Some of their most effective songwriting to date. The hazy, swirling sound is as beautiful as ever – see the silken Pill To Swallow and the gossamer-like I Held You Like Glass – but this time, they’ve spun it into more impactful shapes.

This is what it sounds like when Poppy is properly in her element. When she’s got something that lights her on fire, she’s unstoppable, and this is how she’s been able to write possibly her best songs yet.

Written and performed by a band well into their groove, and produced by Bad Religion legend-cum-Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz, the finished product is finely balanced, tastefully under-polished and perfectly baked.

Megadeth (the album) is the perfect encapsulation of how Megadeth (the band) have lived: bold, frequently brilliant but occasionally flawed.

The only letdown is a cover of Dead Or Alive’s YOU SPIN ME ROUND (Like A Record), where for all of Thomas’ squalling riff work, it’s obviously just there as padding as it doesn’t quite fit in, and Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos performs as if it’s mere karaoke. Other than that, Thomas has masterminded a very solid collection of songs and though they’re not stretching rock ‘n’ roll to entirely new dimensions, they offer a tantalising glimpse into who this man is when he’s not a cog in a bigger machine.

Ascension is a truly substantial body of work, but it’s executed with an almost ghostly lightness of touch. Evidence of artists who have mastered their dark craft and another late-career triumph from one of metal’s most enduringly brilliant bands.

Consistently, Watch It Die is easy listening. That’s a compliment, given the way that gnarly guitar lines and shouted vocals can intertwine with synth lines you’d expect from The Killers, such as the motoring thump of Between The Waves. It’s also a critique on the simplicity of some melodies.

A thunderous, cathartic debut that remains subtly political and emotive while prioritising surface-level pandemonium. From top to bottom, it exists on the edge of a cliff.

Across imperfect accounts and admissions, 5SOS are acknowledging how the pressure of performing links to a pressure to always be liked: to be young, to be attractive, to be good but not too good. So, they may piss off a metalhead or two by being colourfully themselves, but they’re sure good at pop rock.

This is punk as it was always meant to be: loud, ugly, righteous and alive.

This is an album for the coldest of autumns and for dark nights of the soul. It’s hellish, haunting and an emotional maelstrom, deeper and more textured than Witch Fever have ever gone before.

Creeper have always been great. But in this current (and unexpectedly elongated) vampire phase, they’ve blossomed into their true, proper selves.

Taking artistic plunges in areas outside garage punk is not for them, but this fifth album is nevertheless a solid half hour of what the Kentucky outfit do best.

Out of Ian’s time of crisis, Militarie Gun have made themselves a silver lining, a record that’s not just a tremendous step up but one that could be their defining moment.

That Nine Inch Nails have executed a stunning return is a given, but the size and scope of this particular victory – this double victory, actually – should not be overlooked.

The end result is maybe not as coherent as Race The Night, but it’s every bit as fun. Almost 30 years since Ash named their debut album 1977, after the year that Star Wars was released, the Force is still strong with these ones.

The Spiritual Sound is a fathomless pool worth hurling yourself into, a shimmering, shattering new landmark on heavy music’s mind-expanding outer limits.

If you want The Art Of Drowning-era iteration, then they’re still there on record forevermore. This is the AFI of 2025, though – older, bolder, hairier and doing things their way – and authenticity never goes out of style.

A truly thrilling record on the most basic level; boasting a set of classy songs that are half-brains, half-brawn and all-absolute-bangers.

It’s a bold, fresh effort full of tunes that are simultaneously immediate and deep.

As their most mature and focussed album yet, Tomorrow We Escape shows Ho99o9 can go the distance to rage on and burn bright well into the future.

This is surely one of the year’s most important records.

The soft strummed title-track is saturated with heartbreak and rage. By the time the downbeat End Times Sermon dissolves into its ponderous parting sample, it’s hard not to feel drained and dejected, but also utterly connected to the chaos of the world falling apart around us.

Everest remains Halestorm, yes, but in dazzlingly diverting ways that are gonna take you time and several plays to appreciate properly.

In a time where it seems everyone wants to make noisier music as an act of defiance against an increasingly cruel world, Jehnny Beth has found a way to stand out. She’s real, she’s raw, and everything here has such a strength of spirit to it that it feels truly alive.

A musical purge of trauma patterns, depression, love, loss, and of course, ego, the wit and honesty of Hayley’s lyricism is the shining star of this work. It’s an unboundless exploration of a life lived under the scrutiny of misogyny and in the public eye from one of our time’s most creative and fearless artists.

Georgia’s bass tone, not only disgustingly good, is a storytelling tool: in one instance it’s slurring and drenched in gloopy, thick fuzz, and then in other pockets it snaps awake, crunchy and computerised, but alive like a robot driven on revenge. Amy experiments with classical operatic vocal wails on opener Glory, while elsewhere her vocals become like fight talk, are enunciated with the confident cries of the Supernova era.

This latest offering is as uncorrupted a rock album as any released this year, 33 minutes of breakneck, tyre-screeching anthems.