Flush it Friday: The List ov Lists for 2025
Tradition!
This year 15 contributors submitted Top Ten lists to the site. That’s 1 more than last year! 157 albums in total were either ranked or given honourable mentions. Out of those, 123 were only listed once. Now that’s what I call “diversity of thought.” I applaud everyone for their impeccable taste. Of course, that means there is at least some consensus, and, after crunching the numbers, I have compiled the great List ov Lists for 2025 as written by the Toilet of Hell contributors, editors, and head honchos. They are as follows:
An Abstract Illusion – The Sleeping City
Willowtip Records | Voided Grimace & Metal-Aged Mom
An Abstract Illusion did themselves no favours after 2022’s much-lauded Woe. This year’s The Sleeping City received 1.5 votes here on the Toilet, with Voided Grimace claiming the band is “doing prog metal right in 2025” and that the experience of listening to The Sleeping City was like “the first time I heard Opeth back in the late ’90s.” Colour me a resplendent purple this didn’t land on another list or two, as the synths are orchestral, the mixture of death/black is ferociously melodic, and everything seems in its right place.
Phantom Spell – Heather & Hearth
Cruz del Sur | Stevo & Rolderathis
More purple album covers and 1.5 votes! Stevo enjoyed “the mix of traditional heavy metal and progressive rock in the vein of Uriah Heep,” taking time to applaud Kyle McNeil’s “tremendous vocal range.” Immediately caught in its clutches and “particularly susceptible to this project’s retro charms,” Rolderathis deemed Heather & Hearth “retro prog,” a delightfully oxymoronic genre that captures the band’s capacity “to both pay homage to yesteryear’s pioneers and weave int the rhythmic intensity of heavy metal without once approaching banality.” It is truly an album that exists outside of time.
Paul Riedl — «Demystification» // «Forestscapes»
Independent | Megachiles & Reliquary Tower
Even more purple, my god! Alternating “between floaty electronic textures and more down-to-earth acoustic guitar passages,” the latest solo effort from Blood Incantantion‘s Paul Riedl received an Honourable Mention from RT and pert-near top-billing from Megachiles. The latter described «Demystification» // «Forestscapes» as “a restorative and meditative journey… that drifts harmoniously between Kosmiche, New Age, Folk, and the spaces between.” I think Riedl should contact Past Inside the Present and get this in the hands of ambient professionals. Beautiful.
Astronoid – Stargod
3DOT Recordings | 365 Days of Horror & Joaquin Stick
“Dream metal returns,” heralded 365 Days of Horror at the arrival of Stargod. 365 writes that the “almost pop… stylings of Stargod accentuate the band’s ability to make pleasant-sounding tunes that send the listeners soaring through the clouds on wings of hope.” Joaquin Stick rejoiced, “Astronoid is fun again,” finding much to love in the “explosive, emotionally contradictory earworms that make your hair stand on end.” It’s sort of like if Mew was a prog metal band, yeah?
Tómarúm – Beyond Obsidian Euphoria
Prosthetic Records | Iron Goddess of Mercy & Joaquin Stick
Giving the album the vaunted top slot on his list, Stick described Beyond Obsidian Euphoria as “magnificently, meticulously crafted proggy, techy death that never lets up.” I was struck by the “freshness and familiarity” of the album and used a lame Titanic metaphor to describe. I’m beginning to worry about just how much prog our collective lists have included, but who am I to argue?
Swans – Birthing
Young God Records | Reliquary Tower & Aaron
M. Gira is back with another herculean effort. Both RT and Aaron noted that Birthing marks the end of the band’s “big sound era,” but the two contributors approached the album in different ways. RT was unsurprised to find much to love on the band’s 17th record, while Aaron was quite surprised. In the end, it was “the creaking, overwhelmed sound of Gira and company teetering towards self-destruction” that won over Aaron. It will take another year to fully sort out this gargantuan record.
Catharsis – Hope Against Hope
CrimethInc. | Falxifer & Aaron
“This record,” wrote Falxifer, “is everything I love about punk and metal while also pushing both styles into bleak atmospheres that make a perfect soundtrack for the hellish dystopia we currently live in.” On Hope Against Hope Aaron noted, “you hear a band firing on all fronts with as much intensity and viciousness as they’ve ever had.” Number me among those who were unaware that these legendary anarchists from Greensboro returned with their first LP since 1999. Work sucks.
Dawn of Ouroboros – Bioluminescence
Prosthetic Records | 365 Days of Horror & Joaquin Stick
365 and JS found themselves again holding hands and frolicking together in the fields of Bioluminescence. Without a “single misstep” and chock full of “dynamics,” the new one from Dawn of Ouroboros “gives you whiplash between soft, moody passages and ripping progressive death metal.” 365 found the record “lying somewhere between progressive metal, technical death metal, and post-black metal,” and extolled the band for excelling “in blending each genre, bending it to their will, and making it their own.” More prog for you hog dogs!
Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World
Dark Descent Records | Brock Samson & Stevo
“This is darkness incarnate,” marveled Brock in his year-end blurb, “bombastic and crushing; haunting yet stimulating.” “I feel confident that this album,” Brock continued, “possesses the potential for longevity and lasting impact.” Stevo found the inclusion of “orchestral/symphonic elements” with the band’s “well-executed dissonant and cavernous death metal” to be just what Disso Doctor ordered. The Womb of the World truly is wild, and I wouldn’t be surprised, either, that a 2025 retrospective would properly (re-)anoint it.
