The Best Heavy / Traditional Metal Album - Metal Storm Awards 2025

Behölder - In The Temple Of The Tyrant

Just as we thought 2025 was coming to an end Behölder, seemingly spawned from nowhere to unleash what was arguably the best epic heavy/doom release of the year In The Temple Of The Tyrant, and what's more impressive is the fact this is only their debut effort. It helps featuring members of Judicator in their line-up, of course, but calling this a band with potential is still a mere understatement, as their professionalism, maturity, and incredible songwriting prowess rival even the best and most experienced bands across the whole genre. This is an all-killer, no-filler album, with top-tier all-round performances; its melodies, choruses, and instrumentation as a whole are full of memorability beginning to end, on top of which is an intriguingly epic theme to hook you in all the more. Fans of both epic doom and traditional heavy metal should give this a whirl.

Black Sword Thunder Attack - Black Sword Thunder Attack

Black Sword Thunder Attack’s debut features music that is very reminiscent of Warlord and Lordian Guard, but it is also of such high songwriting quality. The guitars are rich and imaginative, and the female vocals follow their melodies, acting as means of sorcery, soothsaying, and necromancy. The riffs ooze honour, pride, and glory, while the dungeon synths cover them in a shroud of occult ambience, making the songs mentally transport true metal lovers to ancient lands and fallen empires.

Christian Mistress - Children Of The Earth

Christian Mistress returned after ten years with Children Of The Earth, and their knack to combine the spirit and the riffs of NWOBHM with the catchiness and the replayability of ‘70s hard rock has remained intact. Much of the album’s appeal is how natural and organic it sounds and how mistakes have been left intentionally to remind the listener that this music was made by humans and not by robots. This is a reminder of how difficult and at the same time how rare it is to make great heavy metal music; one could listen to this album in a club from start to finish, without skipping a single song, and they would have a fantastic night out.

Full review

Fer De Lance - Fires On The Mountainside

The Hyperborean was one of our favorite debuts in 2022, but Fer De Lance have put everything into outdoing it on Fires On The Mountainside; this album opens with a 13-minute song, and you don't do that unless you're really confident in what you've got.  Naturally, a band like Fer De Lance just oozes confidence, racing from the Bathory side of epic metal to the Manowar side and balancing delicately in between just for sport.  Bold, sky-piercing shrieks, echoing choirs, majestic guitar-and-organ partnerships, and high-energy hooks push the boundaries of classic heavy metal and epic doom into their most powerful and extreme, even crescendoing into blackened, deathly, and symphonic realms for an extra dose of grandiose power a la Emperor or Amon Amarth.  Fires On The Mountainside is an album of stomping, screaming, full-blast quests through every sense in which heavy metal can be epic.

Full review

Mean Mistreater - Do Or Die

Traditional heavy metal of this kind often doesn't like to overstay its welcome, benefiting from the "speed" part of speed metal to also keep its runtimes short. Mean Mistreater take that lesson to heart, offering some galloping guitars, melodic solos bordering on hard rock, doom-tinged muscular riffs, and vocals so pushed back in the mix you might actually think they're from the early 80s, in Do Or Die's less than half an hour runtime.

Full review

Nite - Cult Of The Serpent Sun

Nite is a band that sounds like a difficult proposition on paper: you'd think it would be hard to make traditional heavy metal work without the expressive and melodic vocals that are the genre's standard and around which the songs are often built, but Nite absorbs Van Labrakis's scratchy, monotone growls as if they were the most natural thing in the world.  And they kind of are, for such a dark and icy variant of the old-school stuff.  The melodic work is up to the guitars, which rise to the challenge with twangy riffs, flashy solos, and periodic embraces of both epic doom and first-wave blackened menace, and the result is a style that seizes the same appeal as classic heavy metal without seeking to recreate that sound exactly or sounding indebted to any one band.  For a bit of a darker detour through heavy metal that is both satisfyingly faithful to tradition and unbound by its prosaic conventions, Cult Of The Serpent Sun is one of your best choices of the year.

Full review

Scimitar - Scimitarium I

On some level, we all know that we wouldn't have black metal as it exists today without a bunch of old heavy metal bands just being extra spooky and dramatic, but sometimes it's still hard to see the train of thought connecting King Diamond and Immortal on a level that is actually musical and not just philosophical.  That's where bands like Scimitar come in, straightening out the helical structure so you can get a good look at evil music's genetic makeup.  This stellar debut combines the spry percussion, electrifying guitar leads, and spectral vocals of classic haunted house metal with the furious abandon, razor-sharp riffs, and frigid temperatures of Norway's finest.  If you miss Slægt, you'll probably find much to love about Scimitar - but be ready to experience something new in the realm of the old.

Full review

Tower - Let There Be Dark

One of the most electric acts within the heavy metal scene returns! Tower’s third album cements their place within the underground with more catchy and memorable compositions that are sublimated only by the great Sarabeth Linden’s vocals. Let There Be Dark releases as the band turns 10 years old and celebrates all things heavy metal by gifting us with 10 exceedingly well-realized tracks that only further explain how they’ve lasted this long already. If you have any interest in heavy metal, this release is for you.

Full review

Vultures Vengeance - Dust Age

Vultures Vengeance is a superb Italian export that worships traditional heavy metal and early U.S. power metal by producing a sound that is at the same time progressive and strangely alluring. Technical riffs, harmonized leads, galloping speed, and theatrical flair in the vocal department are just some of the ingredients that make Dust Age an essential listen for traditional metal lovers; this is an album that is both a shower and a grower.

Wings Of Steel - Winds Of Time

Back in 2023 Wings Of Steel unleashed a mighty debut that took the NWOTHM scene by storm. Now they've soared to even greater heights embarking on a journey of epic proportions through the howling Winds Of Time, for which they've brought back some of the best heavy metal around today reminiscent of the genre's golden era. Winds Of Time features eight highly memorable, adrenaline-pumping anthems where the songwriting is of the very highest quality and the performances exceed even those of the debut. From one infectious riff melody and breathtaking solo after another, to the relentless stampeding, blood-rushing rhythm and mighty hair-raising, arena-pleasing choruses, Winds Of Time will not only be remembered as one of the highlights in heavy metal from 2025, but as a genuine modern classic that NWOTHM fans simply can't ignore.

Full review