| A Day To Remember What Separates Me from You | 3.0 |
| A Day To Remember Homesick | 3.5 |
| A Day To Remember Common Courtesy | 4.0 |
| A Day To Remember For Those Who Have Heart | 4.5 |
| Abominable Putridity The Anomalies of Artificial Origin | 4.5 |
| Adestria Chapters | 4.0 |
| Aether Realm One Chosen By The Gods | 3.5 |
| After the Burial This Life Is All We Have | 3.5 |
| After the Burial Rareform (Re-release) | 4.0 |
| And Hell Followed With Proprioception | 3.0 |
| Apparitions Pre[CURSE]r | 4.0 |
| Arsonists Get All the Girls Listen to the Color | 4.0 |
| As Blood Runs Black Allegiance | 4.0 |
| As I Lay Dying Decas | 3.0 |
| As I Lay Dying A Long March: The First Recordings | 3.5 |
| As I Lay Dying The Powerless Rise | 4.0 |
| As I Lay Dying Frail Words Collapse | 4.5 |
| As I Lay Dying Shadows Are Security | 4.5 |
| As I Lay Dying An Ocean Between Us | 4.5 |
| As I Lay Dying Awakened | 4.5 |
| Ascariasis Ocean of Colour | 4.5 |
| Ashton Butcher Carlton Shanks | 3.0 |
| Asking Alexandria Reckless and Relentless | 3.0 |
| Attila Outlawed | 2.5 |
| Attila About That Life | 2.5 |
| Attila Rage | 3.0 |
| August Burns Red Messengers | 4.0 |
| August Burns Red Sleddin' Hill | 4.0 |
| Beheading of a King Quasar: Preserving Legacy | 3.0 |
| Beneath the Veil Circle City | 2.0 |
| Between the Buried and Me Colors | 4.5 |
| Born of Osiris Tomorrow We Die Alive | 3.5 |
| Born of Osiris The New Reign | 4.5 |
| Born of Osiris The Discovery | 4.5 |
| Bring Me the Horizon Sempiternal | 4.0 |
| Bury The Existence Programming the Herds | 3.5 |
| Casino Madrid Robots | 3.0 |
| Cattle Decapitation Monolith of Inhumanity | 4.5 |
| Chelsea Grin Evolve | 1.5 |
| Chelsea Grin My Damnation | 3.5 |
| Chelsea Grin Desolation Of Eden | 4.0 |
| Circle of Contempt Entwine the Threads | 4.5 |
| City in the Sea Below the Noise | 4.0 |
| Converge All We Love We Leave Behind | 3.5 |
| Coprocephalic Gluttonous Chunks | 4.0 |
| Crown the Empire The Fallout | 3.0 |
| Dark Sermon In Tongues | 3.5 |
| Disfiguring the Goddess Sleeper | 4.0 |
| Drag The Lake I Am Violence | 4.0 |
| Dying Fetus Reign Supreme | 4.0 |
| Elitist Between The Balance | 2.0 |
| Elitist Reshape Reason | 4.5 |
| This album tickled my fancy the same way that Erra tickled my fancy last year. Just like Erra, it was the riffs that really grabbed my attention. Elitist, hands down, gets the award for the best riffs of the year. Guitarist Julian Rodriguez is an absolute master at the guitar, creating beautiful melodic riffs throughout the album. Throw in some stunning solos and equally good atmospheric passages and you have yourself one of the best albums of the year. Now it's not just Rodriguez pulling the weight, thats not the case at all. Drummer Ben Kazenoff shows a very strong performance in his debut with the band, as well as new vocalist Chris Balay. While Balay stays with the mid-range vocals on the vocals, he brings out the occasional deep lows every once and awhile. This album just never stops hitting from start to finish. The band made a music video for "Unto the Sun," but to be far, any song on the album could have been made into a music video. It's hard to pick just one single off the album because they are all equally great. |
| Entities Aether | 4.0 |
| ERRA Augment | 4.5 |
| ERRA Impulse | 5.0 |
| Fallujah The Harvest Wombs | 5.0 |
| Fallujah Nomadic | 5.0 |
| Feed Her to the Sharks Savage Seas | 4.0 |
| For Today Immortal | 3.0 |
| For Today Breaker | 3.5 |
| Glass Cloud Perfect War Forever | 2.0 |
| Glass Cloud The Royal Thousand | 4.5 |
| Heaven Shall Burn Veto | 4.0 |
| I Am Abomination Let The Future Tell The Truth | 4.5 |
| I See Stars Digital Renegade | 3.5 |
| I See Stars New Demons | 4.0 |
| Impurity of Mriya The Fourth Reich | 3.5 |
| In the Eyes of A Mistress Nobody Move! This is A Breakdown Shakedown | 3.5 |
| Iron Maiden Somewhere in Time | 5.0 |
| Iron Maiden Iron Maiden | 5.0 |
| Issues Black Diamonds | 3.5 |
| Job For A Cowboy Demonocracy | 4.0 |
| Job For A Cowboy Doom | 4.5 |
| Katalepsy Autopsychosis | 4.0 |
| Killswitch Engage As Daylight Dies | 4.0 |
| Killswitch Engage Disarm the Descent | 4.0 |
| Killswitch Engage Alive or Just Breathing | 4.5 |
| King Conquer 1776 | 2.5 |
| Lorelei Lore of Lies | 4.0 |
| Lorna Shore Maleficium | 4.5 |
| Make Them Suffer Neverbloom | 4.5 |
