Janne Stark's Top 10 of 2025

Janne Stark Top 10 2025

Here's my Top 10 of 2025, plus some honorable mentions!

1. A.C.T: Eternal Winter – The proggy Swedes never disappoint! Another stellar album! A quirky and melodic musical journey that should attract both prog and AOR fans. Always and still top-notch song writing and performance! 

2. The Mind Palace: Birthrite – Outstanding Swedish melodic hard rock with a unique singer, great songs and great production!

3. Danko Jones – Leo Rising – Danko Jones never fails. Yet another great rockin’ release from these raw rocking Canadians! Riffs meet garage with a punk attitude. Tight and rockin’! Love it!

4. Wytch Hazel: V: Lamentations – I just love these druid rockers, and even more after seeing them live in Sweden. Quirky retro hard rockers that may as well have released this album in the late 70s. Stellar stuff!

5. Inglorious: V – After some years of confusion Inglorious returns with a stellar riff monster. They are definitely back with a vengeance!

6. Warlung: The Poison Touch – Another stellar release by these retro heavy rockers mixing doomy riffs with solid melodic vocals and stellar harmonies. Their best album? Possibly! 

7. Dusty Rose Gang: A-one From Day One – I had to check several times to make sure this wasn’t a hidden previously unreleased early/mid seventies heavy rock album. The sound and style are so authentic it’s scary! If it was recorded in 1972 it would have been up there with Stray Dog, Captain Beyond and Sir Lord Baltimore.

8. Bone Church: Deliverance – The third album mixing the sounds of stoner rock, NWoBHM and classic 70s heavy rock into a perfect musical blend. The killers in a row!

9. Coheed & Cambria: Vaxis III: The Father Of Make Believe – C&C are back with a vengeance! Killer album in the vein of their best album “Good Apollo”. Melodic, proggy, quirky and with great songs! 

10. Armellino: Heritage Blend – Outstanding classic 70s sounding French hard rocker! Bluesy hard rock with swagger!

Honrable mentions:

Anthony Gomes: Praise The Loud – Current kick azz blues rocker with riffs that rock and a voice laced with barb wire! 

Arkado: Open Sea – A solid melodic hard rocker well worth an honorary mention. A stellar heavy AOR rocker with high class vocals and musical delivery. Solid song writing and great production, too!

Angeline: Rhythm Of One – With a load of albums under their belt these Swedish melodic hard rockers continue to deliver high-class guitar driven melodic rock. 

Harem Scarem: Chasing Euphoria – These Canadian melodic rockers are more of an institution by now. Can’t say they’ve ever released a bad album, even if there are some I like more than others. “Chasing Euphoria” is still another solid melodic rock release from the band. 

MoonDog: Time Is The Fire - Solid Danish hard rocker with a 70s touch!

SOMEONELSE – The Doomed (CD)

New modern rockers Someonelse hail from New York. Two of the members were previously part of Juniper Sky. At a first glance I felt The Doomed was a bit too “modern” and slick for me, but after a few spins it did grow on me. Songs like Wake Up makes me envision what a threesome between Coheed And Cambria, Deftones and Hoobastank would result in. I think the offspring would be – Someonelse! They have energy and post-hardcore touch of the two latter, while I hear some vocals resemblance of Coheed And Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez at times. The, quite proggy, track Comatose also has some musical hints of the aforementioned. Maybe it’s the New York air. The title track does have it’s C&C vide as well. I love the powerful heavy riffing going on here. The overall melodic vibe is actually a mix of all three bands I mentioned, plus I do find some hints of later days Avenged Sevenfold, which is also great in my book. Someonelse is however by no means any copycats, but do have a touch of their own. The production, by the band themselves, is powerful, dynamic and nice. All in all this is a really nice album that I’d be happy to recommend to fans of modern, melodic, proggy and interesting metal.
Janne Stark
Label: D.I.Y
Country: USA
Year: 2011
Link: http://www.someonelserocks.com/