Instrumental post-metal that views itself as a conceptual journey across the solar system. It is both big in ambition and in scale. It works on a monumentally large canvas, scoping a gargantuan cathedral of interlinking sound. Sometimes immensely heavy but also in other places scarce and sparse, it is a hypnotically entrancing album that feels like a meditation on our finite small part in the cosmos. Brilliantly rendered, it is a breathtaking record that looks up to the skies for both salvation and inspiration.
Read MoreA highly enticing mix of ambient and doom via a debut album from a bunch of Italians. It is dark, atmospheric and rather compelling. It knits together crunching heavy cyclical riffs and fragile dreamy ambience. These two juxtapositions gel well, creating a solid ecosystem that feels both alien and familiar. It all feels rather detached, mysterious and emotive. Full of textured layers it is an album that absolutely commands repeated listening.
Read Moreplaying with heavy metal’s constructs, or that are subverting and manipulating what my beloved genre should sound like. Well, this one isn’t attempting to rewrite any rule book. This is straight down the line meat and potato metal and its gloriously wonderful for being that. It is a fabulous amalgamation of aggression and melody. This is how I want my metal to sound, cathartically energetic and full of contagious beauty. It’s quite simply a collection of brilliantly written heavy metal songs that understand the need for rousing choruses and soaring riffs. Absolutely excellent.
Read MoreWe are back to the auteurs playing with form and function. This is a tempestuous maelstrom of emotionally charged black prog. It tempers harsh aggression with melodic, vulnerable passages that are full of fragile introspection. The pivet between styles is done really well, avoiding any sense of jarring and instead creating a natural meld between the two states of being. For all its opulent anger, it is a mature and sophisticated album that can understands how to overwhelm and sooth in equal measure.
Read MoreLet’s put aside the sophistication for one moment and go big on the brutality. This is old school death metal from one of this country’s foremost pioneers in this style. Benediction may not have gained the plaudits of Napalm Death or Bolthrower but they existed alongside both bands, happily trading members like a deranged wife swap party. This is a brilliantly simple and minimal album that strips everything back to core aggression. It is remorseless, angry and unabatingly intense. It illustrates the beauty of brittle belligerent heaviness and happily builds upon over 35 years in this game. Absolute belter of a record.
Read MoreAn early doors release, this has yo-yoed over the year. Every time it has slipped down the ranking as other records have appeared, I have given it a quick listen, and it has sprung its way back up the countdown. It is a magical, ethereal record. Mournful and husky, it is dry and arid heavy rock album. It does contain riffs but in the main, it is melodic and forlorn. It is haunting rather than heavy and it feels like the soundtrack to a downbeat movie. Overall it is brilliantly constructed and it has held its place on the list for the last eleven months because it is memorable and distinctly moreish.
Read MoreHappily hanging onto the coattails of Tool and Mastodon, this is an impressively sprawling piece of stoner prog. It is loose enough to have that lethargic sensibility, but it exhibits its prog tendencies enough to lean into a cacophony of complex time signatures. It blends technical procession with raging aggression. It is immaculately constructed, and even the free-form parts feel stringently rehearsed. Complexly textured, it is another album that reveals itself over time.
Read MoreMat McNerney (here appearing as Mathew Kvohst McNerney) is rather a metal Renaissance man. He is a constantly evolving creative dynamo, simultaneously weaving his mystical spell across a multitude of different musical vehicles. Terrifically authentic new wave goth outfit Grave Pleasures is apparently still a going concern yet he has this year produced not one but two side projects. Scorpion Milk in 95, but here (just) in the better half of the main list is his other other other band Hexvessel.
They have actually been around for much longer than Grave Pleasures, in fact they predate Grave Pleasures' doomed predecessor, Beastmilk. They are Kvohst (as his nan likes to call him) Black Metal outlet surrounded by several virtuoso Finish musicians. Actually, this is as much dark folk as it is Black Metal. It is a feral, organic record that is raw and primitive. It scales back as much as it lunges forward, and it taps into a rich vein of ritualistic paganism. It feels spiritual on a stripped-down level, where the deity in question has dirt on their face as opposed to the gold dust in their hair. It’s that off-key dishevelment that makes the album so interesting. It is a girty, grumpy album that feels in touch with its wild side.
