![Between the Buried and Me – The Blue Nowhere [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/a0023762103_10.jpg.webp)
“With their move to Inside Out Music and the departure of longtime guitarist Dusty Waring, another shift seemed inevitable, with longtime fans like me wondering if the band could deliver another impressive offering. I’m happy to say The Blue Nowhere sticks the landing. It’s an impressive record that finds BTBAM confident, energized, and willing to explore new ideas while refining the familiar.” The grave digging was premature.
![Yellow Eyes – Confusion Gate [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Yellow-Eyes.jpg.webp)
“Romantic sublimity. It’s the idea that something in nature or art can be both wondrous and terrifying. Few bands capture this feeling as vividly as Yellow Eyes. Led by the Skarstad brothers, the New York band has explored this duality across their catalog—from the more straightforward black metal of Silence Threads the Evening’s Cloth (2012) and Sick With Bloom (2015), to the atmospheric and dissonant soundscapes of Immersion Trench Reverie (2017) and Rare Field Ceiling (2019), and even the dungeon synth/dark ambient territory of Master’s Murmur (2023). Throughout these records, their alien guitar work, uncanny melodic sense, ability to craft music that is both beautiful and oppressive, and obsessive attention to aesthetic detail have made Yellow Eyes one of the most exciting contemporary black metal acts.” Jaundiced but beautiful.
“More than almost any other metal niche, folk metal has to walk a treacherously thin line between “actually good music” and “full-body cringe.” For every band that can fuse arena-sized melodies with genuine folk charm, there are three more tumbling headfirst into the Neckbeard Abyss™, condemned to soundtrack the Nordic-themed house parties of Reddit mods everywhere. Equilibrium has stood proudly on both sides of that divide. Their early triumphs of Turis Frayter and Sagas were mead-soaked romps packed with syrupy pagan hooks and enough triumphant Bjoriffs to level a longhouse, but ever since, the spark has dimmed, and each new release has brought diminishing returns.” Balance restored?
“Sometimes, you catch a glint from deep within the festering promo heap and you know exactly what kind of beast you’re about to prod. Strigiform’s debut, Aconite, radiates the unmistakable stench of “I, Voidhanger-core”—that wonderfully cursed strain of aural decimation that critics slobber over while normal metalheads back away slowly, usually on smaller wierdo labels like I, Voidhanger or Transcending Obscurity. Think along the lines of AMG darlings from this year like Hexrot, Patristic and Ritual Ascension.” Voidbanger.
“Astronoid and I have a history. Their 2016 debut Air was one of those lightning-in-a-bottle releases that blew the doors off my early metal fandom. A delirious cocktail of shoegaze shimmer, sugar-coated harmonies, and blast-beaten bliss, it felt like nothing else at the time, and it sent me tumbling down the blackgaze rabbit hole. Add in the fact that these guys hailed from my quiet corner of New England, and I was all in.” Sugar-gazing.
“I take a seat in a cramped, rusted chair. Across from me sits a gorilla in some sort of crown and a man whose face could only be described as Abbathian. It’s time for my first performance review at AMG Headquarters, and things aren’t looking great. “Atmospheric nü metal/free jazz? German dance music? What are we, discount Pitchfork?” Druhm bellows between frustrated simian grunts. I turn towards the head honcho for mercy, but instead, he fixes me with an eldritch stare. The words don’t pass his lips—they appear directly in my skull like a psychic command: “Brutal death metal.” He hands me a grime-encrusted CD which reeks of beer and seaweed. German brutal death metal veterans Stillbirth are responsible for this fetid package, which lies before me. It’s Survival Protocol, their ninth full-length.” Surviving or thriving?
“If you’re like me, then your experience with German industrial metal largely revolves around Rammstein, the fun, if not inconsistent, institution that still somehow sells out arenas worldwide with their patented brand of simple riffs, simpler grooves, and deep-voiced German monotone “singing.” If you’re also like me, then listening to Rammstein became a lot less appealing when allegations surrounding frontman Til Lindemann arose, tainting my ability to enjoy the band. Thankfully, Germany is nothing if not efficient, and for every aging industrial Goliath there’s a newer, sleeker unit revving up on the assembly line. Erdling is one such machine, and they’ve been honing their brand of Neue Deutsche Härte since 2014.” Teutonic terrors.
“As I prowled the depths of the promo bin, preparing for my next review, a peculiar glint caught my eye. The label read, “RADIOACTIVE: FOR N00B ABUSE ONLY,” and below it, in what must have been an act of genre-tag terrorism, sat the words: nü metal/gospel/jazz. I briefly considered calling the authorities, but morbid curiosity won out. What kind of unholy chimera lurks inside something with that particular trifecta? I dusted off the cover like a bomb disposal tech, hoping the wires are color-coded. The culprit is Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom, the sophomore album from Danish group Heathe.” Tripping over trip wires.
“On Om Moksha Ritam, Insomniac manages to craft a sound that is immediately recognizable yet distinctly their own. They merge the progressive psychedelia of Elder with the layered, textural approach of REZN, all filtered through the Southern-gothic tinge of fellow Georgians Baroness. The result is a body of songs that draw equally from the contemplative exploration of ’70s prog, Americana-dipped blues rock, and the anthemic heft of post-metal’s sludgier, power-chord-driven moments.” Stoner for the sleepy.
“Within the sprawling cosmos of heavy metal, there are those who shy away from “cheese.” The self-serious arbiters of credibility who cannot fathom the spectacle of a Jørnlike figure, clad in frills, golden mane cascading, arms outstretched as soliloquies of passion pour forth in gloriously ESL-stained accents. Yet for those of us who have dared sail the seas of cheese, who have cast aside the brittle armor of irony, such bombast is not an embarrassment but a revelation, a childlike ecstasy born from grown men shrieking about dragons or Tolkien over galloping power chords as though their lives depended on it. It is precisely for this rapturous abandon, this embrace of the sublime absurd, that we turn to a band like Feanor.” Cheese is the new kale.
