ESSENTIAL METAL ALBUM(S) WK46 Monday, November 10th to Sunday, November 16th, 2025

 
Week 46 is here, and THE SLUDGELORD’s weekly selection of Essential Albums brings you a stacked lineup of crushing releases from the underground. First, apologies for the lateness of this article—sickness kept me down and away from new music for the past couple of weeks. But the wait was worth it. Each record offers its own unique vision of heaviness—ready to shake foundations and melt speakers.
 
Kicking thing off is Onsetter, who deliver a sonic battering ram of downtuned riffs bled with vitriolic fury on “Smother / Obituary”, a two‑track assault that marks their second release this year following up the incredible “Malice”. Enragement are absolutely unrelenting on “Extinguish All Existence”, a death metal war machine that grinds forward with annihilating precision and merciless ferocity.
 
Suffering Hour spiral into madness on “Impelling Rebirth”, a vertigo‑inducing plunge through dissonant riffs and cosmic chaos that feels like staring into the abyss. The Munsens drag listeners into “Degradation in the Hyperreal”, a doom‑laden descent where reality buckles under the weight of colossal riffs and suffocating atmosphere. Dawn Fades unveil “III”, weaving haunting melodies and blackened fury into a post‑metal tapestry that shifts between melancholy and obliteration.
 
Sunburster erupt from the filth‑ridden trenches with a bombastic, full‑throttle slab of nasty sludge dripping with venom and grit on “No Semblance of Peaceful Existence”. And finally, Leylines conjure “Sepulchral”, a mathcore monument that feels both volatile and precise, forever on the brink of collapsing into beautiful disorder. For fans of Ion Dissonance, Car Bomb, Frontierer, Humanity’s Last Breath, and The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Leylines deliver a vision of technical extremity where chaos and beauty collide.
 
This is THE SLUDGELORD’s Essential Albums of the Week, WK46. Plug in and black out. The ‘Lord has spoken.

⚔️ 🩸 Album of the week:
 
 
#315 
 
⚔️ Artist: Leylines 
🩸  Title: “Sepulchral”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: mathcore, deathcore, technical metal 

🩸 Essential Release (s)
 
#316 
 
⚔️ Artist: Sunburster 
🩸  Title: “No Semblance of Peaceful Existence”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025 

 🩸 Genre/tags: sludge

#317
 
⚔️ Artist: Dawn Fades 
🩸  Title: “III”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

 

🩸 Genre/tags: post metal, screamo, blackened doom, sludge 

#318
 
⚔️ Artist: The Munsens
🩸  Title: "Degradation in the Hyperreal” 
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025 

🩸 Genre/tags: black metal, death metal, hardcore, doom 

#319 

⚔️ Artist: Suffering Hour 
🩸  Title: “Impelling Rebirth”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags:  black metal, death metal

#320 
 
⚔️ Artist: Enragement 
🩸 Title: “Extinguish All Existence” 
⚔️ Release date: October 3rd, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: brutal death metal, deathgrind

#321 
 
⚔️ Artist: Onsetter 
🩸  Title: “Smother / Obituary” 
⚔️ Release date: October 28tth, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: hardcore, noise, sludge 

PLAYLIST: THE SLUDGELORD’s Weekly Hitlist #47 November 14th, 2025 to November 20th, 2025

⚔️🩸 My biggest tracks from November 14th, 2025 to November 20th, 2025
 
⚔️ Total streams: 179 ↓ 38% vs. last week
🩸  Total Artists streamed: 9 ↓ 31%
⚔️ Total Albums streamed: 11 ↓ 22%
🩸  New Tracks streamed: 64 ↓ 24%

⚔️ Top Artist: Enragement (50 streams)

🩸  Top Album: Enragement – “Extinguish All Existence” (50 streams)

⚔️ Top Track: Rolo Tomassi – “Dead Language” (9 streams)

⚔️🩸 Top 30 tracks of the week

PLAYLIST: The Sludgelord's Weekly Hitlist #46, November 7th, 2025 to November 13, 2025

 

⚔️ Total streams: 285 ↑ 34% vs. last week
🩸  Total Artists streamed: 13 ↑ 86%
⚔️ Total Albums streamed: 14 ↑ 100%
🩸  New Tracks streamed: 84 ↑ 40%
 
⚔️ Top Artist: Scorching Tomb (52 streams)

 

🩸  Top Album: Scorching Tomb – “Ossuary” (52 streams)

 

⚔️ Top Track: Scorching Tomb – “Stalagmite Impalement” (8 streams)

⚔️🩸 Top 30 tracks of the week

PLAYLIST: The Sludgelord's Weekly Hitlist #45, October 31st, 2025 to November 6th, 2025

⚔️🩸 My biggest tracks from October 31^st, 2025 to November 6th, 2025

⚔️ Total streams: 213 ↓ 23% vs. last week
🩸  Total Artists streamed: 7 ↓ 54%
⚔️ Total Albums streamed: 7 ↓ 57%
🩸  New Tracks streamed: 60 ↓ 32%
 
⚔️ Top Artist: The Acacia Strain (62 streams)

🩸  Top Album: The Acacia Strain – “You Are Safe From God Here” (62 streams)

⚔️ Top Track: Conjurer – “Hang Them In Your Head” (10 streams)

⚔️🩸 Top 30 tracks of the week

ESSENTIAL METAL ALBUM(S): WK45 Monday 3 November, 2025 to Sunday 9 November, 2025

 
Week 45 is here, and THE SLUDGELORD’s weekly selection of Essential Albums brings you seven crushing releases from the underground. Each record offers its own unique vision of heaviness—ready to shake foundations and melt speakers.
 
