I dislike doing top tens, and not just because I fear counting backwards. Over a year, I may enjoy 30-40 records, all of them for different reasons, so doing a traditional top ten feels restrictive. I also realize I have to follow rules and for this feature I was obligated to choose ten records released between January and November of 2025 and put them in order. I also had to track down what labels these records were a part of and spent most of these weeks talking to the artists and finding out what labels they think their releases are from. The world of popular music isn’t like the old model, where a few labels would release albums, or there would even be something like a record deal for multiple albums. The same can be said about dungeon synth, if not even more.
All of these records released in 2025, but oftentimes they were self-released first and followed by physical releases through one or multiple labels. Even though dungeon synth in 2025 is more popular than it was in 2015, 2005, and 1995, it is still very much an underground genre, with some of the biggest labels being just artists and fans who release other people’s stuff they find cool. For this feature, I have decided to collect some of the larger releases that excel in the genre and would easily be part of other year-end lists. If you want to follow more of my thoughts on dungeon synth and read my other favorites of 2025 (which I’ll publish in January 2026), come over to synthdigest.com.
–Jonathan Carbon
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Potions of Elenor could very well be a fae creature and I would never know for sure. If you want to be even more intrigued, the video for “Lord of Lavender” is a shaky camera recording of someone running through the woods before falling in a clearing with the ominous sound of metal scraping. There is also the 4730-word story which takes up the bottom half of the Bandcamp page. All of this may appear secondary to the music, but it’s actually integral to the experience for a record of medieval ambience which shifts between melodious and baleful. Eleanor… My Beloved feels like a theater production done masterfully by one person.
When I premiered this album on my site in the summer, I noted how familiar I was with Jenn’s work since I found myself photographing a lot of her sets. This context helps in approaching an album like Sanguine Descent since it doesn’t look like something from fantasy (or, not that much) and it sounds like something made in the ‘70s (most certainly). If you are ever lucky enough to see one of her special live sets, the atmosphere is as far from cozy hobbit time as you can get. Though Jenn’s work doesn’t fit neatly into substyles, it is a part of one of my favorite fonts of dungeon synth–one person using synths to explore distant worlds, be they fantasy, science fiction, space, or the scary realms of inner thoughts. Throughout the year, I have come to enjoy this album even more than when I first reviewed it, as songs like “Lamentations of a Shattered Spirit” showcase an aching beauty that is unique to Sanguine Descent.
Even though internet searches for “Vanishing Amulet” return results for this artist, the first time I heard the name, I had an immediate vision of a gothic RPG campaign and finding an item with this name in some basement of a ruined church. Moonlit Cryer is the second full-length project from Vanishing Amulet and it, as well as various media releases and live shows, showcases a particular aesthetic. A world of decayed elegance as expressed by media like Dark Shadows, Curse of Strahd, or the plodding epistolary works of 19th-century fiction. Vanishing Amulet operates masterfully and Moonlit Cryer proves his command over his romantic vision.
Beneath Sun & Soil could be the perfect starting dungeon synth record for people if they were unaware of the genre but curious about its contents. The music is medieval in nature but with moments where it blooms into strangeness, and the production is melodious but retains a bedroom aesthetic. It’s all pulled from a fantasy world created by Unsheathed Glory that serves as a stage for all of their albums. The world even comes with a map. Most importantly, there are instances on Beneath Sun & Soil where you’ll be pulled into other realities by unknown hands. It is a dazzling combination of ethereal keys and marching percussion that feels like it is only visiting this world, map in hand, for a brief moment.
“Death to fascists and shame on their supporters” reads the bottom inscription on the vinyl from Realm and Ritual. When I talked to Magic Hilt about this release, many things became clear, including the reason for the out of character declaration for something that looked like a fantasy record. This line also followed “Dedicated to the swordwielders of olde,” which felt in-character for dungeon synth. Magic Hilt carries many banners from a “recorded straight-to-tape” comfy synth sound, including subject matter about friendship and historic swordsmanship, as well as an intolerance for the intolerant. All of these attributes meld into a record which is both escapist and vigilant against the erosion of society by those who wish to exploit it. It is a seemingly uncustomary position if you view dungeon synth as D&D music, but makes sense when you view the genre and its creators as underground art and progressive vanguards.
If you have not seen the Out of Season Instagram post promoting their sampler CD, which features a presentation by Vaelastraz, you should watch it first and then listen to this record. Vaelastrasz, throughout my many, many years of seeing her shows and writing about her music, has taught me that you can not make art without joking around for the majority of it. The Bandcamp page for the album has a blurb at the bottom which reads, “As reality begins to creep creep creep its nasty nasty nasty head, the veil of escapism has shattered shattered shattered. This is a spiritual exploration of the self, heading further away from fantastical worlds.” Death In Its Decadence is a record of neoclassical darkwave, neofolk, and post-industrial that takes a large influence from Coil and Current 93. Songs like “Battle Hymns” may have a fantasy title, but its contents are both unexpected and utterly enchanting. Death and Decadence represents, at least for me, the true nature of dungeon synth, not as just fantasy music but as a vehicle for expression, whatever that might mean for an artist.
