TNM talks bands we would have introduced to ourselves at an earlier age, a breadth of new tracks from Def Leppard, Exodus, Immolation and Haggard Cat, and Cryptopsy take to the UK with 200 Stab Wounds for 30 years of None So Vile.

Releases:
Megadeth - Megadeth
Poppy - Empty Hands
Crystal Lake - The Weight of Sound
Textures - Genotype
The Damned - Not Like Everybody Else
Backengrillen - Backengrillen
Barbarian - Reek of God
Ligation - After Gods

2025 Album Clubs come from the land where the mullet attacks: Sabaton's Swedish concept album Carolus Rex, Hatebreed's hardcore benchmark Satisfaction is the Death of Desire, Visigoth's dungeon-keeping The Revenant King, and Family Force 5 give us Business Up Front/Party in the Back.

This episode was originally published January 2025 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

New album singles from Poison the Well, Lamb of God, and Static Dress keep 2026 starting up, along with a killer first band announcement from Damnation Festival, and announcement of our first Patreon special for 2026.

Releases:
Kreator - Krushers of the World
Kid Kapichi - Fearless Nature
Greywind - Severed Heart City
Ov Sulfur - Endless
Blanket - True Blue
Serpent Column - Aion of Strife
Rifle - Rifle
Push - Plowing Ahead
Crush Your Soul - Ice Water
I Promised the World - I Promised the World
Lights Out - Fall on Your Sword
Gylt - In 1,000 Agonies, I Exist
Sin Against Sin - Demo 2

TNM usher in the new year with hopes, questions and predictions for 2026, and some familiar faces already poking their heads above the parapets for the year ahead.

Releases:
Ulver - Neverland
Fuath - III
Woe - Legacies of Human Frailty
Paleface Swiss - The Wilted EP
Alter Bridge - Alter Bridge
The Ruins of Beverast - Tempelschlaf

Right before Christmas our last bash for 2025 is TNM Awards looking back over the highs and lows, the stories, the icons, the presidents, and the circuses that made the year in rock music what it was:
Most Improved Band
Song of the Year
Worst Song of the Year
Hero of the Year
Villain of the Year
Best New Band
Biggest Disappointment
Gig of the Year
EP of the Year
Artwork of the Year
Movie of the Year
Comeback of the Year
Surprise of the Year
Outstanding Achievement
Worst Band of the Year
Unsung Heroes
Story of the Year
Band of the Year

Our second go of albums of the year for 2025 with Sam and Mark celebrating records from hair metal to hardcore, and your results for the TNM listener poll as we see who's bringing it home in a year filled with past winners and big dog contenders.

2025 Album of the Year time begins on That's Not Metal, with our first lists from Perran and Elliot celebrating everything from synth-punk to goth-doom, power-goregrind to jazz-death, post-metal to metalcore, legendary rock icons to grimy dungeon crust bands that this year gave us.

This week we've got reports from My Bloody Valentine's first shows since 2018 as we see one of the loudest bands in the world, reaction to Alissa White-Gluz being out of Arch Enemy, and we tell you how to get involved in our 2025 end of year shows.

Releases:
The Algorithm - Recursive Infinity
The Pretty Wild - zero.point.genesis
Danko Jones - Leo Rising
Gasket - Gasket
Stryper - The Greatest Gift of All
Speedclaw - Stardust
Morbikon - Lost Within the Astral Crypts
Terror Corpse - Ash Eclipses Flesh
Flesher - Gore On Gore
Dome Runner - World Panopticon
Spanish Love Songs - A Brief Intermission in the Flattening of Time
The Halo Effect - We Are Shadows
ExitWounds - An Offering to Tragedy
Master’s Hammer - Maldoror Disco
male//gaze - Too Late Now
Excide - Bastard Hymns
Equilibrium - Equinox
Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons
The Ominous Circle - Cloven Tongues of Fire
Phobocosm - Gateway
Fessus - Subcutaneous Tomb
1349 - Winter Mass

2025's final reviews is a crazy bag of disco mania with Creeper's Sanguivore II, Pupil Slicer, Drain, Astronoid, Home Front, Lamp of Murmuur, and Master's Hammer, bid farewell to Svalbard on tour, a new single from Converge, and about half an hour before our record, doing cartwheels at the reunion of Black Breath.

Creeper 31:51
Pupil Slicer 1:09:19
Drain 1:24:17
Astronoid 1:35:08
Home Front 1:47:29
Lamp of Murmuur 1:59:08
Master's Hammer 2:18:05

The UK's biggest dedicated extreme music fest at Damnation Festival goes bigger than ever for its 20th anniversary with a bonkers two day line-up featuring Corrosion of Conformity, Napalm Death, Deafheaven, Perturbator, Anaal Nathrakh, Amenra, Warning, Wormrot, Castle Rat, and so many more to crack our skulls.

Releases:
Of Mice & Men - Another Miracle
The Devil Wears Prada - Flowers
Rise of the Northstar - CHAPTER 04: RED FALCON SUPER BATTLE! NEO PARIS WAR!!
AVVT/PTTN - AVVT/PTTN
Lamp of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy
1914 - Viribus Unitis
Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Vol. II
Ragana & Drowse - Ash Souvenir
VoidCeremony - Abditum
Chairmaker - Leviathan Carcass
Vower - A Storm Lined With Silver