Release Friday: 8 November 2025

Once again I missed a few Fridays. Life is busy right now. But there’s been pretty good stuff released lately, so here’s my personal selection of releases of the last few weeks:

A song that slipped through the last time but is pretty iconic is The Laugh Track by Ice Nine Kills. For some weird reason, this band keeps sneaking out of my radar, although they’re amazing, The Laugh Track is no exception:

On 24th October, Versengold released a new single called Dans op de Deel. The title is Low-German (and so are some parts of the songs) and refers to an event where a big group of people dances or celebrates together (that’s what Wikipedia told me :D) – a pretty good dance track.

Speaking of danceable music, on 20th October, my beloved Ad Infinitum released their new single Regicide, which has a great up-beat beginning to dance to. I’ve seen them perform it live last night and decided that this is perhaps one of my favourite Ad Infinitum songs. Great song, very powerful, great band.

The feature I didn’t know I’d been waiting for for my entire life: Fiddler’s Green released a song featuring Jimmy Kelly, a member of the Kelly Family, who were incredibly popular in Germany in the 90s. My sister was a big Kelly-fan, so I grew up with their music, which was always strongly influenced by Irish folk music due to their roots. So basically a Kelly together with an Irish Folk Punk band is unsurprising and a pretty good match, yet it took Fiddler’s Green 35 years to realise that. Botany Bay has a great vibe and is just real fun to listen to:

Also, there’s news from Gothenburg: The Halo Effect released their new single Dance with the Devil on 22nd October – a cover of the band Phenomena. 

This year, Halloween was kind to us and brought a few releases. One of them was Tanzneid by Electric Callboy, which also led to a name change of their upcoming tour. It’s now the Tanzneid tour, which makes me wonder if that’s gonna be the title of their next album. Anyway, vibe-wise Tanzneid fits Halloween. For me personally, it’s the weakest of the latest Electric Callboy releases because it kind of … misses a super danceable beat? I don’t know. It didn’t really spark joy, but it’s an honourable mention, somehow.

Another Halloween-release came from Finland: Atlas’s new single I Whisper Your Name Like a Curse came out on 31st October as well. It’s a beautiful song, calm and heavy at the same time, dark and dreamy, mysterious and by the way pretty amazing when played live. Atlas are a great band and you should check them out if you haven’t yet:

Dämmerland, the project of Malte Hoyer, Hannes Braun and Annie Hoyer, has been super active lately. The next Dämmerland release is coming pretty soon I think and on 31st October they released another single, this time featuring Hämatom. The feature is unsurprising on the one hand, as the connection between Dämmerland and Hämatom have existed for loooong, but it’s another example that Dämmerland has widened their reach within the German music scene.

And we’re not leaving Dämmerland for a moment, because yesterday there was another release: Sand der Zeit, this time featuring The Dark Tenor – a classical multi-genre / crossover singer with an incredibly beautiful voice that matches well with Annie Hurdy Gurdy, who’s also part of this song. It’s a very beautiful song, kinda epic and given the variety the Dämmerland releases have shown so far I am more than excited to hear the final product.

On 30th October, there was finally a new single of the American post-hardcore group Conquer Divide. It’s been quite a while since their last single release and this one was teasered by rickrolling their fans on Instagram. Conquer Divide never stop surprising. The Ocean between Us is a beautiful, very typical Conquer Divide song and I can’t express how happy I am to finally hear something new coming from them.

Something’s happening in the Equilibrium camp as well: the German epic metal band (there’s no better word to describe their music, honestly) is releasing single after single after single – on 30th October, Borrowed Waters was the third single release in 2025. It’s featuring Roniit, which is a great match for this song. It carries a dreamy, mystic atmosphere and I’m all here for it. I can’t wait for the new album, which will be released this month already!!! AAAH!

I cried a little when I read a few weeks ago that For My Pain… will finally release a new album in January 2026. It’s gonna be their second studio album and the last one, in case you didn’t know, came out in the early 2000s. With Windows are Weeping they released a new single featuring Troy Donockley on 30th October. It’s also the first song featuring their new background singer Ellu Malkamäki – and I immediately fell in love with her voice. Windows are Weeping is beyond beautiful. It surprised me a little when I first heard it because it started with unexpected flutes/whistles, and I love it so damn much I can’t put it into words.

On 5th November, an epic collaboration of the German medieval royal highnesses Subway to Sally and Schandmaul was released, most likely leading up to their shared appearance at Subway to Sally’s annual Eisheilige Nacht tour in December. Räuber und Narren is a beautiful song, carrying the medieval spirit of both bands. I’m in love.

There have also been EP and album releases within the last few weeks, for example…

… Optimize by Coldrain, which is yet again a fun Alternative Rock EP that makes me more than excited for their upcoming tour:

Also, yesterday with the last single Make Me Bleed came the the final release of Oceans‘ new EP We Are Nøt Økay II. Short and sweet and dark and desperate as I’m used to from Oceans. Like the other releases before, Make Me Bleed is a banger. Check it out:

And finally: Another aspirant of „favourite album in 2025“ came out on Halloween as well: VOID by Aviana was perhaps one of my most awaited albums this year and it’s so damn beautiful – but also so damn short. Go check it out, it only takes you a bit more than half an hour.