Best New Releases October 2025

 

Happy belated Halloween, fiends! I hope you all had a wonderful spooky season and are ready to dig into some of the best albums the heavy underground had to offer in October. I personally found ten new releases to recommend, and here they are in descending order: 

10.) Abanamat - Abominat 

On their sophomore album Abominat, multinational heavy psych wizards Abanamat draw from an extensive array of musical influences to create a sound that is truly one of a kind. Is it progressive? Absolutely. Stoner? Sure. Psychedelic? You bet. Most importantly, Abominat is sophisticated, layered, innovative, and, above all, expressive. Its sound fills the listener with both vibrant energy and soothing reverie, generating a warm and tranquil glow within that burns with boundless vitality. 

Favorite Track: Abominat 

 

9.) Birds of Nazca - Pangaea 

With a sound not quite sinister enough to safely be called doom nor gossamer enough to warrant a generic label of "psychedelic rock", French duo Birds of Nazca resides somewhere in between. Throughout their new album Pangaea, waves of quaking reverberations roll in from all sides, ultimately either forcibly halted or joined by light and intricate reprieves, conjuring soundscapes marked by both astoundingly vast and brutally rugged textures. The fact that this intense, sophisticated sound is achieved with only two musicians makes Pangaea even more impressive. 

Favorite Track: Racetrack Playa 

   

8.) Honeybadger - Let There Be Light 

Let There Be Light, the sophomore album from Greek stoner quartet Honeybader, is the perfect balance of contagious energy and earnestness. The album is filled with rich vocals, catchy hooks, and relatable lyrics, all set to the tune of soaring stoner/desert tones, timeless hard rock, and a dash of murky grunge. 

Favorite Track: Let There Be Light

7.) Psychonaut - World Maker 

World Maker is much more than just a great album: it's the result of a life-altering journey undertaken by the members of Belgian post metal trio Psychonaut. In fact, I would argue that knowing this backstory is vital to fully appreciating the album, as it dives deep into what it's like to experience profound joy and crushing devastation simultaneously. Unsurprisingly, World Maker bleeds with emotion ranging from the purest form of love to bafflement to raging anger, which can be heard in the heart wrenching, raw vocals and turbulent, complex instrumental breakdowns. However, it's the completely uninhibited and raw manner in which these feelings are delivered that make this album Psychonaut's most soul-stirring yet. 

Favorite Track: Endless Currents

6.) Giöbia - X-ÆON 

On their sixth album X-ÆON, Italian psychedelic rockers Giöbia offer up a primarily instrumental, acidic sound, characterized by an ever-evolving flow, spacey vibes, and persistent energy. The single song on the album with vocals, titled The Death of the Crows, stands out as a very clever creative choice. This track manages to be tranquil and soothing yet coldly futuristic while boasting a smoky 80s pop rock feel, resulting in a very infectious jam indeed. 

Favorite Track: The Death of the Crows

 5.) WAR - VENIVEDIWAR

VENIVIDIWAR will have you rethinking how you feel about the often-contentious genres of doomgaze, shoegaze, and emo/screamo. These stylistic influences and more work together to create WAR's unique, chameleonlike tone and, while melancholia is undoubtedly a dominant shade throughout, its anguish isn't always clear-cut. VENIVIDIWAR contains subtleties that often illustrate a sequence of shifting moods, particularly anger, sadness, and heartbreak. However, it's the beacons of acceptance, hope, and optimism that pop up from time to time that make WAR stand out from other bands with doleful proclivity. The addition of stoner, math, and prog rock to the mix adds a boldness to these nuances, leading to unexpected twists and turns while providing a beautifully layered, thought-provoking listening experience. 

You can read my full review here.

Favorite Track: Entropy

 

4.) Some Pills for Ayala - Dystopia

Some Pills for Ayala is the hypnotic stoner/psych project of multi-instrumentalist Nestor Ayala, a musician from Santiago, Chile. Dystopia is Ayala's latest full-length release, delivering eight tracks of the atmospheric stoner/psych reveries the project is known for, marked by hazy infusions of grunge and captivating spacey vibes throughout. It's a soothing balm for both ears and soul. 

Favorite Track: Little Fingers

3.) Kuolemankello - Perkeet

Kuolemankello is a proto metal/heavy rock trio whose sound is not only a perfect marriage of vintage, almost ancient-sounding tones and big, classic heavy metal vibes, but it's ALWAYS deliciously loud. Their debut album Perkeet is a masterful blend of pounding rhythms, a plethora of heavy rock swagger, beautifully gritty harmonies in the band's native Finnish, and a bit of a punk rock attitude. These elements drive Perkeet along with impressive endurance, not leaving a single dull moment in its wake. Even so, my favorite thing about the album is quite simple: its raw, unadulterated soul: a core of innate, feral energy that has a way of calling to mind why the bare bones of heavy music - sheer volume, intensity, and passion - are so vital to our enjoyment of it.

You can read a bit more about the band in my quick review here.

Favorite Track: Paarmojen herra 

2.) Black Charger - Small Town 

After releasing several memorable singles and playing a slew of gigs around their native Germany over the past few years, Black Charger's full-length debut Small Town is deservedly reaching eager ears on a global scale. The band plays a classic style of stoner/desert rock that's gritty, fuzzy, and dense in all the right places with a hazy infusion of heavy psych and vibrant energy that supercharges their songs. Perhaps best of all, Black Charger keeps their music down to earth and relatable, with lyrics that focus on topics such as life in a small town and the rise of the stoner/desert scene. This is a band that holds fast to the foundations of stoner rock while creating a very personal experience for the listener. 

Favorite Track: Super Ego 

1.) Bentrees - Silver Veins

Silver Veins, the third album from Italian stoner/psych duo Bentrees, is a work of art. Layered with sharply defined strata and finished with intricate details, this album paints a breathtaking portrait of everything that makes the band tick. Within its shades and hues, you'll find allusions to personal evolution and appreciative tributes to the natural world, especially to the land that Bentrees calls home. The band illustrates these scenes in their typical way, with clever use of contrast, building, and by blending their stylistic influences into a kaleidoscope of hypnotic but intensely immersive sound. However, there seems to be a renewed vigor and heightened passion present on Silver Veins that not only signals a comeback for Bentrees after a few years-long studio hiatus, but it underscores the personal importance of the album's subject matter to the duo. In short, Silver Veins stands out as something very special, carefully and lovingly crafted with skill and time. 

You can read my full review here.

Favorite Track: Silver Veins 

That's it for October! 

Be sure to check out this month's Doom Chart where there are forty albums waiting for you to discover, and as always, show your favorite heavy underground artists some much-deserved love! 

Check out Screaming from the Heavy Underground on YouTube!

Best New Releases of October 2025, Video Version: