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.
- Leprous – The Congregation
- Paradise Lost – The Plague Within
- Enslaved – In Times
- Tribulation – The Children of the Night
- Napalm Death – Apex Predator – Easy Meat
- Melechesh – Enki
- Kamelot – Haven
- Leviathan – Scar Sighted
- Sulphur Aeon – Gateway to the Antisphere
- Enforcer – From Beyond
- Misþyrming – Söngvar elds og óreiðu
- Moonspell – Extinct
- Obsequiae – Aria of Vernal Tombs
- Visigoth – The Revenant King
- Nightwish – Endless Forms Most Beautiful
- Blind Guardian – Beyond the Red Mirror
- Cain’s Offering – Stormcrow
- Shape of Despair – Monotony Fields
- Pyramaze – Disciples of the Sun
- Jorn Lande & Trond Holter – Dracula: Swing of Death
- The Gentle Storm – The Diary
- Orden Ogan – Ravenhead
- Arcane – Known – Learned
- Monolord – Vænir
- Ad Nauseam – Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est
- Gruesome – Savage Land
- Midnight Odyssey – Shards of Silver Fade
- Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours
- Ghost Bath – Moonlover
- Civil War – Gods and Generals
- Arcturus – Arcturian
- A Forest of Stars – Beware the Sword You Cannot See
- Der Weg einer Freiheit – Stellar
- Glaciation – Sur les falaises de marbre
- Angelus Apatrida – Hidden Evolution
- Akhlys – The Dreaming I
- Desolate Shrine – The Heart of the Netherworld
- Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody – Prometheus, Symphonia Ignis Divinus
- High on Fire – Luminiferous
- Wilderun – Sleep at the Edge of the Earth
- Guardians of Time – Rage and Fire
- Entrails – Obliteration
- Thurisaz – The Pulse of Mourning
- Wind Rose – Wardens of the West Wind
- Judicator – At the Expense of Humanity
- Sorcerer – In the Shadow of the Inverted Cross
- Infernal War – Axiom
- Forefather – Curse of the Cwelled
- Drudkh – A Furrow Cut Short
- Faith No More – Sol Invictus
- Bell Witch – Four Phantoms
- Sarpanitum – Blessed Be My Brothers
- Phantom Winter – Cvlt
- Finsterforst – Mach dich frei
- Distillator – Revolutionary Cells
- Ensiferum – One Man Army
- Unleashed – Dawn of the Nine
- Alkaloid – The Malkuth Grimoire
- Armored Saint – Win Hands Down
- Vola – Inmazes
- Tempel – The Moon Lit Our Path
- Peste Noire – La Chaise-Dyable
- Macabre Omen – Gods of War – At War
- Winterage – The Harmonic Passage
- Rosetta – Quintessential Ephemera
- Damnation Angels – The Valiant Fire
- Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
- Native Construct – Quiet World
- Serious Black – As Daylight Breaks
- Barren Earth – On Lonely Towers
- Crypt Sermon – Out of the Garden
- Chaos Divine – Colliding Skies
- Minsk – The Crash & the Draw
- Thou & The Body – You, Whom I Have Always Hated
- Ufomammut – Ecate
- Chapel of Disease – The Mysterious Ways of Repetitive Art
- Dødheimsgard – A Umbra Omega
- Red Apollo – Altruist
- Magic Kingdom – Savage Requiem
- Subterranean Masquerade – The Grand Bazaar
- Goatsnake – Black Age Blues
- Kroda – Ginnungagap Ginnungagaldr Ginnungakaos
- Frosttide – Blood Oath
- Ruby the Hatchet – Valley of the Snake
- Helloween – My God-Given Right
- Ascendia – The Lion and the Jester
- An Autumn for Crippled Children – The Long Goodbye
- Kiske / Somerville – City of Heroes
- Periphery – Juggernaut: Omega
- Ethereal Shroud – They Became the Falling Ash
- Marduk – Frontschwein
- Noisem – Blossoming Decay
- Pyramids – A Northern Meadow
- Mechina – Acheron
- John Zorn – Simulacrum
- Valkyrie – Shadows
- Lucifer – Lucifer I
- Acid King – Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere
- Izah – Sistere
- 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!