2025 was yet another year where I spent a Sunday in November sweating buckets trying to cut down all of the music I’ve listened to in the current year to twenty albums as part of the Ghost Cult staff voting. Each year is a mix of pain and pleasure, and 2025 was certainly a difficult one. Before I unveil my Top 20, here are some Honorable Mentions, in no particular order, that you should add to your library if not done already.
Glorious Depravity features members of Pyrrhon, Woe, and Gravesend. Their new album Death Never Sleeps (Transcending Obscurity Records) takes you back to the days when death metal crawled from the bloody carnage of thrash, which left the knack for songwriting with hooks over sheer brutality intact. Doug Moore’s guttural growls are articulated enough to keep them from being just a gurgle, and allow them to give you a hint of what the song’s about. The riffing on “Stripmined Flesh Extractor” is coherent enough to give it an almost Megadeth-like groove. They tap into the darker tension that fuels Slayer’s vibe for “Freshkills Poltergeist.” They are not doing anything new here; they are just doing it right. Continue reading
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