Sonic Selections (((o))): 10 Essential Metal Albums released in October/November, 2025

 

Another couple of months are behind us, and as we close the book on October and November, it’s time for my latest recap of the incredible music that landed during this stretch — my Top 10 Records from the past two months, otherwise known as our essential Sonic Selections (((o))).
 
In October, I clocked up 7360 minutes of listening — over 122 hours — spanning 69 artists and 487 individual tracks.  November was a much quieter month, but still full of quality: I listened to 3487 minutes of music, explored 36 artists, and played through 212 tracks.
 
Across the two months combined, I dug into 126 albums — 87 in October and 39 in November — before narrowing the field down to the 10 new releases that made the final cut for this feature. The standard was so consistently high that choosing just ten felt almost cruel.
 
From a personal standpoint, October and November delivered a phenomenal run of new music. I hope you’ll dive into my favourite albums below and discover something that hits you just as hard. When the releases are this good, who even needs words to review them?
 
See you next month — and don’t forget to check out my weekly playlists and essential records of the week, which I share regularly.

10).
 
⚔️ Artist: Cthvn
🩸  Title: “Hymn”
⚔️ Release date: October 10th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: post metal, sludge, doom, black metal

9).
 
⚔️ Artist: An Abstract Illusion
🩸  Title: “Sleeping City”
⚔️ Release date: October 17th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: atmospheric progressive death metal

8).

⚔️ Artist: Old Year
🩸  Title: “No Dissent”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: doom, sludge, death doom

 

7).

⚔️ Artist: Terzij de Horde
🩸  Title: “Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone”
⚔️ Release date: October 10th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: black metal, blackened hardcore, screamo

6).

⚔️ Artist: 1914
🩸  Title: “Viribus Unitus”
⚔️ Release date: November 14th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: black metal, sludge, death metal

 
5).

⚔️ Artist: Veilburner
🩸  Title: “Longing For Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy”
⚔️ Release date: November 19th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: avant garde death metal, dissonant death metal, experimental death metal, progressive death metal

4).

⚔️ Artist: Conjurer
🩸  Title: “Unself”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: post metal, doom, sludge, hardcore

3).

⚔️ Artist: Oromet
🩸  Title: “The Sinking Isle”
⚔️ Release date: November 7th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: atmospheric doom, funeral doom

 
2). 🥈

⚔️ Artist: Blindfolded and Led to the Woods
🩸  Title:“The Hardest Thing About Being a God is that No One Believes Me”
⚔️ Release date: October 10th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: progressive death metal, technical death metal

1). 🏆

⚔️ Artist: The Acacia Strain
🩸  Title: “You Are Safe From God Here”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: metalcore, deathcore, post metal, sludge, doom

          

MONTHLY RECAP: THE SLUGELORD's monthly metal picks #11, November 2025

 

⚔️🩸 My favourite track (s) & artist (s) from November 2025 
 
 
⚔️ Total streams: 800 ↓ 47% vs. last month
🩸  Total Artists streamed: 35 ↓ 50%
⚔️ Total Albums streamed: 39 ↓ 56%
🩸  New Tracks streamed: 227 ↓ 55%
⚔️ Total Listening Time: 2 days, 19 hours ↓ 49%
🩸  Average Streams: 27 per day ↓ 44%
⚔️ Most Active Streaming Day: 83 on 14th Nov ↓ 30%

 Top Artist: The Acacia Strain (143 streams)

🩸  Top Album: The Acacia Strain – “You Are Safe From God Here” (130 streams)

⚔️ Top Track: The Acacia Strain – “A Call Beyond” (12 streams)

🩸  Top 30 tracks of the month

PLAYLIST: The Sludgelord's Weekly Hitlist #45, October 31st, 2025 to November 6th, 2025

⚔️🩸 My biggest tracks from October 31^st, 2025 to November 6th, 2025

⚔️ Total streams: 213 ↓ 23% vs. last week
🩸  Total Artists streamed: 7 ↓ 54%
⚔️ Total Albums streamed: 7 ↓ 57%
🩸  New Tracks streamed: 60 ↓ 32%
 
⚔️ Top Artist: The Acacia Strain (62 streams)

🩸  Top Album: The Acacia Strain – “You Are Safe From God Here” (62 streams)

⚔️ Top Track: Conjurer – “Hang Them In Your Head” (10 streams)

⚔️🩸 Top 30 tracks of the week

ESSENTIAL METAL ALBUM (s): #WK44 Monday, October 27th, 2025 to Sunday, November 2nd, 2025

THE SLUDGELORD welcomes you back for Week 44 of our weekly roundup of the best heavy sounds from the underground. This week yet delivers yet another punishing spread of sonic extremity, where atmosphere, aggression, and experimentation collide.
 
