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The Year In Review – Top 10 Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Albums of 2025

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“Who the fuck is Justin Bieber?” – Ozzy Osbourne

There’s not much to celebrate in rock and metal music in the same year when we lost the one and only John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne. Nothing will ever be the same without the Prince of Darkness, the Madman, The Wizard of Ozz. There isn’t a single artist or band reviewed in the history of The Headbanging Moose that wasn’t influenced in several ways by Ozzy and, of course, by Black Sabbath. It is a very sad year indeed. However, Ozzy was always in a great mood, always happy, and I’m sure that, wherever he is now, he wants to see us all smiling and laughing, because that’s what life is all about. He also wants us to keep attending rock and metal concerts to have a good time with our loved ones, with our closest friends, just like Keith Ibbitson of Metal Paparazzi and I did so many times this year, covering incredible bands the likes of Blackbraid, Ne Obliviscaris, Cattle Decapitation, Blind Guardian, and so on. I’ve also had the utmost pleasure of seeing the mighty Judas Priest in Dalhalla, Sweden, a dream come true for this fanboy here, and I can’t wait to “run for my life” in 2026. Having said all that, let’s honor the life of Ozzy with The Headbanging Moose’s Top 10 Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Albums of 2025, excluding EP’s, best of’s and live albums, and keep on rockin’ like the Madman until our very last breath!

1. Blackbraid – Blackbraid III (REVIEW)
Behold the stunning next chapter in the musical and spiritual journey of the witch hawk of Black Metal hailing from the Adirondack Mountains.
Best song of the album: Wardrums At Dawn On The Day Of My Death

2. Werewolves – The Ugliest of All (REVIEW)
The torchbearers of “Caveman Death Metal” continuing to annihilate intellects with an unlistenable barrage of truly hideous music.
Best song of the album: The Ugliest of All

3. Testament – Para Bellum (REVIEW)
Let’s prepare for war to the sound of the breathtaking fourteenth studio album by California’s own masters of old school Thrash Metal.
Best song of the album: Para Bellum

4. Helloween – Giants & Monsters (REVIEW)
These German giants of Heavy Metal and monsters of Rock N’ Roll are back with their ass-kicking seventeenth studio album.
Best song of the album: Majestic

5. An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City (REVIEW)
This incredible Swedish Progressive Death and Black Metal entity returns with their heaviest and most atmospheric work to date.
Best song of the album: Like a Geyser Ever Erupting

6. Allegaeon – The Ossuary Lens (REVIEW)
World domination awaits to the sound of the striking new beast by one of the must-see bands of the current tech death scene worldwide.
Best song of the album: The Swarm

7. 1914 – Viribus Unitis (REVIEW)
Trench warfare meets blackened death and doom in 1914’s fourth onslaught of war-torn fury.
Best song of the album: 1918 Pt 3: ADE (A Duty to Escape)

8. Cryptopsy – An Insatiable Violence (REVIEW)
Canada’s own Death Metal machine returns with their ruthless ninth studio album.
Best song of the album: Until There’s Nothing Left

9. Baest – Colossal (REVIEW)
Back from the fires of Denmark, this unstoppable creature will crush you with their fourth studio album.
Best song of the album: Colossus

10. Diabolizer – Murderous Revelations (REVIEW)
The torchbearers of diabolical abomination unite once again to drag us down into the fiery abysses of Turkish Death Metal without warning.
Best song of the album: Deathmarch of the Murderous Tyrant

And here we have the runner-ups, completing the top 20 for the year:

11. Lorna Shore – I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me (REVIEW)
12. Impureza – Alcázares (REVIEW)
13. Crimson Shadows – Whispers of War (REVIEW)
14. Primal Fear – Domination (REVIEW)
15. Serenity In Murder – Timeless Reverie (REVIEW)
16. Khôra – Ananke (REVIEW)
17. Panzerchrist – Maleficium – Part 2 (REVIEW)
18. Ominous Ruin – Requiem (REVIEW)
19. Wrath of Belial – Embers of Dead Empires (REVIEW)
20. Grima – Nightside (REVIEW)

Not only that, here’s once again our Top 10 EP’s of 2025, proving once and for all that the duration of an album is not that important in the end. As long as the music is great, the whole thing can be only one second long, like the classic “You Suffer” by Napalm Death!

