TOP 50 HEAVY ALBUMS OF 2015

 

Google search result for "metal 2015"

With 2016 quickly approaching, it’s time to celebrate the end of the year the way journalists and critics know best: LISTS.

It’s impossible to account for all of the solid music I listened to this year. Even as this list bloated to 50 albums, I had to wrestle with my final choices. I have no doubt that if I look at this list in another year, decade, hell, even another week, the rankings could shift and shuffle depending on my mood, how crowded the subway is that morning, etc. Feel free to inform me of my lousy my taste, how overrated band A is, how album B is obviously the top selection of the year, and how I’ve terribly underrepresented genre C.

2015 Top 50 Heavy Albums of the Year

1.    Desolate Shrine – The Heart of the Netherworld

2.    Horrendous – Anareta

3.    Tribulation – The Children of the Night

4.    SUMAC – The Deal

5.    Behold! The Monolith – Architects of the Void

6.    VHÖL – Deeper Than Sky

7.    Khemmis – Absolution

8.    Cruciamentum – Charnel Passages

9.    Immortal Bird – Empress/Abscess

10.  Dragged Into Sunlight/Gnaw Their Tongues – N.V.

11.  Elder – Lore

12.  Gruesome – Savage Lands

13.  False – Untitled

14.  Deafheaven – New Bermuda

15.  Panopticon – Autumn Eternal

16.  Ramming Speed – No Epitaphs

17.  Baroness – Purple

18.  Wailin Storms – One Foot in the Flesh Grave

19.  High on Fire – Luminiferous

20.  Adversarial – Death, Endless Nothing and the Black Knife of Nihilism

21.  Napalm Death – Apex Predator/Easy Meat

22.  Paradise Lost – The Plague Within

23.  Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats – The Night Creeper

24.  Bell Witch – Four Phantoms

25.  Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours

26.  Abyss – Heretical Anatomy

27.  Meatwound – Addio

28.  Black Breath – Slaves Beyond Death

29.  Satan – Atom by Atom

30.  Ur Draugr – With Hunger Undying

31.  Shroud of the Heretic – Unorthodox Equilibrium

32.  Burrows – Mar

33.  Vastum – Hole Below

34.  Chapel of Disease – Mysterious Ways of Repetitive Art

35.  Tsjuder – Antiliv

36.  Scythian – Hubris in Excelsis

37.  Vattnet Viskar – Settler

38.  Sathanas – Worship the Devil

39.  Clutch – Psychic Warfare

40.  Ahab – The Boats of the Glen Carrig

41.  Noisem – Blossoming Decay

42.  Metz – II

43.  Lord Dying – Poisoned Altars

44.  With the Dead – With the Dead

45.  The Kill – Kill Them...All

46.  We Dream Alone – Weightless, But Still Sinking

47.  Spacebeast – Spacebeast

48.  Plaguewielder – Succumb to the Ash

49.  Iced Out – Man’s Ruin

50.  Pissgrave – Suicide Euphoria

If you haven’t checked it out yet, go buy issue #135 of Decibel Magazine, where the whole staff selects the Top 40 Extreme Albums of the Year.

Check out all the other lists popping up around this time, and feel free to send Tweets about my shitty taste over to @MisterGrowl

TOP 50 METAL ALBUMS OF 2014

 

Google search result for "heavy metal 2014."

It’s that time of year, where I face a legitimate heavy metal Sophie’s Choice and somehow narrow all of the extreme releases I’ve enjoyed this year down to 50. 2014 treated me beautifully, with my very first screenplay sale, a continuing dream gig at Decibel Magazine, my own column dedicated to independent bands at About Heavy Metal, and several other projects I’ll discuss in more detail soon. I KNOW YOU CAN’T WAIT. But for now, it’s time to celebrate the end of the year the way journalists and critics know best: LISTS.

There are a slew of truly solid albums not listed here, and honestly, my rankings have fluctuated nearly every day for the past two months since I handed in my initial Top 40 list to the editors at Decibel Magazine. I have no doubt that if I look at this list in another year or decade, hell, even another week, the rankings could shift and shuffle depending on my mood, the cereal I eat, how crowded the subway is that morning, etc. Feel free to inform me how lousy my selections are, how overrated band A is, how album B is obviously the top selection of the year, and how I’ve terribly under-represented genre C.

