LIAM’S LISTENING ROOM [7/3/2025]

Hi all, and welcome to my listening room, a (potentially/hopefully) weekly column on what my listening habits have been throughout the week and hopefully a good way to direct our viewers to what I think is the best new music around, as well as maybe some other bands that might have been missed by some. This wasn’t my idea to do, but as someone who loves discovering, learning and listening to new things I feel this is a perfect outlet for me to talk about the stuff I love, mainly because whenever I try to speak passionately about the music I love, aside from a specific few people, my passion goes straight over their heads and I end up feeling like a plum!

As you would expect, I am a metalhead through and through. I find that there’s so much to love in metal music across almost every sub-genre, and I am a strong believer in the need to turn people onto the genre. I feel that purely from the standpoint of great songwriting and an appreciation for well-performed music, and contrary to popular belief, metal as a whole can appeal to absolutely everyone. My opinion is as follows: if you say that you hate metal, or think that metal is just shit/noise, you have not heard the right metal for you. My hope for this is not just for people as passionate as myself to find new things that they otherwise might have missed, but also for people who are new to the genre to find a new musical love. I also encourage discussion, I want to be able to talk to people about music, and I want to be turned onto albums I could have missed, so I implore all who are interested by this to go in our comments on our social media posts related to this, and drop me a line.

The format of this is simple. I will be going through my favourite album that has come out in a week, dissecting what has appealed to me about it and what I love about it, then I will go through my listening habits for the week, and then to finish off I will be going through what I have been listening to outside of the metal spectrum, because yes, believe it or not, metalheads listen to and love all kinds of music.

So, without further ado, let’s kick things off with my favourite metal album of the past week! And this week’s edition will take us into the realm of Finnish pagan black metal.

So far this year, my two favourite albums of 2025 have been black metal albums, which I think is a first. I love black metal, but just because of my personal preference, year on year, they end up being comparatively lower on my album of the year lists. I would say this is my second favourite album of the year, after Saor’s “Amidst the Ruins”. This is just everything I love about the black metal genre as a whole. I am not as much of a fan of the more raw second-wave black metal as I am of the side of black metal that incorporates epic soundscapes, folky melodies, memorable riffs and utterly awesome melodies. While Saor’s sound is much more atmospheric and their latest album much more of a beautiful soundscape, this album is just a textbook example of a heavy, fun, epic black metal album. In terms of sound, I picked up a lot of influence from bands like Dissection, Immortal and later Nokturnal Mortum, as well as tropes from more folk adjacent bands such as Månegarm. There is also a distinct Finnish quality to the songwriting as well. I think that the Finnish are just extremely good at making metal that makes you feel like you’re in a certain environment, and as examples, I would point to bands like Insomnium and Amorphis. There is definitely some of that grand, epic atmosphere throughout this record. In terms of ratings, while I don’t think it’s perfect, it sits at a strong 4.5/5 for me. I urge anyone who is a fan of any of the bands I’ve mentioned to check it out.

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Now, we move on to what my listening habits have been for the past week, and I’ll start off with what I’ve been listening to in the metal world. Really, from week to week I find myself in very particular moods, but one band has been a mainstay in my rotation for the best part of 2 years at this point, and despite only getting into them in 2021 they have become one of my favourite bands of all time, and that is Opeth. In particular, I have had “The Last Will and Testament” on a regular rotation throughout the past week. It was my favourite album of 2024, in my opinion it is the best thing they have done since Watershed in 2008 (although I do still like their prog rock output quite a bit), and every time I listen I’m still finding new things to love about it, especially when it comes to the drumming.

Other than that, I have also really enjoyed the new Ghost single, “Satanized” and as a result, that has had me diving back into Ghost’s discography, which in my opinion is close to impeccable in terms of studio albums, and I cannot wait for the new album to drop.

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Outside of the metal spectrum, I have been diving into Aurora’s discography over the past fortnight, having been unaware of her music previously (apart from a cover of Oasis’s “Half the World Away”). Funnily enough, I have been listening to her while I’ve typed this column out today! I find myself really drawn to not only her voice, which I’ve really found myself loving, but also the production and the way her songs are paced and structured. I find her ethereal and atmospheric, yet still still-catchy style very refreshing in a pop world that I have mostly found to be bland to an extreme and infuriating level for at least 15 years. In particular, I have gravitated to “The Gods We Can Touch” from 2022.

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My second pick is the latest EP from Anneke Van Giersbergen, titled “La Vie”. Since I first discovered her work through her contributions to the Devin Townsend Project, she has fast become my favourite female singer, and she has a voice that I think is truly unmatched. The power that she has is such that she can sing an absolutely soaring melody, while also never expressing any strain or effort whatsoever. She is someone who can only use 60% of her vocal power and still cut through and stand out among the best for her effortlessness. This latest EP is the first of three that will be released throughout the year, and if this is anything to go by then I can’t wait for the other two to be released! Musically, it is admittedly not groundbreaking or unique, but the voice that is singing over it is what makes it stand out from the rest in this particular style. It is just solid, feel-good, semi-acoustic pop-rock, but with a voice that stands head and shoulders above pretty much everyone else in my opinion.

And so that’s it for this first edition of my listening room. I know it’s been a bit of a long one, but this was also written as an introductory piece alongside my picks for the week. I promise the next one will be a bit shorter, and as I get more of a grip on how to write these things, it will continue to get more concise. If you found it interesting, then comment on the social media post and let me know not only your thoughts as well as any recommendations. Hope this was interesting and fun for you, and I’ll check back next week!