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MetalBite's Top 10 Albums of the Month - October 2025

October - Top 10

Welcome back to MetalBite's Top 10 Albums of the Month. The race to get caught up in the middle of AOTY season is real. Will we do it? Will we languish behind to the point where our year-end lists are meaningless? Does anyone care either way? Who knows. Anyways, thanks for being here. Check out some sick albums below.

-Nate

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Blindfolded And Led To The Woods - The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me
Prosthetic Records

Damn, that album title + band name is a mouthful, perhaps capturing the suffocating, intricate density of the music within. Fans of Pyrrhon, Imperial Triumphant, and Gorguts are going to get some mileage out of this one, although even at their most discordant the thick production job gives this a crushing, volatile weight.

I struggle with adding albums like THTABGitNOBM (how's that for an acronym lol) to this column because you can't get an accurate read on how much you like it quickly. This music requires several listens - often over the course of several months - to fully wrap your head around. It's not built for rapid consumption, and I'm still nowhere close to deducing where this sits relative to other 2025 releases even with these lists running a couple months behind. But I can at least tell you it's worth a time investment, especially if you have a proclivity for the more mathy, challenging side of death metal.
-Nate

Illusive Key - Consume Us
Amor Fati Productions

Amor Fati have long maintained a strong line in aggressive and obscure black metal that holds true to the orthodox tenets of the sub-genre, but without slavishly replicating the sound of the Scandinavian second-wave, instead delivering the spirit of black metal in a variety of diverse and individual ways. Illusive Key are another such band, an international trio releasing an impressively fully-formed debut, Consume Us. Illusive Key primarily trade in blast-furnace black metal, with an unapologetically low-fi production. The combination of coruscating melodies and touches of dissonance, as on standout track 'Ghosts' suggests Darkthrone playing Deathspell Omega, and the furious intensity of the band's delivery ensures total attention throughout. It could be argued that Consume Us is fairly rudimentary in terms of rhythmic complexity and dynamics, but the ingenuity of the lead guitar lines and relentlessly hateful tone of every track renders this unimportant. As ever, when is prepared to mine a little deeper than the current mainstream flavour of the month, there is treasure still to be found deep underground.
-Benjamin

Pillory - Old Soul
Independent

Ripping death/thrash from the frozen hellscape of Sault Ste Marie. Lots of nods to Death, Cannibal Corpse, Pestilence, demo-era Cynic and even a bit of Vektor sprinkled about. No unnecessary avant-garde diversions on here - just sharp, tight riffs executed precisely and effectively. Kind of like tech-death before tech-death existed if that makes sense.
-Nate

Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate
Gilead Media

This is one of those bands that has been recommended by trusted sources and is right up my alley stylistically, but I have never given them a proper listen until the promo for this showed up in my inbox. They are very much modern black metal, with a touch of discordance and avant-garde lining the Cascadian vibe. Listening to this album feels like walking through a forest of glistening, metallic trees. You are immersed in what is ostensibly nature, but something feels…off, or displaced. Not in a way that is unpleasant - it's still pretty and colorful, but lined with sharp edges that cut you if you try to touch them. There is a certain euphoria, but with anxiety lurking underneath - it's as if the band is trying to audially represent uncomfortable happiness that borders on mania. The production's hazy qualities, with buried vocals and the remaining instruments fighting for dominance, shrouds the album in mystique. It invites you in, not fully revealing itself on a cursory listen - but after peeling back the layers, you might not be satisfied with what you find. "Confusion Gate" is a surprisingly apt album title.

