| 2017 |
| Eminem Revival | 1.5 |
| The Faceless In Becoming a Ghost | 3.0 |
| The Faceless IV: This Time It's Just Kind Of Ok |
| Morbid Angel Kingdoms Disdained | 4.0 |
| The Body and Full Of Hell Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light | 3.5 |
| Godflesh Post Self | 3.5 |
| Black Sabbath The End (Live) | 4.5 |
| King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Polygondwanaland | 4.5 |
| Electric Wizard Wizard Bloody Wizard | 3.0 |
| Entheos (USA) Dark Future | 4.0 |
| Gatecreeper Sweltering Madness | 4.0 |
| Cannibal Corpse Red Before Black | 3.0 |
| Signs Of The Swarm The Disfigurement Of Existence | 3.0 |
| Converge The Dusk in Us | 4.5 |
| Krallice Loüm | 3.5 |
| Spiritbox Spiritbox | 3.5 |
| Veil of Maya False Idol | 3.0 |
| And So I Watch You From Afar The Endless Shimmering | 3.5 |
| Bell Witch Mirror Reaper | 4.5 |
| Through the Eyes of the Dead Disomus | 3.5 |
| Spectral Voice Eroded Corridors of Unbeing | 4.0 |
| Lil Pump Lil Pump | 1.0 |
| August Burns Red Phantom Anthem | 3.5 |
| Primitive Man Caustic | 3.5 |
| Spirit Adrift Curse of Conception | 3.5 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Nightbringers | 4.0 |
| Primus The Desaturating Seven | 3.0 |
| Arkaik Nemethia | 4.0 |
| Archspire Relentless Mutation | 2.5 |
| Satyricon Deep Calleth Upon Deep | 3.0 |
| Counterparts You're Not You Anymore | 3.5 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Luciferian Towers | 3.5 |
| Chelsea Wolfe Hiss Spun | 4.0 |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Thrice Woven | 4.0 |
| Mastodon Cold Dark Place | 4.0 |
| The Contortionist Clairvoyant | 3.5 |
| Myrkur Mareridt | 3.5 |
| Gigan Undulating Waves of Rainbiotic Iridescence | 4.0 |
| Arch Enemy Will to Power | 3.5 |
| Cannabis Corpse Left Hand Pass | 3.5 |
| END (USA-NJ) From the Unforgiving Arms of God | 4.5 |
| Drab Majesty Oak Wood | 3.0 |
| Osees Orc | 3.5 |
| Queens of the Stone Age Villains | 3.5 |
| Inanimate Existence Underneath a Melting Sky | 4.0 |
| Leprous Malina | 4.5 |
| Thy Art Is Murder Dear Desolation | 4.0 |
| Brand New Science Fiction | 4.0 |
| Pyrrhon What Passes for Survival | 4.0 |
| Converge I Can Tell You About Pain | 4.0 |
| Wintersun The Forest Seasons | 2.0 |
| Hey guys, Jari here. I know you've been expecting Time II, since you know, I told you it was done and all, but I need you to give me money so that I can actually do the record. Because I didn't. So here's an album that you didn't ask for instead that I won't put on your streaming platform of choice. You need to give ME the money directly so I can build a studio for ME, because the record advance and resources of Nuclear Blast, one of the biggest metal labels on the planet, simply wasn't enough for my grandiose, world-shattering vision. Just kidding, here's a bunch of leftover Ensiferum riffs and fucking sweeps. |
| Decrepit Birth Axis Mundi | 3.5 |
| Tyler, the Creator Flower Boy | 3.5 |
| Boris Dear | 3.5 |
| Melvins A Walk With Love And Death | 3.5 |
| Decapitated Anticult | 4.0 |
| The Acacia Strain Gravebloom | 3.0 |
| Origin Unparalleled Universe | 3.0 |
| Witch Vomit Poisoned Blood | 3.5 |
| Manilla Road To Kill a King | 4.0 |
| Dying Fetus Wrong One to Fuck With | 3.0 |
| King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Murder Of The Universe | 4.0 |
| Igorrr Savage Sinusoid | 4.0 |
| Volumes Different Animals | 2.0 |
| Suffocation …Of the Dark Light | 3.5 |
| Anathema The Optimist | 4.0 |
| SikTh The Future In Whose Eyes? | 4.0 |
| Mutoid Man War Moans | 4.0 |
| Elder (USA-MA) Reflections of a Floating World | 4.0 |
| Death Grips Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber Megamix) | 4.5 |
| Paramore After Laughter | 3.5 |
| John Frum A Stirring In The Noos | 4.0 |
| Ulsect Ulsect | 4.0 |
| Slaughter To Prevail Misery Sermon | 3.5 |
| Full of Hell Trumpeting Ecstasy | 4.0 |
| Slowdive Slowdive (LP) | 4.0 |
| Gorillaz Humanz | 2.0 |
| Trans Am California Hotel | 3.0 |
| Artificial Brain Infrared Horizon | 4.0 |
| Ingurgitating Oblivion Vision Wallows In Symphonies Of Light | 4.5 |
| What the hell is wrong with you people this album rips |
| Kendrick Lamar DAMN. | 4.0 |
| Virulent Depravity Fruit Of The Poisoned Tree | 3.5 |
| Ulver The Assassination of Julius Caesar | 4.0 |
| Mastodon Emperor of Sand | 4.0 |
| Pallbearer Heartless | 4.0 |
| The Bug and Earth Concrete Desert | 4.0 |
| Fit for an Autopsy The Great Collapse | 4.0 |
| Nova Collective The Further Side | 3.5 |
| Darkest Hour Godless Prophets and the Migrant Flora | 3.5 |
| Emmure Look At Yourself | 2.0 |
| Converge Jane Live | 4.5 |
| Suicide Silence Suicide Silence | 1.0 |
| Donate to my kickstarter to rename this album to Angelic 2 The Deathcore because that's objectively how bad it is |
| Immolation Atonement | 4.0 |
| Thundercat Drunk | 4.0 |
| Benighted Necrobreed | 3.5 |
| Iron Reagan Crossover Ministry | 3.0 |
| Hour of Penance Cast the First Stone | 3.5 |
| Kreator Gods of Violence | 4.0 |
| Aversions Crown Xenocide | 3.5 |
| Drab Majesty The Demonstration | 4.5 |
| Code Orange Forever | 2.0 |
| Sepultura Machine Messiah | 3.5 |
| Alluvial The Deep Longing for Annihilation | 4.0 |
| 2012 |
| Circle Takes the Square Decompositions: Volume Number One | 4.0 |
| Circle of Contempt Entwine the Threads | 3.0 |
| Unraveller Kinship Synthesis | 3.5 |
| Arsis Lepers Caress | 4.5 |
| Mestis Basal Ganglia | 4.0 |
| Code Orange Love Is Love // Return To Dust | 2.5 |
| Aeon Aeons Black | 3.5 |
| Soundgarden King Animal | 3.0 |
| Bell Witch Longing | 3.5 |
| Deftones Koi No Yokan | 4.0 |
| Hacktivist Hacktivist | 2.5 |
