News Editor at @elcourier, sport & music nut, long-suffering Hammers, Quins & Vikings fan. Likely to break it down when the metal kicks in. Views my own. He/him

Haddington
Joined October 2012
My top 24 albums of 2025 #1: Downswing - And Everything Was Dark Top three songs: Too Little Too Late; Emptiness Remains; No God To Me @downswingstyle released my favourite EP of 2024 and I remember thinking at the time "woah, if these guys can keep up this kind of (1/4)
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quite how good this record is - to continue the Wage War comparison, it's almost like if all of the best songs off Blueprints and Deadweight were put together in one unrelenting moshfest of an album. This album is everything great metalcore should be: earworm riffs, massive (3/4)
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choruses that you'll be singing for weeks and breakdowns so potent they make you want to stick your head through the nearest wall. I challenge any metalcore fan not to love this album - it's one of the genre's best ever releases and by far the best album of 2025. 馃(4/4)
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My top 24 albums of 2025 #2: All Time Low - Everyone's Talking! Top three songs: Falling For Strangers; Everyone's Talking; Butterflies Describing bands as 'maturing' their sound is often a euphemism for making it more boring, but All Time Low's genuine maturation over (1/4)
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very little in comparison. Generally I'm more of a music over lyrics kind of guy, but when the lyrics are as good as this it's a different matter - pretty much every song has at least a few lines that hit like a sledgehammer, right in the feels, as they deal with the (3/4)
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struggles of love, belonging and getting older in a changing world. It perfectly captures that beautiful bittersweetness of what it's like to be alive. (4/4)
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My top 24 albums of 2025 #3: Fit For A King - Lonely God Top three songs: Witness The End; Shelter; Technium Fit For A King simply never disappoint. You know they're going to drop an absolute ripper of an album every few years and this one may just be their best yet, (1/4)
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everything from the sing-your-heart-out anthem Shelter to the crushing and epic album closer Witness The End. Metalcore doesn't get much better than this and, when this album came out in the summer, I fully expected it to finish as album of the year - but I reckoned (3/4)
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without two incredible releases which came along a little later in the year... (4/4)
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My top 24 albums of 2025 #4: Psycho-Frame - Salvation Laughs In The Face Of A Grieving Mother Top three songs: Black_Wave II; The Portal; Blueprints For Idol Genocide This is my favourite deathcore album this year, and one of my favourites ever from the genre. The whole (1/2)
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thing is just utterly disgusting in the best way, from the savage vocals to the apocalyptic breakdowns to the deadest of snare sounds. It's an absolute riot of an album. (2/2)
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My top 24 albums of 2025 #5: A Day To Remember - Big Ole Album Vol. 1 Top three songs: All My Friends; Miracle; Closer Than You Think This is such a great return to form for ADTR. Their 2021 album You're Welcome was for the most part a huge disappointment, but they're (1/3)
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right back to their best here, to the extent I'd say this is their best album outside of their untouchable run from Homesick to Common Courtesy. It has a real throwback vibe while still sounding modern and fresh, perfectly mixing the light and the heavy together in their (2/3)
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trademark style and making songs that get stuck in your head for days - and for me, All My Friends was definitively the song of the summer. Can't wait for Vol. 2 next year! (3/3)
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My top 24 albums of 2025 #6: Architects - The Sky, The Earth & All Between Top three songs: Blackhole; Seeing Red; Whiplash I've been on a wild ride with this album. Architects had long been one of my absolute favourite bands, but their 2022 album was, to be frank, a (1/4)
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singles. But when I came back to this album in the summer in a discography listen through, my brain had had time to accept the singles as being part of the album and suddenly, it all clicked. While it's not quite as good as the true elite of their albums (which number four (3/4)
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by my count), it's a fantastic record that's roughly on a par with their great albums Daybreaker and Lost Forever // Lost Together. It brings me so much joy that Architects are back making brilliant music again. (4/4)
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