We’re in absolute disbelief that we’ve been at this Year End business this long; this will be the 15th doling out of Top 25 honours The Senior Staff have undertaken since the site’s founding. And while this ended up being a packed field of potential inclusions from across all the genres we cover here at I Die: You Die (seriously, check our Honourable Mentions on the podcast on Friday, it’s a stacked list in its own rite) we’re pretty pleased with how the list came out. As always this is a list of our mutual favourites, and records each of us was invested in getting some shine on, and as such it’ll reflect our personal interests and concerns. We’re always keen to hear what records you enjoyed in 2025, so make sure to pop ’em in the comments so we can get a read on what you were feeling this calendar year. With all that out of the way, lets move on to the Year End main course, it’s time for I Die: You Die’s Top 25 of 2025, entries 25-16.
25. Slash Need
SIT & GRIN
self-released
Toronto synthpunk sensations Slash Need have garnered a lot of attention for their audacious live show, with mini-album SIT & GRIN bottling up some of their furious and acerbic energy for the listener at home. Cuts like 8 minute opener “BORDER TOWN” take aim at the project’s base of operations, setting their biting critique to a club-ready electro pulse, while cuts like “WORM” and “COLD TOUCH” demonstrate how focused and punchy they can be without diluting their wit or their punk credentials. At once trenchant and electrifying, it’s a warning shot aimed at the dancefloor you’d be foolish not to heed. Read our full review.
24. The Tear Garden
Astral Elevator
Artoffact Records
The Tear Garden, a long-running collaboration between friends Edward Ka-Spel (The Legendary Pink Dots) and Cevin Key (if you’re reading this, you know) have put out more albums than you think in the last twenty years. While pleasant, most of those releases are left in the dust by Astral Elevator, an album that perfectly blends Ka-Spel’s left-of-center wit and emotional meditations with Key’s squelchy, analogue production and design. And while fans are sure to get a kick out of the outer space prog of “Square Root” or the head-trip dub of “Going Up”, it’s the record’s most emotional moments, such as the bittersweet comeback declaration of “A Return” or the crushing final lines of the simple ballad “War Crier”, that lift it to the starry sad skies it aspires to. Read our full review.
23. Spark!
Cirkeln Är Sluten
Progress Productions
The return of founding member and vocalist Stefan Brorsson to the fold of Swedish EBM alchemists Spark! was the cause of much excitement and celebration around ID:UD HQ, with that duo’s ability to fuse the most direct strains of body music with infectious and oddly affecting pop elements being a singular trick. Cirkeln Är Sluten strips that philosophy down to the studs, with a flurry of tight, speedy, blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em length tunes which use lithe synthpop leads to infuse EBM kicks and basslines with a hyper-caffeinated anthemicism. While slightly more ambitious pieces like “Norge” show the more progressive side of Spark!, they’re at their best when they keep things simple, as on the sleekly darting “Kontroll Alt Elit” and the riotous synthpop pogo of “Håll det fast”. Raise your steins and welcome the reinauguration of one of Sweden’s finest exports. Read our full review.
22. Black Magnet
Megamantra
Federal Prisoner
“Why can’t more industrial metal just, y’know, not suck?” It’s not the most rhetorically fair question, of course, but it’s one which feels eminently reasonable to ask while keeping Megamantra, the third LP from Oklahoma’s Black Magnet locked on repeat. Frontman James Hammontree’s hardcore-inspired misanthropy is grounded, witty, and self-indicting (“I crush all my enemies and slowly take their place”) while the machine-braced chug of Black Magnet’s riffs and breakdowns slice through the Gordion knot of overproduced, overthought bullshit which has plagued the intersection of metal and industrial ever since the genre’s 90s heyday, hitting like an Author & Punisher LP played on 45 RPM. Meeting us right where we were for a lot of this year (tired, irritable, furious), Megamantra was 2025’s album of choice for ripping a dart to after finishing another fucking double shift. Read our full review.
21. Moon 17
TX_1320
self-released
Stepping up for the broader new American industrial movement, Kansas’ Moon 17 brought the corrosive funk and clattering rhythms in 2025. The duo’s debut TX_1320 is a concentrated blast of moody body music slammers (“Jellyfish”, “Helios”) and lo-fi electro industrial rave-ups (“Ronnie Rocket”, “Cherry”), dialled in, but left loose and punky as needs be. Like their peers in the US, the band have a penchant for bending and twisting classic genre ideas into new shapes, hence the heaving momentum of “Bersicker” suddenly becoming a vehicle for chunky guitar riffs, or the twisted singsong melody of “Mirror Side” shaping its big blasts of percussion into a more compact arrangement. A claim-staking debut, TX_1320 put Moon 17 on the radar of modern American industrial music heads. Read our full review.
