Stuff I liked in 2025

It's time for another year-end list of good stuff. Metal records, books, and games I enjoyed in 2025, with the music restricted to new releases. Also some personal retrospecting at the end.

Heavy metal§

This year saw so much amazing music I had to bump the ranked part of the list up to 10 entries.

1. Kardashev — Alunea
Another deathgaze masterpiece from my favorite band in the world. Effortlessly sailing the spectrum between brutal and gentle (side note: I'm still trying to coin the term "gentle death metal" for this style of music), with gorgeous guitar melodies and some of the best vocals I've ever heard.

2. An Abstract Illusion — The Sleeping City
Another incredible piece of gentle death metal, this one with a slower, more atmospheric and meandering tone. A journey of an album which I never hesitate to embark on.

3. Rivers of Nihil — Rivers of Nihil
A legend of progressive death metal, now with more vocal variety than ever thanks to the addition of Andy Thomas (formerly of Black Crown Initiate, another all-time favorite band of mine). Varied and complex, but with a distinct old-school touch.

4. Fallujah — Xenotaph
Nobody plays the guitar like Scott Carstairs — blisteringly technical and soothingly atmospheric at the same time, somehow. Kyle Schaefer's amazing vocal range adds a new level of sophistication that makes this my favorite release from the band yet.

5. Kaunis Kuolematon — Kun Valo Minussa Kuoli
Wonderfully heartwrenching death-doom metal sung, appropriately, in Finnish: the language of a gloomy, melancholy region befitting the music. I find this kind of music very cathartic, especially in the current dark of winter.

6. Eluveitie — Ànv
Eluveitie's previous record, Ategnatos (2019), was my original gateway into death metal, so my expectations were high for this one. I wasn't disappointed — the driving riffs, fun folk instruments, soaring female vocals, and catchy choruses are all there and perhaps better than ever.

7. Arion — The Light That Burns The Sky
Power metal was long my favorite genre, and while I've somewhat fallen out of love with it in recent years, Arion never fails to pull me back. They bring impressive skill, memorable melodies, and a relentless energy that, unlike many power metal acts, feels fully sincere and thus that much more emotionally effective.

8. Slow Fall — Blood Eclipse
Distinctly Finnish melodeath, with its constant undertone of gloomy melancholy balanced out by groovy riffs and some seriously impressive vocals.

9. Allegaeon — The Ossuary Lens
I was sad to see some of Allegaeon's progressive side leave with the vocalist, but while this record's more old-school tech-death metal doesn't hit the unfathomable heights of DAMNUM for me, it's still some of the most impressive yet effortlessly melodic guitar playing out there.

10. Aephanemer — Utopie
Grand symphonic melodeath heaping with scale and confidence, interspersed with long stretches of neoclassical guitar solos. You can really feel the musicians having fun with this one.

...and here's a whole lot more in no particular order (well, the order I heard them in, which I guess is a particular order if you think about it), without description but with approximate subgenres:

• Dynazty — Game of Faces (heavy)
• Spiritbox — Tsunami Sea (prog/metalcore)
• Dawn of Ouroboros — Bioluminescence (post-black)
• Dessiderium — Keys To The Palace (prog/death/black)
• Havukruunu — Tavastland (black)
• Bleed From Within — Zenith (metalcore)
• Hypermass — Apparition Day (groove/melodeath)
• Elvenking — Reader of the Runes - Luna (folk/power)
• Voidfallen — The Rituals of Resilience (melodeath)
• Embrium — Timekeeper (melodic black)
• Buried Realm — The Dormant Darkness (tech/melodeath)
• Novelists — CODA (prog/metalcore)
• Fractal Universe — The Great Filters (prog/death)
• Destinity — Ascension (melodeath)
• Shadow of Intent — Imperium Delirium (symphonic deathcore)
• Ancient Bards — Artifex (symphonic/power)
• Azure Emote — Cryptic Aura (symphonic prog/death)
• Blackbraid — Blackbraid III (atmospheric black)
• Spire of Lazarus — Those Who Live In Death (tech/deathcore)
• Lorna Shore — I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me (symphonic deathcore)
• Faetooth — Labyrinthine (doom)
• Visitant — Rubidium (melodic black/death)
• Dark Matter Secret — New Matter (instrumental tech-death)
• Suotana — Ounas II (folk/melodeath)
• In Mourning — The Immortal (melodeath)
• Raat — White Fire (atmospheric black)
• BLACKSHAPE — Prismer I (post)
• Before The Dawn — Cold Flare Eternal (melodeath)
• Igorrr — Amen (avant-garde)
• Psychonaut — World Maker (post)
• Trhä — tahaccet ga qëcha com ibajn (black)
• WEFT — The Splintered Oar (atmospheric black)
• Yellow Eyes — Confusion Gate (atmospheric black)
• KAUAN — Wayhome (post-rock)
• The Algorithm — Recursive Infinity (electronic)

