Metalheads & metal music lovers across the fediverse are invited to submit their top 5 metal albums that were released in 2025, so anything released from 1st January 2025 to 31st December 2025 inclusive is suitable.
Please clearly order your albums so the group point system can be correctly applied. First position albums receive 5 points, second 4 points, third 3 points, fourth 2 points and fifth 1 point. It's fine to submit less than 5 albums, even an entry of only one album is valid.
If a list has less than 5 positions filled, the corresponding point system will still apply, so a first position album will still be given 5 points and so on. If a list has more than 5 positions, positions 6 and above will be ignored and not included in the group tally.
Please do not submit lists with joint positions for albums as this skews the point system, the only exception to this is if there is a list of up to five albums all ranked equally as first place, in this case each album will be given the sum of 15 points equally divided between them to a maximum of 5 points each.
Submissions for the Group Metal AOTY 2025 can be made by making me aware of your top 5 albums via the fediverse by either adding the hashtag #GroupMetalAOTY2025 to your toot, or by tagging me in a toot with your list. I can be found on the fediverse by searching for kitty @ metalhead.club
Submissions are open to anyone on the fediverse from any server and it does not matter if you don't feel like a metalhead, there is no test to enter and no gatekeeping regarding what is and isn't metal. ;)
The deadline for all submissions is midnight 5th January 2026 (UCT-12) this day and time is later than most group AOTY lists as it's to make sure that as many people as possible can be included due to festive and family pressures and making sure any last minute album releases can be included if you so wish. Please note, any album released after 31st December 2025 cannot be submitted for the 2025 list.
The group list will be calculated by me and posted publicly on the fediverse and on this webpage. All details given will be anonymous and displayed as a group total, see below for the years 2024 and 2023 as examples. No data beyond what is displayed below is kept or shared with anyone.
Thank you for participating.
This list was created by 41 metalheads from the fediverse voting for their top 5 albums. In total, 128 albums were mentioned.
This list was complied using the top 5 albums chosen by 28 metalheads on the Mastodon network.