Easily some best-of-the-year contenders, this past month saw a handful of exceptional releases from the most top notch metal artists around the world, from Cyprus and Slovenia to Greece.
Bronze Tier: Metal Album of the Month – April 2025
Church of the Sea
Eva
Released via These Hands Melt
Based in Athens, Greece
Drown to worship… enter nature’s largest temple. On the coast of Mediterranean waters, Church of the Sea calls out beyond the horizon, sermoning with atmospheric heaviness. Chants, distortion, and minimalism ring out in Eva, like biblical scripture for a murky, modern world. While meditative, the dark and distorted ambience within this music is otherworldly, or at least powerful beyond human comprehension.
FFO: Chelsea Wolfe, The Dead Weather, DakhaBrakha
Silver Tier: Metal Album of the Month – April 2025
Within Destruction
Animetal
Released via Sumerian Records
Based in Jesenice, Slovenia
This has guilty pleasure written all over it. Considering their extreme slam-deathcore origins, the anime aesthetics and catchy nü-metalcore of Within Destruction‘s new identity feels taboo for the “ethos” of metal music – but, fuck that. It’s 2025. The Rok Rupnik, Howard Fang (Defying Decay), and Luka Vezzosi trio absolutely killed it on Animetal. It’s counter-culture pop punk. It’s infectious industrial. It’s hip hop beats and breakdowns. It’s dystopian cyberpunk pop. Do you recall the sensation when you listened to Linkin Park‘s Hybrid Theory for the first time? And you felt “I shouldn’t like this, but I do.” This album is that defiant warmth.
FFO: Veil of Maya, Babymetal, The Browning
Gold Tier: Metal Album of the Month – April 2025
Frozen Winds
Keys to Eschaton
Released via Visceral Promotions
Based in Limassol, Cyprus
A follow-up to the blackened avant-garde ceremony on Necromantic Arts, the Cypriot cult, consisting of AdΩnis, Panagiotis, Sophia, and Stelios, continue their occult extreme metal on Keys to Eschaton. Cutting like a sacrificial blade, the sharp riffs that threaten throughout opener “Theosphoros” are of ancient European cosmic horror ferocity. With earthly, experimental scenes on stage, Frozen Winds‘ latest offering is divine, dynamic, and monumental.
FFO: Blut Aus Nord, Rotting Christ, Opeth
‘Keys to Eschaton’ on Bandcamp
Honorable Mentions
Crypts of Despair
We Belong in the Grave
Released via Transcending Obscurity
Based in Kaunas, Lithuania
Potentially the most fun death metal album so far this year, the groovy-melodic-technical unit delivered such a stellar onslaught on their third record, for fans of Cannibal Corpse, Revocation, and Blood Incantation.
‘We Belong in the Grave’ on Bandcamp
Wesele
Zmierzch
Released via Odium Records
Based in Dubiecko, Poland
Led by vocalist / multi-instrumentalist Czarnuch (ex-Pandrador), Wesele is a one-man depressive black metal project with such despair; this second full-length is utterly dismal, like Mgła and mourning.