No long introduction. Let’s just get down to business.
20. Ulcerate – Vermis
Ulcerate take their trademark brand of swirling, abrasive death metal and meld it with seamless post-metal interludes, this is one of the darkest albums of the year.
19. Revocation – Revocation
Vicious, unrelenting and a head above the band’s previous work, with some of the best guitar leads of the year.
18. Chvrches – The Bones of What You Believe
1980’s new wave electropop, filled with hooks and soaring vocals. One of the best debuts of the year.
17. Jamie Christopherson – Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Original Soundtrack
Play this game. Listen to this soundtrack. You will automatically be ten times more epic.
16. The Ocean – Pelagial
The Ocean craft an art metal masterpiece that continues their trademark melding of post-metal and philosophical lyrics.
15. Soilwork – The Living Infinite
Soilwork release a double album. Amazingly. It works, and every song sounds different and compelling.
14. Inquisition – Obscure Verses for the Multiverse
The best black metal album of the year. Riffs that would make uncle Chuck smile, and Abbath blush.
13. Melt Banana – Fetch
Melt Banana return. Japan’s most visible and strange avant garde metal band have released an album that surpasses everything they’ve released previously, and done it as a duo.
12. City and Color – The Hurry and the Harm
Dallas Green is a genius, and his latest album of songs is exactly what you’d expect from one of Canada’s foremost musicians.
11. Deafheaven – Sunbather
Everyone knows this album and why it’s on my list. Moving on.
10. Oranssi Pazuzu – Valonielu
Black metal, electronic music and death metal mix on this colossal journey into a strange, epic and unsettling soundscape.
9. Maximum the Hormone – Yoshu Fukushu
Maximum the Hormone are a Japanese band. They play an eclectic mix of metal that defies easy categorization. This is as far as I can comfortably take you. Should you choose to listen to them, be prepared for things to get weird and wonderful.
8. Coheed and Cambria – The Afterman: Descension
Coheed wrap up their latest double album with a slab of songs that could be some of their best ever. Catchy, emotional and just plain fun to listen to.
7. Gorguts – Colored Sands
Gorguts should need no introduction. The veteran tech death band have returned and graced us with one of the very best albums the genre has ever seen. The bar has been raised, again.
6. Cyclamen – Ashura
Cyclamen are a well known name in the internet metal scene, and with Ashura, they’ve crafted their best album yet. Vicious, beautiful and filled with amazing instrumentation and vocals.
5. Kalmah – Seventh Swamphony
This Finnish melodeath act are veterans of the scene at this point, and their latest does not disappoint. Fast, fun and filled with hooks, as well as some throwbacks to their early days. Highly recommended.
4. Vulture Industries – The Tower
An avant garde concept album that’s as a strange as it is dense, and requires repeated listens to appreciate what the band have crafted. Truly a group who deserve much more visibility.
3. Leprous – Coal
Expanding on the formula they established with Bilateral, Leprous craft a sweeping epic that surpasses their previous work in more ways than one.
2. The Safety Fire – Mouth of Swords
One of the most organic, flowing pieces of music I’ve ever heard. It sounds like it’s alive, and has a depth that belies it’s hooky accessibility.
1. Cult of Luna – Vertikal
A massive, towering monolith of sound that makes me feel absolutely tiny. Quite simply, a masterpiece.
-CK