May 2025 Best Heavy Metal Albums

Here are our picks for May 2025’s best new heavy metal albums.

1. Nightfall – Children Of Eve (Season Of Mist)

Nightfall, the celebrated blackened death metal band from Greece, have returned with Children Of Eve, one of their strongest albums in years. There’s been some changes in the lineup since Nightfall’s previous album; Vasiliki Biza has joined on bass and Kostas Kyriakopoulos now does most guitar work. Former Septicflesh alumnus Fotis Benardo is on drums while founding member Efthimis Karadimas is still on vocals.

The album is dark but it’s brimming with ideas. Each song has its own musical identity and Nightfall seem to have handled each composition with meticulous care. And it gets better: the songwriting is solid and the music’s melody never detracts from the heaviness. Children Of Eve reminds me a lot of early Paradise Lost and Karadimas has also cited Death’s Spiritual Healing as an influence on this album. Indeed, both albums possess a rebellious attitude. Closing track “Christian Svengali” sounds like a march into hell, which in a way can be said for the whole album. This is possibly the most complete Nightfall album to date. It’s our pick for May’s best album.

2. Acherontas – Nekyia – The Necromantic Patterns (Zazen)

Acherontas, now stylized as Αχέροντας since 2021, have evolved significantly in their exploration of occultism and hermeticism concepts. Their deepening understanding of these concepts has transformed them into truly fearsome yet wise black metal alchemists. With their tenth album Νekyia – The Necromantic Patterns, Acherontas have not just delivered a statement but a revelation: the occult is no longer merely a theme — it’s a lava-like elixir from which the fiery spirit of their music drinks in bold, consuming gulps.

Νekyia, without a doubt, stands as one of the band’s most significant works to date, if not their magnum opus. The six- to eight-minute pieces are meticulously crafted to facilitate dynamic emotional shifts, leading to an epic climax that evokes a terrifying spectacle of the rise and presence of all demonic and darkest forces. Yet, they also manage to stir passion in the listener with their emotional melodies. Νekyia – The Necromantic Patterns is an exceptional Orthodox black metal release, delivered in an undeniably forceful, intense, and epic unorthodox manner.

3. Cwfen – Sorrows (New Heavy Sounds)

Formed less than two years ago, the Scottish band Cwfen (pronounced “coven”) emerge with their debut album Sorrow.
Doom is the band’s core sound, but they expand it to include elements of gothic, post-punk and shoegaze. The songs move at a deliberate to mid-tempo pace and have a melancholy vibe.

With most tracks in the five-to-seven-minute range, there’s plenty of time for twists and turns and shift in tempo and texture. Agnes Alder’s impressive vocals run the gamut from a mellow croon to passionate singing to spoken word to harsh growls. The juxtaposition of intense metal and mellower moments makes for an interesting sonic journey. Sorrows serves notice that Cwfen are a band on the rise.

4. Misfire – Product Of The Environment (MNRK Heavy)

Misfire start things slowly on their second full-length Product Of The Environment before letting loose on “Day to Day,” giving a powerful beating to your eardrums like a classic Exodus record. Sporting a new vocalist in the form of bassist Dan Stapinski, Misfire hasn’t missed a beat.

“We Went Through Hell” is rife with riffs that bludgeon the listener, while also using their songwriting abilities to break up that beating with ample grooves and guitar solos, making for the sound of another thrash metal band that was simply born too late, yet understands the genre’s assignment. Misfire do a great job of keeping the energy consistent with songs like “Left For Dead” and “Privacy” near the end that continue to give the listener that rush of energy you have come to expect from crushing thrash metal. Product Of The Environment proves to be the sound of a new toxic waltz.

5. Chepang – Jhyappa (Relapse)

Nepalese by way of NYC grindcore band Chepang have a quite a bit going for them on their major label debut Jhyappa. Singing in Nepalese and delivering 9 fast and ferocious songs in under 20 minutes hits the proper old school grind ethos but that would be selling the band short.

“Parichaya,” the album’s opener, features an older eastern recording which allows you to delve into the mind of this quintet which aims to blend peace with chaos. “Gatichad” is a track filled with pummeling drums and shrieked vocals a la Brutal Truth’s Kevin Sharp; throat shredding and often felt as though it is in the periphery instead of in the forefront. “Khel” opens with a spoken word recording and gives way to a righteous groove like Wormrot and vigorous blast beats showing influence from both the spiritual world and the utter confusion that is the global landscape. Jhyappa is the proper kind of evolution through aggression one needs for the here and now.

6. Slow Fall – Blood Eclipse (Out Of Line)

Slow Fall continue their ascension to an imperative melodic death metal band with their captivating third album, Blood Eclipse. Much like their last album, Obsidian Waves, keyboardist Lasse Launimaa isn’t just background fodder, as the band takes risks with him, including their first ballad in “Virta.” A piano ballad can be artificial and saccharine in the wrong hands, but “Virta” is stunning in its stripped-down starkness.

No other song goes that far out there, though Slow Fall keep their music fresh with acoustics and dramatic keyboard work. Every member is at their best, including vocalist Markus Taipale contorting in his voice in ways that are appealing and gruesome. Though they may be hidden away in Finland, Slow Fall are a band not to pass on.