Top 11 Albums of the Year - D.M's List

As the years go by and I've been doing this list for some, oh, I don't know, decade and a half or whatever, it seems to me that each list may be increasingly influenced by where I am in my life - which is to say more accurately, what do I feel like hearing?  Which is to say, this comes with an admission: the list that follows may simply be my personal best albums list.  Okay, let me not insult you - it's obvious that this is my list, my name is on the damn thing.  What I mean is that this may be MY list - it may not be the best albums if we're judging on technical prowess or compositional acuity.  It may be simply a list of albums that I enjoyed the most this year.  And so be it.

Okay, a brief review of the rules:
- Must be an original studio composition in 2024
- No re-releases
- No Greatest Hits or compilations of any kind
- No live albums

Without further preamble - 

HONORABLE MENTION – While She Sleeps – Self Hell

I, for one, wasn’t sure rap metal would ever make a comeback.  Nor was I really sure that it should.  And maybe it still hasn’t.  But there’s a couple artists this year that tried to put a toe back in that formerly pristine but now dirtied and forgotten pool.  While She Sleeps was one of them. (Quick shout-out to Ihsahn’s self-titled album for narrowly missing out here.)

EP OF THE YEAR:  Alestorm – Voyage of the Dead Marauder EP

You know how some people are ‘small doses’ people?  I think Alestorm is a ‘small doses’ band for me.  And this was the perfect dose.  As ever with Alestorm, the comedy is acerbic and not for the faint of heart, but that does nothing to reduce its hilarity.  And the title track?  As legit a song as you can imagine.

11 – Reliqa – Secrets of the Future

Not all that dissimilar from While She Sleeps in concept, but this is the better execution.  The band is tight and in control and they know the sound they’re going for, even as it crosses several aesthetic and sonic boundaries.  

10 – Black Note Graffiti – Resist the Divide

Not a single song over 3:45, and punctuated by short, minimalist riffs.  There’s something about the mechanics of this album that’s kind of hypnotic.  Think Static-X, but dial way back on the gain and slow the tempo down to half speed.  But it’s similar in that the constructions are sparse, and I mean that as a compliment.  You can hear every part being played clearly, and no song overstays its welcome.  A better comparison – like a slightly   less-screamy, more deliberate Hellfreaks.

9 – Dungeon Crawl – Maze Controller

I kinda hate how much I like this album, because it is so unapologetically nerdy and based around late nights mainlining caffeine while you watch your graph-paper hero lose hit points because of a bad luck dice roll.  (And yes, I hate it because I’ve been there.)  When you strip that way, thought, there’s a really good, authentic thrash album underneath, and as I look back, I seem to have a place for that on my list every year (last year was Hellevate’s “The Purpose Is Cruelty” EP.)  The guitar work here is fun, the lyrics are appropriately absurd, the whole thing just feels right.

8 – Sundrifter – An Earlier Time

After Sundrifter released the very good “Visitations” back in whatever-the-hell year it was, I remember thinking to myself “damn, if those guys could just focus this a little and keep it within the margins, they’d really make something great.”  Well, now we have “An Earlier Time,” and it’s exactly the apex of Sundrifter could and should be.  It’s all the same cosmic wanderings of a wayward probe, but it’s snappier, more confident, and all around more listenable, while losing none of the signature fuzzy guitar tone.

7 – Dampf – No Angels Alive

Third year in a row.  Third year in a row that some electronic artist cracks my year end album list, by crossing over and blurring the line into metal.  Now, I’m giving myself a little grace here, because this is the second time that the artist has been Dampf, which means this is more than just a coincidence.  Dampf may not write the most technically challenging metal, but there is no question that there’s an understanding of what goes into composing a catchy hit.  There’s something about these songs that hooks you immediately.

6 – Powerwolf – Wake Up the Wicked

Color me a little surprised.  I’ve long been a Powerwolf partisan, but I freely admit that the band had a long run of making a great album followed by a mediocre one.  So imagine my shock when this album comes out comparatively on the heels of last year's “Interludium,” and still bangs with a new bunch of massive songs that only Powerwolf could have written.

