Record(s) o’ the Month – November 2025 By Steel Druhm

We made it! It’s the end of yet another year, and we’ve reached the final Record(s) o’ the Month for 2025. Over the last 12 months, we’ve laughed, cried, burned posers and poorly performing n00bs at the stake, and we’ve all grown as people (except the aforementioned victims of fiery doom). What better way to set the stage for the looming Listurnial celebration than to look back at the best things that hit the ears in November. That was rhetorical. There is NO better way. Onward!

It shouldn’t be a big surprise that 1914 nets the top spot for the month, since Viribus Unitis [November 14th, 2025 by Napalm Records – buy it at Bandcamp!] was another stunning testament to the talent of this Ukrainian ensemble. It seems grimly appropriate to learn about the horrors of modern warfare from those forced to live through it in the present day. As with prior releases, Viribus Unitis is steeped in dark, melancholic atmospheres as tales of battlefield brutality and inhumanity spill over the speakers. It’s a masterful merger of black, death, and doom metal in service of emotional devastation that will transport you to a muddy, blood-soaked trench and fill your soul with existential dread. As a sobered Grin Reaper solemly summed up, “Viribus Unitis is a masterclass in no-bullshit metal storytelling that feels authentic, intimate, and anthemic for the entire runtime.” War is still Hell.

Runner(s) Up:

Qrixkuor // The Womb of the World [November 7th, 2025 | Invictus Productions | Bandcamp] — Symphonic death metal can be a sticky biscuit, and balancing the brutality with the bombast takes a steady hand. For The Womb of the World, Qrixkuor brought in an actual orchestra to lay down the symphonies of destruction that undergird the cavernous death metal that’s become the band’s gruesome calling card. Abrasive riffs come in bunches, horrific sounds are forced upon you, and discordance is the watchword. It’s a lot to process and absorb, but it’s very impressive. The Spongefren was all over the AMG Slack channels the last few weeks preaching the merits of this thing, and we couldn’t get him to shut up about it. As he gushed in his extremely gushy review, “Their sound and style won’t find fans in every corner. In fact, I’d go so far as to say The Womb of the World is liable to weed out prudish listeners more harshly than Poison Palinopsia already had. But it is an unqualified success all the same, a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial.” Symphomania!

Oromet // The Sinking Isle [November 7th, 2025 | Hypaethral Records | Bandcamp] — Oromet came back with a vengeance on The Sinking Isle, delivering 3 long-form doses of funeral doom heavy enough to crack a tectonic plate. Opening with a 20-minute track takes Christmas ornaments of brass, but Oromet shows you how doom is done with crushing lows contrasted against dizzying highs. It’s the rare funeral doom album that won’t have you glancing at the clock, and that’s a symptom of success. Despair and hope, violence and tranquility, you get it all for the price of one album. As a stunned Beglassesed Man of Steel exhorted, “As monumental as Oromet’s debut was, this one is a step forward thematically and musically. It reinvents what funeral doom can be—not just a crushing sense of sorrow, but a genre that can raise your spirits as well.” Go down with this ship.

#1914 #2025 #Oromet #Qrixkuor #RecordSOTheMonth #TheSinkingIsle #TheWombOfTheWorld #ViribusUnitis

Qrixkuor – The Womb of the World Review

By Kenstrosity

Four and a half years ago, Qrixkuor’s debut LP Poison Palinopsia took me by complete surprise, shoving its way inexorably towards a #3 spot on my Top Ten(ish) of 2021. Merging elements of psychedelia, black-and-white horror/thriller OSTs, and cavernous death metal into one gnarled abomination, the UK duo evokes an ever-contorting grotesquery put to music. After 2022’s follow-up EP Zoetrope, which left me cold by comparison, I waited with bated, anxious breath for the next long-form opus. At long last it looms just over the horizon, The Womb of the World.

