This list is rolling out a lot later than usual, and I’ve gotta be honest – it’s because I failed so miserably at keeping up with releases last year. I mean, I added tracks to my playlist and shared them here, as well as on Facebook and Insta, but I didn’t sit and listen to them until recently. I’ll do better this year, I swear!

And now, here are the fifty songs that really jumped out at me in 2025. A few things to be aware of: I do not rank the tracks in any particular order, and I do not include major label artists (or I try not to, at any rate), nor do I include covers. Last but not least, no band/artist can have more than one song on the list.

View the full playlist HERE.

• Element 117: “Vision”
• SKNN: “Digital Zombies”
• Could You Not?: “Backpedal”
• Hooked Like Helen: “Quote Unquote Life”
• The Fiction We Create: “More Than Scars”
• Nouveau Arcade: “Push”
• Eli Howard & the Greater Good: “Long, Strange Trip”
• Boze: “I Will Go”
• The CyberTones: “Red Flags Flying”
• Deadcode: “Don’t Let Me Go”
• AGBAT: “Fair Winds”
• Sever Red: “Conjuring”
• Endless May: “Call My Name”
• Absolutist: “Lineage”
• Elirah’s Cross: “The Walk” (ft. Histheory)
• Matte Blvck: “Vicious Dreams”
• Alchemy Within: “The Call”
• In Passing: “Silhouette”
• A Fatal Black: “Kill the Lights”
• Stellar Circuits: “Bury the Ashes”
• mothshade: “Labyrinth”
• New Dilemma: “Ice Cold Hands” (ft. Chloe Robin)
• Czarina: “Fall Damage” (ft. Circuit Preacher)
• postdrome: “So Inviting”
• Cold Clay Mountain: “These Hands”
• Krysis: “The Summit’s Ice”
• Adelitas Way + New Medicine: “Rollin'”
• Blackwood: “One Track Mind” (ft. Kameron Jane)
• The Black Zodiac: “Gallow’s Call”
• No Fly List: “The Rush”
• Voice of Glass: “Henosis”
• Nights in Prada: “Thorns in Silk” (ft. Sara Rayne)
• Divide the Fall: “Beyond the Surface”
• War Inside: “Hollow Points”
• Ethereal Treason: “Ivory”
• Mirrorcell: “U(phoria)”
• Noir Addiction: “Chemical Bride”
• Phantom of Pop: “Sugar Sin”
• Almera: “Retrograde”
• Stellar: “Outta My League”
• Kings of Karma: “Falling to Pieces”
• Wraithlurk: “One More Lie” (ft. $KIMMY)
• Rise to Ruin: “Archaic”
• Danger Silent: “To Whoever’s Left, Pt. 2”
• Hallowtide: “O Captain”
• MAK: “Fever”
• The Mercury Seed: “Disappear”
• vasthearts: “such a shame” (ft. romziie and Leø)
• AnonTheory: “Thoughts and Prayers”
• We Brought the Storm: “Heavy Rain”