Read MoreA short (28 minutes) sprightly record that expertly mixes metal with a Western theme. This is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with a Slayer soundtrack. It is a take-no-prisoners, vicious record that uses its short running time to maximum effect. The Western aspect is achieved via interludes and atmospheric bursts, but it never waters down the brutality of the record. If anything, it exacerbates the harshness, making it clear. Regarding westerns, this is firmly Django, as opposed to Bonanza. A brilliantly evocative record that doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Read MoreMassive, all-consuming prog metal that goes big on style, size and substance. There is (like a lot of these records) an awful lot going on here, and most of it is happening at the same time. It is a never-ending cycle of tempo changes, genre hops and fluctuating pentameters. It is grand in its scale, and it manages to avoid disappearing in its own perceived cleverness by the single fact that it sounds so delicious. It is all over the shop, but that is its beauty. A complex record that revels in that complexity.
Read MoreThe return of the venerable Behemoth with their thirteenth studio album, and if I am honest, nothing has actually changed. This sounds like Behemoth, and as ever, they are mightily pissed off with God and everyone who thinks that he is one of the good guys. It is classic Behemoth; big production black metal with gargantuan choruses and an up-tempo approach. As ever, it sounds divine, slick and distinctively nasty and malevolent. Behemoth does Stadium black extremely well, and every track here is a blasphemous stonker full of righteous anger and indignity. They bring nothing new to the black altar, but that’s the point. There are lots of imitators (even here on this list), but there is only one Behemoth.
Read MoreAnd straight up another marquee name from modern metal. Sabaton have become legends in their own historical accuracy. They have toiled enormously hard to reach the top table they now occupy and have paid their dues over twenty years of basement clubs and the sniggering non-converted. For those who do find their battle-obsessed flamboyance derisible, Sabaton are having the last laugh. Album number eleven sees their stock rise even further on the back of probably the best studio outing since the classic “Art of War”. Rather than get bogged down with a specific narrative or concept, “Legends” sees them in an anthological mood. They provide eleven tales of historical greatness that have no connection apart from the fact that all feature on this album. It is that grand, stand-alone songwriting that makes this such an imperious album. There is no sticking to a script; instead, we just get excellent songs.
Read MoreFour years on from the astonishing and groundbreaking “Mӕre”, Austrian post black metallers return with a much-anticipated follow-up. It would be easy for them to simply copy the large-scale dynamics that made “Mӕre” such a word-of-mouth success, but instead, they move down a different path. There are similarities between the two records, but “Scorched Earth” has a different aesthetic and feel. It is slower and more thoughtful, and whilst there remains brittle raw brutality, it is more dialled back than before. It is still a long album, clocking in at just over an hour, but there is now more of a feel of consistency. It lacks the highs of “Mӕre”, but also avoids the lows. Instead, we get a focused and dependable album that pushes deep into its dark mythology.
Read MoreAnother short but highly effective album. This is a 25-minute dash through all seven of the deadly sins via the medium of jaunty prog. Hailing from Puerto Rico, Moths bring a distinctive Latin groove to the world of shifting time signatures and playful tempos. Whilst it is full of technical prowess, there is a warmth to the sound. It is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of sounds, and it is mind-boggling how much musical ground is covered in such a short time. At the heart of it all is Mariel Viruet's versatile vocals, instantaneously shifting from soaring, haunting croons to howling, screaming aggression. Brilliantly different.