20. Patriarchy
Manual for Dying
Patriarchy
Patriarchy made their rep as a live act, their provocative performances winning them fans and detractors, but leaving few indifferent. With Manual for Dying, the Los Angeles project fronted by Actually Huizenga have a record just as notable as their shows. Shaped by a healthy schedule of touring, and squaring their outsized image with more domestic concerns (notably Huizenga and drummer AJ English had a baby between records), it’s got sharp hooks and their best production to date, all in service of a clutch of truly catchy club-friendly electro-rock songs. It’s not hard to imagine “Pain is Power” or “Coming Up” lighting up a dancefloor or a moshpit, but despite known for their show-stealing antics, there’s also some lovely subtle bits of songwriting; we weren’t expecting touching down-at-the-heel ballad “Die Like Everyone Else” from Patriarchy, but then again, they’ve never been predictable. Read our full review.
19. Devours
Sports Car Era
Surviving The Game
Sports Car Era doesn’t stray too far from the style Jeff Cancade has carved over the past several LPs: a witty and emotionally cutting blend of hyperpop, electropop, and sample-heavy mania. The bitter kiss-off “XY” and the fluttering collapse of “Swordswallower” are exactly the things which have made him a cross-demo phenom in Vancouver. But there’s a bit of extra mustard on the beats in Sports Car Era: a tightly wound rhythmic drive gives Devours’ reflections on lost love, gender, and the many malaises of neoliberalism an additional bite. When that weight is combines with Cancade’s emotional vulnerability, yen for storytelling, and ability to thread the 90s nostalgia needle just perfectly, as on “Loudmouth”, Devours hits like nothing else; a punch to the gut from a fist coated in Sour Patch Kids sugar. Read our full review.
18. Caustic
Fiend I & Fiend II
self-released
American stalwart Matt Fanale made up for lost time with his first major release in seven years being the separate yet equal Fiend LPs, taking up the respectively manic and depressive sides of his personality and work. It’s a clever concept but one the material never feels forced to fit. The sheer amount of material on offer, in addition to the binary structure of the two records, allows Caustic’s production style, forged ages ago during the heyday of powernoise, free reign to dig back into Wax Trax homage (“Not Going Anywhere”) as well as take detours into Fanale’s pet trip-hop and breakbeat haunts (“Buggy”), while a hazy collab with clubdrugs has the old man learning new tricks. We’re lucky he’s so charming, cuz he’s sure as fuck not going anywhere. Read our full reviews of Fiend I and Fiend II.
17. Home Front
Watch It Die
La Vida Es Un Mus
The hardcore to post-punk pipeline is well-established at this point, though it’s rare that the bands and artists who come over to this side of the fence bring much of value with them. That’s not the case with Edmonton’s fiery Home Front, a band who have packed high-test jumpkicking gang vocals into a suite of incredibly catchy new wave numbers on Watch It Die. And yeah, while you’re gonna get some trenchant political takes as on the synth adorned punk singalong “For the Children (Fuck All)”, you’re also treated to some melodic and inspirational anthems, like “Eulogy” and the title track. When those approaches comes together on “Light Sleeper”, the feeling is immensely heartening; “We’re born alone/we die alone/Don’t ever think you have to live alone” is the singalong chorus of the year, a message of hope and camaraderie in an increasingly dark times. Read our full review.
16. Promenade Cinema
Afterlife
self-released
While their preceding work had won acclaim in the UK, buzz about Promenade Cinema crossed the Atlantic just in time for third album Afterlife to stand out from the crop of indistinct Boy Harsher clones still jockeying for space in darkwave nightclubs. Hearkening back to all manner of vocal-forward 80s goth and synthpop sources, and adorn the resulting hooky compositions in an atmospheric sheen, it would be very easy for Promenade Cinema’s down-the-pipe style of darkwave to wither in the limelight given the imposing nature of their more obvious points of comparison (Ashbury Heights, for one), but they absolutely thrive in its glow thanks to the grace and emotional weight underpinning their melodies. A rock-solid but never needlessly showy vocal turn from Emma Barson helps to cement a reminder of why we fell in love with darkwave in the first place. Read our full review.
That’s it for today; check in tomorrow for entries 15-6!