If nothing else, this is very interesting. I don't know where I'd put this on my year-end list - really, I'm not even sure if I like it. But it compels me to listen more and dig deeper, and that alone is indicative of qualities that most bands don't have.
-Nate

Impermanence - Anicca
Satanath Records

Impermanence nails everything on their debut album, technical prowess with mind melting riffs and solos, balancing a decent level of catchiness (like the many riffs and solos on "From Mirage To Lust") and a blackened touch of atmosphere, making it sound extra evil (like on "Spiritual War", when things slow down a bit with haunting soft whispers just before the great solo). The only thing I would improve is that the vocals are a bit one note, but being tech death, it's not the worst since instrumentally there is always something going on. All in all, a really strong debut by a promising new band!
-Raphael

Drofnosura - Ritual Of Split Tongues
Transcending Obscurity

Sludgy, blackened, and atmospheric - this is one of Toronto's hidden gems. The disparate influences converge into a cohesive fabric that contorts in a fluid, yet unpredictable manner. The higher-register dissonant flourishes are as beautiful as they are eerie, and by the end of the album you're still wondering what the hell just happened. Though they thrive in playing with empty space in a way that accents the dynamics, moments of reprieve are rare. The atmo-metal scene in Ontario has been under-appreciated for a while, and it's nice to see that Transcending Obscurity is taking notice of it and living up to their namesake.
-Nate

Bonginator - Retrodeath
Testimony Records

This is a really solid listen despite being directly in opposition to my personal taste. I'm a 90s kid so I have zero 80s nostalgia, and crossover thrash/new wave hardcore-tinged death metal aren't my go-to genres. I can appreciate elements of humor, but if they supersede quality riffs you've lost me.

Against all odds, Bonginator avoids these pitfalls through ripping production (that snare tone is absolutely delicious), using the funny stuff as a garnish to make certain songs more memorable ("Short Ass Bus" being a prime example), and having a surprisingly versatile skill set for a band that is designed to be stupid mosh music enjoyed in a live setting. They might masquerade as idiots, but careful inspection shows a band that very much knows what they're doing and how to market themselves. Nothing is an accident.

Above all, though, this isn't really music that is meant to be dissected - just crank it up and bang your head, and go see them live (they tour constantly and have a pretty insane work ethic). This is covertly intelligent via its overt ignorance.
-Nate

Ultra Raptor - Fossilized
Fighter Records

Anyone here remember Vlad? He was a regular contributor to these lists for a while, and tended to cover a lot of classic 80s styled speed metal in this vein. Consider this my way-too-late tribute to him.

I am more of a "genre tourist" to this stuff myself, but Fossilized is a party and a half. Perhaps I gravitate more towards it because the members behind it seem to originate from a more extreme background, with ties to Csejthe, Hatalom Obvurt and Outre-Tombe. That usually helps bring heavy/speed metal into my regular rotation, as I do think informing it with some more modern sensibilities and production values helps things from feeling stale and dated. The choruses are catchy, the ballads go surprisingly hard, and there's colorful dinosaurs on the front cover. If you hate this, I'm pretty sure you hate fun.
-Nate

Silent Tombs - Mourning Hymns From Beyond
Personal Records

Pain, sorrow and the deepest darkness of the abyss with a touch of beauty and melodies? Sounds like a new Finish band. Well yes it does, but no, hailing from sunny Mexico, these boys can write some fine slow and depressing riffs, dripping with sadness but always with melody in mind. Vocally, Victor Mercado summons deep growls that are powerful and evokes the pain in a perfect way. He sometimes whispers/sings, bringing a vulnerability that adds to the depressing atmosphere. The production is raw and organic, with a cover art by Brvja XIII that captures the sad beauty of the music, it's a perfect album to throw on a cold autumn morning, gazing at the dying nature, getting ready for a long cold winter season.
-Raphael

An Abstract Illusion - The Sleeping City
Willowtip Records

Beauty meets atmosphere meets complex brutality. 2022 Woe was one of my favorite albums of that year and while I don't think The Sleeping City quite achieves the greatness of Woe, it is still enjoyable, think of bands like Ne Obliviscaris or Vintersea. They focus more on keyboard melodies and sound, more than real classical instruments, although cellos and violins are still present on some songs, giving the album a more modern prog feeling. Still, plenty of great ideas on here, like the pulsating heaviness of "Like A Geyser Ever Erupting" or the angelic chorus of "No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons" or the almost djenty riff of "The Sleeping City" and the devastating blackened blastbeats present all around the album. If you like modern prog with big and bright production, this should satisfy your cravings.
-Raphael