Two key differences distinguish The Womb of the World from Poison Palinopsia. Firstly, it consists of four epics instead of two, clocking in at a comparable net runtime of 50 minutes. Secondly, Qrixkuor’s trademark orchestrations are performed by The Orchestra of the Silent Stars, which means every instrument and voice you hear is the genuine article. From there, much of the sound and style you’ve heard from Qrixkuor before carries over to today. Cavernous, horrific, bizarre and beautiful, The Womb of the World splits open a cosmic gash from which endless unknowable terrors spill forth in uncontrolled hemorrhage. Head-spinning arpeggios, cascading chromatics, unrelenting riff barrages, and dramatic orchestral hysteria coalesce into a barely ordered chaos that tests my sanity with every phrase. A deformed maze of unhinged twangs, discordant choirs, and reckless blasts guides me but refuses to hold my hand, leaving me to get lost in a miasma of ghastly visions the likes of which only nightmares conjure. With this deeply disturbing methodology, Qrixkuor once again invokes a singular beauty from viscous tar most foul.

Just as was the case for Poison Palinopsia, The Womb of the World isn’t a record of immediacy, but rather one of tricky depth and exceptional layering. With every revisit, compelled as I am to return to something as disturbingly alluring as this, new petals unfurl, additional barbs prick the skin, and my mind falls further down Qrixkuor’s abyss. One example out of countless multitudes, epic 17-minute closer “The Womb of the World” disguises vampiric organs underneath glistening strings and serrated death metal riffs and rhythms. Eventually, those more dominant elements spread out, allowing dramatic pipes to fill the void left between; only to be once more superseded not only by a prolonged and intensely satisfying guitar solo that I’d sooner expect from a much sleazier act, but also the record’s most ascendant orchestral climax. In another case, a torturous chaos howling throughout “And You Shall Know Perdition as Your Shrine” obfuscates all forms that would dare stand behind it, but as the perilous brambles shift and writhe, I start to see an underlying order emanating from within. Suddenly, guest vocalist Jaded Lungs’ (Adorior) hellish utterances and S’s complex guitar work and lush orchestrations ring with a definition and clarity I couldn’t acquire before. That gentle order which Qrixkuor wields so well ensures that The Womb of the World twists and slides through such tumultuous environs as these with uncannily fluidity—act to act, song to song, verse to verse, measure to measure—leaving behind nary a single wasted second.

The Womb of the World is undeniably memorable in a way Poison Palinopsia never quite achieved. I am loath to call anything Qrixkuor pens accessible, but opener “So Spoke the Silent Stars” launches the record with such incredible power and propulsion—exhibiting, largely through D’s fantastic drum performance, a deathly muscularity fortified by the grace and flexibility of a far more lithe and lean figure—that it embeds deep within my psyche. “Slithering Serendipity” pulls off the same feat, albeit through a more emotional appeal. Emotive and exuberant soloing, inspired choir bursts, and deceptively simple lead-guitar/piano core melodies peel back the calloused flesh that shields The Womb of the World’s bleeding heart. Thus, it invites me to fall hopelessly in love with that which should revolt and repulse. Whatever flaws that seemed to exist up to that point fall away into nothingness, made meaningless by the passion and commitment Qrixkuor poured into every curled note.

But I must remember, flaws are the essence of true beauty. For The Womb of the World, those flaws are more often than not ones of production as opposed to performance. Most notably, the drums. D’s performance is nothing short of staggering, but his snare is muffled, his cymbals a touch glassy for my taste, and his bass drum just muddy enough to congeal in moments of extreme rapidity. Yet, it’s hard to imagine that The Womb of the World would sound the way it should if Qrixkuor erased those blemishes. In any case, it’s safe to say that Qrixkuor outdid themselves. Their sound and style won’t find fans in every corner. In fact, I’d go so far as to say The Womb of the World is liable to weed out prudish listeners more harshly than Poison Palinopsia already had. But it is an unqualified success all the same, a mastapeece for those to whom sanity is immaterial. Should you be of that sort, The Womb of the World is essential.

Rating: Excellent!
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Invictus Productions
Websites: qrixkuordeath.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/qrixkuor
Releases Worldwide: November 7th, 2025

#2025 #45 #Adorior #DeathMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #InvictusProductions #Nov25 #PsycheledicMetal #Qrixkuor #Review #Reviews #SymphonicDeathMetal #SymphonicMetal #TheOrchestraOfTheSilentStars #TheWombOfTheWorld #UKMetal