Read MoreWe are now firmly in the territory of the albums that I felt were rather extraordinary. Stoned Jesus are, naturally, a stoner rock band from Ukraine. This is the first in a trilogy of albums with songs to the moon and songs to the earth to follow in 2026 and 27 respectively. This is an extraordinarily poetic album, full of beautifully contoured tracks that exude hope and loss in equal measures. It is full of poignant passages weighted down with pure emotive passion. It oozes melancholic splendour, an immersive, atmospheric joy that tugs at the heartstrings but does so warmly and tenderly. It just sounds wonderful; each note is intrinsically placed to create a stunning whole that is food for the dark soul.
Read MoreAnother album that superbly balances light and dark. The album is named after the chemical reaction that occurs within living organisms to produce light, and that absolutely aptly describes the process they are undertaking. The heaviness is here to offset the moments of melodic beauty. The brutality exists for us to all more embrace the moment of calm and fragile joy. Whilst indeed complex and intricate, it is also an incredibly cohesive and well-constructed record. Everything counterbalances everything else; it feels like a unified whole as opposed to a collection of disparate tracks.
Read MoreA staggeringly good black metal record that is raw and organic but also has moments of beautiful, melancholic serenity. Translated as moon will light your way is a politically charged reflection on the environmental crimes that we inflict upon both our planet and ourselves. There are points where it is intense and brutal, but its compelling nature comes into play when it becomes more reflective and redemptive. For all its prophet-of-doom nature, calling out the inevitable environmental cataclysm that we hurtle toward, there are also chinks of hope. A thought-provokingly brilliant repurposing of a genre not known for political discourse.
Read MoreOne of the finest and most inventive death metal bands out there. This is their fifth album and their first not to be part of their sprawling tetralogy about the four seasons. To signal a return to base values, they have made it self-titled, and whilst it is not on the face of it stripped down, it is certainly heavier and more strident than its predecessors. The songs are shorter and have a distinct feel of urgency about them.
The sax, one of their many USP’s is still there, but even it feels more grizzly and ferocious than before. They have certainly upped the ante and created an album that is immediate and intimidating. There are points for space and reflection, but they are squeezed and more isolated than on previous releases. Instead, this is a fast and frantic album that may veer off into experimental waters time to time, but keeps its eye firmly on the prize of being brutal and vital.
Read MoreThe redemption of The Darkness is a story with more plot twists than a whole fortnight of Hollyoaks. There was a moment in time in the far-off noughties when the Hawkins brothers' juggernaut was unstoppable. They headlined Leeds and Reading, won multiple Brits and were ubiquitously everywhere. But then they crashed and burned most spectacularly with a duller than ditchwater second album and inter-family feuding that even Oasis would be impressed with. They fell from grace, and they fell hard and fast.
Their reunification in 2011 (they have actually been back together now three times as long as they were initially a band) turned out not to be as rapturously received as they’d hoped. By that point are Tom, Dick and Harriet had started playing classic rock suddenly they just weren’t that special any more. For nearly a decade, if found themselves reduced to the shoebox and toilet circuit that they had managed to skilfully avoid in their initial flirtation with fame. But this is a tale of redemption, and it has a happy ending. Due to award-winning podcasts and some fantastic media whoring, the world is now suddenly remembering The Darkness, and they are back playing arenas like they never went away.
They also released their biggest-selling album since “Permission to Land”, and if we are honest, it’s probably actually better than their fabled debut. “Dreams on Toast” is self-aware and self-derivative. It knows its limitations and its place on earth. It is a fantastically enjoyable rock ‘n’ roll album that sticks its tongue firmly in its cheek and is more than happy to laugh at its own inadequacies. As Justin sings, “We never stopped making hit albums, it's just that no one buys them anymore”. This is The Darkness playing heavy rock they love and that lack of inhibition just makes such rollocking fun.
Read MoreWith original vocalist Ezra Haynes back in the fold, Allegaeon have pulled out all the stops and produced probably their best record so far. This is a crunching and technically brilliant piece of modern death metal. It is weighty and seismically slamming, but is also full of astonishing pieces of complex musicianship. Simultaneously intricate and aggressive, it brilliantly couples raw human emotion with stunning musical ingenuity. Ezra’s return has breathed new life back into the band, and this album really is a joy to behold.
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