From Tombs’ layered blackened soundscapes to Cacotopia’s technical chaos, Impermanence’s relentless death-infused assault, the underground is alive and snarling. Our very own Saltbuck return with a fuzz-drenched sludge monster and Azell channel cosmic weight as a crushing two-piece.
 
Last but by no mean, least, Conjurer are finally back and have evolved into a genre-defying force and in the process have delivered one of their albums of the year. 
 
This is THE SLUDGELORD’s Essential Albums of the Week, WK44. So, Plug in and Black out. The ‘Lord has spoken!
 
⚔️ 🩸 Album of the week:
 
#306 “Conjurer shed their skin and emerge heavier, deeper, and more dynamic”
 
⚔️ Artist: Conjurer 
🩸  Title: “Unself” 
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags:  post metal, doom, sludge, hardcore 

🩸 Essential Release (s)
 
 
#301 “Feral Darkness is a descent into layered black metal atmospheres, where death metal tension coils beneath every riff”
 
⚔️ Artist: Tombs 
🩸  Title: “Feral Darkness”
⚔️ Release date: October 17th, 2025 
 

 🩸 Genre/tags:  black metal, death metal

#302 “a razor-edged spiral of progressive black metal—technical, chaotic, and utterly uncompromising.”
 
⚔️ Artist: Cacotopia 
🩸  Title: “Cacotopia”
⚔️ Release date: May 2nd, 2025 
 

🩸 Genre/tags: progressive black metal 

#303 “Annica is a firestorm of blackened death metal—raw, relentless, and carved from pure sonic aggression.”
 
⚔️ Artist: Impermanence 
🩸  Title: “Annica” 
⚔️ Release date: October 16th, 2025 

 

🩸 Genre/tags: post metal, sludge, doom, black metal 

#304 “Gorb is a suffocating wall of fuzz and filth—Saltbuck’s sludge doom drags you under with riffs that feel like sinking into tar.”

⚔️ Artist: Saltbuck
🩸  Title: “Gorb”
⚔️ Release date: October 31st, 2025 

 

🩸 Genre/tags: sludge, doom 

#305 “Astralis is a cosmic crush of sludge and space—Azell’s two-piece assault hits like a supernova, dense, hypnotic, and devastating.”
 
⚔️ Artist: Azell 
🩸  Title: “Astralis”
⚔️ Release date: October 17th, 2025 

🩸 Genre/tags: sludge, doom 

REVIEW: Pijn & Conjurer, "Curse These Metal Hands"

By: Eeli Helin

Album Type: Full-length
Date Released: 16/08/19
Label: Holy Roar Records

”Curse These Metal Hands” CD//DD//LP tracklist:

1. High Spirits

2  The Pall

3. Endeavour

4. Sunday

The Review:

Pijn and Conjurer are both UK based, roughly categorizable as sludgy post-metal/hardcore bands. Both are on Holy Roar Records' roster and released impeccably strong albums last year, also making a collaboration appearance in ArcTanGent, one of the most momentous and meaningful festivals focusing on bands beyond the mainstream spectrum. The preparation and execution of said performance also planted the seed for a joint studio album titled "Curse These Metal Hands", released on August 16th, and with a release like this, the bands succeed to set a potent and firm example of how collaboration albums should sound. 

Like most of joint productions, this also looked fine on paper. After all, Conjurer's "Mire" and Pijn's "Loss" were amongst the most played albums in my household, as they were in so many others too. I've stated this somewhere else too, but when it comes to collaboration albums, they tend to be a hit or miss, with absolutely nothing in between. But with "Curse These Metal Hands", there wasn't a single reason to get cautious or worried about it. And there still isn't.

The pre-released track "High Spirits" opens up the album, and as the name suggests, it'll elevate your spirit right from the beginning. Slowly growing with clean guitars, tambourines and gentle drum hits, the song evolves in an uplifting manner, keeping a surprisingly positive vibe going throughout. After introducing strong dual vocals on top of a ridiculously heavy verse, the atmosphere tightens but the tone remains warm and wholehearted. 

Keeping in mind both bands' previous albums, this one differs from them greatly, which proves to make "Curse These Metal Hands" a justified, multiplex entirety with it's own narrative. The second song "The Pall" is mainly pulled together from similar realms, but instead shifts the gear into a bleaker direction. The second track also deploys more compositional dynamics, and there's parts where you can identify both bands' own sounds, but everything blends together seamlessly. I personally also really enjoy the writing on this one; albeit the track is almost nine minutes long, there's a ton of different riffs and sections, different tones and colours. It's so easy to build longer tracks over simpler and monotonous riffs that start to feel numbing really soon, and it's really refreshing that this album is bereft of the said approach.