5 – Powerman 5000 – Abandon Ship

Am I the only person in the world who has this as a top five album from 2024?  Probably.  And is some of that no doubt because of my personal nostalgia? Possibly.  But this is my list, so tough rocks.  I’m just going to come out and say it – PM5K will never again be the band that wrote “Tonight the Stars Revolt!” That age has passed.  But they also don’t have to be that band again.  After however many years wandering in the desert, the comeback that seemingly began with “Builders of the Future” some ten years ago is real and tangible and authentic.  And this album is a ton of fun.

4 – Dead Poet Society – Fission

One of the most unique bands going.  Minimalist beats, heavy rhythms, guitar tone not heard since Soundgarden’s “4th of July”…this is a heady mix of styles and colors, and it takes a steady hand to be able to balance all of those into music that’s even listenable, let alone good.  Extra props for “Hurt,” which is probably my Song of the Year…as someone who is also in a non-traditional career (yes, I have a job, and no, it’s not writing about music,) that tune hits close to home sometimes.

**It merits mention, there’s a gap here.  These albums are all great, but the next three were on a level all their own in 2024.**

3 – Transit Method – Othervoid

The sensibilities of Rush, but paired with the beats and rhythms of a punk band?  Hell yeah, sign me up for all of that.  It’s not every year that a band new to me crosses my (virtual) desk and absolutely pins my attention to the wall until I’ve heard the whole thing.  Can’t even remember who the last one would have been.  The Hawkins?  Red Eleven?  Doesn’t matter.  That’s how I felt listening to Transit Method.  And I hope you do, too.

2 – The Warning – Keep Me Fed

Ugh, I went back and forth on this a hundred and fifty times.  I even complained to my compatriot Chris about it.  I haven’t had this much trouble deciding between two albums for #1 since 2014, when I battled internally for a week over Red Eleven’s “Round II” and Destrage’s “Are You Kidding Me? No.” (I picked Red Eleven then, and I stand by it…about half the time.)  I can’t understand why the Warning haven’t conquered the world yet.  The talent, the songs, the aesthetic…this band has everything you want in a world-wide hero rock group.  It must only be the fallow period for rock fandom that we find ourselves in that prevents them from ascending.  Although, every time I see them, it’s in a slightly larger venue…In the meantime, this is certainly the album I spent the most time with this year, but it did ultimately fall short to…

1 – Combichrist – CMBCRST

Some years ago, Combichrist took flak from their fans for gradually moving away from a pure industrial style, incorporating more and more metal elements.  I personally think it’s the best decision the band ever made, as every album since that point (perhaps beginning with the DmC soundtrack?) has been better than the previous, culminating in this masterpiece of doom, gloom and as KMFDM coined the term, the ‘ultra-heavy beat.’  Some of the best riffs of the year were recorded for this album.  What puts it ahead of The Warning at #2?  The Warning, for all their greatness, worked with more professional songwriters.  And as Chris has so passionately explained on our very pages, there’s no sin in that, none at all.  But when you’re deciding between masterpieces, that extra little degree of authenticity for Combichrist matters.

Album Review: Powerwolf - "Wake Up The Wicked"

Power metal is a repetitive genre.  Has been for at least twenty years now.  There are a limited number of tropes a power metal band can adopt and still be called a power metal band, and you can probably tick off all of them in your head as you read this.  A small collection of bands have gotten extra mileage out of certain themes, like pirate metal or viking metal or Varangian metal, but in many cases those are just convenient window dressing for what, at its core, remains just a permutation of power metal.

And then there’s Powerwolf.  Listing their talents and abilities on paper, there’s nothing that seems like it should so easily separate them from the sluggish quagmire of power metal below them, but much like sports, bands don’t play on paper.  Powerwolf is simply better than all of their contemporaries; they’ve become a historical tentpole of the genre.

That doesn’t mean that they’re free from sins of their own – recent works have seen the bombastic Germans dip their toe in the pirate metal theme as well, albeit with some laudable success.  And not all their albums are classics – they have a 1:1 ratio in their history of great album to ‘meh’ album.  When Powerwolf hits right, though, there’s nobody who can hold a flame to them in their chosen splinter.

