What were the best goth albums of 2025? Glad you asked, because I’ve put together just such a list. “Goth” here is not just being defined as deathrock and darkwave, but I’m also including industrial and post-punk releases. Goth is the black umbrella encompassing most dark music. There were a couple of metal albums that crossed over into the kind of elegant lamentations defining goth, but if I were DJing a set for a traditionally minded club and could not afford to empty the dance floor, they would have to be omitted, so I left them off this list
However if you are looking for something more metallic, the new albums from Hangman’s Chair, Floating and Novembers Doom are worth checking out. Similar can be said of punk, shoegaze and the more depressive strains of indie rock, the sullen sounds of Ethel Cain’s Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, Shedfromthebody’s Whisper and Wane and Home Front’s Watch It Die are all wonderfully morose soundtracks to go off your psych meds to.
If you read the previous two installments of this column the bulk of the names will be familiar, so this list can attest to how much weight they hold when it comes to dark music released this year, and are basically ranked according how many times I actually listened to them (which I tracked via Last.fm). When prowling the shadows of the internet, it’s easy for the mention of a certain band to spark interest. But then life throws another shiny thing at you and you never check them out, so perhaps this list will serve to keep you from missing out on finding your next favorite album.
Now, let’s bring on the Top 10 Goth Albums of 2025.
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10. Altar De Fey – Under a Waxing Moon
These ghouls beat out Peter Murphy’s Silver Shade for the number ten spot. Murphy is still making killer albums, but there is more of an urgency to what the death rockers are doing that doesn’t just rely on ’80s nostalgia. They captured the perfect balance of overwrought pretense and sleazy punk grit here.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
9. Crippling Alcoholism – Cam Girl
The murky mix of this album drowns you in the murk of its experimental ocean of sound. More electronic elements weave the tapestry that ties the conceptual themes together. It tells the story of a despondent sex worker’s descent into a Lynchian underbelly of society.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
8. Street Sects – Dry Drunk
Dry Drunk is another concept album of sorts, though more autobiographical in its cathartic reflections on relapsing back into addiction after a period of tenuous sobriety. It is industrial music in its most torturous and demented expulsion of self-loathing made song. Their misery always sounds so wonderful.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
7. The Discussion – All the Pretty Flowers
Laura Plesants perfects her post-Kylesa post-punk project with some ghostly surf-rock guitar tones and downtrodden vocal musings that reflect on loss in a hauntingly beautiful manner. Not just a mastery of spectral guitar tones, but hooky writing that sticks to your ears.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
6. HEALTH – CONFLICT DLC
The industrial rockers have streamlined a great deal of the noisy edges from their sound for the contemplations of suicide, death and loneliness on CONFLICT DLC, which is familiar subject matter for them. But this latest set of songs finds them dipping into witch house and other experimental forms of pop as well.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
5. Street Sex – Full Color Eclipse
The darkly chaotic companion piece to Street Sects’ Dry Drunk finds the Texas industrial duo diving deeper into the more synth-dominant vein of aggro-pop to weave together melodies that are more infectious than those served up on their angrier industrial disc.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
4. Scorpion Milk – Slime of the Times
Mat McNerney of Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures and Hex Vessel fame is moving in a more punk direction for this aggressive batch of apocalyptic tunes. The guitars clang with a Killing Joke-like tension, and they’re even more in your face with this collection of dystopian hymns.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
3. Patriarchy – Manual for Dying
The top two albums barely managed to edge this one out as it’s infectious as hell and drips sex. There are other sex-positive dark pop/electronic albums from acts like Pixel Grip that were also enjoyable listens, but this project just delivered it with a fetishized edge and even better vocal hooks.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
2. Author & Punisher – Nocturnal Birding
Tristan Shone managed to beat out the hookier songwriting of Patriarchy, due to the scope of this album’s massive dynamics that were aided by a guitarist being brought aboard this time around. As such, Nocturnal Birding gain the heft of more traditional industrial-metal acts like Ministry and Frontline Assembly but under the forward-thinking creative vision Shore has become known for.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
1. Heartworms – Glutton For Punishment
Heartworms’ Glutton For Punishment takes the top spot for the simple reason that it’s well written, with catchy melodies and strong vocals, and it feels like you are stepping into Jojo Orme’s own world of dark steam-punk whimsy. These songs will inevitably get stuck in your head, making this the most endearing and enduring listen of the year when it comes to dark music.
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)
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