Despised Icon - Shadow Work
Nuclear Blast

I've been revisiting Consumed By Your Poison recently, so this new album arrived at an oddly fitting time - and it underscores to me that throughout their career, Despised Icon has always been a true crossover band, and one of the first to do it. Their technicality and sheer speed has always been substantial enough to make this a "safe" listen for the staunch metalheads, but the dual vocalist approach and use of big breakdowns gets all the mosh-heavy hardcore kids to come out to the shows. They've developed in terms of professionalism and had more resources behind them as the years have gone on, but their approach has always been the same - and this is the most inspired they've sounded since Day Of Mourning.
-Nate

Valdur - Guilded Abyss
Bloody Mountain Records

As a newcomer to US three-piece Valdur, it's somewhat daunting to discover that the band have already reached their seventh full-length, given the substantial volume of catching up that this triggers. Guilded Abyss caught the ear due to the hugely unpleasant nature of their blackened death metal. Or perhaps deathened black metal. Song by song, riff by riff, the balance of their sound shifts, a death metal riff supplanted by bulldozing black metal tremolo, the whole thing unified by a domineering vocal approach that wouldn't be out of place on a Revenge album. Although Valdur rather cheekily commence the record with a riff that directly lifts the iconic tritone sequence from 'Black Sabbath', it is instructive to note that this is as accessible as Guilded Abyss gets, the album devolving into dark and supreme evil as soon as the Mysticum-style drum battery joins the fray. Valdur lie somewhere between Pissgrave and Aborym, a cold, industrial edge lending their noise an unhuman and even psychedelic feel that is absolutely not for the weak and feeble. Valdur are the sound of disease and decay, and nothing living is safe as long as they exist.
-Benjamin

Morgue - Terre De Cauchemars
Ascension Records

A whirlwind of evil riffs has been unleashed upon the world from the cold and industrially ravaged lands of Québec city. These boys have been making music for the past 20 years and are as fuelled by rage and a hatred of Christianity on their latest work, Terre De Cauchemars, (land of nightmares), as they were at their beginning. Riffs are king on their fourth album, blending catchiness with devastating heaviness, making them memorable. Expect surprises like a bass solo on "L'âge Des Ténèbres" and a touch of sad melodies in the tremolo pickings of "Les Vautours". As for the musicianship, a lot of them played or are playing in various technical death metal bands, arguably the greatest metal export of "la belle province", and it truly shows. If you like blackened death metal and are searching for something less flamboyant and more honest than Behemoth, Morgue is here for you.
-Raphael

METALBITE'S TOP 10 ALBUMS OF THE MONTH

Tombs - Feral Darkness

10: Tombs - Feral Darkness
Redefining Darkness Records

I blind bought Savage Gold some years ago at a record store and it was in my regular rotation for a while, and initially this came off as a bit of a disappointment - mostly because I expected them to sound like that album. Once I acclimated myself and gave this some time to sink in, I started to appreciate this for what it is. Tombs has gone through a significant re-tooling - the shift from more "major" labels in the extreme metal world (Relapse, Season of Mist, Metal Blade) to a newer, more indie outfit in Redefining Darkness may signal a desire for the band to scale down and have more control over their artistic direction.

Feral Darkness is a grittier take relative to the rest of Tombs' discography. I'd call it a "back to the roots" album, but I don't think they've ever sounded this raw, nor have they expunged the post-metal leanings to this extent. Their style has always straddled a few subgenres in a way that you can't easily categorize, but generally speaking they take the more atmospheric facets of the style and deliver them in a way that might resonate with fans of hardcore and punk. There's a density and depth to the ideas they present, but the undercurrent of the rhythms gets your head banging. This album is less meandering and more on the nose, but once you get used to that, It is equally as compelling as some of their more well-known works - if not more so.

