The Very Best Album of 2025
The moment we've all been waiting for. Truly a dope music year with an abundance of riches across such a variety of genres. The #1 spot goes out to an album that was highly anticipated and delivered everything expected and more. Deafheaven's Lonely People With Power.
Deafheaven rose to fame during the period I wasn't really digging into music, I heard Sunbather about 7 years after it was released and was like, oh I actually do like some metal music. Now true kvlt metal people would definitely not consider Deafheaven true black metal, but ya know what fk em. This shit rocks. But anyways. I listened to Sunbather sometimes but didn't really get into any of their other albums so when I saw them release Magnolia as the lead single for their upcoming album I didn't think too much of it. I did eventually listen to it and was like okay this is pretty dope. Then Heathen got dropped as the second single and the hype meter shot through the roof. This song is so fkn good. It's shoegaze and post-metal bliss. Good lord the intro with the guitars and hazy vocals would make a pretty good song on it's own in my opinion, but then everything picks up and he's screaming and it builds and builds and then they start all over again. I replayed that track so many times waiting for the album to release.
I still remember when the album came out, I left to go to work and put the album on, knowing that my expectations were probably too high, that Heathen would be the standout and the rest wouldn't live up to it, but I hoped it would still be good. Well Heathen still is the best track here imo, but I just remember the slow start with the interlude (the incidentals are fine but honestly probably the only reason this isn't a perfect 10 imo) then it just crashes into Doberman and you're off. I had the dumbest grin on my face listening to this fkn metal album all morning. For as long as I can remember I could never get into metal primarily because of the vocals, which makes how much I fkn love this album kinda strange to me lol. The screaming isn't that much different than any other black metal vocalist I think, that I've heard at least, but idk it just works better. I think maybe with the shoegaze tendencies the screaming kind of melds in, just another noise building the walls of sound? Idk if that makes sense, but it's different than pretty much any other metal album I've listened to. Maybe I'm just more of a blackgaze guy. It absolutely rules though.
But yeah, every track here just rips. The two-track ending sequence of Winona and The Marvelous Orange Tree is so good, Amethyst and Garden Route and Revelator. There isn't a miss to be seen (discounting the Incidentals which again, are whatever). Metal perfection imo, one of the best albums I've heard in the past five years. Maybe the best.