The video for “Corporate Crystals,” the opening track from Obscure Power, has a shot of an IBM building, and before the track properly starts, the text reads “Cathedrals of the new world.” Quest Master is arguably one of the most popular dungeon synth artists in the current scene, which feels paradoxical seeing as how this Australian artist pulls from vaporwave, utopian virtual, and synthwave aesthetics both in sound as well as visuals. The small bit of text on the video for “Corporate Crystals” offers the listeners a new aesthetic where the regency of the medieval world is transformed into high-rise corporate office buildings in some sort of post-ironic facade of the old world. It is a combination which would be absurd if it wasn’t so popular with so many people and wasn’t near indescribable when putting it onto paper. I have always been fascinated by Quest Master as he seems to have enchanted the audience into buying a castle in the year 2525 from the bank account of someone in 1985. This is fantasy music from one of those crazy paperbacks you find in a box in the donation bin at the library with something about cyborg sorcerers that you can’t wait to go home and read.
Vermis takes time to explain, so I suggest anyone not familiar with this project to watch the viral Questing Beat video on this book. It’s an artbook by the Spanish artist Plastiboo, presented like a game guide for a piece of media that doesn’t exist. It’s a worldbuilding project that takes its visual language from retro video games as well as underground RPGs. One of the top comments on that two-year-old video states, “Feels like this should be accompanied by some grimey dungeon synth.” Plastiboo also posted a Spotify playlist titled “Vermis” containing dungeon synth artists such as dungeontroll, Aindulmedir, and ultra obscure picks like Silent Cabin, video game soundtracks, and a healthy amount of music from the ‘70s progressive electronic artist Ralph Lundsten. As a cross-media project, Vermis is a little bit of a lot of things that bewitched a sizeable chunk of the internet population. Sounds of the World Vermis Vol. 1 – Melodies of the Unknown is a collaboration between German dungeon synth artist Radaghost and Plastiboo, and it is, perhaps, the most concrete sound we have into this fictional world. Much like the original book, it showcases many different media that are not confined by time or space.
If I hope for anything, it is that dungeon synth never loses its sense of humor. Things like the Bandcamp tag of “Merlin School” continue to be funny, as does searching through Bandcamp for the other tags related to Moon Gates, including “Wizard Tower Synth” and “Grimoire Grooves” and being directed to Aura Merlin’s three albums and nothing else. This is funny to me since Aura Merlin chooses to be silly and makes music influenced by new age and worldbeat spa grooves, but is also completely confident that they will find an audience. Moon Gates is partially of the realm of fantasy, both with song titles and art, but unique beyond surface-level. It is nocturnal, feminine, solitary, and enchanted, as well as being from the 1990s, but not in the way you are thinking. Throughout their existence, Aura Merlin has crafted a world which, for as left field as it seems, resonates with people who might have scoffed at the idea of listening to new age from an underground genre of music. This sort of execution can only be done by an artist who not only has a handle on the music, but is certain in making music that they want to and celebrating with those who care to join.
I have written a lot about Erang and, in fact, I wrote something about this album earlier this year. I have been in contact with Erang for 10 years, have been through about 17 releases, and probably wrote reviews on all of them. I cannot think all are equally good, but some of them are amazing. Erang has the benefit of not only being one of the most popular contemporary dungeon synth artists, but also one of the earliest working at the revival in the early 2010s. Because of this, he has seen the genre, which started as less than 50 interested music archivists, bloom into a genre that can hold international festivals, earn professional books dedicated to its content and video essays exploring its history, and receive a year-end list on Invisible Oranges. This is all because of people like Erang.
Dungeon synth isn’t just fantasy music for studying. Rather, it’s reflective pieces that use the veil of fantasy as a communicative tool to express the wants and desires of real life. Dungeon synth music, like most great speculative fiction, isn’t entirely escapist, instead allowing the worlds of imagination as an arena to process reality. Tome Zero is a personal record for Erang and, unlike previous records, which take stock of over a decade of fantasy music, finds him in his bedroom making music for himself. This record feels like it was written in 2011, when the idea of dungeon synth was just scant blog references and mp3 downloads of old ‘90s black metal. This is old-school dungeon synth that worships the ways people made music in the 2010s–no labels, no audience, and a world of imagination. It is perhaps one of the strongest records released by Erang, a feat that feels impossible given the amount of amazing albums already released in the genre.