| All That Remains A War You Cannot Win | 1.5 |
| No amount of flashy solos and melodeath riffing can make up for the fact that Phil "Autotune" Labonte wants the band to sound just like Five Finger Death Punch. A waste of your time, but you already knew that, right? |
| Parkway Drive Atlas | 2.5 |
| Neurosis Honor Found in Decay | 4.5 |
| Intervals In Time | 3.5 |
| Pig Destroyer Book Burner | 4.0 |
| The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza Danza IIII: The Alpha - The Omega | 4.0 |
| Just when you thought electric guitars couldn't possibly have any more gain... |
| Abiotic Symbiosis | 2.5 |
| The Sword Apocryphon | 3.0 |
| Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city | 3.5 |
| Thy Art Is Murder Hate | 4.5 |
| Dethklok Dethalbum III | 3.0 |
| Chelsea Wolfe Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs | 3.0 |
| The Haarp Machine Disclosure | 3.5 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! | 4.5 |
| Wintersun Time I | 3.5 |
| This is what you get when you combine Devin Townsend's Deconstruction with Dungeons & Dragons and a FUCKING SHITLOAD of synth orchestra. Pretty good, but a few years too late. |
| The Acacia Strain Death Is the Only Mortal | 2.0 |
| I just want to make it perfectly clear: Meshuggah released Nothing ten years ago. |
| August Burns Red Sleddin' Hill | 3.5 |
| Daylight Dies A Frail Becoming | 4.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria The Afterman: Ascension | 4.0 |
| Converge All We Love We Leave Behind | 4.0 |
| Between the Buried and Me The Parallax II: Future Sequence | 4.0 |
| Arkaik Metamorphignition | 4.5 |
| Macklemore and Ryan Lewis The Heist | 3.5 |
| Muse The 2nd Law | 2.0 |
| Death Grips No Love Deep Web | 4.5 |
| Enslaved RIITIIR | 3.0 |
| Green Day ¡UNO! | 1.0 |
| As I Lay Dying Awakened | 2.5 |
| Car Bomb w^w^^w^w | 4.0 |
| Witchcraft Legend | 3.5 |
| Devin Townsend Project Epicloud | 4.0 |
| Down Down IV - Part I | 4.0 |
| Teen Suicide i will be my own hell because there is a devil inside my body | 1.0 |
| Hooded Menace Effigies of Evil | 3.5 |
| Cryptopsy Cryptopsy | 4.0 |
| Surprisingly and unexpectedly the band's best album since None So Vile and the best Cryptopsy album without Lord Worm. |
| Animal Collective Centipede Hz | 2.5 |
| Propagandhi Failed States | 4.5 |
| Blut Aus Nord 777 - Cosmosophy | 3.5 |
| Lil B Based Jam | 3.0 |
| Katatonia Dead End Kings | 4.0 |
| Dysrhythmia Test Of Submission | 4.0 |
| Ensiferum Unsung Heroes | 2.5 |
| Swans The Seer | 5.0 |
| Krallice Years Past Matter | 4.0 |
| The Faceless Autotheism | 3.5 |
| Ash Borer Cold of Ages | 4.0 |
| Cloudkicker Fade | 3.0 |
| Converge/Napalm Death Split | 4.0 |
| Gaza No Absolutes in Human Suffering | 4.5 |
| heavier than the heaviest of heavies plus atheism |
| Lil B Obama BasedGod | 3.5 |
| Om Advaitic Songs | 3.5 |
| Inanimate Existence Liberation Through Hearing | 3.5 |
| The Contortionist Intrinsic | 4.0 |
| Darker, heavier, more progressive, and an overall more consistent listen than Exoplanet. |
| Baroness Yellow and Green | 4.5 |
| Frank Ocean channel ORANGE | 4.5 |
| Glass Cloud The Royal Thousand | 3.0 |
| Periphery Periphery II: This Time It's Personal | 4.0 |
| Riff Raff The Golden Alien | 3.5 |
| Nile At The Gate of Sethu | 3.5 |
| Gojira L'Enfant Sauvage | 4.0 |
| Agalloch Faustian Echoes | 4.0 |
| Old Man Gloom NO | 3.5 |
| Deathspell Omega Drought | 3.5 |
| Teen Suicide waste yrself | 1.0 |
| Chelsea Grin Evolve | 1.0 |
| Whitechapel Whitechapel | 1.5 |
| Dying Fetus Reign Supreme | 3.5 |
| Devin Townsend Project By A Thread: Live in London 2011 | 4.5 |
| The Tallest Man on Earth There's No Leaving Now | 3.5 |
| Rush Clockwork Angels | 4.0 |
| Ne Obliviscaris Portal of I | 3.5 |
| The Agonist Prisoners | 3.0 |
| Melvins Freak Puke | 3.0 |
| Saint Vitus Lillie: F-65 | 4.0 |
| Burzum Umskiptar | 2.0 |
| TesseracT Perspective | 3.0 |
| Killer Mike R.A.P. Music | 4.0 |
| Cattle Decapitation Monolith of Inhumanity | 3.0 |
| Exotic Animal Petting Zoo Tree of Tongues | 3.5 |
| Trioscapes Separate Realities | 4.0 |
| Reflections The Fantasy Effect | 2.5 |
| Torche Harmonicraft | 3.5 |
| Bereft (USA-CA) Leichenhaus | 4.0 |
| 7 Horns 7 Eyes Throes Of Absolution | 4.0 |
| Death Grips The Money Store | 5.0 |
| Skyharbor Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos | 4.0 |
| Storm Corrosion Storm Corrosion | 4.0 |
| In Mourning The Weight of Oceans | 3.5 |
| Woods of Ypres Woods 5: Grey Skies and Electric Light | 3.5 |
| Anathema Weather Systems | 4.0 |
| Emmure Slave To The Game | 1.5 |
| Jeff Loomis Plains of Oblivion | 3.5 |
| Job for a Cowboy Demonocracy | 3.5 |
| High on Fire De Vermis Mysteriis | 4.0 |
| Make Me Famous It's Now or Never | 1.0 |
| The Mars Volta Noctourniquet | 3.5 |
| Hour of Penance Sedition | 3.5 |
| Overkill The Electric Age | 4.0 |
| Cynic The Portal Tapes | 4.0 |
| Meshuggah Koloss | 4.0 |
| Borknagar Urd | 3.0 |
| Iron Maiden En Vivo! | 4.0 |
| Wretched (USA-NC) Son of Perdition | 4.0 |
| Black Sheep Wall No Matter Where It Ends | 4.0 |
| OFWGKTA The OF Tape Vol. 2 | 4.0 |
| Those Who Lie Beneath Antichrist | 4.0 |
| Impending Doom Baptized in Filth | 2.0 |
| Melvins The Bulls and the Bees | 4.0 |
| Spawn of Possession Incurso | 4.5 |
| This is the album that bands like Origin, Decrepit Birth, and Obscura wish they could write. The five year wait has certainly paid off in spades. |
| Cannibal Corpse Torture | 4.5 |
| Gorod A Perfect Absolution | 4.0 |
