It’s time to reflect on the year in music! This month, we’ll be highlighting Jam of Today’s favourite albums of 2025. Working our way up to the #1 album, which will be revealed on the 31st of December, we’ll go one by one past this year’s favourites. Today, our #21: ‘From Nothing‘ by Benthos.

Out of all the records I’ll be sharing on the blog this month, today’s album was one of the highest anticipated ones for me personally. My excitement towards this full-length dates back to November 2024, when Italian prog band Benthos released their first single ahead of ‘From Nothing’: ‘Fossil’. Up to this day, I deem that song to be one of the best single releases of the entirety of that year so you can only imagine the levels of excitement I was experiencing as we were nearing the release date of this album. So, where did it go wrong? How come Benthos’ first release on prog label InsideOut Music ended up on a 21st place rather than claiming a top 10 spot in my End of Year list? Let me try and explain.

We’ll start at the beginning. All the way at the top of this album, we spend the first 1:09 minute listening to ‘It Starts’, a song which is basically just a build-up creating a great deal of suspense to what eventually should be a megalomaniac outburst of power and energy. What happens right as we transition into this album’s title track could only be described as the polar opposite of that. We hear vocalist Gabriele Landillo softy speaking lyrics over light guitar playing. Wait… what? Wasn’t this supposed to be an epic breakdown into total math-chaos? My confusion and disappointment is immediately taking over by what must be the most anti-climactic album opening experience I’ve had in a very long time. After such a beautifully scenic opener setting Benthos’ stage, the urge for an immediate escalation of the built up energy is immense. Instead, our patience is tested and we have to wait until ‘From Nothing’ slowly shows us signs of its true colours.

Truth be told, we do get a bit of that in this unofficial album opener. About half a minute into this second song, bassist Alberto Fiorani shows us what he has in store for us by slapping some filthy sounds out of his instrument and eventually, this song logically builds up to become a good prog song. Still, I can’t get over the false start so I’m longing for a bit of madness to unfold. The levels of chaos rise as soon as we reach two former jams in ‘As a Cordyceps’ and the aforementioned ‘Fossil’. Both songs share an equally disorderly sonic experience which is exactly what I’m here for. People often ask me what kind of music I enjoy most and the answer to that question lies in the core of these two songs. Personally, there’s nothing I enjoy more than letting music challenge me, almost like I’m allowing the song to hijack my brain and enabling the unexpected to play around with all the naive expectations I had prior to listening to this music. These two tracks do exactly that to me, to an extent not many songs have managed to do before. Stuff like this is the reason why I enjoy music and more specifically these genres as much as I do and I don’t think I will ever get enough of it.

Understandably, it’s hard to match this seemingly out-of-body musical experience and this is probably key as to why I wasn’t able to let ‘From Nothing’ live up to my previous expectations: I simply set the bar way too high. After interlude ‘Recompose’ allows us a bit of a breather, we cruise past the rest of this album and encounter many great songs, yet nothing can compare to the highlights I’ve heard before. ‘Pure’ comes close, so does ‘To Everything’ and somewhat surprisingly even ‘Athletic Worms’ is doing a great job but I might’ve shot myself in the foot by hyping myself up too much. ‘From Nothing’ turned out to be a lesson for myself. Enjoy, but listen responsibly, if you know what I mean. Let me point out the sheer quality of this band furthermore consisting of drummer Alessandro Tagliani and guitarists Gabriele Papagni and Enrico Tripodi, who have created a brilliant album nonetheless. Now, if only I can moderate my aural intake I will hopefully be able to enjoy this record much more in the years to come.