The third track "Endeavour" is a mountain-movingly heavy, crushing two minute intermission. Vicious guitarwork and a constant triplet rhythm make the track stand on it's own, given it's still a smaller piece amidst the three gigantic tracks. What makes it shine through, is that while being in a minor position, "Endeavour" is not a futile transition song. This is often the case when an album is arranged like this, but that is yet another pitfall that the bands avoid very smoothly. "Sunday" closes the album with same emotion that the album started with. It's a consistent and uplifting epic, rejoicing in almost happy melodies, shifting through strong and soft passages until calling it a day for good. Structurally it's close to the other longer tracks, including a sense of closure and finality, utilizing tension in a very animate manner instead of being your run-of-the-mill "funeral procession"-like closing track.

Simply put, "Curse These Metal Hands" is an album that makes you feel good. It manages to create an almost transcendentally comforting and positive atmosphere without getting tacky at any point. That's also something a lot of people (me included) didn't expect from bands whose output tends to be from the more dismal and joyless end of the spectrum. "Curse These Metal Hands" doesn't redefine any genres or brave a new one, but it damn well exceeds in what it is set out to be; a perfect amalgamation of two different bands coming together.

"Curse These Metal Hands" is available HERE

Band info: Pijn || Conjurer

ALBUM REVIEW: Conjurer, "Mire"

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 09/03/2018

Label: Holy Roar Records

“Mire” is a laudable achievement in sludge experimentation and to my ears it sounded like the work of veterans at the peak of their powers.

“Mire” CD//DD//LP track listing

1. Choke

2. Hollow

3. Thankless

4. Retch

5. The Mire

6. Of Flesh Weaker Than Ash

7. Hadal

The Review:

Sometimes it pays to go into a piece of art blind – too often the biographical details or personal obsessions of iconic performers, writers, filmmakers or musicians can make every release from a prolific legend feel like another chapter in an ongoing biography.  Or, in another limiting way, you end up playing the comparison game: how much progress has this band/writer/director shown since their last burst of output?  Does it live up to an undisputed classic or just ape its style?  Is this a pandering bit of nostalgia bait or a bold return to form?  It’s another tired, fill in the blank method for quick, lazy criticism that ticks off the right boxes (prior knowledge, fealty to popular opinion, an obsessive attention to trivia), but usually doesn’t get into the actual merits or missteps of a particular piece of art.  Impressive debuts are intriguing but difficult for this very reason – is this artist a flash in the pan or a budding genius?  Does that even matter?  In the game of genre gatekeeping, making the “right call” on someone seems to be the coin of the realm.

Thankfully, when I threw on Conjurer’s debut “Mire”, I wasn’t bogged down by all this bullshit.  Knowing nothing about the band, I assumed it was a second or third major release – the level of confident songwriting, bold choices, and what feels like a carefully honed “Conjurer style” is so atypical of a full-length debut, I could have sworn this was a group into its second decade as a band.  From the first track, “Choke”, Conjurer establishes itself as a group that could lay down competent, crackling sludge and probably stand out among the crowd.  But then they throw in some nasty groove riffs, galloping drums, dual register high and low harsh vocals, and a measure of post-rock twang.  Guitar duo Nightingale and Deeprose trade off chugging rhythms with soaring leads, and on “Hollow”, introduce clean vocals that recall some of the best in 2000s post-hardcore.

“Thankless” pays further homage to post-hardcore, math, and borderline grind metal technicality.  A bass-driven interlude highlights bassist Conor Marshall’s considerable bass chops; there aren’t any wonky pedal modulations on here, just clean, precise groove.  My only caveat here is a somewhat flabby post-rock midsection that is initially atmospheric, but had me craving more of the brutality Conjurer invokes so well.  “Retch” and “The Mire” answered my prayers, ricocheting between blasts and grooves that attest to Jan Krause’s status as percussive deity.  “Of Flesh Weaker than Ash” is a return to classic sludge perfection riding on palm muted guitar harmonies and pornographically filthy guitar tone.  Closer “Hadal” is another “classic sludge” cut – a restrained wallow in hypnotic, minimalist misery that just hints at fat, bluesy riffing.

Whether or not Conjurer make a “compelling follow-up”, establish a headliner-level career, etc., “Mire” is a laudable achievement in sludge experimentation.  To my ears, obviously, it sounded like the work of veterans at the peak of their powers.  But as a debut, I do hope there are new soundscapes and amalgams for Conjurer to forge.  They more than promise excellence – they deliver.

“Mire” is available here

Band info: facebook || bandcamp