The first week of 2025 sees three awesome new, heavy albums being released. Let’s check them out!

Paleface Swiss: CURSED

This feels like the 2020s answer to Iowa, modernising it and heavying it up but still keeping that same feeling and anger and attitude. I LOVE it. It also reminds me a lot of fellow modern deathcore titans Slaughter to Prevail, blending slight nu-metal influences with the otherwise demonically heavy sound. As the first new album of the year for me, this has set an absolutely insanely high standard. I’m honestly struggling to pick highlight tracks from it as they are all so good. Don’t get me wrong, it is certainly heavy so not for everyone, but between the huge riffs, brutal breakdowns and Zelli’s hugely impressive growls and screams, it’s absolutely phenomenal. I was only really familiar with them by name and by Zelli’s feature on the Left to Suffer album last year, but this album has made a huge new fan out of me! If you’re into the heavy stuff I cannot recommend this enough, it’s certainly going to be up there in the album of the year discussion at the end of the year! It’s an easy 9.5/10

Only the Righteous: Hikikomori

The Manchester-based metalcore band returned with their sophomore album last Friday, over half a decade after their debut. They are certainly taking no prisoners on their return, as this is another awesome album! I definitely hear the early Architects inspiration they tout, but also hear plenty of hardcore in the screams, and almost some In Flames-style melodeath in there too. Tracks like the opener, the title track, ‘Day After Day’ and ‘Modern Hell’ are all huge personal highlights! The band perfectly blends an early 2000s style with a more modern sound, and it’s really awesome to hear. If you are at all into metalcore, I cannot recommend this enough. The band have a bright future ahead of them if this album is anything to go by, and it gets a solid 8/10 from us!

PATRIARKH: PROPHET ILJA

I’ve gotten really into the epic, hymn-folk-tinged side of black metal (arcane black metal apparently, which I’m down with!) recently, and this Polish band deliver that to fantastic effect! The former (ish) Batushka are on album number three, but the first alongside the mighty Napalm Records, and it is quite easily their best yet, for me. The concept album follows Prophet Ilja, an illiterate peasant who was the leader of the Orthodox Grzybowska Sect, based around a true story from the band’s home area of Podlasie back in the 30s. It’s one hell of a journey, incorporating plenty of folk instruments alongside the black and doom metal that the band are known for. It’s 40-minutes of interesting, heavy epicness. From the instrumentations to the screams to the operatic female vocals and chanting, it’s all awesome! It’s not for the faint of heart, those who aren’t into the heavier side of metal probably won’t be hugely into it. However, if you are, this is well worth checking out, and all in one listen-through, too! It’s another that gets a solid 8/10 from us!