Albums and EP's are listed in alphabetical order as I think it's the most fair way how to make all of them to stand out equally. I could have sorted them out by how many times did I listen to every each of them, but some have advantage of being released early in the year and I got the chance to spend more time with them and become more acquainted with the material than the ones released later in the year. Also some albums have a tendency to grow on you later and of course in some cases you just prefer some over others, but in general all of these were worthwile and I was tempted to go back for repeated listens.
With this much music I have barely scratch the surface (2-5 spins) on majority of these records, but I did my best. For more albums and more concrete data you can visit my Last.fm profile:

https://www.last.fm/user/Tuomas7/library/albums?from=2025-01-01

In more recent years I have tried to wrote "short descriptions" for at least my absolute favoruite records of the year (done outside of metalstorm), but this year I will be doing this only for one album. Not that rest of those 99 albums in the list do not deserve the same treatment, but it just takes a lot of fucking time to do so. However music itself on all these can speak for themsleves louder than words anyway.

BRUIT ≤ - The Age of Ephemerality (post-rock, experimental, ambient)

I think this particular album needs to be heard more and even though technically not a metal album I have a feeling that metal audience could appreciate it hell out of it. That ebb and flow, those dramatic climactic crescendos in contrast with serene and beautiful moments is what makes this album sing, even though an instrumental record. There are tracks on this album recorded in a church (you can find making of documentary videos online) with one particular section of electric guitar ensemble composed of close friends of the band among which can be found guys from Plebeian Grandstand and this in itself is pretty fucking metal. What comes to mind while describing visceral power and emotions of this record is one of my all time favourite movie soundtracks "The Fountain" from Clint Mansell recorded in collaboration with Kronos Quartet and Mogwai.

*I have added a few non-metal albums after the main chart (101-109), all of them on constatnt repeat and many of them on the highest positions in listening chart