2025 summary - album reviews

 

Picking “the best” is honestly the hardest part, because a good year isn’t a podium — it’s a shelf full of different kinds of truth. Some albums are architecture: cold, precise, built to last. Others are pure friction: the sound of nerves, teeth, breath, heat. And some arrive like a quiet hand on the shoulder at exactly the right moment, reminding you that taste is also memory — and that memory isn’t linear. It’s layered.

So these aren’t the best albums of the year. They’re mine — the ones that stayed, the ones I kept returning to, the ones that made 2025 feel sharper and more alive. (Some of them I reviewed for AlterNation, some for Sonic Seducer, some for ReGen — and I loved having an excuse to live with them longer.)

This is the last part of my annual summaries — the album chapter.
In 2025, I wrote 106 album reviews in total (AlterNation: 73, ReGen: 18, Sonic Seducer: 15).

The ones I kept returning to

16 albums:

  • Propaganda – Remix Encounters

  • Klangstabil – Chronik

  • Empusae – The Alchemist’s Rift

  • Dalila Kayros – KHTHONIE

  • Talvekoidik – Ambivalence

  • Statiqbloom + Blush Response – Folding In

  • Trepaneringsritualen – Diadem of Fire

  • Emmon – Icon

  • Rue Oberkampf – Eternity

  • Blac Kolor – Arca

  • Kifoth – Lost Territory

  • Wieloryb – No Flag

  • Ah Cama-Sotz – The Empire of Time

  • Blush Response – Ego Death

  • H.EXE – Anthems of the Unseen Tide

  • Covenant – Andreas EP

Everything I reviewed in 2025

ReGen Magazine (18)

  • Covenant – Andreas EP

  • M.A.C. of Mad – Keep Music Evil

  • Das Institut – Die Hinterkaifeck Chroniken

  • Kadaitcha – Urban Somnambulistics (2017 Reissue)

  • Strikkland – Hommage

  • Iggor Cavalera / Shane Embury – Neon Gods / Own Your Darkness

  • Imminent · Thorofon – Fear No More EP

  • Destroy Me Again – Cold by Design

  • Kommando – Wage of Wrath

  • Beborn Beton – To the Stars EP

  • Black Lung – The Brutal Gardener

  • White Noise TV – New Dawn

  • The Rorschach Garden – Pleasure Under Pressure

  • Vaselyne – In This World (Maxi-single)

  • Bill Leeb – Machine Vision (to be published)

  • Johnny Tupolev – The Best Unknown (to be published)

  • Rhys Fulber – Memory Impulse Anatomy (to be published)

  • Thorofon – Guilty (to be published)

AlterNation Music Magazine (73)

  • H.EXE – Anthems of the Unseen Tide 80/100

  • GEttNER – In The Neon Divine 60/100

  • Diorama – No Complications 80/100

  • Statiqbloom – Winter 75/100

  • Czarina – Dagger in the Heart 75/100

  • Ah Cama-Sotz – The Empire of Time 80/100

  • White Noise TV – Transistor 65/100

  • Wieloryb – No Flag 80/100

  • Hidden By Ivy – The Next Room 70/100

  • bent – Stonehenge 65/100

  • Aesthetic Perfection – Closer to Human 70/100

  • Kifoth – Lost Territory 75/100

  • Anatoly Grinberg – Snowing 75/100

  • Blac Kolor – Arca 80/100

  • Rue Oberkampf – Eternity 80/100

  • StateMent – Last Chance 75/100

  • Emmon – Icon 80/100

  • Agonised Too – Lurking Fear 80/100

  • Sally Dige – Holding the Sun 75/100

  • NER\OGRIS – Silenci 75/100

  • End of Transmission – Fragile Times 65/100

  • The Devil & The Universe – Occult Pleasures 75/100

  • Inca Babies – Reincarnation 70/100

  • Trepaneringsritualen – Diadem of Fire 80/100

  • DeVision Redux – Synchronize 70/100

  • Compulsions Analysis – Die Revealing 70/100

  • Papillon de Nuit – Frozen Charlotte 70/100

  • Dawid Chrapla – The Voice of Steelworks & Steelworks on the Edge of the Forest 70/100

  • Test Dept – Full Spectrum Dominance / Information Scare 80/100

  • Statiqbloom + Blush Response – Folding In 80/100

  • Agonised Too – The Same 70/100

  • Golden Apes – Stranger (When I Left) 75/100

  • StateMent – Reality 65/100

  • Unter Null – You Made A Monster EP 75/100

  • Vein Vektor – You Walk Alone 75/100

  • David Thrussell & Flint Glass – Nyarlathotep and Other Tales of Cosmic Dread by H. P. Lovecraft 60/100

  • GEttNER – Wired to the Machine 65/100

  • Lucifer’s Aid – Enter and Exit 70/100

  • Hau Ruck – 2025 80/100

  • Mortaja – Discography 75/100

  • Health x Chelsea Wolfe – Mean 75/100

  • Tomas Mutina – Serenades 70/100

  • Talvekoidik – Ambivalence 80/100

  • Ah Cama-Sotz – Blood Moon 80/100

  • Dear Deer – Les deux piliers 75/100

  • Empusae – The Alchemist’s Rift 85/100

  • Klangstabil – Chronik 90/100

  • Agonised Too – ToNieMy 70/100

  • Ira Noctis – Lucifer and Unholy Trinity 70/100

  • Philipp MΓΌnch – Tales from the Lower Cave 75/100

  • bent – Liquid Bells EP 60/100

  • Dalila Kayros – KHTHONIE 80/100

  • Unter Null – Coming Up to Breathe 75/100

  • Golden Apes – The Highest Point 75/100

  • Synaptic Defect – Lost 65/100

  • Rokas Zubovas & Phil Von – Live at Kotryna 80/100

  • Rina Pavar – six 80/100

  • Manic P – God’s Laughter 75/100

  • White Noise TV – Fear Can’t Kill All Future Dreams 75/100

  • Platronic – How To Ride The Wave 75/100

  • Heimstatt Yipotash – Belt to Blender 75/100

  • NNHMN – Opera of Lust & The Art of Sorrow I 80/100

  • Bedless Bones – Jouissance 75/100

  • Propaganda – Distant 80/100

  • Oszylayter – Panic Attack 65/100

  • SIIE – CitΓ© Lunaire 75/100

  • The_Empath & Mortaja – Ergosphere (Penrose Process Mix by Spherical Disrupted) 75/100

  • This Eternal Decay – Spettro 75/100

  • Je T’aime – Useless Boy 70/100

  • Anima Mundi – Heretical 70/100

  • Dina Summer – Girls Gang 75/100

  • Kite – Heartless Places (feat. Nina Persson) 75/100

  • Papillon de Nuit – Amber 75/100

  • Dina Summer – Nothing to Hide 75/100

Sonic Seducer (15)

  • Propaganda – Remix Encounters

  • Zanias – Cataclysm

  • Blush Response – Ego Death

  • Derma – Gran Monoplano

  • Majestoluxe – Wretched Conditions

  • Lebanon Hanover – Asylum Lullabies

  • Fictional – Embrace the Silence

  • Valhall – Calling for Storms

  • Silver Tears – Silver Tears

  • Night Ritualz – Night Ritualz

  • KN/GHTS – Supernatural Lover

  • Blac Kolor – Arca

  • Soft Vein – Through Blinds (CD)

  • STADT – How To Behave in a Beehive (CD)

  • Rotoskop – Passive / Aggressive