Top 50 Albums of the Year 2025 (Vol. II)

Welcome to Volume 2 of my favorite albums from 2025! If you missed Volume 1, catch up here before diving into the rest of the list.

Kauan – Wayhome

The OG master storytellers are back with an epic 50-minute experience that unfolds seamlessly. Soaring ethereal vocals collide with brutal extreme metal screams, creating this mesmerizing juxtaposition. The sound is pristine, those melancholic textures landing just right. It’s like watching them return to their roots. This is Kauan reaching their absolute peak.

Favorite Tracks: outline / pave, soothe / sear, depart / dive

Kuiper – Be Here Now

Australia’s Kuiper crafted something special with Be Here Now. Nine tracks that flow like one continuous piece, focusing on textural layers rather than typical post-rock crescendos. Meditative and immersive, it rewards patient listeners who appreciate atmosphere over bombast.

Favorite Tracks: Waves, Be Here Now

L.O.E. – Chiaroscuro

L.O.E blend narrated passages with crushing soundscapes on Chiaroscuro, building tension between light and shadow. It’s visceral and demanding, asking you to feel the weight rather than just vibe. Not your typical post-rock fare, more like an emotional reckoning set to music.

Favorite Tracks: After All Is Said & Done, A New Consciousness, Monsters & Miracles

Last Leaf Down – Weight Of Silence

“Dreamy shoegaze from the woods” is how the band describe themselves, and honestly, that pretty much nails it. Weight of Silence blends melancholic post-rock with hazy shoegaze textures, creating this moody, atmospheric vibe perfect for late-night listening. Pleasant and serene without ever demanding too much from you.

Favorite Tracks: Reach The Sun, Falling Sky

Lost In A Detail – Eyes On The Stars, Feet On The Ground

Already reviewed this gem extensively (read here), but honestly, this album is a total Post-Rock package and Lost In A Detail absolutely crushed it.

Favorite Tracks: Eyes on the Stars, Feet on the Ground, Colliding Satellites

maïak – geiger discounter

maïak unleashed geiger discounter after years of silence, and it’s darker and heavier than expected. Seven tracks of brooding instrumental post-rock that swings between quiet tension and chaotic outbursts.

Favorite Tracks: the fulda gap, zimbabwe is mine

Marvatten – Unscripted Moments Vol. II & III

Best discovery of 2025, hands down. Vol. II and III released months apart but equally breathtaking. Fully improvised post-rock captured live in single takes. What sounds unplanned somehow feels inevitable, like watching lightning strike twice intentionally.

Maudits – In Situ

Undoubtedly one of my favorite albums of the year (definitely in Top 3) and I have talked about it plenty in my review. In Situ delivers an ominous, heavy, surreal experience that defies description. A unique tempest of intensity and creativity that must be experienced to be truly understood.

Favorite Tracks: Leftovers, Précipice Part III, Roads

Message to Bears – Tired Eyes, Waking Hearts

Six years away and Jerome Alexander returns blending folktronica, ambient, and post-rock into something deeply emotional. Tired Eyes, Waking Hearts doesn’t demand attention, it quietly pulls you in until you’ve been sitting still for 40 minutes, feeling everything.

Favorite Tracks: Open Lungs, Disquiet

Myriad Drone – A World Without Us

Another album that has been my top 3 AOTY pick ever since it released and I have raved my heart out in a lengthy review and after listening to over 200 albums in 2025, I can proudly say that A World Without Us is perhaps the most entertaining album in this list!

Favorite Tracks: Forlorn Hope, A World Without Us, Whereabouts Unknown

PSYCHONAUT – World Maker

Grief meets hope in PSYCHONAUT’s psychedelic post-metal masterwork. World Maker blends Tool-ish grooves with Pink Floyd atmospheres across an hour that somehow flies by. Slower burn than expected but emotionally devastating when it clicks.

Favorite Tracks: You Are The Sky, Endless Currents, Stargazer

RANGES – Sin

RANGES went full Dante’s Inferno with seven tracks for seven deadly sins. Heavier and more spiritual than past efforts, confronting morality rather than glorifying it. The Prodigal Son redemption arc hits unexpectedly hard.