The band’s new album, “Wake Up the Wicked,” takes a couple listens to open up; it’s not as clearly attention-grabbing as its predecessor “Interludium” was, but with just a little patience, this record becomes the most versatile Powerwolf album to date.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the band is going to suddenly write dance bangers or bring down the house with cacophonous death metal pounding – everything on “Wake Up the Wicked” still sounds unmistakably like Powerwolf, but they’ve subtly introduced a few new elements that listeners haven’t heard from them before.

Skip down to “Heretic Hunters” for the first evidence – the beat and the riff belong on any number of Powerwolf records, but there’s a thin strand of synth in there, vaguely reminiscent of hurdy-gurdy music that’s new, and then Attila Dorn, forever the rafter-shaking voice of the genre, bites his lyrics off, rather than draw them out in his usual idiom.  Throw in a surprisingly ugly (in a good way,) breakdown (by Powerwolf standards,) and you’ve crafted a unique PW experience.

Starting with the title track, there’s a quartet of songs that marks “Wake Up the Wicked” as an accomplished Powerwolf album, fit to share the shelf with those that have come before (and better than some.)  The title track itself is just another classic in the long line of Powerwolf crowd pleasers – is it all that special weighed against the others?  Nah.  But it’s just as good, and will rile up crowds with its energy and singalong chorus just as well as any.

Then it gets interesting.  “Joan of Arc” is so incredibly reminiscent of the cadence of the previous album’s “Sainted by the Storm,” that I did a double-take.  But, as they say in my business, repeat your best stuff, you never know when someone is seeing it for the first time.

Then there’s a thrash song!  Powerwolf hasn’t written a song like “Thunderpriest” since “Dead Boys Don’t Cry” in the previous decade.  The song is all energy and power and relentlessness, for the entire duration of three-minutes and change.  This is followed by “We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints,” which starts with a children’s chorus ripped straight from “The Wall,” and then careens into a pop-metal beat where every moment is singable and accessible.

Powerwolf is separated from power metal by being so good at all the intangibles of songwriting – pace, timing, selection, cadence, sense of the moment.  Moreover, there’s no fat on the bones of “Wake Up the Wicked:” only one song goes past four minutes, and it does so by a paltry four seconds.  Powerwolf seems to be the only power metal band working who remembers that fathers of the genre Iron Maiden started out with punk rock roots.  This album is direct, to the point, and executed with experience and skill.

The Top 11 Albums of 2023 - D.M's List

Here we are again - we're at the end of another year, which means it is time for the most arbitrary thing of all, which is to recap the musical arts of the year in the manner of a concise, ten-item list!  Naturally, diligent readers will note that my list goes to 11, because Spinal Tap.  

I usually allow my editorial blurbs to speak for themselves as far as an individual album on this list goes, but I did want to pause to the make the following assertion - as recently as the fall, I was not confident in this list, and I was notably alarmed that I hadn't managed to determine what I wanted the number one album of the year to be.

This last four weeks of dedicated music listening and review to things that caught my interest over the course of 2023 has turned around my opinion of the year entirely.  There were a lot of strong efforts to be had in this calendar year, they just didn't happen to come from the usual sources.  That's probably my own hubris and lack of time that accounts for what felt like personal disappointment.  Luckily, hedging against my own laziness, I kept copious notes of what I thought was interesting this year, so it wasn't too terribly difficult to go back there and unearth what I feel now are the most valuable gems.

More than ever, in what was a difficult year in many ways personally, I found myself gravitating more towards albums that I simply enjoyed listening to, and away from ones that I found academically interesting or musically intricate.  Bear that in mind as you read on.

First order of business, the rules:
-All albums must be original studio content
-No live albums
-No covers albums
-No re-releases
-No anthologies of any kind

-No EPs (this is a little fungible, as if say, NIN's "Broken" came out this year, it is so good that it would merit inclusion.  But it would take an extraordinary effort.  Which is why I give away a separate EP of the Year Award.)

