At the beginning of each year I create two “Smart” playlists in Apple Music: one that holds every albums I check out in the current year, and one that is just metal releases for the current year. It helps a lot come EOY time, and there’s a huge joy in then deleting all the music I didn’t like or purchase from the library. It’s cleansing, and feel good for the short period of time before it bloats back up with the new year’s releases. So to wrap up my Holiday Hiatus™ playlists, we’re hitting Shuffle again on the 2025 Music Playlist and see what spits out from this year. I’ll leave it to you to see if any of these are to your liking – I can’t guarantee they’re all to mine.

• Brainstorm – “Curtains fall”
• Mamuthones – “A Cage Full of Sins”
• Mike Keneally & Marcelo Radulovich – “Oni”
• Lord Vigo – “We Shall Not”
• Dessiderium – “Keys To The Palace, Pt. 2”
• Freckle – “Heavy”
• Benthos – “Athletic Worms”
• The Callous Daoboys – “Tears on Lambo Leather”
• Mogwai – “Hammer Room”
• Goya – “In The Dawn Of November”
• Motorpsycho – “Lucifer, Bringer Of Light”

As expected, this is still very metal heavy – I check out a LOT of music for Nine Circles since that’s where things are more structured. Looking at this list I can safely say I really like the Mike Keneally and Marcelo Radulovich track, the Freckle is obvious since we already reviewed it, and I also own copies of The Callous Daoboys and Goya. The others I’m still getting familiar with (Lord Vigo, Mogwai, Motorpsycho) or, uh…yeah.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Be safe, be good to each other. See you next week.