Favorite Tracks: The Red Mist, Their Eyes Sewn Shut

Return To Zion – Burdened With Glorious Purpose

Each track unfolds like its own chapter, building emotional arcs that actually land instead of just crescendo-ing aimlessly. Cinematic strings carry the narrative weight. This is Post-rock that remembers storytelling matters more than formula.

Favorite Tracks: Adrift, Dreadnought II

SEIMS – V

SEIMS do genre-hopping with chutzpah, bouncing between math-rock fury and orchestral tenderness like it’s another Tuesday. Odd time signatures groove harder than they should. Personal evolution sounds like this when translated into sprawling experimental soundscapes.

Favorite Tracks: Double Standards, Forever the Optimist

SWANS – Birthing

Max’s review captured it perfectly, but worth echoing: Birthing is Swans’ watershed moment; an emotionally vast and deeply moving journey that stands as a spectacular ending to their illustrious career.

Favorite Track: Red Yellow, I Am a Tower, The Merge

Telepathy – Transmissions

Pat’s already written beautiful words about this album, but here’s why it belongs: takes multiple listens to fully appreciate, then hits differently each time. An absolute behemoth of an album that deserves every praise!

Favorite Tracks: Home,. End Transmission

The Color of Cyan – AS HUMAN

The Color of Cyan elevate their game with the introduction of strings in their brand of Post-Rock that transform the whole dynamic. Feels less like instrumental music and more like watching emotions unfold wordlessly.

Favorite Tracks: As Human, At Dawn

The Depth Beneath Us – Descent

Been waiting for this one all year. Progressive melodies meet post-metal heft without overstaying their welcome. Easily tops their solid self-titled debut—funny how a band called The Depth Beneath Us with an album titled Descent keeps ascending.

Favorite Tracks: Descent, Hessdalen Lights, Cluster B

Through A Glass, Darkly – SPERAMVS MELIORA // RESVRGET CINERIBVS

Emotionally devastating in ways I wasn’t prepared for. Doomgaze meets cinematic post-rock without leaning on tired crescendo formulas. They’ve crafted something genuinely transcendent here—perfection feels like a gross understatement.

Favorite Tracks: We Birthed The Daggers, From Our Wounded Heaven, With Frayed Prayers

TÖRZS – Menedék

TÖRZS created refuge in sound during personal upheaval, and it shows. Five tracks explore emotional depths that feel bottomless. Menedék may not be for the ones looking for heavy, anthemic Post-Rock but if delicate and expansive atmospherics speak to you, this is essential listening.

Favorite Tracks: Átfordul, Egy Pillanatban a Végtelen

Town Portal – Grindwork

To succinctly describe Grindwork, Math-Rock takes Noise-Rock home after hours, to make love in Post-Metal’s bedroom while Jazz experiments playfully on the bedside table. Town Portal is not following trends or blueprints, just building their own genre, one riff at a time.

Favorite Tracks: A Reasonable Amount of Screaming, Gold-Plated, Crushed Under Something Gentle

We Lost The Sea – A Single Flower

A Single Flower has topped countless year-end lists and it’s no surprise! No elaboration needed when we already know it is a masterpiece. Did they have to sacrifice an entire sea to become the modern Post-Rock gods? It’s a fair trade, IMHO.

Favorite Tracks: Bloom (Murmurations at First Light), A Dance With Death, If They Had Hearts

we.own.the.sky – In Your Absence

These Greek legends took six years perfecting their craft and it absolutely shows. Djent-y melodies flirting with cinematic Post-Rock soundscapes, striking that delicate balance perfectly. Definitely in my top three most looped albums of 2025.

Favorite Tracks: The Urge To Prey, Liminal Space, Eclipse

Wyatt E. – zamāru ultu qereb ziqquratu Part 1

Ancient Akkadian vocals over doom riffs shouldn’t work this well. Wyatt E. turned Babylonian exile into the year’s most hypnotic trip, blending Middle Eastern mysticism with crushing drones. Only 35 minutes of runtime is absolutely criminal. Release the part 2 asap!

Favorite Tracks: qaqqari lā târi Part I, Im Lelya

YEAR OF NO LIGHT – Les Maîtres Fous

Nearly 25 years into their journey and they unearth this ritualistic archival record that somehow feels both alien to their catalog yet unmistakably them. Profoundly challenging drone that captures where experimentation meets legacy. Essential listening.