ESSENTIAL METAL ALBUM (s): #WK41 Monday, October 6th, 2025 to Sunday, October 12th, 2025

This week’s essential metal releases shine a spotlight on a diverse group of bands pushing the boundaries of heavy music. From the progressive technical death metal intensity of Blindfolded and Led to the Woods to the uncompromising legacy of Today Is the Day, each album offers something unique for fans of the genre. Hooded Menace deliver their signature blend of doom and death, while newcomers Deathfuckingwound live up to their moniker and unleash raw, chaotic fury. Finally we get Antiversum bringing an atmospheric edge to this list, with their dark, immersive soundscapes, and finally rounding things out with Tan and Handsome dropping them Every Time I Die vibes with their new EP. Dive into these releases and discover the latest in cutting-edge metal.

 
⚔️ 🩸 Album of the week:
 
#285 “BALTTW have created an unparalleled God tier death metal release”
 
⚔️ 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 

#281 “The pioneers of experimental metal, redefine themselves yet again and deliver abstract perfection”

 
⚔️ Artist: Today Is The Day
🩸  Title: “Never Give In”
⚔️ Release date: October 3^rd, 2025
 

🩸 Genre/tags:  experimental, noise rock

#282 “striking the perfect balance of crushing heaviness and sombre beauty."
 
⚔️ Artist: Hooded Menace
🩸  Title: “Lachrymose Moments of Obscuration
⚔️ Release date: October 3rd, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: death doom 

#283 “grinding riffage and guttural vocals, delivered with unsettling dissonant menance”
 
⚔️ Artist: Deathfuckingwound
🩸  Title: “MMXXV” 
⚔️ Release date: October 7th, 2025

 
🩸 Genre/tags:  death metal, black metal, grindcore, powerviolence

#284 “a monolithic journey through cavernous death metal, enveloping the listener in suffocating atmospheres and relentless intensity.
 
⚔️ Artist: Antiversum
🩸  Title: “De Nemesis Omnes Et Omnia”
⚔️ Release date: September 19^th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: black metal, death metal 

#286 “Taking cues from Every Time I Die; "2 Tan and 2 Handsome" is as addictive as meth”
 
⚔️ Artist: Tan and Handsome
🩸  Title: “2 Tan 2 Handsome”
⚔️ Release date: July 11^th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: metal, post hardcore 

PLAYLIST: TheSludgelord's Weekly HitList #W41 October 3rd, 2025 to October 9th, 2025

 

⚔️🩸 THE SLUDGELORD’s Weekly Hitlist (Oct 3rd – Oct 9th 2025)

 

⚔️Total plays: 361
🩸 Total Artist(s): 33
⚔️Total Album(s): 40
🩸 New Track(s): 161

⚔️ Top Artist: Altarage 108 plays

🩸Top Album: Hooded Menace – “Lachrymose Monuments Of Obscuration” 39 plays

⚔️ Top Track: Antiversum – “Pulsar Feralis” 7 plays

⚔️🩸 THE SLUDGELORD Top 30 tracks of the week

SONIC SELECTIONS (((o))): 10 Essential Metal Albums released in September, 2025

 

Well another month is behind us and although we say goodbye to September, it’s time for my monthly recap of the amazing music released in September and share with you my top 10 records of September 2025, otherwise known as our 10 essential Sonic Selections (((o)))

Over the course of September, I listened to an astonishing amount music and that equated to 6575 minutes (or roughly 109 hours) from 88 artists and over 478 individual tracks. In terms of this feature, our sole purpose is to focus on new music released in September and so over the course of last month, I listened to 20 new albums, and the quality of music was such that whittling it down to just ten albums was extremely difficult.

From a personal standpoint, September was a fantastic month for new music, so please do check out my favourite album(s) and I hope you can enjoy some if not all the music below.  Who needs words to review the music, when the releases are this good.  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: Leaker
🩸 Title: “HAPPYHOUR”
⚔️ Release date: September 12th, 2025

🩸 genre/tags: noise rock, post hardcore, sludge

9).

