Listmania: Metal Noise Top #5 Live Bands of 2025!

Not only did we get to witness a lot of top drawer live performances throughout the year that was 2025 but we also got to see a few bands that we never thought for a second we would get the chance to. For example, if you’d told us this time last year that American Metalcore heroes Still Remains would be returning to the United Kingdom for a full tour to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their seminal album “Of Love And Lunacy” we’d have laughed! But it happened and we were lucky enough to witness one of those performances at this years incarnation of Reading Rising! Anyway… on to our top five live bands of 2025!

Everyone who has witnessed them will tell you that Florida Metalcore act Trivium are a phenomenal live band as so when they brought the 20th Anniversary of their seminal album “Ascendancy” to the O2 Arena in London it was always going to be a contender. A massive show, it lived up to every moment of the hype with even single song is a sing-a-long anthem and circle pits going off left right and center, an epic rendition of “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr” and of course personal favourite  “Like Light to the Flies” being just two highlights of an insane performance. We even got to see them again at Bloodstock Open Air Festival but that show on 4th February is the one that lives longest in the memory banks.

On the subject of bands we had the good fortune to see more than once in 2025, Corby’s finest Raging Speedhorn were absolutely crushing at Camden Underworld in March. The show was one in support of their current album “Nightwolf” and packed full of fuzzy riffs fit for worship soaked in feedback. The six piece have more energy than the Duracell Bunny after a four pack of Monster Ultra and point blank refuse to rest on their legacy, the new cuts giving them a wealth of ferociously fun material to bolster their discography. “Every Night’s Alright for Fighting” is a crushing sing-a-long anthem and the Sludge Metal purveyors are just as dangerous today as they were twenty five years ago.. not only are they growing old disgracefully but they’re also “Hard To Kill”.

A return for the self proclaimed “dirtbags from the North” to the Sophie Lancaster stage at this summers incarnation of Bloodstock Open Air Festival meant it was party time as Waterlines took the roof off the tent. Not only do they specialize in venting their pain over EDM beats and DJent fuelled riffs but also getting people moving with their infamous daisy chain gang dance move, not unlike that Can Can ensuring that everyone ends up in a sweaty mess. Their pairing of “Pretty Green Eyes” and “Elysium” by Ultrabeat as a single entity is also a thumping heavy nostalgia trip that is very much the sing-a-long anthem so it you get the opportunity, don’t sleep on seeing them! They’re as much fun as you can have without losing a limb.

One of the highlights of Slammer Festival at Manchester Rebellion in October was a full EP performance of “Journey to the Sun” from Birmingham Cinematic DJent pioneers Vanitas. Somehow they have done the seemingly impossible and found a formula to take their already incredible studio sounds and inject a little more energy and joie de vivre to give us live performances that are utterly enthralling. From the thunderous drumming through the intricate riffs and tapping sections to captivating vocals of both achingly beautiful clean and brutally harsh styles, Vanitas have it all. They’re a band who should be touring Europe in the not to distant future on this evidence.

Specializing in longer compositions means that you have to work a little bit harder to translate those songs into something that carries across live which makes it all the more impressive that Æl-Fierlen are on this list at the end of their first full year of playing shows. They put on a captivating performance at this years incarnation of Oxford’s finest Metal Weekender Rabidfest, their soul stirring and intoxicating anthems leaving the crowd mesmerized. Who says that folk inspired Post-Black Metal of delicate clean sung vocals and intricate guitars building to powerful crescendos with harsh unclean outbursts can’t work in a festival setting?!