1. When Plagues Collide – Kingmaker (REVIEW)
2. De Profundis – The Gospel Of Rot (REVIEW)
3. Fimbul Winter – What Once Was (REVIEW)
4. NecroticGoreBeast – Brute (REVIEW)
5. Serpent Corpse – Retaliate (REVIEW)
6. Akouphenom – Connections To The Erebus (REVIEW)
7. Necht – The Inevitable Suffering (REVIEW)
8. Discovery Through Torment – Telesynthetic Rebirth (REVIEW)
9. Der Rote Milan – Verlust (REVIEW)
10. Eleine – We Stand United (REVIEW)

Do you agree with our list? What are your top 10 albums of 2025? Also, don’t forget to tune in every Tuesday at 10pm BRT on Rádio Coringão to enjoy the best of classic and underground metal with Jorge Diaz and his Timão Metal, and every Thursday at 8pm UTC+2 on Midnight Madness Metal e-Radio for the best of underground metal with The Headbanging Moose Show!

Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year! See you in 2026!

And of course, as we really don’t like those boring Christmas songs here on The Headbanging Moose, we’ll leave you with what’s perhaps the most emotional and strongest metal hymn of the year, the charity version of “War Pigs”, by Black Sabbath, recorded by Judas Priest and with Ozzy himself sharing the vocal duties with the Metal God Rob Halford! This is the epitome of rock and metal music!

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses…

Album Review – When Plagues Collide / Kingmaker EP (2025)

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Like a savage beast ready to kill, this Belgian Symphonic Deathcore outfit will crush your soul with their new EP, offering some of their most destructive compositions to date.

Like a savage beast ready to kill, Aarschot, Belgium’s own Symphonic Deathcore behemoth When Plagues Collide arises once again from the underworld with another blast of their undisputed extreme music, the incendiary five-track EP Kingmaker, following up on their critically acclaimed full-length albums Tutor of the Dying, from 2018, and An Unbiblical Paradigm, released in 2023. The band’s lineup is the same as before, formed of Wouter Dergez on vocals, Santy Van der Mieren and Joris Dergez on the guitars, Joshua Kinsbergen on bass, and Siebe Hermans on drums, but it feels like those guys decided to take their ferocity to a whole new level in Kingmaker, offering some of their most destructive compositions to date without obviously forgetting to add a good amount of melody and symphonic elements to their core sonority.

Wouter shows no mercy for our souls with his deep, enraged guttural in Mother of Exiles, already offering the band’s classic fusion of violence with symphonic and ethereal elements, not to mention how thunderous the beats by Siebe sound. Then the title-track Kingmaker brings to our avid ears and even heavier version of When Plagues Collide, with Santy and Joris slashing their axes nonstop in the name of extreme music, followed by Persona Non Grata, and with an aggressive name like that we couldn’t have expected anything less violent and harsh, led by the gruesome vociferations by Wouter while the music transpires sulfur and hatred. Their Symphonic Deathcore vein pulses harder than ever in A Grim Counselor, again presenting their fusion of visceral riffs and pounding drums with whimsical background sounds; and ending the EP we have the unrelenting, absolutely demolishing and grim Harvesting the Uterus, with once again Wouter’s bestial growls walking hand in hand with the heavier-than-hell sounds crafted by his bandmates.

You can get in touch with those beyond talented Belgian guys via Facebook and Instagram, staying up to date with all things When Plagues Collide, including their live concerts (and how I wish they would cross the pond and demolish the stages in Toronto and rest of Canada in a near future), stream their amazing discography on Spotify or any other streaming service, or simply go straight into Kingmaker by clicking HERE. When Plagues Collide are already a reference in Symphonic Deathcore and in Deathcore in general, growing their fanbase with each of their demolishing releases, and I can’t wait to see what’s next in their more-than-solid career. Needless to say, if their next full-length album is just half as good as Kingmaker, we will all be a bunch of happy headbangers.

Best moments of the album: Mother of Exiles, Persona Non Grata and Harvesting the Uterus.

Worst moments of the album: None.

Released in 2025 Seek & Strike

Track listing
1. Mother of Exiles 4:54
2. Kingmaker 3:47
3. Persona Non Grata 4:23
4. A Grim Counselor 3:29
5. Harvesting the Uterus 4:22

Band members
Wouter Dergez – vocals
Santy Van der Mieren – guitar
Joris Dergez – guitar
Joshua Kinsbergen – bass
Siebe Hermans – drums