I first began reviewing music in a forum such as this in 2008, which is making me feel slightly nostalgic, so to catch up for new readers, here are all the albums I have ranked #1 over the years, beginning in 2011, when I did my first official year-end list:
2011 - Turisas - Stand Up and Fight
2012 - The Admiral Sir Cloudesly Shovell - Don't Hear It...Fear It! (<--the only one on this list I regret.)
2013 - Turisas - Turisas2013
2014 - Red Eleven - Round II
2015 - Shawn James & The Shapeshifters - The Gospel According to Shawn James & The Shapeshifters
2016 - Destrage - A Means to No End
2017 - The Midnight Ghost Train - Cypress Ave.
2018 - Cancer Bats - The Spark That Moves
2019 - Destrage - The Chosen One
2020 - The Heavy Eyes - Love Like Machines
2021 - Cave of Swimmers - Aurora
2022 - Rxptrs - Living Without Death's Permission

A brief mention to some artists who put out albums that merited consideration, but didn't make the cut: Phantom Elite, DieHumane, Metallica, Asinhell, Kontrust, Jason Blake, Degrave, Smokey Mirror, Children of the Reptile, Glacier Eater and FLO (though this last was released this year, it was recorded in 2004.)

Alright, I've wasted enough of your time. Let's get to it:

HONORABLE MENTION: Blood Ceremony – The Old Ways Remain

Blood Ceremony’s stylistic shift toward the retro folk-pop they experimented with on “Lord of Misrule,” is a decision that I don’t know if I would have made, but after a long absence, the band proves that their unique mix of the occult, fuzzy guitar, haunting vocals and, well, flute continues to make them a force to be reckoned with.  Those who walk into this hoping for old Blood Ceremony may be disappointed, but if you keep an open mind, there’s a lot of well-constructed old-school rock to be had here.

EP OF THE YEAR: Hellevate – The Purpose is Cruelty

It’s been a long while since I enjoyed a sampling of thrash that reminded me so much of the golden days of thrash and the revival that Power Trip promised but was sadly never able to totally deliver on.  Everything about this EP works, and the very fact that it is an EP works in its favor,  As they say, leave ‘em wanting more, and Hellevate does exactly that.  The guitars are crunchy, the vocals are edgy but restrained, the beats are good but not obsessive – it all meshes into some of the best pure thrash that’s been produced in the new millennium.  This is also the best band from Kansas City since The Browning.

11 – Necropanther – Betrayal 

I published the review of this album a week after its release just because I felt I needed more time with the album to really digest it and try to make something of it.  It’s maybe the only review I’ve ever penned (typed? Word processed?) where I ended up scoring the album incomplete.  Some six or whatever months later, with a dozen more listens, I still don’t know if I really have a grip on everything good and bad that’s happening here.  But that sense of intrigue alone makes it a unique listen worthy of consideration for this list just because of its staying power.  Throw in the fact that the juxtaposition of rock guitar solos with modern death metal presents as novel a sound as exists in any quantity in metal right now, and this record is worth the time.

10 – Overkill – Scorched

Another couple years, another Overkill album.  Overkill may well be the thrash version of AC/DC – if you have some concept that you like Overkill, you may well like the overwhelming majority of their catalogue, and if you don’t, you probably won’t like this either.  But that’s overly dismissive and doesn’t address the fact that Overkill, some twenty albums into their career, still sounds dedicated and vital.  It’s hard to find that amount of professionalism within any band that’s been around so long, let alone among Overkill’s thrash contemporaries.  “Scorched” stands out because Dave Linsk, long undervalued in the metal community as a guitar player, finds new avenues to control the pace of the band without losing any of their famed teeth.

9 – Lord of the Lost – Blood and Glitter

I’m so glad that Chris and I had the conversation at the end of last year about how we define a ‘year’ for the purposes of these lists.  We came to the joined conclusion that any album released after the publication of the previous list should count toward the next year’s list.  Lord of the Lost released this record on December 30th of 2022, and I would have been loathe to leave it without any further consideration.  I’ve long been a tangential follower of the band (who’s popularity seems to only be growing after cruelly finishing last in the Eurovision song contest 2023,) but they’ve never put together a full album that made me say ‘wow’ until this one.  (That said, I still don’t know if they’ve ever written a better single than 2018’s “Loreley,” but this record’s “Dead End” comes close.) Every song on this record pops in some way, finds a way to be interesting or catchy or both, and culminates in the best LotL album to date.