| willfellmarsy doesn't know dick. This is the most complicated and intricate album in the rband's fucking awesome discography. If the jazz guitar section in "Carved In The Wind" rdoesn't please you, I don't know what death metal could.r...and apparently I ruined his day more than this album did. Keep pretending to know more rabout metal than everyone else, if that's what gets you off. And there's no other memorable rjazz parts on the album? Did you even listen to "Varangian Paradise"? Thanks for keeping the rspirit of self-entitled Sputnik elitism alive in 2012. |
| Every Time I Die Ex Lives | 4.0 |
| Slice the Cake The Man With No Face | 3.5 |
| Veil of Maya Eclipse | 3.5 |
| The Safety Fire Grind the Ocean | 3.5 |
| Narrows Painted | 4.0 |
| Napalm Death Utilitarian | 4.0 |
| Morbid Angel Illud Divinum Insanus - The Remixes | 1.0 |
| Mouth of the Serpent Manifest | 3.0 |
| Drudkh Eternal Turn of the Wheel | 4.0 |
| Pallbearer Sorrow And Extinction | 4.5 |
| Lil Ugly Mane Mista Thug Isolation | 4.0 |
| Psycroptic The Inherited Repression | 3.5 |
| Chimp Spanner All Roads Lead Here | 3.5 |
| Grimes Visions | 3.0 |
| Lamb of God Resolution | 3.0 |
| "Straight For The Sun" alone kicks everything from Wrath right in the cunt. Lamb of God is back. |
| Abigail Williams Becoming | 3.0 |
| Aborted Global Flatline | 3.5 |
| Alcest Les Voyages De L'Âme | 3.0 |
| Kayo Dot Gamma Knife | 3.5 |
| Horrendous The Chills | 3.5 |
| Malignancy Eugenics | 3.0 |
| Incantation Vanquish in Vengeance | 3.5 |
| Timeghoul 1992-1994 Discography | 4.5 |
| 2011 |
| Intervals The Space Between | 3.5 |
| Metallica Beyond Magnetic | 2.0 |
| Korn The Path of Totality | 1.0 |
| Blut Aus Nord 777 - The Desanctification | 3.5 |
| ERRA Impulse | 3.5 |
| Vildhjarta Måsstaden | 4.5 |
| Cloudkicker Loop | 2.5 |
| Fallujah The Harvest Wombs | 4.0 |
| Vektor Outer Isolation | 4.5 |
| Koji Kondo The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony | 4.5 |
| Cloudkicker Let Yourself Be Huge | 3.5 |
| Drake Take Care | 1.0 |
| Childish Gambino Camp | 2.0 |
| Cynic Carbon-Based Anatomy | 4.0 |
| Ghoul Transmission Zero | 3.5 |
| Animals As Leaders Weightless | 3.5 |
| Lou Reed and Metallica Lulu | 1.0 |
| Megadeth Th1rt3en | 3.0 |
| Russian Circles Empros | 4.0 |
| Structures Divided By | 1.5 |
| This might be the most disorganized and least memorable record in the entire Sumerian Records catalog. |
| Electro Quarterstaff Aykroyd | 4.0 |
| Iced Earth Dystopia | 2.5 |
| Voyager The Meaning of I | 3.5 |
| Immolation Providence | 4.0 |
| Blessthefall Awakening | 1.5 |
| Absu Abzu | 3.0 |
| Blotted Science The Animation of Entomology | 4.0 |
| Within the Ruins Omen | 2.5 |
| Two decent originals accompanied by two forgettable covers. Who told these guys it was okay to cover Kansas? |
| Volumes Via | 3.5 |
| Mastodon The Hunter | 3.5 |
| Textures Dualism | 3.5 |
| Chelsea Wolfe Apokalypsis | 4.5 |
| Wormrot Noise | 3.5 |
| The Atlas Moth An Ache for the Distance | 4.0 |
| Opeth Heritage | 4.0 |
| Opeth returns in 2011 with a proggy affair. There are two kinds of records, those with and those without prog. Fortunately, Opeth recognizes the need for prog and fufills the progginess with unabashed prog. Whereas Watershed lacked prog, Heritage put the music on the prog train to progville. Proggy riffs and vocals combine with a proggy rythmn section bolstered by proggy songwriting. Overall, Heritage is an incredibly proggy event, a fantastic star studded evening of prog if you will. |
| Dream Theater A Dramatic Turn of Events | 2.5 |
| Anthrax Worship Music | 3.5 |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Celestial Lineage | 4.0 |
| Thrice Major/Minor | 3.5 |
| Elder (USA-MA) Dead Roots Stirring | 4.0 |
| Full of Hell Roots Of Earth Are Consuming My Home | 3.5 |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers I'm With You | 2.0 |
| Circle Takes the Square Rites of Initiation | 4.0 |
| Design the Skyline Nevaeh | 1.0 |
| Revocation Chaos of Forms | 3.5 |
| YOB Atma | 4.0 |
| All Pigs Must Die God Is War | 4.0 |
| Trivium In Waves | 2.5 |
| Jay-Z and Kanye West Watch the Throne | 3.0 |
| Danny Brown XXX | 4.0 |
| Iwrestledabearonce Ruining It for Everybody | 2.0 |
| All Shall Perish This Is Where It Ends | 3.5 |
| Chelsea Grin My Damnation | 1.0 |
| Suicide Silence The Black Crown | 2.0 |
| Decapitated Carnival Is Forever | 3.0 |
| Cannabis Corpse Beneath Grow Lights Thou Shalt Rise | 3.5 |
| Unearth Darkness in the Light | 3.0 |
| Harm's Way (USA-IL) Isolation | 4.0 |
| Ingested The Surreption | 3.0 |
| Yes Fly from Here | 3.0 |
| Limp Bizkit Gold Cobra | 1.0 |
| Evan Brewer Alone | 4.0 |
| *shels Plains Of The Purple Buffalo | 4.0 |
| In Flames Sounds of a Playground Fading | 2.0 |
| Tired band releases tired album consisting of recycled riffs and hackneyed hooks. Fucking snooze. |
| August Burns Red Leveler | 3.0 |
| Fit for an Autopsy The Process of Human Extermination | 3.5 |
| Bon Iver Bon Iver, Bon Iver | 4.0 |
| Devin Townsend Project Ghost | 4.5 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Ritual | 4.5 |
| Devin Townsend Project Deconstruction | 5.0 |
| Symphony X Iconoclast | 3.0 |
| Morbid Angel Illud Divinum Insanus | 1.5 |
| Origin Entity | 2.5 |
| Behemoth Abyssus Abyssum Invocat | 4.0 |
| Gigan Quasi-Hallucinogenic Sonic Landscapes | 3.5 |
| Gorod Transcendence | 4.0 |
| Autopsy Macabre Eternal | 3.5 |
| Unexpect Fables of the Sleepless Empire | 4.0 |
In A Flesh Aquarium was the soundtrack to the itchiest asshole you've ever had. Fables of
the Sleepless Empire is the finger that scratches it away. ChaotH reigns. |
| Maybeshewill I Was Here For a Moment, Then I Was Gone | 4.0 |