2014 Top 50 Metal Albums of the Year

1.   YAITW – When Life Comes to Death

2.   Horrendous – Ecdysis

3.   Drunk Dad – Ripper Killer

4.   Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden

5.   Morbus Chron – Sweven

6.   Thou – Heathen

7.   YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend

8.   Nux Vomica – S/T

9.    Cripple Bastards – Nero in Metastasi

10.  Bastard Feast – Osculum Inflame

11.  Black Anvil – Hail Death

12.  Septicflesh – Titan

13.  Midnight – No Mercy for Mayhem

14.  Vallenfyre – Splinters

15.  Giant Squid – Minoans

16.  Coffin Dust – The Cemetery, My Kingdom

17.  Down – IV: Part Two

18.  Atriarch – An Unending Pathway

19.  The Skull – For Those Which Are Asleep

20.  Wo Fat – The Conjuring

21.  Eyehategod – S/T

22.  Sea of Bones – The Earth Wants Us Dead

23.  Trap Them – Blissfucker

24.  Incantation – Dirges of Elysium

25.  Orange Goblin – Back From the Abyss

26.  Triptykon – Melana Chasmata

27.  Anguish – Mountain

28.  Baptists – Bloodmines

29.  Tombs – Savage Gold

30.  Opeth – Pale Communion

31.  Torch Runner – Endless Nothing

32.  Couch Slut – My Life as a Woman

33.  Funerary – Starless Aeons

34.  Wild Throne – Blood Maker

35.  Mutilation Rites – Harbinger

36.  Bongripper – Miserable

37.  Gatecreeper – S/T

38.  Dead Congregation – Promulgation of the Fall

39.  The Oath – S/T

40.  Secret Cutter – S/T

41.  Cult Leader – Nothing For Us Here

42.  Godflesh – A World Lit Only by Fire

43.  At the Gates – At War with Reality

44.  Gurt – Horrendosaurus

45.  Drawers – S/T

46.  Atta – S/T

47.  The Atlas Moth – The Old Believer

48.  Vampire – S/T

49.  Agalloch – The Serpent and the Sphere

50.  1349 – Massive Cauldron of Chaos

If you haven’t checked it out yet, go buy issue #123 of Decibel Magazine, where the whole staff selects the Top 40 Extreme Albums of the Year.

You can also check out a few of my other picks for the year listed on the 2014 Heavy Metal Awards at About Heavy Metal.

Check out all the other lists popping up around this time also and feel free to send Tweets about my questionable metal taste over to @MisterGrowl.

LIST: TOP 50 METAL ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

It’s that time of year, where I face a legitimate heavy metal Sophie’s Choice and somehow narrow all of the releases I’ve enjoyed this year down to 50. A lot of truly solid albums are not listed here, and honestly, my rankings have fluctuated nearly every day for the past two months, when I handed in my initial Top 40 list to the editors at Decibel Magazine. I have no doubt that if I look at this list in another year or decade, hell, even another week, the rankings could shift and shuffle depending on my mood, the cereal I eat, how crowded the subway is that morning, etc. Feel free to inform me of how lousy my selections are, how overrated band A is, how album B is obviously the top selection of the year, and how I’ve terribly under-represented genre C.

2013 Top 50 Metal Albums of the Year

1.       Church of Misery – Thy Kingdom Scum

2.       Carcass – Surgical Steel

3.       Gorguts – Colored Sands

4.       Inquisition - Obscure Verses for the Multiverse

5.       Ramming Speed – Doomed to Destroy, Destined to Die

6.       Anciients – Heart of Oak

7.       Nails – Abandon All Life

8.       Baptists – Bushcraft

9.       Shroud Eater – Dead Ends

10.   Lesbian – ForesTeleVision

11.   Serpent Eater – Hyena

12.   Tribulation - The Formulas of Death

13.   Obelyskkh - Hymn to Pan

14.   I Exist – From Darkness

15.   Noisem – Agony Defined

16.   KEN Mode – Entrench

17.   Usnea – Usnea

18.   Skeletonwitch – Serpents Unleashed

19.   Naam – Vow

20.   Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Mind Control  

21.   Deafheaven – Sunbather

22.   Olde Growth – Owl EP

23.   Mammoth Grinder – Underworlds

24.   Exhumed – Necrocracy

25.   Koresh – Chump

26.   Serpent Throne – Brother Lucifer

27.   No Fealty – In the Shadow of the Monolith

28.   Toxic Holocaust - Chemistry of Consciousness

29.   Full of Hell – Rudiments of Mutilation

30.   Lycus - Tempest

31.   In Solitude – Sister

32.   Mount Salem – Endless

33.   Bone Sickness – Alone in the Grave

34.   Noctum – Final Sacrifice

35.   Weekend Nachos - Still

36.   Blood Red Throne - Blood Red Throne

37.   Red Fang – Whales and Leeches

38.   King of Pigs - Drown Out the Sound of Widows Grief

39.   Cokegoat – Vessel

40.   Obliteration – Black Death Horizon

41.   Revocation – Revocation

42.   Lumbar – The First and Last Days of Unwelcome

43.   Suffocation - Pinnacle of Bedlam

44.   Autopsy - The Headless Ritual

45.   Watain - The Wild Hunt

46.   Pyrexia - Feast of Iniquity

47.   Deeds of Flesh - Portals to Canaan

48.   Occultist – Death Sigils

49.   Great Falls – Accidents Grotesque

50.   Deuil – Acceptance/Rebuild

If you haven’t checked it out yet, go buy the new issue of Decibel Magazine, where the whole staff helps to select the Top 40 Extreme Albums of the Year. Check out all the other lists popping up around this time also and feel free to send Tweets about my questionable metal taste over to @MisterGrowl.