It’s that time once again, folks—time for Southeast of Heaven’s Top Albums of 2025. I feel like I just did one of these not long ago, so it’s hard to believe that it’s been a year.
2025 was a pretty kick ass year for music. This year, I heard more great new metal music than I’ve heard in a while. This year’s list also covers a nice range of genres, including Classic Rock, Metal, Alt-Country, and Melodic folk.
Looking back on this list, it reminds me that I have a really broad palette when it comes to music, and I love that. If it’s good music, I will love it and write about it regardless of genre. That is a sentiment I share with my peer music journalists, and I hope you, the reader, will appreciate it as well.
Ok, let’s get into this.
1 – Roger Waters – This is Not a Drill (Live From Prague)
My favorite album of 2025. I listened to this album daily, and that is not an exaggeration. If I wasn’t listening to my vinyl copy, I was listening to random songs from it on Spotify. This is hands down my favorite tour of Roger Waters. The track list for this tour/album was perfectly sequenced and performed with so much fire.
The versions of “The Powers That Be” and “The Bravery of Being Out of Range” are worth owning the album for. Also, the opening post-apocalyptic version of “Comfortably Numb” tears me to shreds. This Is Not a Drill is a glory ride, and it’s a representation of the genius and boldness of Roger Waters, and his don’t give a fuck attitude. If David Gilmour was the beauty of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters is the seedy underbelly showing you all the things that you don’t want to see because reality is fucking ugly like that.
2 – Bruce Dickinson – More Balls to Picasso
The concept of “re-imagining” or even re-recording an album is something of a pet peeve of mine. When I heard Bruce Dickinson was re-releasing his 1994 release Balls to Picasso, I immediately got nervous. Why was he going to fuck with an album that is so important to me and, in my opinion, perfect?
More Balls to Picasso has Bruce revisited this album and did the things to it that he wished he could’ve done at the beginning, but either didn’t have the budget at the time or just missed opportunities. It’s absolutely brilliant. Strings were added to “Tears of the Dragon,” epic keyboards were added to “1,000 Points of Light,” and tribal drums that completed the vision for the song “Gods of War.” Nothing was overdone. It was tastefully perfect, and Bruce breathed new life into this album in 2025.
3 – Messa – The Spin
Messa is a prime example of why I love what I do. I was asked to cover this eclectic band for my other family, Ghost Cult Magazine. As corny as it is, Messa is one of those bands that just cannot be pinned down by a genre tag. Messa incorporates elements of doom, psych rock, prog rock, 80s goth, and jazz, with a female vocalist, and guess what? It fucking works.
The first song I heard from this album was “The Dress,” and from there it was a rabbit hole for me. I became obsessed with this album, and I still am. The Spin isn’t just one of my favorite releases of 2025 but one of my favorites in the last decade or so. Every time I listen, I hear something different. It’s a beautiful thing, this album. You have to listen to it and experience it to understand.
4 – Marissa Nadler – New Radiations
2025 saw the much anticipated release of Marissa Nadler’s new album New Radiations, the follow up to 2021’s The Path of the Clouds. The last couple of albums that Nadler put out had some more experimental features to it as she delved into the realm of soundscapes but this time around, she dialed things back a bit and went a bit more bare bones on this one. The result is nothing less than absolutely stunning.
While New Radiations sounds more akin to her album July, it doesn’t sound like a step backwards. With it’s sparse yet full instrumentation accompanied by her partner Milky Burgess, New Radiations acts as a nostalgic reminder of when I first discovered and fell in love with her music. New Radiations is not only the Marissa Nadler album I hoped for but it’s the album I truly needed.
5 – Sarah McLachlan – Better Broken
Ever since hearing her for the first time back in 1994, I have been a massive fan of Sarah McLachlan’s. I loved all of her albums up to the iconic Surfacing album. After that, I felt like she lost the plot a little bit. I didn’t feel moved as I did before with her songs. They just lost that magic, so I gave up on her new music. That is, until I heard her latest album, Better Broken.
When I heard the first single, “Better Broken,” I felt like I was hearing her again for the first time. What I loved most about this song and album is that she seems to have come full circle, writing as she did in her younger years, only from the perspective of someone who has lived a much longer life. With that comes different perspectives, different focuses, and different influences. Sarah re-captured what I loved so much about her in the first place, and I felt like I came full circle as a fan as well.
6 – Jakko Jakszyk – Son of Glen
Ever since hearing Jakko for the first time, fronting King Crimson, I immediately fell in love with everything this guy does. His solo album The Trouble With Angels became a huge listen for me and one of my top albums the year it came out. Son of Glen finally arrived in 2025, and it wasn’t just a follow-up album. It was like the beginning of a whole new book of stories.
Son of Glen is chock-full of themes that I could connect with on a much greater level than I thought. Themes like loss of identity, nostalgia, sentiment, and longing are not only things I connect with but also ones I’ve been bogged down in over the last year or so. Musically, there is a complex yet subtle beauty to the arrangements and execution. Jakko also possesses a voice that tells a story, drawing your attention in with an emotive timbre and soothing volume.
7 – David Gilmour – The Luck and Strange Concerts
Last year, I got to knock David Gilmour off my bucket list, and the wait was definitely worth it. In 2024, Davy boy toured in support of his best solo album to date, and it showed. Two sets of fantastic music, which included Pink Floyd classics, combined with nearly the entire Luck and Strange. This showed Gilmour’s confidence in this material, and luckily, he was smart enough to capture Gilmour and his band playing damn near perfectly.