8 – Hellfreaks – Pitch Black Sunset

What a strange record, and I mean that in the best possible way.  It’s one part pop-punk album, one part rock sing along and one part screaming hardcore anthem.  While those idioms are all related, none of that sounds like it should work on paper, but listen to “Old Tomorrows,” which throws in a quasi-metal breakdown, and pureblood metal solo, and you’ll see how this genre-bending, swirling mass of an album becomes so much more than the sum of its parts.  This is like if Cripper and New Year’s Day tried to write an album together, but, you know…good.

7 – Royal Thunder – Rebuilding the Mountain

I am not a typical musical listener in that I have very little emotional attachment to any of the music that I enjoy.  I don’t associate songs or albums with any particular feeling one way or the other (with the exception of the Destrage song “Rage, My Alibi,” for reasons I’ll keep to myself.)  I say that though, to say that the emotions of an artist that they press into their music is not lost on me.  And “Rebuilding the Mountain” is a deeply painful and cathartic album for Royal Thunder, and while the circumstances of the record are serious and dire, the record is so much better for the raw infusion of genuine frustration and pain and hurt and ultimately forgiveness that permeates every moment.  “Now Here – No Where” will live in my head for a long time. 

6 – Powerwolf – Interludium

Power just writes fun records.  There may not be a metal band that does that with greater skill or sense of adventure than Powerwolf.  That’s really all there is to it.  The fact that they live on the outer orbits of power metal without succumbing to the cookie cutter that’s disfigured that genre forever is even better.

5 – Lucifer Star Machine – Satanic Age

A new-age Misfits?  Well, no, because the songs are more than forty seconds.  But that’s the vibe, and I’m here for it.  To go one level deeper, there’s also a healthy dose of the Dropkick Murphys mixed in here, and I mean Dropkick Murphys from back in the “Do or Die” era, not in the last fifteen or so years.  It’s the rasp in the vocals that sells that latter aspect, but this whole record bops along with gross lyrics set against the kind of accessible rock that gave birth to the entire punk movement in the first place.

4 – Robots of the Ancient World – 3737

As good a slow burn as there’s been since the first Mothership album, or Sundrifter’s “Visitations.”  Less direct than the best works of The Heavy Eyes, RotAW succeeds in that this is a full-on stoner doom record that never retreats into minimalism or gets lost in jam-like wandering.  That’s not an easy feat when all your songs are 6-plus minutes.  “3737” is aided by the fact that it’s limited to 6 songs, one of which is a throw away interlude, so all the band’s good ideas were mashed into a few packets, rather than spread out unnecessarily.  (Subtracting the throwaway, this has the same number of tracks as Hellevate’s EP, but because it still runs more than thirty minutes, qualified as an album.  For those scoring at home.)

3 – Zardonic – Superstars

This is two years in a row now that a DJ has put out a metal album that cracks my year-end list (Dampf’s “The Arrival” last year.)  Maybe it’s time that I just admit that I was born in the 80s and a certain degree of automatic love for electronic programming is burned into my genetic code.  Still, you know why this album is here?  Not to go too deep into the reeds, but this has been a tough year for me.  Lot of adversity, lot of trial and tribulations that required patience to navigate.  And this album makes me smile.  The fun factor is even greater than the baseline for Powerwolf, since this album exists solely for the purpose of being a fun album.  There’s no story here.  No grand mysticism or mountain in the distance that holds the secret to the keys, or whatever the hell.  “Rock and Roll Tonight” is more or less a KISS song for the 21st century, but it's just so damn awesome.  In the end, if your music isn’t making you smile, or making you enjoy it on whatever level it needs to meet you at, what the hell is the point anyway?  Plus, a really banging cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” a song that was in desperate need of a kick in the ass anyway.