Is anyone else really into Wolvhammer? This album captures the same spirit, and that band also holds the same distinction of being perennially underrated.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 8.4/10

Dead Heat - Process Of Elimination

9: Dead Heat - Process Of Elimination
Metal Blade Records

This album sounds huge; it's pure crossover thrash that focuses on aggressivity and overflowing with energy. Comparisons to Power Trip are inevitable although Dead Heat are decisively heavier. The vocals are angrier and it's riffs after riffs of headbanging fun. The 36 minutes album ends with 3 highlights and especially the last, "Hatred Bestowed", where they truly go wild, with the most savage vocal performance, a short blastbeat and wild double kick drums. Super satisfying crossover for any fans of thrash!
-Raphael

What starts as a pleasant lullaby soon turns into an inferno. Dead Heat offer a speed-laden and brutal mixture of thrash and crossover not unsimilar to bands like Power Trip or Enforced. Occasionally they reduce speed, only to get out the demolition hammer to cause even more damage. The balance between old-school thrash and some more modern crossover tunes is well-done, making for one of the best albums in this genre I've heard in a couple of years. A track like "Annihilation Nation" with its brutal start and the barking chorus is a must-listen for every thrash metal maniac. Mosh or die!!!!
-Michael

MetalBite's Rating: 8.5/10

Morke - To Carry On

8: Morke - To Carry On
True Cult Records

Bright guitars, lyrics about medieval castles and personal growth, warm atmospheres and relaxing melodies. Yes, I'm obviously talking about a black metal album. If you think the description above is a recipe that would not excite the usual kvlt black metal fan, you're right, (except the castle part) but wait, hold on a minute! There are still plenty of aggressive but tasteful blastbeats, fast bursts of double kick drums and a superb vocal performance by Eric Wing, who also plays every instrument. The voice is a piercing high scream that fits perfectly with the soaring melodies and sits a bit lower in the mix with plenty of reverb for max atmosphere. The album flows seamlessly and at a lean 36 minutes, it has incredible replay value, songs like "Coup D'oeil" will be engraved in your mind for weeks, it's that catchy. Lyrically you have songs about medieval fantasy but also, beautiful poems about love and personal growth. The song "To Carry On" particularly resonated with me: "Every battle within Is able to be won To overcome the pain Is freedom of the soul Your life is in your hands Your heart is yours to mend Your love is yours to share Until the very end". To overcome pain is freedom of the soul is such a powerful line, and my severely disabled body relates so much. Until you have known pain, whether it be physical or emotional, you appreciate life much more deeply once the pain is gone.

If you like your black metal a little less rough on the edges, full of melodies and atmosphere, you will love this album!
-Raphael

MetalBite's Rating: 8.5/10

Coroner - Dissonance Theory

7: Coroner - Dissonance Theory
Century Media Records

Switzerland technical thrash pioneers offer us their sixed full length after 32 years! On Dissonance Theory, Coroner go full prog and bring their sound in a truly modern territory. They never forget the grooves, every riff has a great bounce to it. Being a massive Gojira fan, I hear many parallels, some of the breakdowns are as devastating and heavy. But Coroner also brings a touch of melody with shredding solos popping in almost every song. They also go very Meshuggah-esque on "Transparent Eye" with rhythmic heavy chugs but then throw in a great solo on top. They can do classic thrash as well, like with the epic climbing riff of "Trinity" or the classic, full speed riff of "Renewal" and that breakdown! Truly grimace inducing stuff. For three 60 years old men, this album sounds fresh, overflowing with energy and creativity and is probably their best album! Impressive stuff.
-Raphael

MetalBite's Rating: 8.6/10

Psychonaut - World Maker

6: Psychonaut - World Maker
Pelagic Records

Psychonaut is a Belgian progressive and post-metal band blending complex rhythms with ethereal atmospheres and the occasional burst of heaviness, counterbalancing their softer side. They are particularly strong with build ups, on the song "And You Came With Searing Light" for example, climbing slowly, increasing in volume and technical bass lines until it plateaus for a few instances and then explodes with harsh vocals and full heavy guitars and bass riffs. Harm Peters's drumming is out of control, slow grooves, complex fills and even tasteful blastbeats on "Origins". "Stargazer" begins as more of an upbeat prog rock piece but quickly gets heavier and continues alternating until a short atmospheric solo. I would compare the feelings you get listening to Psychonaut to bands like TesseracT, blending complexity and emotions with occasional aggressivity. Any prog fans should follow this band.
-Raphael