| In a year when Australia has dominated the underground metal scene, one band stands above all. Make Them Suffer has shined brighter than any other band from "down-under" this year. The absolute best use of symphonic elements this year. Actually, not just this year, "Neverbloom" is the greatest use of symphonic elements I have EVER heard in an album. Usually, when there is a piano or keyboards on an album it is just used as another sound to accompany the rest of the instruments. The symphonies on this album actually dictate the music around it. The symphonies fit with the lyrical content, blending in with the album's concept of a past girlfriend. The vocalist has all the necessities of great range, showcasing his highs, mids, and lows on every song. The title track has got to be a contender for song of the year. It is just an unbelievable epic that incorporates the only clean vocals on the album. These guys need to be signed by an American label because they have a shot at becoming the next Parkway Drive, as in a Australian band having massive success in the US. |
| Memphis May Fire The Hollow | 4.5 |
| Memphis May Fire Challenger | 4.5 |
| Misery Signals Controller | 5.0 |
| Nails Abandon All Life | 4.5 |
| Nebulous The Quantum Transcendence of Death | 2.0 |
| Of Mice and Men The Flood | 4.0 |
| Ovid's Withering The Cloud Gatherer | 4.5 |
| Ovid's Withering Scryers of the Ibis | 4.5 |
| Parkway Drive Horizons | 4.0 |
| Parkway Drive Atlas | 4.0 |
| Pathology Lords of Rephaim | 2.5 |
| Pathology Legacy of the Ancients | 3.5 |
| Pathology The Time of Great Purification | 4.0 |
| Point Below Zero Point Below Zero | 4.0 |
| Protest the Hero Volition | 4.5 |
| Revocation Teratogenesis | 4.0 |
| Rings of Saturn Dingir | 4.5 |
| Sea of Treachery At Dagger's Dawn | 4.0 |
| Sentenced To Dissection Between the Worlds | 4.0 |
| Shaded Enmity Forsaken and Forgotten | 4.5 |
| Shadow of the Colossus End Game | 4.5 |
| Signal The Firing Squad Abnegate | 4.0 |
| Sleeping With Sirens With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear | 3.5 |
| Sleeping With Sirens If You Were a Movie, This Would Be Your Soundtrack | 4.0 |
| Slice the Cake Other Slices | 4.0 |
| Suffokate Return to Despair | 3.5 |
| Suicide Silence The Black Crown | 2.5 |
| Suicide Silence Suicide Silence (EP) | 3.5 |
| Suicide Silence No Time to Bleed | 4.0 |
| Suicide Silence The Cleansing | 4.5 |
| TesseracT Altered State | 4.5 |
| The Acacia Strain Death Is the Only Mortal | 2.5 |
| The Amity Affliction Chasing Ghosts | 4.0 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Unhallowed | 4.0 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Nocturnal | 4.0 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Ritual | 4.5 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Everblack | 5.0 |
| The Devil Wears Prada Dead Throne | 4.0 |
| The Devil Wears Prada Zombie | 4.5 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan One of Us Is the Killer | 4.0 |
| The Faceless Autotheism | 2.0 |
| The Haarp Machine Disclosure | 5.0 |
| There is so much I have to say about this album but I don?t know where to start. This is an absolute masterpiece of an album. I never listened to The HAARP Machine before they released "Pleiadian Keys,' but after I heard that song I instantly pre-ordered the album. I was anticipating that album for weeks and it did not disappoint once I finally got my hands on it. It delivered and then some. Mike Semesky is one of the best vocalists that I have heard in a long time. When I listened to "Esoteric Agenda" the first time, I literally got chills when his clean vocals entered at 1:19. I rewinded the song three times just so I could hear that part, and that is just the first song on the album. I get those chills every time I listen to the title track as well. Semesky's vocals on that song prove that he is the vocalist of the year. I would also have to say that the title track is the song of the year. It is so hard to associate a genre with this band because the whole album switches from technical to progressive. You have songs like "Lower the Populace," "From Vanity to Utility," and "The Escapist Notion," which shows the band's technical side. Then you have songs like "Pleiadian Keys," "Disclosure," and "Machine Over," which makes you think that this is a progressive band. The instrumentation behind Semesky is amazing with Alex Rudinger being one of the best drummers out there, Al Mu'min bringing some unbelievable guitar work to the album, and bassist Oliver Rooney adding to the already astonishing musicianship on album. |
| The Holy Guile FSU | 4.0 |
| The Holy Guile Guardians 2.0 | 4.5 |
| The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza Danza IIII: The Alpha - The Omega | 3.5 |
| The Zenith Passage Cosmic Dissonance | 4.0 |
| Thy Art Is Murder Infinite Death | 4.0 |
| Thy Art Is Murder Hate | 4.0 |
| Veil of Maya Eclipse | 3.5 |
| Veil of Maya [id] | 4.5 |
| Volumes Via | 4.5 |
| Whitechapel The Somatic Defilement | 3.5 |
| Whitechapel The Somatic Defilement (Remaster) | 4.0 |
| Within the Ruins Elite | 3.0 |
| Within the Ruins Invade | 4.5 |
| Wormed Exodromos | 4.0 |
