Top Metal Albums of 2015 (So Far)

As we’re approaching the halfway point of 2015, I thought it might be interesting to cast an eye over what are regarded as the top metal albums of 2015, according to the collated votes of users at Rate Your Music (which, by the way, tends to provide an excellent choice of albums, not to mention a varied one, in its year-by-year charts). The site’s charts were updated this week, so this snapshot is about as current as it gets, and should hopefully point you in the direction of some absolutely fantastic heavy releases from this year. Here’s hoping the rest of 2015 can continue to provide us with an equal or greater number of top-quality listening experiences.

1. Leprous – The Congregation
2. Paradise Lost – The Plague Within
3. Enslaved – In Times
4. Tribulation – The Children of the Night
5. Napalm Death – Apex Predator – Easy Meat
6. Melechesh – Enki
7. Kamelot – Haven
8. Leviathan – Scar Sighted
9. Sulphur Aeon – Gateway to the Antisphere
10. Enforcer – From Beyond
11. Misþyrming – Söngvar elds og óreiðu
12. Moonspell – Extinct
13. Obsequiae – Aria of Vernal Tombs
14. Visigoth – The Revenant King
15. Nightwish – Endless Forms Most Beautiful
16. Blind Guardian – Beyond the Red Mirror
17. Cain’s Offering – Stormcrow
18. Shape of Despair – Monotony Fields
19. Pyramaze – Disciples of the Sun
20. Jorn Lande & Trond Holter – Dracula: Swing of Death
21. The Gentle Storm – The Diary
22. Orden Ogan – Ravenhead
23. Arcane – Known – Learned
24. Monolord – Vænir
25. Ad Nauseam – Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est
26. Gruesome – Savage Land
27. Midnight Odyssey – Shards of Silver Fade
28. Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours
29. Ghost Bath – Moonlover
30. Civil War – Gods and Generals
31. Arcturus – Arcturian
32. A Forest of Stars – Beware the Sword You Cannot See
33. Der Weg einer Freiheit – Stellar
34. Glaciation – Sur les falaises de marbre
35. Angelus Apatrida – Hidden Evolution
36. Akhlys – The Dreaming I
37. Desolate Shrine – The Heart of the Netherworld
38. Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody – Prometheus, Symphonia Ignis Divinus
39. High on Fire – Luminiferous
40. Wilderun – Sleep at the Edge of the Earth
41. Guardians of Time – Rage and Fire
42. Entrails – Obliteration
43. Thurisaz – The Pulse of Mourning
44. Wind Rose – Wardens of the West Wind
45. Judicator – At the Expense of Humanity
46. Sorcerer – In the Shadow of the Inverted Cross
47. Infernal War – Axiom
48. Forefather – Curse of the Cwelled
49. Drudkh – A Furrow Cut Short
50. Faith No More – Sol Invictus
51. Bell Witch – Four Phantoms
52. Sarpanitum – Blessed Be My Brothers
53. Phantom Winter – Cvlt
54. Finsterforst – Mach dich frei
55. Distillator – Revolutionary Cells
56. Ensiferum – One Man Army
57. Unleashed – Dawn of the Nine
58. Alkaloid – The Malkuth Grimoire
59. Armored Saint – Win Hands Down
60. Vola – Inmazes
61. Tempel – The Moon Lit Our Path
62. Peste Noire – La Chaise-Dyable
63. Macabre Omen – Gods of War – At War
64. Winterage – The Harmonic Passage
65. Rosetta – Quintessential Ephemera
66. Damnation Angels – The Valiant Fire
67. Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
68. Native Construct – Quiet World
69. Serious Black – As Daylight Breaks
70. Barren Earth – On Lonely Towers
71. Crypt Sermon – Out of the Garden
72. Chaos Divine – Colliding Skies
73. Minsk – The Crash & the Draw
74. Thou & The Body – You, Whom I Have Always Hated
75. Ufomammut – Ecate
76. Chapel of Disease – The Mysterious Ways of Repetitive Art
77. Dødheimsgard – A Umbra Omega
78. Red Apollo – Altruist
79. Magic Kingdom – Savage Requiem
80. Subterranean Masquerade – The Grand Bazaar
81. Goatsnake – Black Age Blues
82. Kroda – Ginnungagap Ginnungagaldr Ginnungakaos
83. Frosttide – Blood Oath
84. Ruby the Hatchet – Valley of the Snake
85. Helloween – My God-Given Right
86. Ascendia – The Lion and the Jester
87. An Autumn for Crippled Children – The Long Goodbye
88. Kiske / Somerville – City of Heroes
89. Periphery – Juggernaut: Omega
90. Ethereal Shroud – They Became the Falling Ash
91. Marduk – Frontschwein
92. Noisem – Blossoming Decay
93. Pyramids – A Northern Meadow
94. Mechina – Acheron
95. John Zorn – Simulacrum
96. Valkyrie – Shadows
97. Lucifer – Lucifer I
98. Acid King – Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere
99. Izah – Sistere
100. Dopethrone – Hochelaga

