SKNN
My Top 50 Songs of 2025
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”
The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist, Pt. 12 (Updated 12/16/25)
We have entered the final month of 2025! Just a couple more weeks until I unleash my top 50 songs of the year, so let’s see what drops between now and then. There have already been several epic releases in December. Check them out!
- Shovel Monster: “Worms” (ft. Raúl Jimenez and Derek Vandermallie)
- The Sanctity of Crows: “After Christmas”
- Alter Bridge: “Playing Aces”
- Stanley Simmons: “Body Down”
- Silent Theory: “Eyes Everywhere”
- From Ashes to New: “Drag Me”
- Czarina: “Dagger in the Heart”
- SKNN: “Gladiator”
- Veio: “Judas”
- Miss Construction: “Back Again”
- Bryce Savage: “Show Me”
- Kalamity Kills: “Help!”
- Ratboys: “What’s Right?”
- The Franklin Cassettes: “Why Not My Name”
- Vale: “Purgatory Dreams”
- REdEFIND: “Thoughts”
- splinter kid: “Another Christmas Alone”
- Perfect Weather for Humans: “Bowerbird”
- Everyday Dolores: “Wagmi”
- Wolverine: “This World and All Its Dazzling Lights”
- Induction: “Steel and Thunder”
- postdrome: “From Heaven, From Nowhere”
- Benighted: “The Spineless Freak”
- Moon Fever: “Masses”
- Lydia Can’t Breathe: “The Quiet Part”
- vasthearts: “dying to know” (ft. Z3n721)
- Winter in May: “World on Fire”
- Telling Secrets: “DYTIMI?”
- Matti Hoffman: “Dreamstate”
- Sick Century: “Dorian Gray”
- A.A. Williams: “Just a Shadow”
- Sky Caught Fire: “Experience As A Tortured Artist” (ft. Bad Shape)
- Whispers in the Shadow: “Dead of Winter”
- Silver Dose: “Joyride”
- Echoes Divide: “Crashing Out”
- Phantom of Pop: “Cold Frame”
The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist, Pt. 5 (Updated 5/31/25)
The second half of May has come in as strong as the first! Check out these tracks that have been released since May 16th.
- Animate Experience: “Onyx”
- The Modern Kollective: “Dreams and Nightmares”
- Azarene: “Memories”
- Falling in Reverse: “God is a Weapon” (ft. Marilyn Manson)
- Lady Strange & the Rites: “High Strangeness”
- Razorwire Halo: “As Good As” (ft. r3nrut)
- A Beautiful Scar: “Never Break”
- Shadow Reborn: “Grave of Roses”
- SKNN: “Bow Down”
- obli_x_vion: “Bird to Prey” (ft. Tyler Noxwind)
- Dark Divine: “Make Me Disappear”
- A Killer’s Confession: “Hollow”
- Ballyhoo!: “Swim”
- Them Damn Dogs: “Weirdo”
- Seethe: “Banshee”
- 40 Below Summer: “King Ghidorah”
- Priest: “My Lonely Heart”
- No Trees Touch The Sky: “3 Visits”
- Third in Theory: “Clay”
- Bleeker: “Self-Made”
- Heartsick: “Break the Curse”
- Cirkus: “Know Yourself”
- Danny Worsnop: “Harder Than the Hard Stuff”
- Sick Century: “Demon Inside”
- Wider Eaves: “Half the Way Undone”
- Shape: “Husk”
- Left to Suffer: “Anon” (ft. King 810)
- Above Snakes: “Forsaken”
- Beauty is Betrayal: “Devil Said”
- Painted Lines: “Better Off”
- Moonfall: “Light Blue Flowers”
- Closed City Terror: “Teflon Idiot”
- Storm Kingdom: “Raindrops Fall on Stained Glass Petals” (ft. Joe Booe)
- Stain the Canvas: “554th”
- Citizen Soldier: “Life Support”
- Voltaire’s Ghost: “Alix Street”
- Anchor & Braille: “Sweet Jesus Knows”
- Midnight For Now: “Friends”
- Host of Nightmare: “Diamond”
- Carbonstone: “Standoff” (ft. Jonny Santos of Spineshank)
- Caelum Wraith: “Are You Still You?”
- Hooked Like Helen: “Quote Unquote Life”
Be sure to visit the other installments of The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist. You could discover your new favorite song/artist!