| Boris Heavy Rocks (2011) | 3.5 |
| Nader Sadek In the Flesh | 4.0 |
| Liturgy Aesthethica | 2.5 |
| Tyler, the Creator Goblin | 3.0 |
| Hate Eternal Phoenix Amongst The Ashes | 3.5 |
| Man Man Life Fantastic | 3.5 |
| Manchester Orchestra Simple Math | 4.0 |
| Empty Space Orchestra Empty Space Orchestra | 4.5 |
| Cities Aviv Digital Lows | 4.0 |
| Deafheaven Roads to Judah | 3.5 |
| Krallice Diotima | 3.5 |
| Death Grips Exmilitary | 4.5 |
| Ulver Wars of the Roses | 4.0 |
| Blut Aus Nord 777 - Sect(s) | 4.0 |
| Explosions in the Sky Take Care, Take Care, Take Care | 3.5 |
| Periphery Icarus | 3.0 |
| Red Fang Murder the Mountains | 3.5 |
| Beyond Creation The Aura | 4.0 |
| Last Chance to Reason Level 2 | 4.0 |
| Between the Buried and Me The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues | 4.5 |
| Cold Cave Cherish The Light Years | 4.0 |
| Obscura Omnivium | 3.0 |
| Amon Amarth Surtur Rising | 3.5 |
| GridLink Orphan | 4.0 |
| Light Bearer Lapsus | 4.0 |
| Wormrot Dirge | 4.5 |
| Probably the best death/grind record since Insect Warfare's World Extermination. The craziest metal I've yet to hear in 2011, and it's only eighteen minutes long. |
| Protest the Hero Scurrilous | 3.5 |
| Born of Osiris The Discovery | 3.5 |
| TesseracT One | 4.5 |
| Across the Sun Before the Night Takes Us | 2.5 |
Good ideas weighed down by cheesy keyboards and silly clean vocals. But hey, it's better
than Becoming the Archetype. |
| Trap Them Darker Handcraft | 4.0 |
| Rotten Sound Cursed | 4.0 |
| KEN mode Venerable | 4.5 |
| Lupe Fiasco Lasers | 1.5 |
| Burzum Fallen | 2.5 |
| The Human Abstract Digital Veil | 3.5 |
| Weedeater Jason the Dragon | 3.5 |
| Scale the Summit The Collective | 4.0 |
| Darkest Hour The Human Romance | 3.5 |
| Moonsorrow Varjoina kuljemme kuolleiden maassa | 3.5 |
| Radiohead The King of Limbs | 2.0 |
| Frank Ocean Nostalgia, Ultra. | 3.5 |
| Emmure Speaker Of The Dead | 1.0 |
| Mogwai Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will | 4.0 |
| Devin Townsend Project European Tour | 4.0 |
| Glassjaw Coloring Book | 4.0 |
| Earth Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I | 3.5 |
| Ulcerate The Destroyers of All | 4.0 |
| Architects The Here and Now | 2.5 |
| Times of Grace The Hymn of a Broken Man | 3.5 |
| Mitochondrion Parasignosis | 4.0 |
| Bell Witch Bell Witch Demo 2011 | 2.5 |
| Death Grips Death Grips | 4.0 |
| 2010 |
| Chelsea Wolfe The Grime And The Glow | 3.5 |
| Ghostface Killah Apollo Kids | 3.5 |
| Amia Venera Landscape The Long Procession | 4.0 |
| WRVTH Portals Through Ophiuchus | 2.5 |
| Agalloch Marrow of the Spirit | 3.0 |
| After the Burial In Dreams | 3.5 |
| Haarp The Filth | 4.0 |
| Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy | 3.0 |
| This is for you. For you. For you. For you. For you. For you. For you. And you. And you. So anybody, you can do whatever you want to do. I love you, no matter what you think of me and, if this night means as much to you as it does to me, you'll enjoy yourself on your own terms. |
| Magrudergrind Crusher | 3.5 |
Scion and Magrudergrind gave you a free EP that is legitimately well-produced and
relentlessly violent. Butthurt inter-fags worldwide pretend to not like how "corporate" it
is. Too bad they're reading this soundoff on their MacBook Pro. |
| Kesha Cannibal | 1.0 |
| Inquisition Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical... | 4.0 |
| A Day To Remember What Separates Me from You | 2.0 |
| Oceano Contagion | 1.5 |
| Cradle of Filth Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa | 2.0 |
| GWAR Bloody Pit of Horror | 3.5 |
| The Ocean Anthropocentric | 4.0 |
| Deathspell Omega Paracletus | 4.0 |
| Underoath Ø (Disambiguation) | 4.0 |
| Behemoth Evangelica Heretica | 4.0 |
| Iwrestledabearonce It's All Dubstep | 1.0 |
| Atheist Jupiter | 4.0 |
| Electric Wizard Black Masses | 3.5 |
| Kylesa Spiral Shadow | 4.0 |
| Conducting from the Grave Revenants | 3.5 |
| Ghost (SWE) Opus Eponymous | 4.0 |
| All That Remains ...For We Are Many | 2.0 |
| Intronaut Valley of Smoke | 3.5 |
| TesseracT Concealing Fate | 4.0 |
| Down Diary Of A Mad Band | 4.5 |
| Bring Me the Horizon There Is a Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It... | 2.0 |
| Cough Ritual Abuse | 3.5 |
| Abigail Williams In the Absence of Light | 3.0 |
Abigail Williams attempt to steal Emperor's first two records and yield some occasionally
great, but mostly mediocre results. But hey, at least they're not playing breakdowns
anymore! |
| August Burns Red Home | 3.0 |
| Enslaved Axioma Ethica Odini | 4.5 |
| Dimmu Borgir Abrahadabra | 2.0 |
| Opeth In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall | 5.0 |
| Cloudkicker Beacons | 4.5 |
| Swans My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky | 4.0 |
| Within the Ruins Invade | 3.0 |
| The Contortionist Exoplanet | 4.0 |
| Cephalic Carnage Misled by Certainty | 4.0 |
| The Sword Warp Riders | 4.0 |
| One of the most fun and groovy albums of the year. Add some riffs to your spliffs. |
| Cerebral Bore Maniacal Miscreation | 3.0 |
| Orbs Asleep Next to Science | 3.5 |
| Iron Maiden The Final Frontier | 2.5 |
| Kataklysm Heaven's Venom | 2.5 |
| Bongripper Satan Worshipping Doom | 4.0 |
| Waking The Cadaver Beyond Cops, Beyond God | 1.0 |
| You don't have to be an elitist to know this is pretty much the worst band ever. |
| Dirt Nasty Nasty As I Wanna Be | 2.5 |
| Immortal The Seventh Date of Blashyrkh | 4.0 |
| Fleshwrought Dementia/Dyslexia | 3.5 |
| Wretched (USA-NC) Beyond the Gate | 4.0 |
| Blind Guardian At the Edge of Time | 3.5 |
