Top 20ish albums of 2018

1. MOL - Jord

Genre- blackened shoegaze

Best Songs – "Penumbra",  "Bruma". I think the whole album is pretty close to perfect.

This and Deafheaven albums were my number 1 & 2 by a landslide. I kept flipping which was my favorite between the two, and right now it's this one. For a debut album, it's amazing. MOL is from Denmark and now that I have the LP with lyrics, I realize some of the songs are in Danish, which explains why I could only figure out sounds to some of the songs.  

2. Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Genre- Blackened-Shoegaze
Best Song - "Worthless Animal", but every song is amazing. "You Without End" was the one i took the longest to appreciate.

If MOL wouldn’t have put out their album, this would have been a lock at number 1. This was even nominated for a grammy, which seems inconceivable. I liked every Deafheaven album, but this is the first one, I can put on at any time and be in the mood for it. I have no idea how many times I have listened to this, but it is a lot.

3. Candy - Good to Feel

Genre – Hardcore
Best Song – "Systematic Death" is best, but all great

This hardcore band out of Richmond is a continuation of great stuff in Richmond. One of the more original and exciting hardcore bands I have heard in quite a while.

4. An Autumn for Crippled Children - The Light of September

Genre- Blackened Shoegaze
Best Songs - "New Hope", "The Silence Inside", "Still Dreaming"

Luckily I heard of this band on this album. After I listened to this for a while, I started going back into their discography and it just didn’t impress me. I read that there early stuff was good, but I keep sticking with this this one. Weird side note, I guess there aren't really any pictures of this band, which I guess means they don't play a whole lot of shows. At all.

5. Turnstile - Time & Space

Genre- Hardcore Punk

Best Songs - "Big Smile", "High Pressure", "(Lost Another) Piece of My World", "Moon", "Right To Be"

Hardcore punk from Baltimore. Guys from Trapped Under Ice and Angel Du$t. It's really short but it's so good. In a world where a lot of hardcore starts sounding the same, these guys sound different.

6. Rollo Tomassi - Time Will Die and Love Will Bury It

Genre- Mathcore

Best Songs - "Rituals", "Alma Mater"

When it first starts, it's a little instrumental and then you will think it's some kind of indy pop band. And then the 3rd song kicks in. And it's very Dillinger Escape Planish. Eve Spence has a beautiful voice and fierce ripper scream. She is quite the enigma.

7. Skeletonwitch - Devouring Radiant Light

Genre- Blackened Thrash

Best Songs - "Temple of the Sun", "The Luminous Sky", "Carnarium Eternal"

When I heard Skeletonwitch had a new singer, I thought they were done. The replacement is pretty damn good though. When I heard they changed their sound to a little more black metal sound and slowed down a little, I wasn’t interested. Well that was a mistake, because despite all that, they are awesome.

8. Haunt - Burst Into Flame

Genre- American heavy metal

Best Song - "Heroes", "Reflectors"

This is just straight ahead metal. The old school kind. Almost reminiscent of old glam with all the licks, but crustier. Like The Sword used to be. A really fun album. 

9. Wraith - Heed the Warning

Genre- Thrash

Best Song - "Heed the Warning", "The Pit", "Lightning Strike"

Sound like Toxic Holocaust. Produced by Joel Grind from Toxic Holocaust and honestly, it sounds like he's singing. 

10. Exxxekutioner - Death Sentence

Genre- Blackened Thrash

Best Song - Blood Vengence

Bad band name. Good band. Sounds like a blackened version of Toxic Holocaust. Reminds me a little of Judas Priest at times.

11. Wrong - Feels Great

Genre- Alt-Metal

Best Song - "Pustule"

You like Helmet? I mean “Strap It On”, "Meantime" era Helmet. Because despite it being one of the guys from Torche and one from Kylesa there isn't a lot of sludge...at all. This sounds a lot like old Helmet. I do not have a problem with that. One thing I read is that they are better at being Helmet than the current Helmet is at being Helmet. To me this is like a new album from a band I loved at the peak of their powers.

