Mining Metal is a monthly column from Heavy Consequence contributing writers Langdon Hickman and Colin Dempsey. The focus is on noteworthy new music emerging from the non-mainstream metal scene, highlighting releases from small and independent labels — or even releases from unsigned acts.
The irony of this column is that most metal that interests us is bound to remain underground to the general music-listening public. Even large metal labels release records that are as likely to chart (or break containment, which is the preferred term these days) as I am likely to grow a third foot. Yes, metal is definitely big, but few acts that push the envelope are likely to be one of those “big” bands. Case in point, you’d have to scan pretty far down the Download Festival 2026 lineup to find a band that’s making cool and unusual music. A complaint this is not, but to assert the following: there were many metal albums this year that came from larger labels and were thus ineligible for Mining Metal, and they were quite good. They deserve some love and attention too (but not too much).
These albums include the goth metal heavyweight champ of the year, Messa’s The Spin, the latest from Century Media’s best acquisition over the past few years, Imperial Triumphant’s Goldstar, the best comeback record of 2025, Coroner’s Dissonance Theory, Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe, which is the 11th album from Coheed and Cambria (sometimes known as the best band to ever appear in Rockband), and the latest entry in Behemoth’s run as extreme-metal stalwarts: The Shit Ov God (“It’s not a stupid title,” insists frontman Nergal). Furthermore, Profound Lore had an iron claw-like grip over death metal this year. They released Ancient Death’s tremendous debut, Pissgrave’s final record, two of 2025’s finest death-doom albums from Innumerable Forms and Evoken, and the sophomore release from the Tolkein-indebted black metal act One of Nine.
Each of the albums mentioned have the gusto to be records of the year, possessing the intangible moving quality that supersedes performance and aesthetics and grips at our fleshy forms. They are specific and direct expressions of why we love metal. However, they are not our favorite albums from this year. They are honorably mentioned to elevate the eight albums we’ve gathered below, all of which come from independent or smaller labels. As always, metal thrives when away from the sunlight and, like fungi, can grow in nutrient-rich soil, eventually sprouting with its own sores and blemishes that deepen its taste. What we’ve assembled below collects the eccentricities and roughness that makes metal, well, metal.
— Colin Dempsey