The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist, Pt. 4 (Updated 4/16/25)
Welcome to April – and a whole new batch of bangers! We’re a little over two weeks into the month, and already, we’ve seen a lot of great releases.
Don’t forget to check out the previous installments of The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist while you’re at it.
Here are the songs that have been added so far in April!
- I Was the Crown: “Mirage in My Veins”
- Taylor Barber: “Forever (Stripped)” – Acoustic (ft. Alejandro Aranda)
- obli_x_vion: “To the Grave” (ft. Circuit Preacher)
- Lost Hearts: “Gone Too Far”
- Linx: “Dead”
- Incite: “No Mercy, No Forgiveness”
- Ghost Bath: “Well, I Tried Drowning”
- SKNN: “Antidote”
- New Medicine: “Baggage”
- Sleep Token: “Caramel”
- Hand of the Tribe: “Smile”
- Traverse the Abyss: “Consequence”
- Empire Springs: “Circle Forbidden”
- Witchz: “The Dose”
- Rogue Island: “Ghost of You”
- To the Grave: “Sawed Off”
- Arlind: “Up at Night”
- Shadows of Spectres: “Ichi”
- Energiii: “Hekate”
- Fear Atomic: “A Bullseye on Your Heart”
- City of Strays: “Stupid and Naive”
- Pigeon Park: “The Anchor”
- Seventh Day Slumber: “Savior Machine” (ft. Nine Lashes)
- Storm Kingdom: “Deus Lapsus (The Fallen God)”
- Left to Suffer: “Set the World on Fire” (ft. UnityTX)
- Retina Sky: “Broken Wing”
- Forge the Sun: “Peanut”
- Aesthetic Perfection: “Master”
- Cold Clay Mountain: “These Hands”
- A Moment of Violence: “Breaking Me”
- Jay Gearhart: “Heaven and Hell”
- Somerseth: “In Hell I’m Gone”
- anMech: “Identify Me”
- Gillsaw: “The Beautiful People” (Marilyn Manson cover)
- In Passing: “Closer”
- Ghost: “Lachryma”
The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist, Pt. 2 (Updated 2/28/25)
The final update for February is upon us! 2025 started flying by once January finally ended. Be sure to check out the entire playlist – parts one and two – and prepare for whatever March has to offer.
Here are the songs that have been added since February 14th.
- Til Fauna: “Run”
- Savile Row: “Hold On” (ft. Ms. Karoline)
- Histheory: “Unbinding Truth”
- The Immaculate Crows: “Happy”
- Seethe: “IDT (Falling in Wait)”
- Seethe: “Depths”
- Wednesday 13: “When the Devil Commands”
- New Dreams: “HeartRace”
- Damsel: “Will You Be Mine?”
- Already Over: “Severed”
- Naum: “Maybe”
- Alethium: “Orbit”
- Moulin Myers: “Welcome”
- Jason Myrla: “Killer In Me”
- We Alone: “EVOLVE”
- With My Own Eyes: “Make Me Forget”
- Christian Pearson: “Selling a Lie” (ft. Leo Margarit)
- Boiler Room: “Changes”
- Scarlet Falls: “Now This Time”
- SKNN: “Digital Zombies”
- Overlay: “Without You”
- A Fatal Black: “Kill the Lights”
- Eddie King: “What If You Knew”
- SevVven: “Sea of Regrets”
- Pistols at Dawn: “Bones”
- Adam and the Metal Hawks: “Wrong Time of Day”
- Nathan James: “Alienation”
- Crucigen: “Strident Dreamer”
- Eric Dalton: “breathe”
- Sunrise in Jupiter: “Satellite”
- Kingdom Collapse: “Elevate”
- The Crowned: “Set You Free” (ft. Eddie Hemida)
- Dead Air Network: “Carcass Queen”
- Tricky Shoreline: “Flowers”
- Counter: “Bitter”
- Jay F: “Weight of Her World”
- Shadows Divide: “Conquer”
- Seventh Day Slumber: “Black Roses, White Doves”
- Rezilient: “Pretend”
- Revolution Rabbit Deluxe: “Parabellum”
- Mr. Strange: “Goliath”
- Knightfall: “Not Ready to Let You Go” (ft. Adrien Djouadou and Sergio Salvucci)
- Red Melting: “Beast of Society”
- Silent Theory: “Made Me This Way” (ft. Jay Gordon of Orgy)
- Gillsaw: “Thankful”
- The Birthday Massacre: “Sleep Tonight”
- Soundscape: “Your Schema”
The Mostly Music 2025 Playlist, Pt. 1 (Updated 1/31/25)
This is the second, and final, playlist update for January. I have already begun compiling my Top 50 of 2025 – I think this year is going to be difficult to narrow down… (I say that every year, but I already have 6 contenders and it’s not even February. If that happens every month, my life is going to be a challenge come December. Ha ha!)