⚔️ Artist: viile
🩸  Title: “A Bottomless Curse, A Bottomless Sea”
⚔️ Release date: September 19th, 2025

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

8).

⚔️ Artist: Motherless
🩸  Title: “Do you Feel Safe”
⚔️ Release date: September 11th, 2025

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

7).

⚔️ Artist: Cult Burial
🩸 Title: “Collapse of Pattern, Reverence of Dust”
⚔️ Release date: September 5, 2025

🩸  genre/tags: blackened death metal, dissonant death metal, experimental death metal

6).

⚔️ Artist: Paradise Lost
🩸  Title: “Ascension”
⚔️ Release date: September 19th, 2025

 
🩸  genre/tags: goth doom, melodic death doom

5).

⚔️ Artist: Novembers Doom
🩸  Title: “Mercy”
⚔️ Release date: September 19th, 2025

🩸  genre/tags: doom

4).

⚔️ Artist: Intercourse
🩸  Title: “How I Fell in Love with the Void”
⚔️ Release date: September 12th, 2025

🩸  genre/tags: noise rock, hardcore, sludge

3).

⚔️ Artist: Crippling Alcoholism
🩸 Title: “Camgirl”
⚔️ Release date: September 12th, 2025

🩸 genre: noise rock, goth rock, synth rock, new wave

2). 🥈

⚔️ Artist: Lorna Shore
🩸  Title: “I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me”
⚔️ Release date: September 12th, 2025

🩸  genre/tags: symphonic blackened deathcore

1). 🏆

⚔️ Artist: Revocation
🩸  Title: “No Gods, No Masters”
⚔️ Release September 25th, 2025

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

ESSENTIAL METAL ALBUM (s): #WK40 Monday, 29 September, 2025 to Sunday, 5 October, 2025

This week in metal brings a wave of new releases and hidden gems from a variety of subgenres, offering something for every headbanger. Whether you're after melodic death metal, sludge, doom, or atmospheric black metal, the following albums are essential listens.

⚔️ 🩸 Album of the week

#276: “Melodic Death Metal Excellence”

⚔️ Artist: Mors Principium EST 
🩸  Title: “Darkness Invisible” 
⚔️ Release date: September 26th, 2025

Genre/tag: symphonic melodic death metal  

#277: "Soul Crushing sludge from the depths"

 
⚔️ Artist: Voidlurker 
🩸  Title: “Loathe For Life”
⚔️ Release date: September 26th, 2025

 
🩸 Genre/tags: sludge, doom

#278: "Innovative death doom blended through the avant-garde"
 
⚔️ Artist: Liminal Erosion 
🩸  Title: “In The Time Vultures Talons”
⚔️ Release date: September 26th, 2025
 

🩸 Genre/tags: death metal, doom, funeral doom, doomgaze 

#279: "Meshuggah played through a filter of instrumental sludge doom"
 
⚔️ Artist: Modder 
🩸  Title: “Destroying Ourselves for a Place in the Sun”
⚔️ Release date: October 3rd, 2025

 
🩸 Genre/tags:  instrumental, doom, sludge 

#280: "Old school death with modern technical twist"
 
⚔️ Artist: Horror Within
🩸  Title: “Soul Awakening”
⚔️ Release date: October 3^rd, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: osdm, melodic death metal 

PLAYLIST: TheSludgelord's Weekly Hitlist #WK40 September 26th, 205 to October 3rd, 2025

 

⚔️🩸 The Sludgelord wkly hit list (26 Sep – Oct 3rd 2025)
 
⚔️Total streams: 458

🩸 Total Artist(s): 21

⚔️Total Albums: 26
🩸  New Tracks: 127

⚔️Top Artist: Revocation 107 streams

🩸Top Album: Revocation – “New Gods, New Masters” 107

⚔️Top Track: Revocation – “Confines of Infinity” 13

TheSludgelord's Weekly Hitlist #40

SLUDGELORD RECORDS PRE-ORDER #99: Saltbuck, "Gorb"

Hey everyone, yes it's that time of the month again, its Bandcamp Friday, which means all sales go directly to the artist/label, so if ever there was a time to support labels, today is that day.