| Avenged Sevenfold Nightmare | 2.5 |
| Decrepit Birth Polarity | 4.0 |
| Impending Doom There Will Be Violence | 2.0 |
| The Acacia Strain Wormwood | 3.5 |
| Thy Art Is Murder The Adversary | 3.5 |
| Korn Korn III: Remember Who You Are | 2.0 |
| Big Boi Sir Lucious Left Foot | 4.0 |
| The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza Danza III: Series of Unfortunate Events | 4.0 |
| Parkway Drive Deep Blue | 4.0 |
| United Nations Never Mind the Bombings, Here's Your Six Figures | 4.0 |
| This or the Apocalypse Haunt What's Left | 3.0 |
| The Roots How I Got Over | 4.0 |
| Kvelertak Kvelertak | 4.0 |
| Eminem Recovery | 2.5 |
| Drake Thank Me Later | 1.0 |
| Ozzy Osbourne Scream | 1.5 |
| Journal Unlorja | 4.0 |
| Whitechapel A New Era of Corruption | 2.0 |
| Ratatat LP4 | 3.5 |
| Watain Lawless Darkness | 3.0 |
| Melvins The Bride Screamed Murder | 3.5 |
| Anathema We're Here Because We're Here | 4.5 |
| Aeon Path of Fire | 3.0 |
| Rosetta A Determinism of Morality | 4.0 |
| Cynic Re-Traced | 3.5 |
| Rings of Saturn Embryonic Anomaly | 1.5 |
| Dead Letter Circus This Is The Warning | 3.0 |
| Deafheaven Demo | 4.0 |
| Brain Drill Quantum Catastrophe | 1.0 |
| Attila Rage | 1.0 |
| As I Lay Dying The Powerless Rise | 3.5 |
| OFWGKTA Radical | 3.0 |
| Mike Patton Mondo Cane | 3.5 |
| Defeated Sanity Chapters of Repugnance | 4.5 |
| Deftones Diamond Eyes | 4.5 |
| At the Gates Purgatory Unleashed: Live At Wacken | 4.5 |
| Twilight Monument To Time End | 4.0 |
| They Found Her In Pieces Victorian | 3.0 |
| Kayo Dot Coyote | 3.0 |
| Periphery Periphery (Instrumental) | 4.0 |
| Periphery Periphery | 4.5 |
| The Ocean Heliocentric | 2.5 |
| Woe Of Tyrants Threnody | 3.0 |
| Sons of Aurelius The Farthest Reaches | 3.0 |
| The Tallest Man on Earth The Wild Hunt | 3.5 |
| Coheed and Cambria Year of the Black Rainbow | 4.0 |
| This is the album I've been wanting Coheed and Cambria to write for years now. |
| Veil of Maya [id] | 3.5 |
| Veil of Maya improve from their sophomore release, The Common Man's Collapse, reaching even rhigher levels of technicality than before. It's very clear that guitarist Marc Okubo and rdrummer Sam Applebaum are ridiculously talented, but some of the more glorious moments on rthe album (ex: Mowgli and Conquer) are lost in a contrived sea of Meshuggah posturing that rjust serves the purpose of getting the scene kids jumping. Veil of Maya is dangerously close rto realizing their potential as a legitimate progressive metal band, they just need to flesh rout their songs more and use a much less thin production to their mix. But the more melodic rsongs are definitely worth your attention. |
| Red Sparowes The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein... | 3.5 |
| Darkthrone Circle the Wagons | 2.5 |
| Hour of Penance Paradogma | 3.0 |
| Kiuas Lustdriven | 3.5 |
| Earl Sweatshirt EARL | 3.5 |
| Meth, Ghost and Rae Wu-Massacre | 3.0 |
| Rotten Sound Napalm | 4.0 |
| Alcest Écailles De Lune | 3.0 |
| Xasthur Portal Of Sorrow | 2.5 |
| Justin Bieber My World 2.0 | 1.0 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Option Paralysis | 4.5 |
This album proves two very important things:
1. The Dillinger Escape Plan doesn't need Chris Pennie to make a kick ass album.
2. Ire Works really was just a fluke. |
| Soreption Deterioration of Minds | 4.0 |
| Immolation Majesty and Decay | 4.5 |
| Gorillaz Plastic Beach | 4.0 |
| Burzum Belus | 3.5 |
| Volumes The Concept of Dreaming | 3.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity We Are the Void | 3.0 |
| Joanna Newsom Have One on Me | 3.0 |
| High on Fire Snakes for the Divine | 4.0 |
| Borknagar Universal | 3.0 |
| Chelsea Grin Desolation Of Eden | 1.0 |
| Carnifex Hell Chose Me | 2.0 |
| In Mourning Monolith | 3.5 |
| Nails Unsilent Death | 4.5 |
| Arsis Starve for the Devil | 3.0 |
| Arsis completely change from their previous outing, We Are the Nightmare. Instead of a more flashy and technical approach that their last album took, Starve For the Devil focuses more on thrash/80's metal influences and more hooks than ever previously presented in an Arsis record. Mike Van Dyne delivers his best drum performance to date, giving Arsis a sense of rejuvination and drive. James consistently slays the fretboard, which has become the norm for followers of the band. Hell, you'll even hear a bass solo in "Closer To Cold". Check out "A March For the Sick", "From Soulless to Shattered (Art In Dying)", and "Closer To Cold" for some of the most solid metal I've heard in a while. |
| Meshuggah Alive | 4.0 |
| Cloudkicker ]]][[[ | 4.0 |
| Through the Eyes of the Dead Skepsis | 3.0 |
This album is completely harmless.
|
| Lil Wayne Rebirth | 1.0 |
| Overkill Ironbound | 4.0 |
| Arkaik Reflections Within Dissonance | 4.0 |
| Orphaned Land The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR | 2.5 |
| Ihsahn After | 3.0 |
| Six Feet Under Graveyard Classics III | 1.0 |
| Sigh Scenes from Hell | 4.0 |
| Son of Aurelius The Farthest Reaches | 3.0 |
| 2009 |
| Painted in Exile Revitalized | 3.0 |
| Tyler, the Creator Bastard | 4.0 |
| Mudvayne Mudvayne | 3.0 |
| Eminem Relapse: Refill | 2.0 |
| Chimp Spanner At the Dream's Edge | 3.5 |
| Sumatra Heliocratic Infinity | 3.0 |
| Circle of Contempt Artifacts in Motion | 2.5 |
| Them Crooked Vultures Them Crooked Vultures | 4.0 |
| Vektor Black Future | 4.0 |
| Devin Townsend Project Addicted | 4.5 |
| Krallice Dimensional Bleedthrough | 4.0 |
| Gaza He Is Never Coming Back | 4.0 |
| Nile Those Whom the Gods Detest | 2.0 |
Nile released another album. They're so cute.