Books§

Nonfiction§

I've been reading so much for my studies this year I haven't had the energy to read any more nonfiction for leisure, but I want to highlight one textbook I read:

Tristan Needham — Visual Differential Geometry and Forms
Beautifully written and illustrated, full of humor, useful intuition, fascinating historical notes, and Star Trek references. The only textbook I've had so much fun reading I'd even open it on weekends. Math (and science in general) would be better with more pictures of fruit and phrases like "therefore, reaching upward, we may now touch the face of God". The lengthy recommended reading list at the end of the book will certainly keep me occupied for years to come.

Fiction§

Max Gladstone — Three Parts Dead (The Craft Sequence)
A fantasy interpretation of our modern world where the arcane rules of law and ownership are the basis of actual magic and gods. A fun hodgepodge of aesthetics, often quite funny satire, and many great characters. Quite a long series which stayed interesting all the way through, with the latest part being released just this October.

Mary Robinette Kowal — The Martian Contingency
The latest entry in the Lady Astronaut series mentioned in last year's list, this time seeing Elma York et al. building the first human habitat on Mars. Still fascinatingly grounded in reality despite the divergence from real-life events, and full of lively detail that makes it easy to relate to the characters and their struggles.

Ursula K. Le Guin — The Left Hand of Darkness
Like many of Le Guin's works, this book combines two of my favorite things: sophisticated worldbuilding and a "man vs. nature" survival story. On a cold planet whose people have no fixed gender (a fact reflected in all aspects of their social order), a human ambassador attempts to navigate their unfamiliar politics and harsh landscapes.

Alex Pheby — Mordew (Cities of the Weft)
A strange, borderline surreal, vaguely Victorian fantasy world of wildly powerful magic and seemingly nonsensical events which eventually cohere into something surprisingly comprehensible. It starts small, in the slums of the city of Mordew, slowly revealing the true nature and scale of the world. This is my kind of weird — unusual storytelling structures, high-flying philosophical ponderings, topped off with touches of dry humor and body horror.

Susanna Clarke — Piranesi
A mysterious world of endless corridors and statues, inhabited by an equally mysterious lone explorer whose journals tell us the story. A captivating tale with a palpable sense of place that I would have loved to spend more time exploring.

Aliette De Bodard — The Red Scholar's Wake
Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and this spacefaring pirate story could just as well be about wizards instead with its sentient spaceships, micro-robots and mind-controlled computers. The core of the story, though, is in romance and political machinations which I found quite compelling. Also, "lesbian space pirates" is a hell of a tagline.

Susanna Clarke — Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
1800s England, except there's magic. And it's a field of study as dry and academic as they come, which makes it the exclusive pursuit of rich men with nothing better to do. The story is told in the style of a regency drama, with much attention given to the mundane interpersonal squabbles of these aristocrats. It took me a while to decide whether or not I liked this one, but ultimately the skillful character writing and unusual depiction of magic won me over.

Adrian Tchaikovsky — Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt)
A fantasy world where humans have taken on traits of various insects. Industrious Beetles, rigidly organized Ants, tiny nimble Flies, Mantis warriors, etc. etc. all threatened by an aggressively expansionist Empire of the Wasps. The worldbuilding is a fun and very detailed mix of steampunky industrial revolution -era technology with the various semi-magical insectoid features, and while the protagonists have a certain "young adult" flavor, the story isn't afraid to get as dark and brutal as a war story needs to. At the time of writing I'm halfway through the (quite long) series and still enjoying it a fair bit.

Games§

Saturnalia
A horror detective game about an Italian village haunted by a mysterious monster. Roads and most buildings are randomly shuffled whenever you lose your crew of four characters, making sure you never quite get comfortable with the layout. An interesting blend of procedurally generated and hand-authored content, stylish visuals, an engaging story, and lots and lots of tension.

