All this week we’ve been posting the results of our staff poll of the best releases of 2014. Find out your choices for Album of the Year and an aggregated Top 25 of Reader choices after the jump.
It’s the time of year when everyone, including us here at Heavy Blog is Heavy, has been telling you what we think were the best albums of 2014. But really, who cares what the so-called experts think, what matters is what you, the readers enjoyed the most in this very good year for heavy music. So we asked you to fill out a Top 25 form choosing your favorites. We received more than 350 total votes and here are the results in two sections.
(Thanks to Sandy McCall for the pivot-table wizardry that made this all possible)
2014 Heavy Blog is Heavy Readers Poll Album of the Year
Here’s how you voted for the #1 album of 2014:
(Place, Votes, Band, Album Name)
1. 42 votes Ne Obliviscaris – Citadel
2. 40 votes Fallujah – The Flesh Prevails
3. 34 votes Archspire – The Lucid Collective
4. 17 votes The Contortionist – Language
5. 12 votes Son of Aurelius – Under the Western Sun
6. 9 votes Animals as Leaders – The Joy of Motion
T7. 8 votes Beyond Creation – Earthborn Evolution
T7. 8 votes Skyharbor – Guiding Lights
T9. 7 votes Behemoth – The Satanist
T9. 7 votes Inferi – The Path of Apotheosis
T11. 6 votes Black Crown Initiate – The Wreckage Of Stars
T11. 6 votes Destrage – Are You Kidding Me? No
T13. 5 votes Mastodon – Once More ‘Round the Sun
T13. 5 votes Rings of Saturn – Lugal Ki En
T15. 4 votes Acrania – Totalitarian Dystopia
T15. 4 votes Architects – Lost Forever // Lost Together
T15. 4 votes Cynic – Kindly Bent to Free Us
T15. 4 votes Intervals – A Voice Within
T15. 4 votes Revocation – Deathless
(see the bottom of this post for the complete list of all records receiving three votes or fewer)
2014 Heavy Blog is Heavy Readers Poll Aggregate Top 25 List
(We took all of your votes, scored them, added them together and these were the Top 25 vote-geters)
1. Ne Obliviscaris – Citadel
2. Fallujah – The Flesh Prevails
3. Archspire – The Lucid Collective
4. Beyond Creation – Earthborn Evolution
5. Animals as Leaders – The Joy of Motion
6. The Contortionist – Language
7. Behemoth – The Satanist
8. Job for a Cowboy – Sun Eater
9. Black Crown Initiate – The Wreckage Of Stars
10. Devin Townsend Project – Z2
11. Rings of Saturn – Lugal Ki En
12. Skyharbor – Guiding Lights
13. Intervals – A Voice Within
14. Monuments – The Amaneunsis
15. Son of Aurelius – Under the Western Sun
16. Allegaeon – Elements of the Infinite
17. At The Gates – At War with Reality
18. Revocation – Deathless
19. Inferi – The Path of Apotheosis
20. Insomnium – Shadows Of The Dying Sun
21. Mastodon – Once More ‘Round the Sun
22. Opeth – Pale Communion
23. Machine Head – Bloodstone & Diamonds
24. Aborted – The Necrotic Manifesto
25. Agalloch – The Serpent & The Sphere
Other records receiving Heavy Blog is Heavy Readers Album of the Year Votes:
Records receiving three votes each:
Artificial Brain – Labyrinth Constellation
Devin Townsend Project – Z2
Every Time I Die – From Parts Unknown
Insomnium – Shadows Of The Dying Sun
Into Infernus – The End of Eden
Monuments – The Amanuensis
Opeth – Pale Communion
Sólstafir – Ótta
Wings Denied – Mirrors For a Prince
Records receiving two votes each.
Aversions Crown – Tyrant
Cannibal Corpse – A Skeletal Domain
casualties of cool – casualties of cool
Disentomb – Misery
Horrendous – Excdysis
Machine Head – Bloodstone & Diamonds
Panopticon – Roads to the North
Raunchy – Vices, Virtues, Visions
Sabaton – Heroes
Septic Flesh – Titan
Thantifaxath – Sacred White Noise
Triptykon – Melana Chasmata
Woods of Desolation – As The Stars
Xerath – iii
YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend
Records receiving one vote each.
Aeon of Hours – Existence
Agalloch– The Serpent and the Sphere
Alaya–Thrones
Alcest – Shelter
Allegaeon – Elements of the Infinite
Allen/Lande – The Great Divide
Alterbeast – Immortal
At The Gates – At War With Reality
Baring Teeth – Ghost Chorus Among Old Ruins
Being As An Ocean – How We Both Wondrously Perish
Clément Belio – Contrast
Crosses- Crosses
Cult Leader –
Dark Fortress – Venereal Dawn
Dead Congregation – Promulgation of the Fall
Death Grips – Niggas on the moon
Epica – The Quantum Enigma
Exist – Sunlight
Eye of the Enemy – The Vengeance Paradox
Eyehategod – Eyehategod
Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas – Phase 2
Floor – Oblation
Godsmack 1000HP
Gridlink – Longhena
Hadal Maw – Senium
Hail Spirit Noir – Oi Magoi
Haken – Restoration EP
Horseback – Piedmont Apocrypha
I Killed the Prom Queen – Beloved
Job for a Cowboy – Sun Eater
Kenn Nardi – Dancing With The Past
Lies of Nazca – Aleph
Mapmaker – Automoton
Misery Index – The Killing Gods
Nero di Marte – Derivae
Nightbringer – Ego Dominus Tuus
Nux Vomica – Nux Vomica
Old Man Gloom – The Ape of God
Orange Goblin – Back From The Abyss
Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden
Pantera – Far Beyond Driven (RE-ISSUE)
Polyphia – Muse
Psalm Zero – The Drain
Scar Symmetry – The Singularity Phase I: Neohumanity
Scott Walker /w Sunn O))) – Soused
Serdce – Timelessness
Slipknot – .5: the Gray Chapter
Soen – Tellurian
Soreption – Engineering the Void
Space Vacation– Cosmic Vanguard
Stimpy Lockjaw – Stimpy Lockjaw
Sukekiyo – Immortalis
1Sun Worship – Elder Giants
Swans – To Be Kind
Swarrrm – Flower
Teitanblood – Death
The Acacia Strain – Coma Witch
The Misanthrope – Supersession
The Orwells – Disgraceland
Thou – Heathen
Torrential Downpour – Truth Knowledge Vision
Trap Them – Blissfucker
tricot – Break
Vainaja– Kadotetut
Voyager – V
Vulvodynia – Cognizant Castigation
Warforged – Essence of the Land
Whispered – Shogunate Macabre
Wolcott Falls – Our Nuclear Option
We hope out of all of these lists that you will discover music that will make you look back on 2014 with very heavy fondness.
–BS