What do you think? Is anything likely to knock Leprous’ The Congregation from the top spot? Feel that Paradise Lost’s The Plague Within is overrated at number 2 currently? Are there new releases that you think belong in this top 100 that don’t currently appear? Have your say in the comments!

Terrorizer #260: [8]+

I got the newest issue of Terrorizer, issue #260, on my way down to Temples Festival, but have been so busy with copy-editing work that it’s only now that I’ve had time to sit and go through the reviews properly and pick out all those glorious ones that scored [8] or more. It’s not as high-scoring a month as the previous issue, but there have been some really great albums reviewed this year so far, and this issue does not buck that trend. The album of the month, in particular, Sigh’s Graveward, which I mentioned a number of weeks ago on this blog, is a triumphantly deranged piece of avant-garde extreme metal that everyone should hear at least a few times before making their minds up. As Ed Chapman at Terrorizer sums it up:

“It sounds like it’s come from an alternate dimension to show us what heavy metal could be like if only more bands were this ambitious.”

On top of that, the new Leprous album, The Congregation, is a definite contender for my album of the year (although there have admittedly been quite a few already)! Highly recommended if you’re looking for some of the most immaculate and cohesive arrangements in contemporary metal today.

So, this month’s albums, along with Spotify links where applicable, are as follows:

• Dead Existence – Endless Misery [8] (Spotify)
• Decayed – Into the Depths of Hell [8]
• Fórn – The Departure of Consciousness [8] (Spotify)
• Genocide Pact – Forged through Domination [8]
• Goatsnake – Black Age Blues [8.5] (Spotify)
• God Dethroned – The Ancient Ones [8]
• Gorgoroth – Instinctus Bestisalis [8] (Spotify)
• Helloween – My God-Given Right [8] (Spotify)
• Invertebrate – Regression/Devolution [8.5]
• Leechfeast / Meth Drinker – Split [8]
• Leprous – The Congregation [9] (Spotify)
• Macabre Omen – Gods of War – at War [8.5]
• Maruta – Remain Dystopian [8] (Spotify)
• Ninkharsag – Blood of Celestial Kings [8] (Spotify)
• Obsequiae – Aria of Vernal Tombs [8] (Spotify)
• Paradise Lost – The Plague Within [8.5] (Spotify)
• Prurient – Frozen Niagara Falls [8] (Spotify)
• Sigh – Graveward [9] (Spotify) (Album of the Month)
• The Sun Explodes – The Calm, the Storm [8] (Spotify)
• Tau Cross – Tau Cross [8] (Spotify)
• Throat – Short Circuit [8]
• Will Haven – Open the Mind to Discomfort [8] (Spotify)
• Winterfylleth – The Fathers of Albion: An Anthology 2007-2013 [8] (Spotify)

As always, any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated. Let me know if you discover any gems among these new releases.

Terrorizer #260 Cover (Goatsnake)