But seriously, this album is simply another regurgitation of everything they've made from In Their Darkened Shrines onward. George Kollias is still obnoxiously fast, the solos still make Kerry King look like he knows what he's doing, and Dallas still sounds like a dishwasher. Not to mention the added pseudo-Egyptian clean vocals are some of the most lol-worthy additions to any metal album this year. Every once in a while a riff will come along that absolutely rules, but you won't remember it for long. Overall, it's just Nile shitting out another album just because it's been another two years. |
| Slayer World Painted Blood | 2.5 |
| This album would probably be really good if it wasn't 2009 and Reign In Blood, South of Heaven, and Seasons in the Abyss hadn't already been around for ages. World Painted Blood strikes me nothing more than Slayer trying to show their fans that they can still sound the exact same, though I don't understand exactly why they'd want to do that. Sure there's some great riffs to be found in here every now and then, but as a whole World Painted Blood is an underwhelming and completely superfluous album. Oh, and the production blows too. |
| Say Anything Say Anything | 3.5 |
| Scar Symmetry Dark Matter Dimensions | 2.5 |
| Pelican What We All Come to Need | 3.0 |
| Between the Buried and Me The Great Misdirect | 4.0 |
| With The Great Misdirect, it seems that Between the Buried and Me have no interest in being associated with the metalcore scene they once dominated. Instead, it seems like they're more interested in being associated with progressive metal giants like Dream Theater and Opeth (who they shared the stage with not one year ago). The Great Misdirect is filled to the brim with guitar solos, time-changes on a dime, and more genre-hopping than Colors, only this time it feels much less forced. While BTBAM's latest isn't quite as ambitious as their previous outing, it's still an incredibly impressive album that just shows the band becoming even more comfortable in their own shoes and realizing just how damn talented they really are. Plus, the drum solo in "Swim to the Moon" is worth just about anyone's attention. |
| R.A. The Rugged Man Legendary Classics Vol. 1 | 4.0 |
| The Red Chord Fed Through the Teeth Machine | 4.5 |
| The Red Chord stray further and further away from their hardcore/metalcore influences and take the sounds developed on Prey For Eyes in an even faster, more death metal-influenced direction. The band, despite losing a second guitar player, still sounds as menacing as always, introducing groove in songs like "Hymns and Crippled Anthems" and loads of melody in "Hour of Rats" and "Mouthful of Precious Stones", while still maintaining loads of breakdowns and ugly, dissonant leads that The Red Chord has become known so well for. One of the most badass records of 2009. |
| Shrinebuilder Shrinebuilder | 4.5 |
| Thrice Beggars | 3.0 |
| Those Who Lie Beneath An Awakening | 3.5 |
| Baroness Blue Record | 4.0 |
| Cannabis Corpse The Weeding | 3.0 |
| Portal Swarth | 3.5 |
| Converge Axe to Fall | 4.5 |
| Paramore Brand New Eyes | 3.0 |
| Doomriders Darkness Come Alive | 3.5 |
| Revocation Existence Is Futile | 4.0 |
| The Avett Brothers I and Love and You | 4.0 |
| Immortal All Shall Fall | 3.0 |
| The Contortionist Apparition | 3.5 |
| A pretty decent deathcore album. These guys clearly listen to a lot of Between the Buried and Me but still find themselves trying to dig their way out of a scene that has become oversaturated with 808's and thuper-thweet two step sections. While those elements are present on Apparition, it's much more enjoyable than most of their br00tal comrades by showing a sense of experimentation and musical aptitude. I look forward to seeing how these guys progress in the upcoming years. It's up to these guys, Veil of Maya, and Within the Ruins to keep modern deathcore interesting at this point. |
| Dragged Into Sunlight Hatred For Mankind | 4.0 |
| Despised Icon Day Of Mourning | 2.0 |
| Brand New Daisy | 4.0 |
| Porcupine Tree The Incident | 3.0 |
| Asking Alexandria Stand Up and Scream | 1.0 |
| Shadows Fall Retribution | 2.0 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Deflorate | 3.0 |
| After the Burial Rareform (Re-release) | 3.0 |
| Protest the Hero Gallop Meets the Earth | 3.5 |
| Every Time I Die New Junk Aesthetic | 4.0 |
| Remember when Every Time I Die wrote really fun songs like "We'rewolf" and "INRihab"? Yeah, that's but a distant memory at this point. New Junk Aesthetic is here to whoop ass, make you want to grow a beard, chug a few PBR's, and maybe start a circle pit with those in your immediate area. And for a short and blistering thirty-one minutes, I couldn't ask for more. Check out "Organ Grinder", "For the Record", and "White Smoke" for top notch Botch-influenced metalcore, "Roman Holiday" for a surprisingly crushing intro track, and "The Marvelous Slut" for just a good time. |
| Muse The Resistance | 2.5 |
| Megadeth Endgame | 4.0 |
| Jay-Z The Blueprint 3 | 2.0 |
| Ensiferum From Afar | 3.5 |
| Om God Is Good | 4.0 |
| Raekwon Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt II | 4.0 |
| Emmure Felony | 1.0 |
| GWAR Lust in Space | 3.5 |
| Winds of Plague The Great Stone War | 2.0 |
| Behemoth Evangelion | 4.0 |
| Ahab The Divinity of Oceans | 3.5 |
| Augury Fragmentary Evidence | 3.5 |
| YOB The Great Cessation | 3.5 |
| August Burns Red Constellations | 4.5 |
| Born of Osiris A Higher Place | 2.5 |
| Job for a Cowboy Ruination | 3.0 |
| Merauder God Is I | 3.0 |
| Dysrhythmia Psychic Maps | 3.5 |
| Admiral Angry Buster | 4.0 |
| Vildhjarta Omnislash | 3.5 |
| Suffocation Blood Oath | 4.0 |
| Suicide Silence No Time to Bleed | 1.5 |
| Killswitch Engage Killswitch Engage (2009) | 2.5 |
| Maybeshewill Sing The Word Hope In Four-Part Harmony | 4.5 |
| Dream Theater Black Clouds and Silver Linings | 3.0 |
