| 4.5 superb |
| Amorphis Under the Red Cloud |
| They were solid already but this is just stupid how good this is. Album of the year contender for sure. The hooks are HUGE, the balance between rock and metal (listen to those growls!) elements is perfect, melodies stick like glue in your head, the song structures more complex without feeling bloated, and it RIFFS! It RIFFS hard. And it passed the gf test. Even she had to headbang during "Death of a King." |
| Bloodbath Resurrection Through Carnage |
| Bring Me The Horizon Sempiternal |
| Clutch Blast Tyrant |
| Converge Axe to Fall |
| Dark Tranquillity Character |
| Dark Tranquillity Fiction |
| Darkest Hour The Human Romance |
| Decapitated Carnival Is Forever |
| Elite We Own the Mountains |
| Foo Fighters Wasting Light |
| In Flames Soundtrack to Your Escape |
| In Flames Whoracle |
| In Flames Come Clarity |
| In Flames A Sense of Purpose |
| In Flames The Mirror's Truth |
| In Mourning The Weight of Oceans |
| Killswitch Engage Disarm the Descent |
| Korn Issues |
| letlive. The Blackest Beautiful |
| Monuments (UK) Gnosis |
| Mudvayne L.D. 50 |
| Night Verses Lift Your Existence |
| Nile Those Whom the Gods Detest |
| Oddland The Treachery of Senses |
| Oddland deserve a lot more recognition for writing one of the best metal albums of the year thus far, without relying on cliches or harsh vocals. Very complex yet very listenable. This is my progressive metal find of the year, just as Leprous was last year. |
| Oh, Sleeper Children of Fire |
| Opeth Deliverance |
| Parkway Drive Atlas |
| Periphery Periphery II: This Time It's Personal |
| Rookie Town New Forest Floors |
| I had a really hard time getting into the post-hardcore genre for a while, but bands like this opened my eyes to how passionate and engaging this style can be when properly executed. Rookie Town manage to meld emo, punk, and some rock into their sound creating an unusual hybrid of sounds that never gets boring as it shifts dynamically but never in way that doesn't sound as natural as the pictured landscape. The vocals feature an interplay of clean and pained yells/screams that recall Glassjaw or At The Drive-In, and backup vocals that infuse a punk hardcore aesthetic. The album remains brief at just over 24 minutes, but it is in that brevity that it retains incredible replay value. The songs themselves are never content to stick to a formula. Rookie Town prefers to let the songs write themselves instead of inposing a structure for the sake of it. New Forest Floors leaves you begging for more as the sounds of falling rain and acoustics in the outro fade to silence. Upon repeated listens I have only grow to enjoy this album more and more. Highly recommended. |
| Sabaton Carolus Rex |
| Shai Hulud Reach Beyond the Sun |
| Skyharbor Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos |
| Sons of Aeon Sons of Aeon |
| Stone Sour House of Gold and Bones - Part 1 |
| SYQEM Reflections Of Elephants |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Ritual |
| Trivium Shogun |
| Twelve Foot Ninja Silent Machine |
