THE BEST DEATH METAL ALBUMS OF 2025

Carcass. Bolt Thrower. Entombed. Atheist. None of them featured in our Best Death Metal Albums of 2025 round-up, but their legacies certainly did…

Death metal’s new breed rose to the challenge this year, birthing a clutch of crushers which honoured the past, while looking to the future.

Find out which albums made the final cut…

10. Terror Corpse – Ash Eclipses Flesh (Dark Descent Records)

Akin to lurching across a radioactive wasteland, Ash Eclipses Flesh was a bleak glimpse into post-atomic hell, with Terror Corpse rotting their way across nine gut churning tracks – plus a cover of Celtic Frost’s Into The Crypt Of Rays.

Deathgrind, crust and haunting death doom converged on songs like Fallout Obliteration, Nuclear Winter and Transmission Beta, as the Texans turned the doomsday clock to midnight.

A filthy, furious debut from the Houston crew.

9. Sanguisugabogg – Hideous Aftermath (Century Media)

Sanguisugabogg’s earlier forays may have felt a little tongue in cheek, but the Ohio outfit got a hell of a lot more serious on Hideous Aftermath.

Working with über producer Kurt Ballou on their third album, and embracing a more considered and mature writing approach, really paid dividends for the quartet.

Yes, those pit-launching grooves remained (we defy anyone to stay still during Heinous Testimony), but there were intriguing layers to this opus: Semi Automatic Facial Reconstruction, featuring Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan, stood out especially for its deathly dynamics.

8. Depravity – Bestial Possession (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Depravity’s sophomore effort, Grand Malevolence, span heads in the death metal world, for its blend of churning brutality and technical finesse.

And the Perth act went one better on Bestial Possession, honing their Hate Eternal meets Nile attack, and dialling up the virtuosity on breathtaking songs like Blinding Oblivion.

The sheer intensity of opener Engulfed in Agony set the tone for a record seething with ambition: this was Depravity going straight for the jugular… and everyone felt it.

7. Hedonist – Scapulimancy (Southern Lord)

Missing Bolt Thrower and Entombed?

Hedonist seem to be too.

The Victoria, British Columbia act’s inspirations lie in Earache’s golden era, when Warmaster and Clandestine vied for supremacy, riffs were truly monstrous, and in back alley basement shows from Birmingham to Stockholm, sweaty teenagers were discovering the soundtrack to their lives.

Indeed, on their debut, Hedonist nailed that sweet spot between crust and primal death metal, as Parasitic Realm and Engines Of War slayed the old way.

6. Heretic Warfare – Perpetual Fire (2573975 Records DK)

Perpetual Fire tore a bloody wound in 2025. This was a world-eater of a record, with Heretic Warfare clearly inspired by the Warhammer 40K universe as the Germans followed The Eightfold Path and unleashed Extermination.

Uranium-tipped riffs fell in an apocalyptic barrage, Ingo Fussangel’s leads seared the stratosphere, and Leo Luther peppered the album with scintillating tempo changes and vicious hyperblasts.

While Hell On Earth, Heretic Warfare’s 2020 debut, showed promise, Perpetual Fire saw the quartet really deliver – and announce themselves as one of European DM’s most thrilling new acts.

5. LIK – Necro (Metal Blade Records)

LIK are never going to stray too far from the Stockholm sound that’s defined them. And why should they, when they’re making records like Necro?

The Swedes’ crushing fourth album could have come out of Sunlight Studios circa 1991. The boys could be brand ambassadors for the HM-2 pedal, such is the omnipresence of that glorious buzzsaw tone. But unlike many acts aping the Entombed/Dismember style, LIK really know how to write catchy as hell, rot and roll death metal.

The dark melodies of War Praise, the gristle grooves of Morgue Rat, surging riffs of Worms Inside, they all sucked you into LIK’s decaying world. And it felt great.

Check out the full review of Necro here.

4. Blood Monolith – The Calling Of Fire (Profound Lore Records)

What do you get when members of Vastum, Genocide Pact, Undeath, Ulthar and Deliriant Nerve get together? Absolute fucking carnage, as we found out when The Calling Of Fire hit.

Blood Monolith’s debut was a dense sonic assault, teetering on the edge of chaos and unrelenting in its savagery.

Yes, death metal heads are used to hearing music that pushes the boundaries of extremity.

But once in a while, a song like Prayer To Crom or Slaughter Garden comes along, that wreaks new havoc, and overwhelms your senses.

The Calling Of Fire burned bright.

Blood Monolith photo by Melissa Petisa

3. Jade – Mysteries Of A Flowery Dream (Pulverised Records)

Inspired by the ancient Mesoamerican cosmovision, Jade drew deep from the subconscious on Mysteries Of A Flowery Dream… and shaped an extraordinary record.

If you’ve ever been drawn into Blood Incantation’s starry realm (and we certainly have), then this album would have a similar effect, firing up the synapses and reaching parts of the mind that death metal rarely touches. Shores Of Otherness, for instance, was reminiscent of Enslaved’s vivid prog, while 9^th Episode pulled us into a wormhole and Light’s Blood felt like a technicolour cascade, descending from a rift in reality.

2. Ancient Death – Ego Dissolution (Profound Lore Records)

Boasting members of Atheist and Cruciamentum in their ranks, Massachusetts’ Ancient Death have a fine collective CV – and that showed on this bold debut.

Ego Dissolution rivalled recent works by Horrendous and Tomb Mold for its twisting psych-death, however the band’s melodic anchor held firm: guitarists Ray Brouwer and Jerry Witunsky are uber-dexterous players, sure, but on this record, it was the evocative songcraft, rather than the pair’s technical abilities, that won out.

The result? A rich seam of ambitious and progressive death metal, exemplified by the astonishing Breathe – Transcend (Into the Glowing Streams of Forever).

Ancient Death photo by Patrick Pucillo

1. Vacuous – In His Blood (Relapse Records)

Back in ’22, Vacuous showed the strength of the London underground with their debut, Dreams Of Dysphoria. It was the sound of nerve-shredding terror. It stood out, as emerging US acts started to dominate. And its place on our Best Death Metal Albums of 2022 list was richly deserved.

Three years later, Vacuous returned to unleash a complex, haunting masterpiece where chilling atmospheres gave way to shattering grooves, and spectral fretwork arced over vicious percussion.

Death metal’s gnarled roots wrapped themselves around Stress Positions, Flesh Parade and Immersion, as the quintet dug deep into the genre’s soul, and manifested their bleak vision.