| Dream Theater returns with their umpteenth effort, The Bleakest Future. Mike Portnoy plays the drums mega fast and destroys your eardrums with gut-fucking brutal vocals. Everyone else in the band is fucking nutz. They constantly attack with stunning musical imagery coupled with overwhelming technicality. When I heard the first track, called Overcome With Nightmarish Chug, I rushed to the kitchen where my mom was making the macaroni and cheese I had ordered her to make twenty minutes earlier, snatched the pot of boiling water from the stainless-steel stove, and threw it into the dining room. My mom said that I needed to respect her more and I told her I wouldnt until she could shred harder than John Petrucci, which will never happen, because NO ONE can. The most novel aspect of the Dream Theaters music is the subtle flourishes of soca and rhythm and blues that they have adopted. John Myung plays the bass guitar much like a soulful black man would strum on a box outside on a porch in those grand plantation days. He doesnt sound like that awkward Asian person you see playing the bass. The most progressive musical outfit since Rush, the most aggressive since Nile, the wisest since Slayer, Dream Theater will come at you like a crazy train and run you over and make smush out of your fucking soul. |
| Maylene and the Sons of Disaster III | 3.0 |
| Darkest Hour The Eternal Return | 3.5 |
| The Mars Volta Octahedron | 4.5 |
| Ingested Surpassing the Boundaries of Human Suffering | 3.0 |
| Drudkh Microcosmos | 4.0 |
| Gorod Process of a New Decline | 3.5 |
| brokeNCYDE I'm Not a Fan, but the Kids Like It! | 1.0 |
| Amorphis Skyforger | 2.5 |
| Amorphis' most recent musical outing is essentially a few fantastic ideas spread out across a sea of mediocrity. While the band does try to delve more into a prog metal sound, Skyforger's eleven songs can easily become stagnant. This wasn't terrible...it just could have been way more interesting. |
| Nails Obscene Humanity | 3.5 |
| A Skylit Drive Adelphia | 1.0 |
| Coalesce OX | 4.0 |
| Mos Def The Ecstatic | 4.0 |
| Pelican Ephemeral | 3.5 |
| Karnivool Sound Awake | 4.5 |
| Iwrestledabearonce It's All Happening | 3.0 |
| Devourment Unleash the Carnivore | 1.5 |
| Gnostic Engineering the Rule | 4.0 |
| Devin Townsend Project Ki | 4.5 |
| Old Man's Child Slaves of the World | 3.5 |
| Green Day 21st Century Breakdown | 1.5 |
| Eminem Relapse | 2.0 |
| maudlin of the Well Part the Second | 4.0 |
| Narrows New Distances | 4.0 |
| Closure in Moscow First Temple | 4.0 |
| Sunn O))) Monoliths and Dimensions | 4.0 |
| Heaven and Hell The Devil You Know | 4.0 |
| Animals As Leaders Animals as Leaders | 4.5 |
| Celeste Misanthrope(s) | 3.5 |
| ISIS Wavering Radiant | 4.0 |
| Fightstar Be Human | 4.0 |
| Warbringer Waking into Nightmares | 2.5 |
| As I Lay Dying This Is Who We Are | 3.5 |
| Insect Warfare Noise Grind Power Death | 1.0 |
| I hate this album. But that's the point, right? |
| Oceano Depths | 1.5 |
| Ulcerate Everything Is Fire | 4.5 |
| And So I Watch You From Afar And So I Watch You From Afar | 4.0 |
| Fit for an Autopsy Hell on Earth | 2.5 |
| Mumakil Behold The Failure | 3.5 |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Black Cascade | 4.0 |
| Mono Hymn to the Immortal Wind | 4.0 |
| Mastodon Crack the Skye | 4.5 |
| Imagine if Mastodon took the strongest elements of "Sleeping Giant", "Hearts Alive", and "Pendulous Skin" and made an entire album out of them. Add a terrific (and crushing) vocal performance from Neurosis' Scott Kelly, improved clean vocals from both Troy and Brent, and an overall knack for combining thinking-man's metal with catchy hooks simultaneously. In short, Crack the Skye isn't something you should miss. Inevitably one of the strongest metal releases of the year. |
| Kylesa Static Tensions | 4.0 |
| The Number Twelve Looks Like You Worse Than Alone | 3.5 |
| Propagandhi Supporting Caste | 4.0 |
| Fleshgod Apocalypse Oracles | 3.5 |
| Lamb of God Wrath | 2.5 |
| With each of their previous releases, Lamb of God brought a new sound to the table while still saying in their niche of "pure American metal". Sadly, they've become too comfortable with their current sound and popularity, and have thus cranked out a lazy, recycled album that strikes me nothing more as a b-sides to Sacrament. Wrath has it's moments, but you'll really have to listen hard to find them. |
| The Agonist Lullabies for the Dormant Mind | 4.0 |
| ...and the award for Most Improved Metal Band of 2009 goes to The Agonist. Congrats, fellas. |
| Viraemia Viraemia | 1.0 |
| Psyopus Odd Senses | 1.5 |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Malevolent Grain | 3.5 |
| Scale the Summit Carving Desert Canyons | 3.5 |
| Obscura Cosmogenesis | 4.0 |
| Within the Ruins Creature | 4.0 |
| Conducting from the Grave When Legends Become Dust | 3.0 |
| The Lonely Island Incredibad | 4.0 |
| A Day To Remember Homesick | 2.5 |
| Cannibal Corpse Evisceration Plague | 4.0 |
| Architects Hollow Crown | 4.0 |
| Cattle Decapitation The Harvest Floor | 3.5 |
| Kreator Hordes of Chaos | 3.0 |
| Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion | 3.0 |
| Wormrot Abuse | 4.0 |
| 2008 |
| Common Universal Mind Control | 1.5 |
| Opeth Burden | 3.0 |
| Severed Savior Servile Insurrection | 2.5 |
| Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak | 3.0 |
| Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy | 1.5 |
| Mudvayne The New Game | 2.0 |
| Deeds of Flesh Of What's to Come | 3.5 |
| Attack Attack! Someday Came Suddenly | 1.0 |
| Jedi Mind Tricks A History of Violence | 2.0 |
| Not even Stoupe's frequently stellar beats can save this train wreck. Jus Allah's return to the group, while being positive for the group's morale, is just painful to listen to. Jus' delivery is incredibly awkward and his rhymes are nothing more than nonsensical plays on words that don't do it for me. Vinnie Paz has recycled every last punchline he can on here, almost always referencing boxers, serial killers and religious figures. While it worked quite well on Legacy of Blood, it's far too stale and boring at this point. Something drastic needs to happen on the next record, or Jedi Mind Tricks is going to lose a once loyal fan. |
| Pig Destroyer Natasha | 3.5 |
| Behemoth Ezkaton | 3.5 |
| The Faceless Planetary Duality | 4.5 |
| William Control Hate Culture | 1.0 |
| A Hero a Fake Volatile | 2.0 |
| Abigail Williams In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns | 2.5 |
| Enslaved Vertebrae | 4.0 |
| Cynic Traced in Air | 4.5 |
| Cradle of Filth Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder | 2.5 |
| Squarepusher Just a Souvenir | 3.5 |