Archipelago
A randomizer mod with a twist — instead of shuffling items within one game, it combines many games into one world where items of one game may appear in any other. It's a wild idea that works amazingly well, even supporting many games that don't have "items" in a typical sense. You can play it alone or with friends, all at the same time or asynchronously over long time periods.

BETON BRUTAL
A tower-climbing platformer in the vein of Getting Over It, Only Up, etc, but from a first-person perspective. Very punishing and frustrating at times, but has good pacing and solid controls that still feel good when you're going through the same room for the 30th time to get back to that one spot where you keep falling off.

Dead Space (2023)
I never played the original so I can't say how it measures up, but the remake was a thoroughly enjoyable horror shooter. A little more combat-oriented and gory than my usual horror preference, but the game does some cool things with the weapon mechanics and world design that made it very compelling for me.

Still Wakes the Deep
A horror story about an oil rig and its crew who encounter a mysterious organism hidden in the bedrock. The setting is beautifully realized and perfect for horror — no way out, and plenty of high places, dark rooms, and massive underwater structures. Plus some delightfully Scottish character acting. There's not much in the way of gameplay, but with atmosphere like this I had a great time just walking through the story.

Lies of P: Overture
A new campaign for one of the best Soulslikes out there. This one ramps up the intensity to previously unseen levels without losing its sense of fairness, featuring some of my all-time favorite boss fights. The visual designs and exploration elements are also as enjoyable as ever.

Merge Maestro
A deckbuilder where you place tokens on a board, combine identical ones to make new stronger ones, and create synergies to destroy enemies. The basic rules are simple, but there's a combinatorial explosion of possibilities where winning often entails "breaking" the game in some new and satisfying way.

Metal: Hellsinger
At first glance this game looks almost exactly like Doom (2016), but the twist — you must shoot in time with the music — ends up giving it a highly distinct and satisfying identity. The soundtrack consists of some pretty banging melodic death metal that gives the game a driving groove that just feels really good.

Rain World
One of the strangest, most thoroughly unique gaming experiences I've ever had. Rain World simulates a complex living ecosystem of predator and prey in the ruins of some mysterious civilization, where you must learn to survive without being told anything about how it works. It's unfair in the way nature is unfair; it's brutal and frightening and disgusting in the way nature is; it's grand and beautiful and serene in the way nature is. Also an absolute masterpiece in 2D visual effects and an inspiration to my own tech-art work.

Sword of the Sea
The latest from Giant Squid (of Journey fame), another short platforming adventure with a focus on astonishingly beautiful visuals. As a "snowboarding" game it lacks a certain inertia, but the movement is merely a vessel for experiencing the world, which is gorgeous as always. Worth seeing if you're a Giant Squid fan; if you've never played one of their games before, my personal favorite is still The Pathless.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Ratchet & Clank was a big part of my childhood, so revisiting the series was a fun blast from the past. The comedy had me groaning as often as laughing, and I was a little disappointed with the enemy variety, but I had a great time dashing around at high speeds and juggling a litany of goofy weapons.

Personal§

Now that I've given other people's work the attention it deserves, let me indulge in a little self-congratulation. Here are a few things I did this year that I'm proud of.

Learned traditional painting with gouache and had tons of fun with it. Some examples here. And generally, I did a lot of art: including sketches and studies, the final tally is

• 58 gouache paintings
• 25 ink drawings
• 25 digital works
• 118 pencil and ink sketchbook pages

Most of them won't be seen in the gallery here (although many of the better ones are on my Mastodon page), but the mileage is very much showing itself in my skills and confidence.

Increased my exercise schedule to three times per week and made significant fitness gains for the first time in years: I can now consistently run 10 km or swim 1.5 km, both doubling my usual distances from the start of the year.

Continued my new sewing hobby and made some of my favorite clothes that I wear all the time. Indeed, I'm wearing one of my custom t-shirts as I write this :)

Got more socially active, participating in a students' art club, making trips to see friends, and even giving a presentation at an academic conference (slides for that one available under publications!) It may not seem like much, but having been very isolated for most of my life, these are all big steps forward for me.

Speaking of social activities, I also kept up a habit of livestreaming every Sunday on my Twitch channel. Playing video games (or sometimes painting) and chatting has been great fun and contributed a good deal to my improving social confidence.

These are just the highlights — it's not been all fun and games, but overall this year has been a great one for me. Thanks for reading, and here's to another good one in 2026 🎉