Lathe of Heaven – Aurora
Sacred Bones | Joe TNK & Falxifer
“If you don’t like this one,” chastised Joe, “you should probably troubleshoot your ears and maybe your heart.” An album with all the hallmarks of “an overlooked New Romantic classic,” Aurora could be from 1982 or it could be from 2025. Who’s to say! Falxifer fell in love with the album for being “catchy, dreamy, impactful, and confident.” I’m kicking myself for overlooking this album since late August. “Just Beyond the Reach of Light” is efflorescent!
Melpomene – A Body Is A Suggestion
Independent | Roldy & M-AM
“The album,” Metal-Aged Mom notes, “both musically and lyrically, speaks to a progression of seeking, finding, containing, and becoming light.” A Body is a Suggestion is, as M-AM concludes, “an album that opens you if you allow it to.” Roldy writes, “Through smoky jazz, subtle electronics, fusion guitar heroics… and the gnarliest rhythm hand this side of Convulsing,” Melpomene’s 2025 effort “shines in each of its many facets.” Rip yourself open, look what’s inside, and let it bloom! So say we all.
Deafheaven – Lonely People with Power
Roadrunner Records | ReqTow & M’Chiles
It does not surprise that Lonely People with Power landed on the year-end lists of Reliquary Tower and Megachiles. It does surprise, however, that it didn’t find its way onto any other lists. With no moments wasted nor moments misplaced, Deafheaven’s latest album is, as RT has it, the band’s “most streamlined record to date.” “Every track,” RT boldly claims, “is a masterpiece.” For Megachiles, the purport and power of Lonely People with Power cannot be expressed in words but in freedom and movement, a gorilla spinning in ineluctable, dizzying delight. I am again left feeling like such a fool that I left this album mostly untouched since April. It’s been a weird year! (Black Metal Porkins would’ve had this on his list, make no mistake.)
Sleep Paralysis – S/T
I, Voidhanger | Big Joe & Agent Samson
Oh, right. This nonsense! Stephen Knapp of Cerulean is “orchestrating night terrors in intricate details for you to enjoy in your waking moments” on Sleep Paralysis, and yet Joe just loved this agonizing, playful, grating, and “extremely sinister” album. Brock used a different collection of adjectives, describing it as “weird, schizophrenic, unsettling… and whimsical?” Perhaps the most I, Voidhanger release of all releases, Sleep Paralysis is surreality made manifest, the unconscious running amok and finding a million outlets for its indescribable madness/genius. When Lacan said that the unconscious is structured like a language, I imagine he meant something like this.
Messa – The Spin
Metal Blade Records | Joe, Stick, and VG
Though I’m not sure Metal Blade will be handing out that “payola check” per Joe’s demands, both Joaquin Stick and Voided Grimace agree vociferously. In Stick’s estimation, Messa “take a well-worn sound and do something with it,” mixing into their traditional doom “a gothy vibe, sweet mournful melodies, and an outstanding vocal performance to stand a mile above their peers.” Grimace predicted “we’ll be hearing a lot more Messa for years to come.” I welcome it. “At Races” really is such a fun track.
Yellow Eyes — Confusion Gate
Sibir Records | Megachiles, Stevo, ‘n Voided Grimace
Calling it “a big comeback album,” Stevo commended Yellow Eyes for “a fantastic job in keeping the aggression, variety of riffs, and lovely atmosphere combined altogether” in ways fans of the bands have come to expect. Confusion Gate “struck a nerve” with Voided Grimace and simply “demands repeated listens.” The album, “like a centuries-old lichen growing on a billion year-old boulder,” has a spirit words cannot capture.
Agriculture – The Spiritual Sound
The Flenser | Metal-Aged Mom, Joe, RT, and Megachiles
CAN’T SEEM TO FIND IT / WHAT’S IN THE WAY / WOKE UP THIS MORNING / IT’S ALL THE SAME / CAN’T SEEM TO FIND IT / WHAT’S IN THE WAY / WOKE UP THIS MORNING / IT’S ALL THE SAME /CAN’T SEEM TO FIND IT / WHAT’S IN THE WAY / WOKE UP THIS MORNING / IT’S ALL THE SAME /CAN’T SEEM TO FIND IT / WHAT’S IN THE WAY / WOKE UP THIS MORNING / IT’S ALL THE SAME /
The Spiritual Sound is the Album of the Year, folks. It “whirls and careens with a religious fervor” (Joe) and possesses “beautiful, unconventional song structures, gnarly guitar and bass tones, really fun drums, insanely good vocals, killer guitar solos, and riffs” (RT). Megachiles bravely claimed “Bodhidharma” “has the hardest riff of the year.” I mean, they toured with Boris on the 20th anniversary of Pink. What more proof do you need? An incredible achievement.
NOW THAT I JUST BOUGHT A BUNCH OF NEW ALBUMS, LET’S FLUSH!
While the calendar year is coming to an end, there are still Mondays to Press and Tuesdays to This with Stick and Roldy respectively.
Day VI of Listmania continued with the Toilet Radi-bros Joe Thrashnkill and 365 Days of Horror.
If that’s not enough, the boys followed up everyone’s favourite episode of the year with Toilet Radio 598, a gift-laden yewltide celebration.
Is this a Chili’s? Day VII of Listmania featured a triple-dipper of Spear, Rolderathis, and something named Iron Goddess of Mercy.
TOP ALBUMS OV 2025 W/ IRON GODDESS OF MERCY, SPEAR, & ROLDERATHIS!
The Lions fell apart, so the Packers are officially playoff-bound. They will end Chicago’s season in Chicago in the first round. I’m on Island Time for a few days. I hope all your various holiday celebrations have been and will be exactly what you want them to be. All my love. Share your GBUs below as well as your own year-end lists. We wanna read ’em!
