Grotesque Digest - Week 41, 2025
Your weekly extreme metal release roundup
As far as extreme music goes, the month of slipping on the wet leaves your neighbor conveniently forgot to sweep is shaping up to be one of the strongest of the year. It’s still no 2024, but that bar was unfairly high to begin with - it might be a while before we see such a dense cluster of memorable releases again. Let’s take a look at what week 41 has in store, shall we?
Personal highlights include Vile Apparition’s sophomore full-length - your first stop if you’ve been waiting for some quality mid-90s brutality - alongside the excellent new disso-tech outing from Undersave, and Blindfolded and Led to the Woods’ latest genre gallimaufry. You’ll find a few black metal releases below too, though I wouldn’t dare say which are worth recommending; I’ve enjoyed them all to varying degrees. You got this.
On the singles front, the labels keep whetting our appetite: a first glimpse of Phobocosm’s upcoming album, more teasers from Primitive Man and Barren Path, and the debut track from new old-thrashers Burning Death. Oh yeah - and some black metal.
Akolyth - Ecstatic Kingdom
❓ Black Metal
All Hell - Sunsetter
🇺🇸 Thrashy Black Metal / Crust
Angrrsth - Złudnia
🇵🇱 Black Metal
Illusive Key - Consume Us
🇧🇪 / 🇩🇪 / 🇨🇭 Raw Black Metal
Nelagodnost - Schwarzmalerei
🇦🇹 Black Metal
Victimarum - Seitsemän soihdun valossa
🇫🇮 Satanic (Melodic) Black Metal
Hæresis - Si vis pacem para bellvm
🇩🇪 Post-Black Metal
Narrat - Levana [EP]
🇩🇪 Slightly Dissonant Atmospheric Black Metal
Terzij de Horde - Our Breath Is Not Ours Alone
🇳🇱 Atmospheric / Post-Black Metal
Reaping Flesh - Death Creeps
🇳🇴 Death- / Black-Punk
Luctus - Tamsošviesa [for real this time]
🇱🇹 Deathened Black Metal
Altars Ablaze - Indiscriminate Extermination [EP]
🇨🇿 Death / Black Metal
Light Dweller / Aoecist / Sleep Paralysis - Illusory Dissolvents [Split]
🇺🇸 / 🇺🇸 / 🇺🇸 Dissonant / Technical Death Metal | Dissonant Death Metal | Avant-Garde / Dissonant Black Metal
Plague Curse - Verminous Contempt
🇺🇸 / 🇨🇦 / 🇦🇺 Blackened Death Metal
Protocol F40.1 - Fatalritual
🇱🇹 Blackened Death Metal
Defense Wound / Writhing Shadows - Anticosmic Rituals [Split]
🇺🇸 / 🇺🇸 Death Metal | Death Metal
Eldfödd - Risen From the Flames [EP]
🇸🇪 Death Metal
Pandemic Outbreak - Torment Beyond Comprehension
🇵🇱 Thrashy Death Metal
Splitting - Sculpting Fetal Chunks [EP]
🇺🇸 Slamming Brutal Death Metal
Squassation - Decorated with Feculent Appurtenances
🇺🇸 Brutal Death Metal
Vile Apparition - Malignity
🇦🇺 OS Brutal Death Metal
Vulnificus - Inclination
🇺🇸 Brutal Death Metal
Blindfolded and Led to the Woods - The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me
🇳🇿 Technical / Dissonant / Avant-garde Death Metal w/ Core bits
Omnivide - Arise [EP]
🇨🇦 Symphonic Technical / Progressive Death Metal
Undersave - Merged in Abstract Perdition
🇵🇹 Dissonant / Technical Death Metal
DEATHFUCKINGWOUND - Void MMXXV [EP]
🇫🇮 Wargrind
Facada - Truculence
🇧🇷 Grindcore
Dead Heat - Process of Elimination