2 – Kiberspassk – Smorodina

When I first heard this album at the end of December last year (it was released in January of 2023,) I was convinced I had already heard the best album of 2023.  It’s been a long time since I had heard an album that was so different than anything I’d heard before.  The rarest of all gems in music journalism is an album that sounds like literally nothing else in the best possible way, and Kiberspassk (who, by the way, are the same folks as in the more traditional folk band Nytt Land,) have crafted an album that combines metal, industrial, dance, folk, mythology and throat singing into a stew that it totally without peer.  The single “Daleko” is as haunting and beautiful and strange and energizing as any song I’ve ever heard.

1 – Graveyard – 6

This feels a little bittersweet.  This is the fifth consecutive Graveyard record to appear in my top albums of the year.  And it’s the first to be ranked number one.  Which, to come around, is bittersweet because I don’t think this is the best Graveyard album.  “Hisingen Blues” is almost certainly better, and I think I enjoyed “Peace,” this album’s forerunner, more than I did this one.  That doesn’t mean, however, that this can’t be the best album of 2023, though I do think I’m going to mentally jockey between this and “Smorodina” for years to come, and there will be days that I’m sure I will regret my decision.  Still, as Chris and I talked about when we wrote the double review for this record, this is Graveyard’s most soulful, most cinematic album to date (I will cede the point that every song Truls Mörck sings, even the ones I love like “Sad Song” on this record, all have the same tone.)  Really, what this comes down to is that there are no songs on this record I have any inclination to skip – they are all not only enjoyable, but unique in their own right within the context of the album.  That kind of fluidity and consistency of songcraft has to count for something.

Album Review: Powerwolf - "Interludium"

Fair warning, we’re going to spend a good chunk of this review not talking about the album in question.  I’m also going to apologize in advance for inserting myself into the proceedings, which I apologize for every time I do it, and you’d think I’d know better by now.  

I want to take you back to February, on a blustery night, to a theater nestled into the blinding neon heart of Times Square.  Powerwolf, so long now stalwarts of the metal scene worldwide, had finally, FINALLY arrived in the United States to play their first ever show.

The atmosphere was palpably electric.  Never had I felt like this, or sensed the same pure anticipation from the sold-out throngs around me.  Powerwolf’s arrival, so long sought by legions of dedicated American fans, was to be an all-caps EVENT, heretofore unforeseen on these shores.

Normally, when the lights dim at a show is when the crowd cheers the loudest, when the fever pitch reaches the peak of its roiling crescendo, as the pent-up potential energy is allowed its very first sensuous tease of the kinetic.  And while the welcoming cheer was vociferous, on this night it was the roar of appreciation and adulation from the crowd after “Faster Than The Flame” had been recited that was the single most memorable moment of the night.

I am a veteran of several hundred concerts.  I have listened to thousands of albums.  In just a couple short months, I will be forty years old.  While I greatly enjoy the overwhelming majority of shows I go to, because the spectacle of live music is a drug with which I am forever entwined, I am rarely wowed.  

I left the euphoria of that first Powerwolf show firm in the belief that I had seen one of the great shows of my life.  Not just the band, or the music, but the crowd and the whole experience.

And all of that brings us here, to the theoretical reason for those shows in the first place, “Interludium,” the band’s new-ish album that combines six new tracks with four b-sides and rarities, capped by a French language version of “Beast of Gevaudan” which, for reasons I can’t discern, works better than the original.

Anyway, the pre-album press here is correct: there are a lot of strong moments among the six new tracks, but the reasons to be here are the two prominent singles.  “Sainted By the Storm” is an instant Powerwolf classic, pulling elements from Powerwolf’s established catalogue with the jaunty bombast of the best days of Turisas, and just the smallest splash of Alestorm singalong.  It’s simply magnificent, eschewing some of the pure power of the typical Powerwolf riff to give us all an easily accessible tune that bangs around in the ears and refuses to let go.

(It is worth noting that “Altars On Fire,” later on the record, sounds kinda like a poor man’s version of this very same song.)

Conversely, “My Will Be Done” is instantly recognizable in the Powerwolf mold – a galloping riff, some double kick drum, and the peerless vocals of Attila Dorn.  There’s something resembling a breakdown in the middle which is a new, but not unwelcome step for Powerwolf.  Add this cut to the pantheon of great and memorable songs in the band’s idiom.