Raphael already beat me to this one, so I won't go on for too long, but this is one of my favorite albums of this year, period. I am a huge fan of The Ocean, Isis, Dvne, and psychedelics, so anything within those realms is going to get me excited, and Psychonaut checks all those boxes with aplomb. I was into Violate Consensus Reality, but World Maker has got me neck deep in their multi-faceted, progressive post-metal. There's a sludgy vibe that gives a viscous density, but my favorite moments on this album are when the band gets a little softer and leans into the post-rock. The off-kilter rhythms create extra space for this sublime ethereality to venture into. I definitely get the sense at least one of these guys - probably the drummer - is big into Tool and Porcupine Tree. Without laying on the purple prose too thick, this is an album that forces you to sit with dormant aspects of yourself, inspiring a level of thought and reflection that borders on transcendence. It's not often a piece of music can do that.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 8.6/10

Heteropsy - Embalming

5: Heteropsy - Embalming
Caligari Records

Boss HM-2 distortion pedal, slow crushing riffs and super melodic leads. Again with the Swedish death metal you might think, but no! Heteropsy are from Tokyo, Japan! What you get on this album is death metal, heavily flirting with doom, with incredibly melodic leads thrown in, just because they can and a monstrous cavernous vocal performance. And have you seen this cover art? I can't believe how sick it looks and how it represents the sound of this record perfectly, brutal yet beautiful at the same time, it's what I wished the new Hooded Menace sounded like.
-Raphael

MetalBite's Rating: 8.7/10

Blaze - Out Through The Door

4: Blaze - Out Through The Door
No Remorse Records

This Japanese band is such a revelation for me, the kind of feel-good album that is perfect in every way. First, this sounds warm and organic, with every instrument shining in the mix, the drums sound big but subtle at the same time, the bass is thick and audible, the guitar is bright and super melodic and Wataru Shiota's vocal performance shines, it's heavy metal done to perfection. The number of great solos packed in this 46 minutes masterpiece is impressive but my absolute favorite song on here would be "Picture On The Wall" a nine minutes epic that begins really heavy, with a Sabbath inspired riff that quickly goes in the most catchy chorus of the entire album (which is something since catchy chorus are everywhere) and then the song goes in a over three minutes long epic solo! This album is like a warm blanket that will become a repeated play in your playlist for months if not years to come.
-Raphael

MetalBite's Rating: 8.8/10

Malakhim - And In Our Hearts The Devil Sings

3: Malakhim - And In Our Hearts The Devil Sings
Iron Bonehead Productions

Chant, Lucifer, chant!!! Spread your word all over the planet. Oh wait, this is already happening, otherwise we wouldn't have elected all these assholes that rule a lot of nations at the moment. He sang quite loud just yesterday when the Orange Emperor and Honey Infantino were creeping into each other's asses while the World Championship 26 became a joke that needs to be boycotted.

For such cases we have the second Malakhim album with its fitting title. The music truly is devilish, sinister traditional black metal with a lot of energy in it. Their debut was already a really good old-school piece of Swedish black metal, and this is even more intense. A lot of tremolo picking, not too much dissonance or other unnecessary experiments, just gloomy, vitriolic music. "And In Our Hearts The Devil Sings" is one of the best traditional black metal albums this year. Let your hearts sing!!!
-Michael

MetalBite's Rating: 9/10

Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound

2: Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound
The Flenser

Remember Liturgy? They've settled into their niche in recent years, but when I was really taking the plunge into the world of underground extreme metal in the late 00s/early 2010s, they were a very hot topic. Crusty black metal purists loathed them, as they rose to prominence in a time when "hipster black metal" was persona non grata - and they were the most hipster-y of the bunch. The mastermind behind the project, Haela Hunt-Hendrix, had a whole philosophical thesis behind the art they were making, adding an extra layer of pretension for people to sneer at. Even with all the controversy, though, there was no doubt they were making waves, and something…different was going on. You could argue their merit until you were blue in the face, but there was definitely something unique happening, especially with the later work. Did I personally enjoy it? Not really. But I did find myself returning to it on repeated occasions, because it was very clear they were thinking outside the black metal box, and the ideas they toyed with warranted additional exploration even if they didn't fully click.