Kicking things off was an easy pick for my Album of the Week: The Acacia Strain return with arguably their best and heaviest record to date. Since the release of 2019’s “It Comes in Waves”, The Acacia Strain have absolutely crushed me—and this album is no different.
 
Psychonaut strike the perfect balance between sprawling, kaleidoscopic psychedelia and monolithic doom, while Old Year emerge as one of the doom genre’s most exciting discoveries, offering a dissonant and bleak template of riffs reminiscent of genre heavyweights Primitive Man. Soulfly continue their sonic onslaught with a succinct yet lethal injection of groove-ridden noise and a rather surprising blackened edge
 
Meanwhile, Drofnosura literally blew my mind with their new album. Arguably more restrained compared to my other picks and yet they deliver something with immense weight and ferocity, interspersed with grunge soaked vocals, making this one an auditory synesthesia. Bonginator bring chaos and I shit you know, they play a wild mix of death metal fused with 80s action flicks, horror vibes, and retro video game aesthetics. Finally, Scorching Tomb unleash a blistering blend of old-school death metal injected with hardcore intensity—a true throwback with teeth.
 
This is THE SLUDGELORD’s Essential Albums of the Week, WK45. Plug in and black out. The ‘Lord has spoken.

⚔️ 🩸 Album of the week:
 
#310 
 
⚔️ Artist: The Acacia Strain
🩸  Title: “You Are Safe From God Here”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags:  metalcore, deathcore, post metal, sludge, doom 

🩸 Essential Release (s)
 
#307 
 
⚔️ Artist: Psychonaut
🩸  Title: “World Maker”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025 

 🩸 Genre/tags: post metal, psychedelic, progressive metal 

#308 
 
⚔️ Artist: Old Year
🩸  Title: “No Dissent”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: doom, sludge, death doom 

#309 
 
⚔️ Artist: Soulfly
🩸  Title: “Chama” 
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025 

🩸 Genre/tags: thrash metal, death metal, groove metal 

#311 

⚔️ Artist: Drofnosura
🩸  Title: “Ritual of Split Tongues”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: psychedelic, atmospheric, black metal, sludge, doom

#312 
 
⚔️ Artist: Bonginator
🩸  Title: “Retrodeath”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags: death metal, synth death 

#313 
 
⚔️ Artist: Scorching Tomb
🩸  Title: “Ossuary”
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

 

🩸 Genre/tags: death metal, osdm, hardcore 

ESSENTIAL METAL ALBUM (s): #WK44 Monday, October 27th, 2025 to Sunday, November 2nd, 2025

THE SLUDGELORD welcomes you back for Week 44 of our weekly roundup of the best heavy sounds from the underground. This week yet delivers yet another punishing spread of sonic extremity, where atmosphere, aggression, and experimentation collide.
 
From Tombs’ layered blackened soundscapes to Cacotopia’s technical chaos, Impermanence’s relentless death-infused assault, the underground is alive and snarling. Our very own Saltbuck return with a fuzz-drenched sludge monster and Azell channel cosmic weight as a crushing two-piece.
 
Last but by no mean, least, Conjurer are finally back and have evolved into a genre-defying force and in the process have delivered one of their albums of the year. 
 
This is THE SLUDGELORD’s Essential Albums of the Week, WK44. So, Plug in and Black out. The ‘Lord has spoken!
 
⚔️ 🩸 Album of the week:
 
#306 “Conjurer shed their skin and emerge heavier, deeper, and more dynamic”
 
⚔️ Artist: Conjurer 
🩸  Title: “Unself” 
⚔️ Release date: October 24th, 2025

🩸 Genre/tags:  post metal, doom, sludge, hardcore 

🩸 Essential Release (s)
 
 
#301 “Feral Darkness is a descent into layered black metal atmospheres, where death metal tension coils beneath every riff”
 
⚔️ Artist: Tombs 
🩸  Title: “Feral Darkness”
⚔️ Release date: October 17th, 2025 
 

 🩸 Genre/tags:  black metal, death metal

#302 “a razor-edged spiral of progressive black metal—technical, chaotic, and utterly uncompromising.”
 
⚔️ Artist: Cacotopia 
🩸  Title: “Cacotopia”
⚔️ Release date: May 2nd, 2025 
 

🩸 Genre/tags: progressive black metal 

#303 “Annica is a firestorm of blackened death metal—raw, relentless, and carved from pure sonic aggression.”
 
⚔️ Artist: Impermanence 
🩸  Title: “Annica” 
⚔️ Release date: October 16th, 2025 

 

🩸 Genre/tags: post metal, sludge, doom, black metal 

#304 “Gorb is a suffocating wall of fuzz and filth—Saltbuck’s sludge doom drags you under with riffs that feel like sinking into tar.”

⚔️ Artist: Saltbuck
🩸  Title: “Gorb”
⚔️ Release date: October 31st, 2025 

 

🩸 Genre/tags: sludge, doom 

#305 “Astralis is a cosmic crush of sludge and space—Azell’s two-piece assault hits like a supernova, dense, hypnotic, and devastating.”
 
⚔️ Artist: Azell 
🩸  Title: “Astralis”
⚔️ Release date: October 17th, 2025 

🩸 Genre/tags: sludge, doom