Also mention worthy are “Wolves of War” and “Wolfborn,” both of which work as permutations of the tried and true formula of the artist.  They are not quite as enthralling as the two singles mentioned above, but that’s not an insult – those two are sublime, these are merely good.  “Wolfborn” in particular has high potential as an anthemic crowd favorite should the band ever return to the United States (hint, hint.)

While there haven’t been any dud Powerwolf records, I personally hadn’t fallen in love with one since “Blessed and Possessed” some eight years ago, so it’s nice to be suckered in again by “Interludium.”  Is it possible that I’m biased by the catharsis of the concert experience?  Sure, but either way, there’s a lot here to like.

The Top 11 Albums of 2015!

I think by this point we’ve covered everything that needs to be said by way of introductions, so here we go with a recap on the rules of this game: To merit consideration, all records must be composed of entirely new studio material – no re-releases, live albums, re-masters or compilations.  Also, we do a top eleven here, because as we all know, 'it goes to eleven.'  Got it?  Here we go:

Other Receiving Votes) Clutch – “Psychic Warfare,” Iron Maiden – “The Book of Souls”, Mongol Metal – “Mongol Metal” (disqualified only because it was made up of previously released material.)

Honorable Mention) Niche – “Heading East”

A late comer to the party!  Niche blends classic rock and with folk and just drop a psychedelia in a way that harkens back to the storytelling rock heavyweights of yesteryear.  Three part vocal harmony and intricately layered melodies make “Heading East” an absorbing and yet relaxing listen.

11) The Great Game – “The Great Game”

This record doubles as my Little Record That Could for 2015, as it stuck in my memory for most of the year.  For those following, 2015 was the Year I Tried to Hear Something Different, and really, each time someone would ask me what I had heard this year that fit the bill, “The Great Game” jumped back in my head.  Infectious in its liberal deployment of genres and tropes, The Great Game, a band of the world if ever there was one, can tie together a melody with everything from a guitar to an accordion and back again.  This is an expansive effort that can be a challenging listen, but its heart is a passion for experimental music that just plan works.

10) Annihilator – “Suicide Society”

Because very year there’s a record that’s worthy of the cut solely because it’s fun to listen to, more than that it actually possesses novel artistic merit.  Jeff Waters’ guitar tone remains one of the all-time greats, and becomes his de facto signature on every track of this album.  You can say what you want about Annihilator; that they’ve put out some very average records (true) and that they’ve never really tried to change their game plan (also probably true,) but that steadfast dedication to what got them here also means that they can drop a great record at any time.  “Suicide Society certainly isn’t going to qualify for the ‘Something Different’ title like The Great Game does, but it’s a blast to listen to, and damn it, that counts for something.

9) Pentagram – “Curious Volume”

And yet, amidst all the upstarts, we see a second legacy act join the fray and produce their best record in years.  Every metal fan keeps in his or her heart a small, burning love of doom metal, and Pentagram fills that niche will not getting bogged down in the idea that doom must be slow or plain.  Rich melodies, hook-y blues riffs and veteran craftsmanship show those damn kids how we did it back in the day!  (Note: back in the day for me was like, 1992, so I can’t really lay legitimate claim to the ‘we’ there.)  Anyway, Pentagram.

8) Children of Bodom – “I Worship Chaos”

After the shoulder-shrug of “Halo of Blood,” CoB comes back re-engineered as a quartet, which oddly ends up expanding their repertoire rather than collapsing it.  Alexi Laiho ends up writing a couple emotional pieces that no one would have ever expected from the alcohol celebrating, Finnish, metal champions and perhaps most surprising of all, they work!  This is a more mature sound from Children of Bodom while at the same time really bringing their keyboard work back into the fore.  The style is a work in progress for these guys still, but this record shows a ton of promise.

7) 6:33 – “Deadly Scenes”

Am I cheating here?  I think I might be cheating a little.  If memory serves, there were parts of the globe that got this album in the latter half of 2014, but Kaotoxin Records lists the official release date at January 15th, 2015, so I’m going with them.  Anyway, 6:33 is in that same vein as The Great Game, music designed to go way beyond the borders, except that 6:33’s production is both more compelling and well, this might sound simple, but more fun.  The best moments on “Deadly Scenes” have a jaunty swing in an inverse relationship with how much sense the songs make, which is weirdly all the album’s benefit.  Five dudes in masks with no live drummer playing music that wanders in a hundred directions?  Sold!