12. Between the Buried and Me - Automata I and II

Genre- Progressive Metal

Best Song - "Voice of Trespass"

I thought I was over this band. They were my favorite band during the Alaska and Colors albums. But they were becoming too technical, in that they were leaving the realm of enjoyable music and entering the realm of Dream Theater prog rock, which I pretty much disdain. This album misses the top because there is still some of that, but it’s a little tighter and less prog rock, especially in II. Yes this is technically 2 albums, but both were released this year and they recorded together just released as 2 albums and that’s how they should be listened to.

13. High on Fire - Electric Messiah

Genre- Sludge Metal
Best Song - "Electric Messiah"

Best High on Fire album in a while. If you like it sludgy and but not doom...well you already know this band. 

14. The Messthetics - The Messthetics

Genre- Post-Hardcore Instrumental

Best Song – "Quantum Path"

This is the rhythm section of Fugazi. They are an instrumental band that actually sounds like it could have been a Fugazi “Instrument” album if Ian and Guy were really virtuoso guitar players.

15. Split Cranium - I'm the Devil and I'm OK

Genre- Aaron Turner playing faster

Best Song - pick one

Super late entry, as I just heard it, but my first impressions are that it's my favorite Aaron Turner stuff, because it's faster than his usual stuff and I can say, "I love Split Cranium" and you can no longer comfortably say "I love ISIS". Never name a band something that can become the name of a terrorist group in the future, I guess is that lesson.

16. Pagan - Black Wash

Genre- Rock and Roll slightly blackened vocals

Best Song - "Death Before Disco"

Even later entry, and possibly the newness is making me put this higher than I ultimately would. Good rock band with a girl who can scream. 

17. Nightbirds - Roll Credits

Genre- Straight ahead punk rock.

Best Song - "My Dad is the B.T.K."

Straight ahead punk rock. Nice to have them back out of suburbia and recording again.

18. Vanishing Kids - Heavy Dreamer

Genre - who knows. Metal, synth, prog, 80's revival, God only knows

Best Song - Heavy Dreamer

This is a weird one. I took a while debating if I love this or not. It's better on headphones. It's good background music. It's great to write code to. It's not something I would put on at a party though.

19. Actors - It Will Come to You

Genre- Post-punk

Best Song - Slaves

Because I can't have a list with nothing but metal, hardcore and punk on it, I am throwing this on. Has some Some Sisters of Mercy without the goth feel mixed with more 80's alternative bands, like The Cure, Modern English and Psychedelic Furs vibe with a little Bloc Party. Not sure. It doesn't sound like any of those bands. Just snippets of remind you of one after another.

20. Dead Now - Dead Now

Genre- Stoner Metal

Best Song - "Ritchie BlackMourning"

Guy from Torche puts out a fuzzy album. I saw them live opening for Red Fang and they were loud and great.

Honorable mention

These were all band who put out a good album and deserve a mention. I like them all, but some just aren’t my style that I like to listen to, or I didn’t get a chance to put enough time into them and maybe next year, I will have found they are better than I realized or maybe they fall out of favor. But at some point this year, I felt they were good enough for a mention. This is in a random order.

Judas Priest - Firepower
Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology

Mammoth Grinder - Cosmic Crypt

Wayfarer – World’s Blood

Zeke – Hellbender

Tempel – Tempel

Horrendous – Idol

Watain - TRIDENT WOLF ECLIPSE

Tomb Mold - Manor of Infinite Forms

Gorod – Wolfsmond

Behemoth - I Loved You at Your Darkest

Bosse-de-Nage - Further Still

Blood Pressure - Surrounded

Skeletal Remains - Devouring Mortality

Baptists - Beacon of Faith

Secret Cutter - Quantum Eraser

Drug Church – Cheer

Iceage – Beyondless

Pagan - Black Wash
Nothing - Dance on the Blacktop
Primal Rite - Dirge of Escapism