Here are the tracks that have been added to the playlist since January 14th. You can view the list in its entirety here.
- Blank Labels: “Drive”
- Danny Worsnop: “Ain’t No Use”
- Elirah’s Cross: “The Walk” (ft. Histheory)
- Not Enough Space: “Solace in Silence”
- Sloans Grove: “Above It All”
- The Lycan: “Memento”
- Against the Sun: “Pieces” (ft. Alibis)
- The Mysterious Bruises: “Cold Long Nights”
- Never the Name: “Consequences”
- The Bettors: “Never Change”
- Dethamphetamine: “Brains”
- Gnostician: “Dwarf Star Partition”
- Silent WVLF: “Elation”
- Last Good Thing: “Wish You Were”
- Van Berlain: “Glass House”
- Featured: “Just Another Day” (ft. Rose Berlin)
- HotWax: “One More Reason”
- Seven Year Witch: “Blue Flower, Red Thorns”
- little image: “The Pressure”
- By the River: “Bridges”
- Dimensionist: “Syntagma”
- MNYKR: “Sweat With Me” (ft. Greco Ray)
- Mandatory Affect: “Transient”
- Mandatory Affect: “Letters to the Lost”
- Lift the Curse: “Save Me”
- Levana: “Set Me Free”
- Swim the Current: “Right Your Wrong”
- One Day Alive: “The Calling”
- Young Other: “Iron Horse”
- Shinedown: “Dance, Kid, Dance”
- Shinedown: “Three Six Five”
- Bad Valentines: “Last Days in the Sun”
- SKNN: “Radioactive”
- The Fiction We Create: “Knightfall”
- Any Given Sin: “Rest for the Wicked”
- TJ Marzonie: “Blame It on the Devil”
- Kissing Lilith: “More Than Worth It”
- Bridges Ablaze: “Heartless”
- Photon Flux: “Hypofrontality”
- Damien Graves: “Skyfall” (ft. Forsaken Silence)
- Disconnected: “We Carry On”
- Landslide: “Lost”
- Robbie Ekblom Jr.: “Darkness Befalls” (ft. Hall of Lost)
- Out of Body: “The Hold Up”
- Deadcode: “Don’t Let Me Go”
- SkyMuseum: “Unawake” (ft. Adam Faris)
- Feverlust: “1000 Memories”
- Draven: “Hollowed Penance”
- The Split: “Son of New Ages”
- Jay Gearhart: “Faced With Hate”
- Gemini Syndrome: “Suffer in Silence”
- Krysis: “The Summit’s Ice”
- Call of Sirens: “Siren”
- Mr. Strange: “Easy Come, Easy Go”
- Matte Blvck: “Vicious Dreams”
- Effing and Blinding: “We’re All Gonna Get It”
- Boogeymvn: “Once Upon a Dream”
- Boogeymvn: “I Feel Nothing”
- Mean Silver Machine: “Motorcycle Rock”
- Adelitas Way: “What If You Go?”
- Anaria: “Stay”
- AGBAT: “Fair Winds”
- Glis: “Street Dragon Ninja”
- Glis: “A Different Dream”
- Seethe: “Mandela Effect”
- No Fly List: “Tension”
- Dead Rabbitts: “Artificial Gods” (ft. Escape the Fate, HIGHSOCIETY, and Judge & Jury)
- Traverse the Abyss: “Reasoning”
- When Hearts Wither: “I’ll Wait For Your Return, My Friend”
- Into Elysium: “Her Name Was”
- Hands Like Houses: “Fatally Fractured”
- The Truth Music: “The Peace I Need”
- The Space Turtles: “IPV”
- Beauty is Betrayal: “Afterlife”
- The Immaculate Crows: “Shylene”
- Storm Kingdom: “The Fall of the Morning Star”
- Seas on the Moon: “The Trailhead” (ft. Eissa Morphide)
- Enemy of Fate: “Killswitch”
- Verging on Hopeless: “Turning Away”
Mostly Music 