Gilmour did the right thing by capturing the 24 shows on his Luck and Strange tour, which included stops in Brighton, Rome, London, Los Angeles, and New York City and releasing it as The Luck and Strange Concerts. It showcases the greatness of these shows, but my only complaint is that there is little to no variation from the original recorded versions of the songs. Where Roger Waters took different approaches and reimagined many of the Floyd songs for his shows, Gilmour played it safe. That being said, these were magical shows and something I will never forget.
8 – Children of the Sun – Leaving Ground, Greet the End
Swedish psych/roots rockers Children of the Sun returned with Leaving Ground, Greet the End, which they released on their own label, Lovely Eyes Records. With each release, Children of the Sun has matured and grown into a band that continues to push themselves as performers and songwriters.
Drawing on influences of psych rock, blues, and even a gentle touch of alt-country, this album shows Children of the Sun breaking out of the hippie rock of their debut and growing even further from their previous release, Roots. This is their most moody album to date, and I love that because it shows growth and versatility. It also keeps me interested, makes me proud to be a fan, and, most importantly, keeps me anticipating their next move.
9 – Castle Rat – The Beastiary
Being the old fart that I am, I will forever be a sucker for classic, themed heavy metal. When Castle Rat popped on my radar this year, I was ecstatic. Castle Rat fulfilled everything I love about metal. The Beastiary showcases Castle Rat’s massive crushing on a Black Sabbath vibe without going into run-of-the-mill doom, while paying homage to Hawkwind and early era psychedelic Scorpions. Still, one of the things I love the most is that they are over the fucking top.
Led by Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen), Castle Rat also features such epic players as The Count on lead guitar, The Plague Doctor on bass, and the Druid on drums. Castle Rat manages to pull off the rare task of actually being a genuinely great band with great songs and execution. Seeing them and their over-the-top imagery and costumes is absolutely insane, and while I love it, don’t let it turn you away. Castle Rat is a prime example of why you should never judge a book by its cover.
10 – Julien Baker & Torres – Send a Prayer My Way
Send a Prayer My Way was another album I didn’t even know I needed in 2025 was from former Boygenius/solo artist Julien Baker, who joined up with Indie rocker Torres to create the best alt-country album I have heard in decades. Baker and Torres collaborated on all twelve songs, and I was hard-pressed to find one I didn’t think was awesome.
Usually, on an album like this, with two collaborators, one will have a more noticeable role. Like, when CSN put out an album, you could tell which song a Crosby was, which one a Stills, and which one a Nash. Baker and Torres wrote so seamlessly together that it is surprising, cohesive, and void of any ego showboating. This is a must-listen for anyone who loves great folk rock/alt-country.
11 (one louder) – Deadguy – Near-Death Travel Services
Deadguy definitely gets the “Fuck I Didn’t See That Comin’” award by releasing Near-Death Travel Services, their first album since their 1995 debut, Fixation on a Co-Worker. While the band reformed in 2021 with the original lineup from their debut album, this is the first time we’re seeing Deadguy hailed as the band they are: iconic fucking masters who helped shape the Metalcore genre.
Near-Death Travel Services is a straight-up, in-your-face platter of metal that will fuck your face. If you have ever wondered who influenced the sound of Municipal Waste, you can stop here because these guys started it. The production is fantastic, and the songs are brutal fun, and at a mere 36 minutes and 25 seconds, it left me wanting more, so a repeat listen is what it got. In a time where a lot of metal seems to be getting soft and somewhat tired, we’re lucky to have Deadguy back to wake everyone the fuck up. Posers, leave the hall. Deadguy has arrived.
Better Late Than Never
Esben and the Witch – Hold Sacred
I love Spotify. I know they fuck artists (hell, I’m one of those artists), but you can’t deny the outreach that it has to people that may never know about your band. IT’s great for my music as it exposes me to an audience I never knew I had. The same could be said for other bands because, thanks to Spotify, on my home screen, it recommended an album called Hold Sacred by England’s Esben and the Witch.
I never heard a note from this band, but the minute the album started, I lit some incense, sank into my beanbag chair, and found myself on this ethereal journey. Hold Sacred is the perfect after-hours, late-night album. Esben and the Witch’s Hold Sacred has a Mazzy Star-like quality, but more ambient and more ambitious, to be honest. This was a beautiful find for me, and I could not have closed out 2025 without at least mentioning it. Yeah, it’s that good.
Single of the Year:
Nephila – Clavata (Live at Sweden Rock 2025)
Nephila teased the fuck out of me by releasing three singles this year. First, we were gifted with “In Her Hands (You’ll Never Be Free) and “Solar Eclipse,” and then to close out the year with a bang, they went out swinging with a live version of “Clavata” from the 2025 Sweden Rock Festival.
Originally, on their self-titled debut, “Clavata” (Live at Sweden Rock) is far superior to the version on the debut. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE the debut, but when they replaced former vocalist Stina Olsson with Linn Edlund, this move elevated Nephila to a whole other level. If these singles are any indication of what lies ahead with a new full-length release in 2026, I think it’s safe to say that Nephila is going to make it to the top even quicker than I ever thought.
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