2025 – More Than A Metal Year
Updated: 1 day ago
Finding My Place, Losing My Grip, Turning 40, and Writing Through the Chaos
As tradition commands it (and I am a stickler for traditions), we begin this recap with my Spotify Wrapped—a spectacle I already predicted in April would be a hate crime. And honestly? I’m impressed. My prophecy was weirdly accurate.
Back then, in the middle of The Loop Incident, I announced with full conviction that Yellow Ledbetter would be my top song of the year. And fair enough—it had the emotional chokehold energy for it. Turns out, though, that wasn’t even my last meltdown of 2025, so Yellow Ledbetter got pushed aside by Sirens. But still: Pearl Jam. Called it. Nailed it. Eddie Vedder remains my emotional support constant.
My musical age is apparently 55, which I blame entirely on Cinderella and Sisters of Mercy. The algorithm now seems convinced I was dancing in a smoke-filled club in 1987 when in reality, I was barely alive and certainly not wearing anything shiny or aggressively synthetic. Even better: Spotify claims I listened to 319 genres this year. I didn’t even know there were that many. But sure—I was extremely genre-fluid in 2025, and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m writing this while listening to Whitney Houston’s Higher Love. Because? It fucking rules.
Type O Negative finally lost their pole position, but it’s fine—I got Peter’s face tattooed on my arm this year, so spiritually he still owns me. Also, my love letter to him remains my most-read blog post and brought the most gloriously unhinged goils into my life. Truly a sisterhood powered by mutual devotion.
Osi and the Jupiter crown my Wrapped, and two of their albums made it into my Top 5, which is fitting because they played a much larger role this year than "music"—but we’ll get to that in a second. Déhà sits comfortably at #2, of course. No one is surprised. Jamie Bower at #3, however, might require a footnote: I listened to a lot of Jamie’s voice and Trevor Sensor while writing my novel. For reasons. You’ll get it when you read it. Maladie at #4 delights me to no end; My Maladie Week in 2025 was honestly one of my highlights of the year.
Izzy showing her tattooed arm. Izzy’s 2025 Spotify Wrapped top songs. Izzy’s 2025 Spotify Wrapped top artists. 1. Izzy’s 2025 Spotify Wrapped listening stats.
And yet—Spotify Wrapped only reflects maybe 20% of my actual listening. Because the real music of 2025 didn’t happen on Spotify at all. It lived in promo folders, download links, and MP3s played on loop like it was 2002 all over again. Full albums. Atmospheric black metal mostly. Side of doom. Sprinkles of post. The stuff that actually defines my taste never even touched the algorithm.
So yes, Spotify has its own ideas about what I was doing this year, but the truth is much simpler: 2025 is the year I stopped looking in from the doorway and actually stepped into my genre properly—quietly closing the door behind me like I was always meant to be there.
Fortress Festival: The Catalyst I Didn’t See Coming
I attended an irresponsible number of concerts in 2025, including weekday ones—which is baffling, because I’m absolutely not the kind of person who bounces back the next morning. I arrive at work looking like I’ve been dug up, not woken up.
There were the strange ones, the wholesome ones, the feral unhinged ones, and then the one that simply obliterated everything else: Amenra. Nothing will ever top that night. Nothing. It sits in my memory like a scorched monument—untouchable, immovable, and aggressively emotional. Everything I saw this year was lovely; Amenra was a controlled demolition.
Yet, smugly towering above all of this, legs crossed, eyeliner flawless, refusing to share a podium with anyone, is Fortress Festival 2025. My trip to Scarborough—coinciding with my 40th birthday, which we are not discussing—wasn’t a festival. It was a plot twist. A choice made casually that detonated quietly under the floorboards of my entire year.
It began stupidly enough:
"Black metal festival in England? By the sea? On my birthday?
Oh, Agalloch are headlining? Right then. Sold."
Tickets bought without a single reasonable thought.
As if the universe wasn’t already preparing a character development arc so violent it should have come with liability waivers.
Fortress wasn’t just a trip. Or a gig. Or even a milestone.
It was the hinge. The fault line. The moment the axis of the year shifted so decisively that everything before it feels like the prologue and everything after it looks suspiciously like fate.
The Consequences of One Impulsive Trip
Of course, the music alone would have justified the entire trip. I saw fantastic bands throughout the weekend, and Agalloch’s performance was everything I had hoped for and more. I left with my heart spilling over, carrying that evening inside my chest like a secret heat source. The location was perfect, the atmosphere was perfect—everything was perfect. And I’ve already written five separate articles about it, because why limit yourself when you can go all out? But none of that was the real plot twist. Because if Fortress was the stone I tossed into the lake, the true story lies in the ripples that followed, each one more absurd and consequential than the last.
Take Osi and the Jupiter: my first ever in-person interview, a milestone I have proudly ticked off my list and will never attempt again. Not because of the band—they were lovely—but because I was socially malfunctioning on a level I didn’t know I could reach. Still, the whole terrifying ordeal sent me into a full preparation spiral that led me to discovering Avowal, which led me to writing an entire ode to female rage, which led me to meeting Elyse, which somehow—beautifully—led us to staying in touch. She is one of the standout people I found this year, and I would never have stumbled across her without that single, catastrophic, brave, ill-advised interview.
