A lot of fucked-up up shit happened in the U.S. this year. Way, way too much of it. For many of us Americans who actually carry values in our hearts instead of bloviating about them or slapping bumper stickers on our monster trucks, it was almost too much to bear.
Fortunately, 2025 also saw the release of a staggering number of stellar records, which made the year a little more … well, bearable. Hence, for the first time ever, The Bad Penny is deviating from its usual annual tradition of limiting out favorite listens to just 10 and breaking them into a five-part series containing 10 records per installment.
What follows is the third batch. (Go here for The Bad Penny‘s favorite albums, #31 through #40 and here for The Bad Penny‘s favorite albums, #41 through #50.)
Few living artists embody the word “integrity” more than Jason Isbell, who is on the fast track to receiving the universal respect that forebears Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson garnered. Isbell continues to bring together Americans in an age where cultural fragmentation is omnipotent, and he’s done it once again with Foxes in the Snow. Read my reflection on his LP as part of Treble‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
Every Greet Death song is blessed with a brilliant touch. The shoegazing musicians look directly at you, instead of their feet, the entire time they play Die in Love – because they rightly know this is the next-level rock. Read my reflection on their LP as part of Treble‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
The Spiritual Sound is Agriculture’s declaration that they’ll stay true to themselves and abide by the self-described “ecstatic black metal” gauntlet they threw down with their self-titled debut two years ago. With this follow-up LP, the LA quartet delivered a terrifying listen made by terrifyingly talented musicians that’s just as singular and spectacular as their debut. Read my reflection on their LP as part of FLOOD‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
Within days of No Kings I, The Armed gave us “Kingbreaker,” which could’ve easily served as the head-banging set’s theme song for the day. And then, less than two months later, The Armed unveiled The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed, a long-form manifesto of the Detroit-based band’s opening salvo that made a spectacular case supporting the name of their latest album. Read my reflection on their LP as part of FLOOD‘s best albums of 2025 feature.
A lot of fucked-up up shit happened in the U.S. this year. Way, way too much of it. For many of us Americans who actually carry values in our hearts instead of bloviating about them or slapping bumper stickers on our monster trucks, it was almost too much to bear.
Fortunately, 2025 also saw the release of a staggering number of stellar records, which made the year a little more … well, bearable. Hence, for the first time ever, The Bad Penny is deviating from its usual annual tradition of limiting out favorite listens to just 10 and breaking them into a five-part series containing 10 records per installment.
What follows is the second batch. (Go here for The Bad Penny‘s favorite albums, #41 through #50.)
Turnstile are the standalone, undisputed pillars of the hardcore resurgence that sparked in 2021 thanks to this very band’s last album Glow On. The record rose so rapidly that many assumed it would fall just as fast, and we’d be left looking like idiots, holding a pan with a proverbial flash in it. Four years later, nothing could be further from the truth: Their staying power is proving to be as reliable as the assertion that tomorrow will deliver us a day that ends with a Y. Read my full review of their 2025 masterpiece, Never Enough, part of The Line of Best Fit‘s best albums of the year feature.
Trivium frontman Matt Heafy plays at Revolution in Garden City, Idaho, on November 29, 2025
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Trivium, one of the hardest-working metal bands that also boasts an ever-reliably broad appeal, are close to clocking their 100th date in another year of rigorous touring. Their 2025 regiment has focused heavily on celebrating/resurrecting interest in their second full-length, Ascendency, a formidable effort – some might call it the Florida band’s breakthrough release – ostensibly because it came out 20 years ago.
But as Matt Heafy and company look back on that release – currently playing four selections from it in their current 14-song set, as The Bad Pennywitnessed last month in Garden City, Idaho – we can’t help be reminded what short shrift Trivium continues to give 2006’s The Crusade, the successor to Ascendency. More specifically, we’re confused as to why the band continues to bury the record’s strongest tracks, which still constitute some of the best material Trivium have crafted in an admittedly cramped catalog with loads of compositions adored by fans of the band, thrash and metalcore, and even critics.
Chief among those neglected songs are The Crusade‘s opening track “Ignition”; first album single “Detonation”; and the most politically charged number in Trivium’s career, “Contempt Breeds Contamination.” Since Trump became president for the first time in 2016, the metal band has played all three songs two times in concert. Not apiece – combined.
The Bad Penny has knocked guitar maestro Heafy in the past for his sometimes substandard lyrics. But the ones he wrote for those aforementioned songs stand among his best-written, not to mention his most admirable. So why don’t we hear them – or, more importantly, the sentiments he expressed in those compositions – more often?
Callous Daoboys do the unspeakable by taking the wind out of the sails of those who’d seek to eradicate “metalcore” from the contemporary music lexicon. Read my take on their standout tune “Distracted by the Mona Lisa,” part of Treble‘s “The 100 Best Songs of 2025” feature, here.
Posted in Reviews with tags Smerz on 12/08/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Though Smerz’s name might come across like a fun kids’ candy loaded with sugar, their tune “But I Do” is something much more grown up. Read my review, part of Treble‘s “The 100 Best Songs of 2025” feature, here.
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