To celebrate, I'm excited to announce a brand new preorder and more importantly we're excited to share with you the upcoming release of "Gorb", the brand new record from SALTBUCK, a devastatingly bleak sludge band from the UK.

The album consists of four bleak and super heavy tracks. The album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Wayne Adams, who has worked on a number of other records we have released on Sludgelord Records, including the mighty TORPOR.

The preorder is live now and "Gorb" will be issued on limited edition CD. Not only that, you can stream the opening track "Heresy" now. We are excited about this collaboration and we hope you like it.

Check it is out, place an order and support the underground.

DISCOG DISSECTION: Death - "A Legacy in Death Metal"

 

Often considered as the first “true” death metal band  and the early pioneers of the genre, Death was formed in Orlando, Florida under their original guise of Mantas by the legendary Chuck Schuldiner. Creators of what is (widely considered) the first “true” death metal album, 1987’s debut “Scream Bloody Gore”, Chuck Schuldiner remained the band’s driving force, sole consistent member, and principal songwriter until his untimely death in 2001.

Schuldiner's vision and musicianship not only helped shape the band (from their raw and more primal beginnings) but evolved the genre itself into something more technical and progressive, utilizing different time signatures and incorporating his varied influences into the mix. 

With each subsequent release following their debut, each album would evolved and with it brought about line-up changes (seemingly the more technical it became, the talent needed to fit the style) until their final release of their final album and (arguably their best) “The Sound of Perseverance (1998)”

Admittedly, when I started to get into metal (back in the early nineties) when Death were beginning to establish themselves, I was very much stuck in one lane in terms of musical tastes and perhaps my ears just weren't ready for death metal at the time and so almost 40 years later since “Scream Blood Gore”, I have rectified my error and can only reinforce what is already widely known, Death are indeed true pioneers and it is testament to the brilliance of Chuck Schuldiner that his discography sounds as fresh and unique today as it did back in the day.    

Check out my favourite Death albums below, let me know your thoughts, do you agree and how would you rate them?

7).
 
⚔️”Leprosy” issued November 16th, 1989

🩸Stand out track(s) “Leprosy”, “Forgotten Path”, “Left to Die”, “Open Casket” “Primitive Ways”

6).
 
 
⚔️ “Scream Bloody Gore” March 25th, 1986

🩸Stand out track(s) “Infernal Death”, “Zombie Ritual”, “Denial of Life”, “Sacrificial”, “Mutilation”, “Regurgitated Guts”, “Baptized in Blood”, “Torn to Pieces” “Scream Bloody Gore”

5).
 
⚔️ “Spiritual Healing” issued February 16th, 1990

🩸 Stand out track(s) “Living Monstrosity”, “Altering The Future”, “Defensive Personalities”, “Within their Mind”, “Spiritual Healing”, “Low Life”, “Genetic Reconstruction”, “Killing Spree”

4).
 
⚔️ “Symbolic” issued March 21st, 1995

🩸”Symbolic”, “Zero Tolerance”, Empty Words”, “1,000 Eyes”, “Without Judgement” “Crystal Mountain”, “Misantthrope”, “Perennial Quest”

3).
 
⚔️” The Sound of Perseverance” issued September 15th, 1998

 
🩸 Stand out track(s) “Scavenger of Human Sorrow”, “Bite The Pain”, “Spirit Crusher”, “Story To Tell”, “Flesh and the Power it Holds”, “A Moment of Clarity”

2).
 
⚔️ “Individual Thought Patterns” issued June 22nd, 1993
 

🩸 Stand out track(s) “Overactive Imagination”, “Inhuman Form”, “Jealousy”, “Nothing Is Eveyrhing”, “Mentally Blind”, “Destiny”, “Out of Touch”

1).
 
⚔️ “Human” issued October 22nd, 1991

 
🩸 Stand out track(s) “Flattening of Emotions”, “Suicide Machine”, “Together As One”, “Secret Face”, Lack of Comprehension” “See Through Dreams”, “Vacant Planets”