🇺🇸 Crossover Thrash / Hardcore
Plague Doctor - Plague Doctor
🇺🇸 Stoner / Sludge / Doom Metal
Hot Singles in Your Area
Darvaza - Blood of No-One
We Are Him | December 5th | Terratur Possessions / Amor Fati
🇮🇹 Black Metal
Fordæðuskapr - Benmánar
Hræflóð markar fjalla | October 24th | Ván
🇩🇪 / 🇮🇸 Black Metal
Funeral Harvest - Draco Nequissime
Malum in se | October 31st | Amor Fati
🇳🇴 Black Metal
Kostnatění - Křehký bůh (Fragile God)
Přílišnost | November 7th | Willowtip
🇺🇸 Slightly Dissonant Black Metal
Asphagor - Conditio Inhumana
The Aphotic Vortex | October 24th | Immortal Frost
🇦🇹 (Melodic) Black Metal
Ildaruni - Zurvan akrane
Divinum Sanguinem | November 7th | Black Lion
🇦🇲 Pagan / Melodic Black Metal
Outlaw - A Subtle Intimation
Opus mortis | October 31st | AOP
🇧🇷 Melodic Black Metal
Thron - The Hunter and the Prey
Vurias | October 31st | Listenable
🇩🇪 Melodic Black Metal
Waldgeflüster - Krähenpsalme
Knochengesänge | November 7th | AOP
🇩🇪 Atmospheric Black Metal
Abominator - Covens for Azmodeus
The Fire Brethren | October 31st | Hells Headbangers
🇦🇺 War / Death Metal
Cryoxyd - Day After Day
This World We Live In… | December 12th | Dolorem
🇫🇷 Death-Death Metal
Blood Red Throne - Husk in the Grain
Siltskin | December 5th | Soulseller
🇳🇴 Death Metal
Miasmic Serum - Serum of Life
Better Left Dead | October 24th | Iron Fortress
🇮🇹 Death Metal
Phobocosm - Sempiternal Penance
Gateway | November 28th | Dark Descent
🇨🇦 Slightly Dissonant and Doomy OSDM
Sepulchral - Torchless Crossroads
Beneath the Shroud | December 5th | Soulseller
🇪🇸 OSDM / Crust
Spesimin - Handless Headless Corpse
Tortuous Horrors Await Vol.3 | October 31st | Iron Fortress
🇺🇸 Thrash-Punk Death Metal
Dysentery - Enslavement for the Obedient, Agony for the Wayward
Dejection Chrysalis | November 7th | Comatose
🇺🇸 Slamming Brutal Death Metal
Demon King - Pharmagickal Dominion
Death Knell | November 14th | The Artisan Era
🇺🇸 Blackened Technical Death Metal
Burning Death - Cold Bite of Steel
Burning Death | December 5th | Caligari
🇺🇸 OS Thrash Metal
Barren Path - In the End, the Gift Is Death
Grieving | October 31st | Willowtip
🇺🇸 Technical Grindcore / Deathgrind
Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin - Waves Became the Sky
Stygian Bough Volume II | November 14th | Profound Lore
🇺🇸 / 🇺🇸 Funeral Doom / Neofolk
Primitive Man - Natural Law
Observance | October 31st | Relapse
🇺🇸 Sludge / (Death) Doom Metal
Ragana & Drowse - Ash Souvenir
Ash Souvenir | November 14th | The Flenser
🇺🇸 / 🇺🇸 Atmo-Sludge / Slowcore / Gaze
Thou - Suck
Best Of Nine Inch Nails (Redux) | October 27th | Magnetic Eye
🇺🇸 Industrial Sludge Metal
Crystal Lake - The Weight of Sound
The Weight of Sound | January 23rd, 2026 | Century Media
🇯🇵 Melodic Metalcore
Howling Giant - Hunter’s Mark
Crucible & Ruin | October 31st | Magnetic Eye
🇺🇸 Stoner Metal / Heavy Psych
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for Ryan’s return. Whatever future awaits, we’ll have more guitar music for you next week on…
Exciting to see a new Darvaza on the way