{"id":227917,"date":"2025-12-29T14:06:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T13:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.angrymetalguy.com\/?p=227917"},"modified":"2025-12-29T14:06:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T13:06:06","slug":"sentynels-and-twelves-top-tenish-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.angrymetalguy.com\/sentynels-and-twelves-top-tenish-of-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Sentynel’s and Twelve’s Top Ten(ish) of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sentynel<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

\"\"It’s been a couple of years since I had to start my AotY thoughts with “oof, what a year,” but oof, what a year. One thing after another piled up for months on end. I had some early success, actually writing reviews, but that left me almost no time to consume any other new music. A slowly escalating personal crisis then led to my neither writing nor consuming any new music for months. I began to fear that I genuinely wouldn’t be able to listen to enough to assemble a list\u2014or that the server would implode at an inopportune time and I’d struggle to fix it. Fortunately, I was able to stay on top of server wobbles, despite the best efforts of endless AI scraper bots.1<\/a><\/sup> A couple of months ago, I started managing new music again, and thus, a list emerged. I am moderately optimistic for 2026, at least on a personal level. (I offer no such optimism for the general state of the world.)<\/p>\n

While this hasn’t been a particularly strong year for me, it’s hard to tell if that’s the year’s fault or just mine. My most common gripe has been unevenness: there have been a lot of records\u2014including some I’ve ultimately loved\u2014that have annoyed me through failing to sustain their heights throughout. Nonetheless, everything on my list belongs there. This year’s primary theme appears to be Angry Cello Guy, with a suspicious five entries on my list prominently featuring cellos or other bowed string instruments. Guitars are so 2024. There are multiple records here that are genre-hopping, experimental, and hard to classify. Otherwise, this is a pretty typical year for me, with post-metal heavily represented, several prog-adjacent pieces, and no surprisingly brvtal contenders, despite trying a few. Ah, well, next year.<\/p>\n

My year has also kept me from getting to know this year’s intake of new writers as well as I’d like, but I’m sure they’re all lovely people with only somewhat questionable taste. To the brave crew of editors and promo jockeys, you have my thanks for your endless work; to the retiring veterans, please enjoy your sabbaticals without incident; and to the readers, long may you continue resisting the urge to let AI summarise our writing.<\/p>\n

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\"\"#ish. Scardust<\/strong> \/\/ Souls<\/em> \u2013 Souls<\/em> took a lot longer to grow on me than Strangers<\/em><\/a>, and it’s more uneven than its predecessor. But the highs are fabulous. Noa Gruman is still preternaturally good on vocals. If the whole record were as good as the “Touch of Life” suite with her and Ross Jennings, this would be, no exaggeration, #1. Alas, while there are a couple of other bangers (“Unreachable”), much of the rest of Souls<\/em> just doesn’t impress me, in that awkward sort of way you get when it’s really good and it feels unfair to moan about it too much, but you know they can do so much better.<\/p>\n

\"\"#10. Jo Quail<\/strong> \/\/ Notan<\/em> \u2013 Quail remains one of the most mesmerising live acts<\/a> I’ve ever seen. Between the strength of her modern classical compositions and the frankly magical way she weaves them together live, armed with only a cello and a loop pedal, her shows are a must-see event. Fittingly, I saw Notan<\/em> performed live before I heard the recording, but it’s worth it in recorded form too. The nature of loop pedal based composition lends itself to the sort of slow build that makes for really good post-rock\/metal. Each piece goes in a pleasingly different direction and experiments with different additions to her sound palette. That she can do them live solo as well is merely the icing on the cake.<\/p>\n

\"\"#9. Mares of Thrace<\/strong> \/\/ The Loss<\/em> \u2013 I wrote most of a review for this album at release,2<\/a><\/sup> but never quite got it over the line. I found it so raw it was hard to listen to. As my difficult period got worse, I just gave up on being able to listen to it at all, and with it any hope of finishing even a woefully late review. Where The Exile<\/em><\/a> was immediately catchy and driving, The <\/em>Loss<\/em>’s<\/span> immediacy is its anguish, and that was all I could hear. Mares of Thrace<\/strong> are already hard to genre pigeonhole, and The Loss<\/em> is all over the place, spanning sludge, noise, prog, and doom, with trad inflections. I’m actually glad I didn’t manage to get the review done at the time. Coming back to it for list season, I appreciate it a lot more easily than I did at the time. The catchiness and driving energy are still there, but the additional stylistic variety makes it more interesting. The anguish adds weight and impact. The catharsis of the final track is well earned. It’s still a hard listen, but it’s a rewarding one. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get a TYMHM out!3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"#8. Black Narcissus<\/strong> \/\/ There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten<\/em><\/a> \u2013 This is just gorgeous<\/em>. The best post-rock does an awful lot with very little, and Black Narcissus<\/strong>’ unhurried drums and bass do an absolutely astonishing amount. There’s no way something so minimalist and so languid should be able to sustain an hour of music. I cannot emphasise enough how absolutely beautiful There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten<\/em> is, and its hour-long runtime just floats by. This is the epitome of “do one thing and do it well” as a philosophy.<\/p>\n

\"\"#7. Fallujah<\/strong> \/\/ Xenotaph<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Fallujah<\/strong> are a long time big name I had begun to appreciate more in the last couple of years, after seeing them live. They still hadn’t really clicked for me recorded, but Xenotaph<\/em> changed that. Tech death’s curse is sterility, and the warmth of this record lifts Fallujah<\/strong> out of that trap. It’s, paradoxically, at once dreamy and bluntly impactful. The writing is as strong on melody as it is on technicality. It seems slightly redundant to say this about a record that’s on my year-end list, but I really enjoy the immediate experience of listening to Xenotaph<\/em>. There’s something intensely satisfying about the smoothness: who says heavy music has to be abrasive? The production is still a sticking point, though.<\/p>\n

