Phil Wadey

Just played Metal Garden a short FPS from last year, it's only about 3 hours long but so worth it.
Game play reminded me of Half Life 2 with an interesting story reministant of Blame! with this super atmospheric visual style that felt very Tarkovsky inspired.
Really impressive stuff for a solo dev

Yeah I love the vocal performance on this album, it's so unique. Really cool lyrics as well

From The Waters Of Death, by MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY, SWORDS OF DIS, ÔROS KAÙ, SERPENT ASCENDING 5 track album

This new split from I, Voidhanger is so good, four bands each bringing an epic 20 minute track, as well as sharing vocalists between bands to really unify the sound. Such a cool collaborative release

i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/from-t...

Yeah that's a very late 2025 release, but I agree I think this might well be up there with most of my top 15

That Weft album is excellent! His drumming is incredible on it, but it's also really well constructed prog, a really fun listen

That sounds incredible, need to get into that!

I must confess I don't know the Nagelfar stuff well at all (need to change that), but his work with Ruins alone is pretty special!

Oh cool, I totally missed that Weft album, will check that out

It's funny I never think of Austin Lunn or Alexander von Meilenwald as drummers, but they are amazing drummers and it is such a crucial part of their music

The Reaping, by Feral Winter 5 track album

My friend Rich - also of death metal band Bloodrust - has released a dark and evil old skool black metal record that y’all should check out feralwinter1.bandcamp.com/album/the-re...

Also the list is in alphabetical order, I'm aware playing all those Persona games one after another would be an odd thing to do.

I did it, but I admit it was an odd thing to do

I've always had a few comfort games that I play over and over and very rarely commit to playing games for the first time. Since I've stopped doing the podcast this year I thought I'd actually make an effort to play through a lot of narrative games start to finish

Sea Of Stars
Sea Of Stars: Throes Of The Watch Maker
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
Tactical Breach Wizards

List of the computer games I've completed this year

Black Skylands
Death of the Reprobate
Demonschool
Nier Automata
Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis
Persona 5 Royal
Persona 5 Strikers
Persona 5 Tactica
Persona 5 Tactica: Repaint Your Heart

Continued below

I'm so excited for Fortress Fest, it's going to be amazing to finally get to hang out in person!

Hahaha, yeah those albums are so obiviously my thing.
Agreed, I've got no sense at all what have been the popular metal releases this year, very interested to see what ends up doing well in the ITC group.
Yellow Eyes are great, just didn't end up listening to it enough, same with ESOCTRILIHUM

My Top 15 albums of 2025 Zeicrydeus - La Grande Heresie Imperial Triumphant - Goldstar Messa - The Spin Thanatophobia - Twilight Space Theatre Serpent Rider - The Ichor of Chimaera Luminesce - Mirrored Lamp Of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy Grey Aura - Zwart vierkant: Slotstuk Der Weg einer Freiheit - Innern Barren Path - Grieving Blut aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons Terror Corpse - Ash Eclipses Flesh Coroner - Dissonance Theory Selvans - Saturnalia Fleshvessel - Obstinacy: Sisyphean Dreams Unfolded

Although I'm not doing the podcast anymore I thought I'd still try to make a top 15 albums of the year list. Not done nearly as much listening as I usually would for this, so please let me know cool stuff I've missed

Demonschool is great, was not not expecting a list of obscure films to check out from it, but it's very cool touch

I tried listing a few, but he was not listening lol

Recently my dad got irrationally angry with me when I explained that Dune probably wouldn't be in my top 10 sci-fi books and demanded I listed anything better.
For context it was the first non fiction book he had read in the last 20 years

Bandcamp Friday Purchases

that being said I think Mithras have been around since the 90ties as well

Hahaha, as much as I always want to hear more about Akercocke, in a way it's really nice to focus on a load of relatively newer bands.

Oh nice, that's an amazing group of bands you've selected there!

Well I'm glad I lead you to it, but I've clearly done a very bad job advertising it, I really should have mentioned it in the ITC group

Such a good band!

This looks very cool!

3 of my favourite albums with over an hour and half run time. It's a small list, but they are all very high up on it

Recorded my listening this week for the first time in awhile

Funnily enough I've been listening to Paysage d'Hiver today as well. I've never checked this album though

Illustrations of Medieval helmets resembling the faces of Muppets characters Gonzo, Kermit, Piggy, Animal, Fozzy, and Sam Eagle (as an Aztec, being truly American).

It was this time last year that I was wholly distracted from pressing project deadlines by making this ragtag troupe. Currently resisting the pull to add new recruites...