🌶️ To The Teeth: the list of lists! Deafheaven made the best heavy album of 2025

Plus: Messa, Yellow Eyes, Coroner, Deftones, Agriculture, Rwake, Paradise Lost, Imperial Triumphant, Deadguy and the rest of the list!

Here they are: the objectively best heavy albums of 2025! New stuff is on the playlist on Spotify, and you can support To The Teeth via Patreon and Bandcamp.

There are a few new things out too, check out the regular Spotify playlist!

Last time looking back at the past year, with my annual List of Lists. Lo but also behold: Deafheaven made the best heavy album of the year! Their Lonely People With Power tops an aggregated list of almost 300 albums that were on international end of the year lists. Deafheaven join the ranks of Blood Incantation (2024), Tomb Mold (2023), Chat Pile (2022), Archspire (2021), Oranssi Pazuzu (2020), Blood Incantation (2019), Yob (2018), Converge (2017) and Vektor (2016).

It wasn’t an easy win for the San Francisco post-black icons Deafheaven: the runners up, Messa and Yellow Eyes came pretty close this time. But still, it’s a convincing win in the end, plus the first time they made it into the top-10. Their experimental Infinite Granite didn’t make the list in 2021, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love landed on place 20 in 2018. This is also the first time there’s a number 1 with a porn actress on the cover, I guess. Or didn’t you recognize Jenna Haze? Just me? Whatever. Just a big win for a band that has been so reviled in the past.

Italian doom band Messa, the very respectable number 2 this year, made it into the top-10 before in 2022, with Feast of Water. Number three, American black metallers Yellow Eyes (read my interview!), are new this high up. They made the list in 2019 with Rare Field Ceiling, but only because I made it a top-100 that year (they landed on number 60). Immersion Trench Reverie, came in on #30 in 2017. They all came quite a long way!

The big comeback story this year is Coroner, the Zürich thrash metal band reached number 4 with their first new album since 1993! Can you imagine? This was before mobile phones, before Friends. Coroner, who had Tom G. Warrior behind the microphone for their ‘86 demo, did a farewell tour back in fucking 1996. But here we are, with a new album, super high up on the list. And while we’re at that: look at metalcore legends Deadguy, who made the top-10 with their second album since 1995.

Other household names that did well are Deftones (#5), Paradise Lost (#8), Ghost (#13 - although, for Ghost, this isn’t that impressive, is it?), Testament (#16) and Dream Theater (#43). On the other end of the spectrum, there are big names that trailed behind badly. See Sodom, down at the list with just 1 point, together with Katatonia, Machine Head and Lacuna Coil.

The band with the highest amount of points while on the least amount of lists, is Turnstile on place 11, while only named on four lists. A true love it or hate it album (I loved it, by the way). To compare: Havukruunu and Testament have less points, but were both on no less than eight lists. Ghost, was also on just four lists and are place 13. Psychonaut, Abigail Williams, Weeping Sores, Dream Theater, Blood Abscission and An Abstract Illusion made the list with just two mentions on lists.

Special shoutout to Ancient Death, death metal from the USA and Hedonist, death metal from Canada, who have the highest scoring debut albums. We live in fresh and exciting death metal times!

Anyway. The list!

🌶️ The List of Lists

1. Deafheaven - Lonely People with Power (80)

2. Messa - The Spin (75)

3. Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate (64)

4. Coroner - Dissonance Theory (51)

5. Deftones - Private Music (45)

6. Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound (43)

7. Rwake - The Return of Magik (“)

8. Paradise Lost - Ascension (35)

9. Imperial Triumphant - Goldstar (33)

10. Deadguy - Near Death Travel Services (“)

11. Turnstile - Never Enough (29)

12. Havukruunu - Tavastland (27)

13. Ghost - Skeletá (26)

14. Ancient Death - Ego Dissolution (25)

15. Primitive Man - Observance (“)

16. Testament - Para Bellum (24)

17. Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Innern (23)

18. Blackbraid - Blackbraid III (“)

19. Sumac & Moor Mother - The Film (“)

20. Lamp of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy (22)

21. Hedonist - Scapulimancy (“)

22. Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons (“)

23. Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo - In The Earth Again (“)

24. Spiritbox - Tsunami Sea (21)

25. Sanguisugabogg - Hideous Aftermath (20)

26. Sallow Moth - Mossbane Lantern (“)

27. Terzij de Horde - Our Breath is Not Ours Alone (19)

28. Lorna Shore - I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me (“)

29. Evoken - Mendacium (18)

30. Castle Rat - The Bestiary (15)

31. Psychonaut - World Maker (“)

32. Wode - Uncrossing the Keys (14)

33. Conjurer - Unself (“)

34. Halestorm - Everest (13)

35. Weeping Sores - The Convalescence Agonies (“)

36. Revocation - New Gods New Masters (12)

37. Warbringer - Wrath and Ruin (11)

38. Teitanblood - From the Visceral Abyss (“)

39. Cryptopsy - An Insatiable Violence (“)

40. Hell - Submersus (“)

41. Igorrr - Amen (“)

42. Abigail Williams - A Void Within Existence (“)

43. Gaahls Wyrd - Braiding the Stories (10)

44. Dream Theater - Parasomnia (10)

45. Blood Abscission - II (10)

46. Lust Hag - Irrevocably Drubbed (“)

47. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Death Hilarious (9)

48. Sleep Token - Even in Arcadia (“)

49. Vacuous - In His Blood (“)

50. Nite - Cult of the Serpent Sun (“)

51. Zeicrydeus - Le Grande Heresie (“)

52. Species - Changelings (“)

53. The Callous Daoboys - I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven (“)

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The Small Print

This year I’ve counted the relevant lists from Album of the Year, Angry Metal Guy (AN Grier, Steel Druhm), Bandcamp, Brooklyn Vegan, Consequence of Sound, Decibel, Invisible Oranges (Colin Dempsey, Josh Rioux), Meat Mead Metal, Metal Hammer, Metal Injection, Metal Storm, MetalSucks, No Clean Singing (Gonzo, Will Cifer), No Echo, Popmatters, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, The Needle Drop, The Quietus, To The Teeth, Toilet ov Hell, Treble and Zes Losse Tanden. Some magazines or blogs publish a lot of personal lists: I included a maximum of two, to prevent publication bias.

I gave every number one position 10 points. Numbers two got 8 points, numbers three got 6 and the rest of the top-10 positions got 5 points. A top-25 was 3 points, and everything below 1 point. When two records had equal points, the amount of list mentions prevailed. When those were equal as well, the amount of number 1’s (or, subsequently number 2’s) counted.

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Not-so-heavy & next week

Not-so-heavy album of the week: Dry Cleaning (post-punk, UK)

Next week: Kreator, Hagetisse.

What is your favourite? What did I miss? Let me know!