The Best Debut Album - Metal Storm Awards 2025

Am I In Trouble? - Spectrum

Dear Steve Wiener: if you are wondering whether you are in trouble (and we have reason to believe that you are wondering this), don't worry.  You're doing a great job, and we're proud of you.  Spectrum claims lineal descent from the unorthodox experiments that black metal embarked on in the 2000s, and if you're looking to be outfitted in a nice reminiscence of Dødheimsgard, Arcturus, or even some early blackgaze, then you'll be satisfied.  Am I In Trouble? sits in a funny spot between being nostalgic for an older sound and being nostalgic for an older sound that's about being cutting-edge: in a weird way, it's familiar, but then the fun thing about all those bands is that they represent a virtually infinite variety.  Look at that cover art and track list.  How many colors other than black do you see?  There's a lot of room to breathe even when you're following in someone's footsteps.  This is a fun send-up of the clean choruses, jarring grooves, and meticulous compositions that overtook black metal two decades ago and hopefully the first stage in a new challenger's evolution.

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Ancient Death - Ego Dissolution

This ain't old-school death. This is Ancient Death. Centered on a space-themed lyrical concept, the Massachusetts four-piece Ancient Death play an incredibly entertaining mix of styles on their very promising debut album Ego Dissolution. Their approach is a marriage of elegant, progressive influences and groovy, technical musicianship. The guitar work flows seamlessly between moody melodies and catchy riffs, while individual solos present intricate compositions that occasionally dip their toes into frantic chaos. Pummeling drums and rumbling growls create a heaviness that's juxtaposed to the bright female vocals of the bassist. Like the ebb and flow of the ocean’s tide, the music naturally evolves through cycles of intensity and atmosphere. Balancing aggressive energy, exquisite melody, and groovy rhythm, Ego Dissolution offers everything one could ask for in a progressive death metal album.

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Arrows - Yearning Arrows; Cloven Suns

Arrows is another project of Jünger Tumilon, formerly known as The Helvetic Underground Committee, and Yearning Arrows; Cloven Suns is their debut. It features ingredients of black, death, and doom metal, along with both harsh and clean vocals, quasi-symphonic passages, gothic and melancholic undertones, and epic, soaring melodies. The fluidity in the songwriting is remarkable, with abrasive and pummeling sections seamlessly transitioning into melancholic and reflective ones. With all its imperfections, this debut is a breath of fresh, creative, and human air.

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Awakeness - Low Spirits

Poland's Awakeness come crashing into the modern deathcore scene daring not to conform to one of the prevailing trends, but instead merging two of said trends together. Luring in listeners with bruising thall grooves, they then pull the rug underneath and shatter expectations by delivering a take on blackened deathcore that, unlike many similar acts, makes proper use of the 'blackened' part of that equation. These contrasting styles not only co-exist separately in the tracklist, but eventually come together in a full-on fusion that offers a whole new plethora of opportunity going forwards, particularly when executed with such finesse.

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Changeling (GER) - Changeling

What happens when members of Alkaloid, Fountainhead, Virvum, and Malignancy join up to create a new extreme progressive metal band? What happens when the session roster is so huge that it includes instruments like Wagnerian tube, vibraphone, dabouka, glockenspiel, and church organ? Symphonic prog death? At times, but not quite. What Changeling do on their statement-like self-titled album is prog death that is very keen to play around with everything it can get its hands on: fretless bass melodies, intricate time signatures, atmospheric moments, choirs and orchestras, and a 17-minute closing track to wrap everything up as if it were a gift.

Drowned In Silver - Mothers

When doom approaches - not doom metal, but your doom - it probably sounds a lot like this.  Drowned In Silver emerges from that inky black corner that you just can't get your eyes to focus on and it slithers and staggers right up to your bedside to devour you.  This astounding debut album mixes folk, doom, and cultic ambiance into a slow, eerie wave that has the temperament and tempo of drone but is too emotional to be confined to soft sounds; the vocals are sometimes wisps, sometimes chant-like, but swell to powerful bellows and piercing peaks that refer to Primordial or Rainer Landfermann.  With such intense conviction, the somber, laborious drone-doom transforms into a passionate, wild grief, a sound that is dark, ancient, and unsettling.

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Euphrosyne - Morus

We said when introducing Euphrosyne with our coverage of their debut EP, Keres, in Clandestine Cuts that future success seemed inevitable, and they've soon proven that statement accurate. Their debut full-length Morus builds upon the distinctive post-black metal sound of Keres by expanding the use of Efi Eva's remarkable clean vocals alongside increased incorporation of piano, strings, and electronics. Nevertheless, this is still a release with great capacity for black metallic ferocity and anguish to accompany the sullen melancholia of a journey into the experience of losing a loved one to cancer.

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Opia - I Welcome Thee, Eternal Sleep

Opia is a new band, formed by musicians from the UK and Spain, blending gothic and death-doom metal in a stunning debut of ethereal atmosphere and crushing heaviness. The music is lush and captivating, with acoustic guitars and mournful lead melodies giving way to shattering riffs and powerful drum beats, while Tereza Rohelova’s harsh vocals are aggressive, brutal, and sinister, in stark contrast with her ethereal and dreamlike cleans. The entire album is gorgeous, but, whatever you do, make sure you listen to “The Fade”, one of the best songs of 2025.

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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.

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Structure - Heritage

Bram Bijlhout is joined by a couple of studio friends for the full-length debut of Structure, an album that follows in the tradition of the best melancholic doom: emotional vulnerability delivered in the most crushing of guises.  Drums from journeyman Dirk Bruinenberg create a lot of space for the melodies to reverberate in; Bijlhout's coarse growls, sometimes layered with quavering cleans, reach that plane of pain that needs to be communicated in death-doom's dirges; the songs are moving, always mournful in aspect and as melodic as you can get away with before losing the dark, personal grounding.  But if there's one thing that defines Heritage, it is Bijlhout's weeping guitars: whenever the solo breaks in, whenever the guitar takes the melody, his playing deepens the mood.  This is where he strikes gold and where Heritage becomes one of the truly great doom albums of the year.  And to convey "the sadness of everyday life", to explore what these songs seek to explore, that is what you need: an authentic expression of feeling.

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