If Liturgy is the Meshuggah of this genre, Agriculture is the Periphery - the band that grounds the style, makes it more accessible and potentially legitimizes it for a wider fanbase. It's very different, but you can still connect one to the other, and the origins are the same. It's indie rock kids flirting with black metal, approaching a very rigid, gate-kept style with an outsider perspective that casts the ideas in a novel light. But even that is an unfairly narrow description - The Spiritual Sound also incorporates turbulent mathcore, layered, standalone clean vocals and post-rock buildups, creating a real "full album" experience that sounds completely different by the end than it does when you start. What you categorize this as will depend on what song you're listening to, which is something increasingly rare in an era of hyper-specialization and Spotify playlist culture. This album starts out very aggressive, dissonant and chaotic, and evolves into something tender, cathartic and ethereal by its conclusion - and it all feels like the same band. You could call it "avant-garde" but nothing feels weird for the sake of it. Quite the contrary, in fact - there is a sense of necessity and purpose behind this album that draws you in to listen even if it's not your preferred style. This quickly convinces you to buy into its eclectic features and constant twists. It grabs you by the collar, forcing you to completely re-assess what you think black metal should be (and can be).

I'll cut myself off before I get increasingly pretentious - this is something that is better experienced than explained, anyways. Agriculture have made one of the most compelling albums of the year with The Spiritual Sound. This feels like a group of people creating genuine art, rather than a business-minded band creating another rendition of the same safe product on a conveyor belt. I think that's something we need more of in the current state of our oligarchical, AI-infested world.
-Nate

MetalBite's Rating: 9/10

Hooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration

1: Hooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration
Season Of Mist

Shamefully, this listener has slept on Hooded Menace until now, on the basis that they were surely run of the mill doom-death, and therefore it was not necessary to listen to a band treading ground so familiar that one could simply imagine the sound of their albums, with no real need to actually verify the fiction. However, it is now clear that a mistake has been made, and the silver lining of making such a big one, is the corresponding increase in the fervent joy experienced in the discovery that in fact Hooded Menace have made one of the most triumphantly outstanding albums of 2025. The basis of the band's sound is Icon-era Paradise Lost, with a tinge of early Katatonia, and this alone would be enough for a fairly deep well of inspiration. What makes this record really fly though, is the way in which Hooded Menace so effectively integrate traditional heavy metal elements into their sound – the majestic riff part way through 'Pale Masquerade' that segues into an instrumental passage straight out of King Diamond's Fatal Portrait, a section lit up by unusual chord voicings and palm-muted lead guitar runs, or the manner in which 'Daughters Of Lingering Pain' transforms from a snaking Candlemass groove into a Schuldiner-fulled death metal onslaught. Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration could so easily be simply a jumble of influences, but the band's ability to alchemically combine the disparate parts of their sound into something so cohesive and so memorable makes this album much more than the sum of its parts. Even if we could all have done without the Duran Duran cover.
-Benjamin

One of the more underrated bands around. Though they release good to very good albums consistently, they don't get the recognition they should have. Hopefully this will change with their new album. Still focusing mainly on bone-crushing doom metal, they have incorporated some more melody. This makes it easier to hook in some new fans, but also more entertaining in general. It is obvious they have listened a lot to "Gothic" by Paradise Lost especially with the track "Pale Masquerade". But many other influences are present, with the biggest surprise being the cover: "Save A Prayer". Never heard of it? Perhaps you're more familiar with "Wild Boys"…yep, it's Duran Duran. And if you think that such a song doesn't fit into metal, Hooded Menace prove the opposite.
-Michael

MetalBite's Rating: 9.1/10