6) Cancer Bats – “Searching for Zero”

Following up the singular greatness that was “Dead Set on Living” was a tall order, but Cancer Bats delivered with “Searching for Zero,” an album that eschewed some of the rock overtones of its predecessor to deliver crunchy, ugly riffs circled around personal torment and rebellion.  There’s depth here in the bass tones alone, never mind the slow, churning drudgery that the band mated with it to create an authentic feeling of dread.  It’s rare that a band with hardcore roots can show this much discipline and growth, but Cancer Bats fit the bill.

5) Midnight Ghost Train – “Cold Was the Ground”

I’m starting to sense a theme within my own list, which is that everything I really connected to this year largely fell into one of two categories – different and complex, or ugly and fun.  Midnight Ghost Train swings the needle the farthest in the latter direction, slopping out fuzzy riffs and channeling immense amounts of distortion to create a romp that sounds, well, like I imagine a midnight ghost train would.  What sets this album apart and finishes its showcase is two-fold; first, that if you can sift through the grime, there’s a really accessible metal album underneath and second, there’s a sense of humor here that makes the proceedings lighter than the music would seem at first blush.  An enjoyable ride, and hey, they made a tour poster with a vintage-style nude woman hiding in the shadows on it.  Bonus!

4) Mountain of Wizard – “Casting Rhythms and Disturbances”

Apparently, it’s becoming a trend that I put an instrumental album in my top ten.  Well, here’s this year’s entry, an avalanche of inspired, monster riffs that nod heads and demand notice.  It’s a curious thing when an album can capture attention without speaking a single syllable, and that makes Mountain of Wizard all the more notable for what they’ve accomplished here.  Each of these songs feels like an organic, handcrafted creation, a thoughtful plan executed by musicians who had an idea and then jammed it out a bunch of times until it sounded right.  There’s a lot to like here.

3) Powerwolf – “Blessed and Possessed”

Okay, if Midnight Ghost Train was the ugliest of these albums, then by comparison in the ‘ugly and fun’ category, “Blessed and Possessed” is the most fun.  Don’t get me wrong, every Powerwolf is fun just because of what it is and what the band does, but this album in particular screams ‘road-trip sing-a-long.’  The Christian werewolves have outdone themselves this time, creating a tome of epic anthem after epic anthem, running the gamut from thumping arena rock to heart-pounding chase.  Attila Dorn’s vocals are as resonant as ever, but the brothers Greywolf outdid themselves this time with sharp, poignant riffs and excellent articulation.  Just look at that video!  I mean, doesn’t that look like fun?

2) Graveyard – “Innocence and Decadence”

Okay, at this point, Chris C and I have salivated over this album enough that everyone knows why it’s on here.  “Innocence and Decadence” is the most complete, best composed record of 2015, assembled and executed by talented musicians who display not only a complete mastery of their sound, but a healthy respect for the heritage of it.  So, what’s holding it back from being #1?

1) Shawn James and the Shapeshifters – “The Gospel According to Shawn James and the Shapeshifters”

This would be the answer.  Sometimes, there is an album so raw, echoing with the vibrations of sheet power, that it overwhelms even the best-laid blueprint of its competitors.  “The Gospel According…” may not be a match for “I&D” when it comes to precision or craft, but the pulpit-shaking bellow of Shawn James stirs the listener on a different level altogether.  This is vigorous, commanding music that’s tempered with enough sense of humor to prevent it from being melodramatic.  The fury and bluster of opener “No Gods” is balanced only too perfectly by the stark, cold grip of “Lost.”  Each track has a different character, a different feel, as the down-home riffs and bluegrass instrumentation create a dynamic sound from the album’s beginning to end.  If you are someone who appreciates being moved by music, or if you simply enjoy being absorbed by the album you’re listening to, there’s something for everyone on this record.  It’s the clear choice for Album of the Year.