\"\"#6. Concrete Age<\/strong> \/\/ Awaken the Gods<\/em> \u2013 Awaken the Gods<\/em> is just a lot of fun. There’s not enough metal drawing on the instruments and composition of folk music from the Caucasus and the steppes. It reminds me a lot of Mongol, but with better and more varied folk instrumentation. There’s a couple of songs that are a bit more straight thrash with folk instruments, which are less exciting, but it doesn’t detract from the rest of the record. It also delivers further proof of my theory that folk metal covers of terrible pop songs are the pinnacle of music. My go-to for when I wanted something to uncomplicatedly bang my head to.<\/p>\n

\"\"#5. Calva Louise<\/strong> \/\/ Edge of the Abyss<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Calva Louise<\/strong> are what happens when somebody spots an “all of the above” button under “genre” on the band creation screen and their curiosity gets the better of them. They are what you get if you take the Diablo Swing Orchestra<\/strong> and remove their classical instruments and sense of restraint. Something this absurd could only ever have been terrific or terrible. Obviously, this is terrific. AMG<\/strong><\/span> called it wild, unpredictable, and addictive, and it certainly is. They sound like nothing else I’ve ever listened to, and manage to be dangerously catchy on top of it. This hit in the middle of my difficult period, and it was nearly the only thing I listened to for a month. A teeny sense of easing off the gas on the last few songs is the only weakness. Spectacular.<\/p>\n

\"\"#4. V\u00f6lur & Cares<\/strong> \/\/ Breathless Spirit<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Odd, unsettling, pretty, experimental, captivating\u2014Breathless Spirit<\/em> is a weird<\/em> album. Violin and viola occupy the sonic space where you’d typically find lead and rhythm guitars. The composition wanders through modern classical, atmoblack, noise, jazz, folk, doom, and more. Actually, the main textural comparison I would draw here is to Hierophant Violent<\/em><\/a>, though Breathless Spirit<\/em> is far less single-minded in direction. Many of the more ambient sections, and some of the clean vocals, remind me of the build-up stretches of that album, and likewise, there’s some similarity in the crushing crescendos. Just in case you thought you knew where this was going, the other comparisons I’m going to draw are to fellow Canadians The Night Watch<\/strong><\/a> and Thrawsunblat<\/strong><\/a>. Of everything on the list, this is the one at highest risk of me feeling like I placed it too low in a year’s time\u2014I found it late and it could grow on me further. A truly fascinating record.<\/p>\n

\"\"#3. Messa<\/strong> \/\/ The Spin<\/em><\/a> \u2013 While I’ve been a fan of Messa<\/strong> since their first record and through all their stylistic exploration, The Spin<\/em> really blew me away. Sara Bianchin sounds fantastic, and there’s a wonderful allure to the tone of the rest of the band. Others have commented on The Spin<\/em> feeling a bit like a collection of songs rather than a cohesive record, which is probably true and probably kept this from the top spot\u2026 but the songs are so damn good it’s hard to care that much. I came back to this a few times, even during the worst few months of the year, and had half of it stuck in my head half the time. At one point, I spent several days unable to get the opening riff of the opening track out of my head, and it doesn’t get any less addictive from there. In the last couple of months, I’ve had to actively resist putting it on at times to make sure I give other, less immediate records enough listening time.<\/p>\n

\"\"#2. Psychonaut<\/strong> \/\/ World Maker<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Yeah, so I’m a sucker for the kind of atmospheric post\/prog metal played by bands like The Ocean<\/strong> or Dvne<\/strong>. Here is this year’s winner in that space. I’ve wanted to like Psychonaut<\/strong> in the past more than I actually have, but World Maker<\/em> finally clicked for me in a big way. It’s intricate, catchy, in places techy, in others psychedelic. The songs unfold in interesting ways, and listening to it feels like exploring. From the buildup of the opening track, I knew this would be exactly what I wanted in this sort of music. And as Ken<\/strong><\/span> wrote in his review, the more personal dimension to World Maker<\/em>’s themes elevates it (with some similarities to Pelagial<\/em>’s place as the best Ocean<\/strong> album). A record that rewards time and attention.<\/p>\n

#1. Shepherds of Cassini<\/strong> \/\/ In Thrall to Heresy<\/em><\/a> \u2013 In Thrall to Heresy<\/em>’s victory here was not exactly inevitable when I reviewed it back in February, but it was certainly likely. The glorious return of a niche band I loved and thought lost? It would have taken something spectacular to upset it. I listened to this all year, through the difficult period, and kept on loving it. For all that retro prog is a bit of an oxymoron, 00s-early 10s prog is one of my favorite eras of music. (There was a lot of rabbling in the comments about me not having explicitly compared them to Riverside<\/strong> and Tool<\/strong>, so to be explicit, if you liked Riverside<\/strong> through to SoNGS<\/em><\/a>, you’ll like this. They’re far less pretentious than Tool<\/strong>.) In Thrall<\/em> is a fresh enough take to feel like progression, not a throwback. Its violin leads add variety (as well as claiming the Angry Cello Guy crown for the year). Shepherds<\/strong>’ songwriting has matured in the last decade. Their instruments sound pleasingly chunky. A post-y twist presses additional musical buttons for me. One could only make this more laser-targeted at my specific musical niche by somehow adding industrial bluegrass.4<\/a><\/sup> Don’t make me wait 10 years for the next record, please.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Honorable Mentions:<\/strong><\/p>\n