And then there was Nico. Whom I also met in person for the first time at Fortress while being—let’s call it "energetically unstable." Not at my most coherent. But somehow, despite witnessing that, he still got back to me after the festival. We stayed in contact, and that somehow escalated into me actually working for Eisenwald. A real job. In the music industry. Me. Doing what I love—writing, photographing, multitasking like the gremlin I am and enjoying every second of it. I don’t think I’ve fully processed it even now. This is my first deliberate pivot towards the life I want: less corporate office drudgery, more creative work with a topic I actually burn for. And I adore this new facet of my life. I adore that Nico gave me a shot—especially after receiving my completely unhinged cold application, CV and all, that essentially said: "You have three of my favourite bands in your roster, I love everything dark, folky, depressive and post—can I please come work for you?" I can still hear him laugh.
The final ripple, and in many ways the most meaningful one: Fortress brought me people who actually read my words. They found my articles covering the festival, then kept reading, then stayed. People who are here for every feral tangent, every incoherent thought spiral, every tender or unhinged bit of me. People who reached out, who mirrored something back, who made this year feel less like me shouting into a void and more like a conversation finally beginning. 2025 became the first year I kept screaming into the abyss and the abyss didn’t just stare back—it hollered.
Izzy at the airport wearing headphones. Izzy at breakfast during Fortress Festival 2025. Izzy walking through the streets of Scarborough. Izzy looking out over Scarborough’s coastline. Izzy sitting on steps during Fortress Festival 2025. Izzy with Osi and the Jupiter at Fortress Festival 2025. Izzy relaxing on a bench in Scarborough. Izzy working on a laptop during the Scarborough trip. Izzy sitting outside during Fortress Festival 2025. Izzy overlooking Scarborough Castle. Izzy standing above the sea on the Scarborough coast. 1. Izzy on a quiet street in Scarborough.
At Some Point Even I Had Questions
It is fair to say that 2025 was my year of connection. The people year. I met fantastic humans, formed friendships that feel oddly inevitable, and had conversations that lit up parts of my brain I didn’t realise were asleep. I received messages from strangers—beautiful ones—the kind that made me sit down because my arms erupted in goosebumps. People telling me my writing did things to them that only certain musicians have done to me. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that.
But 2025 was also the year I finally stopped writing like someone waiting for permission. Something in me snapped—gracefully, I’d argue—and suddenly I was producing more than ever. Blog posts, reviews for Stormbringer, live reports, poetry I thought I’d buried a decade ago, and, most absurd of all, an actual novel. A whole novel. First draft done in roughly ten months, handed to people with real eyes and opinions—which was terrifying. But also one of the best things I've ever done. Watching people actually care about my characters? Root for them? Laugh with them? Request more spicy scenes? I mean, sorry, but that’s dopamine on a level therapists warn you about. It gave me joy, momentum, and, most unexpectedly, a completely unreasonable amount of confidence. I will publish this book. Not even a sliver of doubt left. The delusion is gone; we’re in certainty territory now.
This year, I wrote without worrying whether it was "right" or whether it was "for the right audience" or whether it would confuse people. Spoiler: it did. I’ve accepted the fact that I have several hearts beating in my chest, all of them loud, all of them dramatic, all of them armed with their own opinions. I cannot control which one grabs the mic at any given moment, so I’ve stopped trying. They can fight it out amongst themselves. I’m merely the scribe.
Izzy wearing sunglasses with flowers in her hair. Izzy smiling outdoors in sunglasses. Izzy at home with a mug, resting her head on her hand. 1. Izzy setting up a camera and tripod for a shoot.
Of course, all this creative attunement came with a generous helping of emotional uproar, because—naturally—I also turned 40 this year. And turning 40 does something to a woman that no one warns you about. My brain just… broke. Fully broke. The level of nonsense I suddenly considered normal behaviour was staggering. There may have been a two-month stretch of flirty 4 a.m. messages with a certain DSBM frontman. Hot-tub selfies might or might not have landed in my inbox. I spent most of it wondering whether I was having fun or a meltdown. In hindsight, it was my "seasonal instability arc". A coming-of-middle-age tale. A gentle reminder that none of us are safe. A warning sign. Essential to the plot, but absolutely deranged. Please do not follow my example.
The Year-End Panic Spiral: A Tradition
You see, 2025 was a lot. I’m still not entirely convinced it actually happened. It went by in a haze and a frenzy, like someone held down the fast-forward button while I was still trying to find the plot. I burned so brightly this year I’m amazed I didn’t simply combust.
And of course, with all those highs and glittering crescendos came the lows—proper ones, with real density. Depression showed up with far too much enthusiasm and absolutely no sense of timing, knocking me sideways more often than I’d care to admit. I felt it most in the quiet hours, when everything goes suspiciously still and my brain decides it’s time for an unscheduled existential montage.
Writing helped—obviously. It’s the one tool I have that actually shifts the pressure valve. But it also digs deep. It drags old things to the surface, things with shadows and teeth and the occasional grudge. And once you’ve woken that kind of thing up, it doesn’t exactly trot back into the cave.
And now, as the year winds down, I’m irritable, pacing—because apparently even all that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. I didn’t do enough. Somehow, I’ve come out of twelve months of absolute chaos with the firm belief that I should have worked harder. Excellent. Very healthy.
I can feel something shifting. I’m standing at the edge of—something. No idea what. Could be a breakthrough. Could be a breakdown. Hard to tell at this stage. But things are moving, and I’ve accepted that I am simply being dragged along by the ankle. I want more in 2026. More music, more words, more strange opportunities falling out of nowhere. I want the next ripple effect. I want to see what happens when I keep pushing. I’ll work for it. I always do. Stubbornness is my strongest muscle.
I want all of it. All of it.
Ideally without breaking anything important.
Myself included.
But, you know. Optimism has never stopped me before.