keep on delivering tons of meaningless albums, a.k.a. fast food with zero staying power.  No rebellion, no attitude, no expression. The music we love will never be the same again.  I started my monthly lists in 2018, and I firmly believe in the importance of consistency. The lists on the blog include very few of the circus Fridays. I started it to write down, record and keep a track of what I like, what might eventually stay, and what is better than the rest in this particular moment in time. This doesn't mean the bands and the albums will be of the magnitude of Black Sa...

  I managed to gather 20 albums from the mediocre June 2025 in this present list! Definitely GRUESOME delivered the album of the month with their brand new Silent Echoes! Absolute Death's Human worship, and here we go - it is deservedly on top. Definitely an AOTY candidate too. Katatonia's brand new album hit me, so it goes second. I couldn't listen to everything that was released, but looking at the schedule, I didn't have the will to do so.  Nothing much to add as a context, I wrote a sentence with my thoughts next to each album below. Definitely taking Gruesome and few more with me in the next months. Here's my top 20 of June 2025 releases, more or less in a particular order. You all know that it is always subject to change depending on the mood and the circumstances. Let's move on, and thanks for reading! Gruesome - Silent Echoes ( Bandcamp ) Death's Human worship with a lot of Spiritual Healing taste and pinch of Leprosy. What else could be my No.1 for...

  I didn't enjoy the May'25 releases that much. Very few caught my attention and I'll continue to listen to them in the future months. Even some of the albums in the list below can't be considered so strong. It is a very heavy list, though, and at this point in time, it was the best I could gather as proof of my enjoyment of the new music. Naturally, most of my choices are black metal and death metal, and some cringeworthy stuff as well. I won't comment much this time, but the first five or six albums will definitely be in my various AOTY lists. The last 4 are here just because of the momentary lapse (lack) of reason and were severely dependent on my mood.  Was there a clear winner of the Album of the Month prize? Not really because every one of the first five albums in this list could be No. 1, depending on the mood. Finally, I decided to put Kaevum on top because this is the way BM should be - UG, raw, straightforward, no trends, no fun and games, no sympho crap, ...

My notes on the new releases schedule in April 2025 featured too many new albums, and I trimmed everything down to 35 releases, which I decided to include in the present publication. I really wanted to include as many as possible. Not that there weren't more that deserved attention. The 35 below might have the chance to stay with me longer than expected. (probably until next week when another portion of new albums will flood us all 😂).  In fact, April delivered. There are some really good albums that I did enjoy. Of course, everything depends on the mood and the circumstances. There is probably something for everyone below. However, when I thought about the Album of the month, I couldn't decide on a clear favourite. My favourites over the recent years - LIK and Blood Abscission (my love for both is well-known), and even Machine Head, were potential candidates. As a huge MGLA worshiper, I listened to a lot of Varnheim. Tenebrae Aeternum blew me away during a month of listening ...

  March was full of new releases by many bands. That's why, for the third month of 2025, I will give you 25 albums in my regular monthly list, plus another 8, just in case. In total 33. These deserve high attention. I praise them as the best out of the big pile of new albums coming out daily. This can't be stopped anymore, and I am super tired. Of course, it is impossible to listen to everything, no matter how hard I try (at least in the genres I prefer). A few big names didn't make my list, and for a reason.  The question is always "what is going to stay with me in the upcoming months/years? What am I taking with me, what will stay longer?" Just because the list below could have been 50 albums long, but so what?! Even many of these 30 will be forgotten, and I'll barely return to them even in the following days. Yeah, this is the time we are living in - fast food everywhere.  By the way, the list below is also a nice mix of several genres that hardly go togeth...

February 2025 was a solid month. I listened to many new albums and the selection below only proves there were good ones. A 30-album selection is not happening very often most recently, especially in times of constant flood of new records (of mediocrity).  I tried to make a split in the selection, and there is a kind of top 20 and then another 10 very special mentions. Anyway, it could all be taken as one whole pile of stuff to be checked for those who haven't yet. All these are good and enjoyable albums that differ from the pedestrian release schedule that happens every Friday or every day of the week.  And I keep buying a lot of records, new albums or klassiks, my collection grows and grows. There is one clear album of the month for me. HANGMAN'S CHAIR's Saddiction took all the bells and whistles in February 2025. Soooo good, so melancholic, and so drowning into sadness. Then follows the rest, and the list here is somehow in a particular order this time. As I mentioned abo...

I still listen to the 2024 overlooked records and here it is - another month went by, so a new monthly list is on the way. It was a very weak January 2025, and there are very few albums that I can recommend. They won't have the power to stay long. I don't have much to say about the quality, yet the quantity was again dominant. The below 17 albums are the most solid thing I can come up with when we discuss new releases in January 2025. I liked them, I played them and they are my solid choices.  Album of the month? The Night Flight Orchestra took it over Faithxtractor at the very last moment simply because it will stay longer with me in the foreseeable future. I have loved TNFO for ages now and the nostalgia they bring. On the other hand, Faithxtractor delivered blistering death metal again! All the rest that follow are worth mentioning in the order of the appearance below. And of course, depending on the mood, they all serve different purposes in different circumstances. I recom...