| Escape the Fate This War Is Ours | 1.5 |
| Darkthrone Dark Thrones and Black Flags | 1.5 |
| Unearth The March | 3.5 |
| While Unearth's The March isn't exactly anything new and the album art is pretty bad, it's still a really enjoyable metalcore album and a worthy addition to the band's already stellar discography. This album's twelve new songs take the band further away from their once hardcore-oriented sound and more into a groove/thrash metal hybrid, while still maintaining an unhealthy amount of breakdowns. Unearth has never sounded as melodic or as shreddy thanks to Buz McGrath's massive improvement on the fretboard. Sure, it's a slightly less amazing version of III: In the Eyes of Fire, but it's still worthy of any metal fan's attention. One of the must-have metal albums of the year. |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Under the Running Board (Reissue) | 3.5 |
| Between the Buried and Me Colors_Live | 4.0 |
| Gojira The Way of All Flesh | 4.5 |
| Rise Against Appeal to Reason | 3.0 |
| Bloodbath The Fathomless Mastery | 3.0 |
| Bleeding Through Declaration | 2.5 |
| Trivium Shogun | 3.0 |
| Trivium learn a lot from their past mistakes and come back with a (mostly) solid album. The first five songs and the title track are easily the strongest material Heafy & Co. have ever written, though the remainder of the album drags, and Matt Heafy's harsh vocals are just as grating as ever. Over an hour of Trivium is simply too much for all but the most loyal of fans. While I'm still not totally convinced that this band is as great as some would have you believe, I'm starting to see a bit of light. Everyone should at least check out "Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis", it's one of the twenty best metal songs of the year. |
| Jeff Loomis Zero Order Phase | 3.5 |
| Amon Amarth Twilight of the Thunder God | 3.5 |
| Suspyre When Time Fades | 3.5 |
| Bring Me the Horizon Suicide Season | 2.0 |
| Psycroptic Ob(Servant) | 3.5 |
| Mogwai The Hawk Is Howling | 3.5 |
| Converge Deathwish Live Series 02: Minneapolis | 3.5 |
| All That Remains Overcome | 2.5 |
| Burst Lazarus Bird | 4.0 |
| Intronaut Prehistoricisms | 4.5 |
| Metallica Death Magnetic | 3.0 |
| United Nations United Nations | 4.5 |
| All Shall Perish Awaken the Dreamers | 2.5 |
| Hollywood Undead Swan Songs | 1.0 |
| Into Eternity The Incurable Tragedy | 2.0 |
| Underoath Lost in the Sound of Separation | 4.5 |
| A few weeks ago I never thought this album would be on here, but man this one is a grower. Underoath have really improved over the past years, and have finally released a truly superb album. LITSOS is just a perfect placement of songs; the slower and lighter songs come at all the right times and the heavy songs will bring you back in with a dissonant, hardcore flurry. Both vocalists are also on the top of the game and always draw me in on a very personal and emotional level. A killer album! |
| DragonForce Ultra Beatdown | 1.5 |
| Slipknot All Hope Is Gone | 3.0 |
| The Human Abstract Midheaven | 1.5 |
| The Acacia Strain Continent | 2.5 |
| Protest the Hero Sequoia Throne: Remixed | 1.0 |
| Norma Jean The Anti Mother | 2.5 |
| Krallice Krallice | 3.5 |
| Austrian Death Machine Total Brutal | 3.0 |
| After the Burial Rareform | 3.0 |
| One Day as a Lion One Day as a Lion | 3.5 |
| Misery Signals Controller | 4.5 |
| Cloudkicker The Discovery | 4.5 |
| Whitechapel This Is Exile | 2.5 |
| GridLink Amber Gray | 4.0 |
| Fellsilent The Hidden Words | 3.5 |
| Equilibrium Sagas | 3.5 |
| Carnifex The Diseased and Poisoned | 1.5 |
| Cryptopsy The Unspoken King | 1.5 |
| Years Spent Cold Moving Heaven To Hell | 2.5 |
| Daylight Dies Lost to the Living | 3.5 |
| Scar Symmetry Holographic Universe | 4.5 |
| Scar Symmetry release a modern melodic death metal album that doesn't sound like it's ripping off Slaughter of the Soul the entire time. While that should be enough to get you to listen to Holographic Universe, throw in a solid instrumental performance on all fronts and more vocal hooks than you'll ever be able to remember. The title track might also be the song of the year. A must have for metal in 2008. |
| Judas Priest Nostradamus | 2.0 |
| Melvins Nude With Boots | 4.0 |
| Lil Wayne Tha Carter III | 2.0 |
| Nachtmystium Assassins: Black Meddle Pt.1 | 2.5 |
| Lamb of God Walk with Me in Hell | 3.5 |
| Keep of Kalessin Kolossus | 3.0 |
| Harvey Milk Life... The Best Game in Town | 3.5 |
| Disturbed Indestructible | 3.5 |
| Opeth Watershed | 4.0 |
| Radiohead The Best Of | 2.5 |
| Kataklysm Prevail | 3.0 |
| Ihsahn angL | 3.5 |
| Underoath Survive Kaleidoscope | 4.0 |
| The Carrier No Love Can Save Me | 4.5 |
| Stick to Your Guns Comes From the Heart | 1.5 |
| Emmure The Respect Issue | 1.5 |
| Kiuas The New Dark Age | 4.0 |
| Kayo Dot Blue Lambency Downward | 2.5 |
| Russian Circles Station | 4.0 |
| Textures Silhouettes | 3.5 |
| Revocation Empire of the Obscene | 3.5 |
| Maybeshewill Not For Want Of Trying | 4.0 |
| Moonsorrow Tulimyrsky | 3.5 |
| The Roots Rising Down | 3.5 |
| Deicide Till Death Do Us Part | 2.0 |
| Bongripper Hate Ashbury | 3.5 |
| Cancer Bats Hail Destroyer | 3.0 |
| Bloodbath The Wacken Carnage | 4.0 |
| Cannabis Corpse Tube of the Resinated | 4.0 |
| Children of Bodom Blooddrunk | 2.0 |
| Painfully average album overall. The only three songs that stand out are "Tie My Rope", "Blooddrunk" and "Roadkill Morning". The rest just sound like b-sides to the band's previous two albums and don't seem original or inspired. I was disappointed by this. |
| Thrice The Alchemy Index Vols. III & IV | 4.0 |
| Arsis We Are the Nightmare | 4.5 |
| Arsis maintain the devastating technicality from United In Regret and decided to throw in a plethora of hooks this time around. The production also has improved by leaps and bounds, making this the most accessible Arsis album to date, despite the constant flurry of fretboard acrobatics. Darren Cesca's drum performance here is also almost too much to take. Almost. |
| Mirrorthrone Gangrene | 4.0 |
| Torche Meanderthal | 4.0 |
| In Flames A Sense of Purpose | 2.0 |
| Origin Antithesis | 2.5 |
| Unearth Alive From the Apocalypse | 3.5 |
| The Sword Gods of the Earth | 4.0 |
| Veil of Maya The Common Man's Collapse | 4.5 |
| Firewind The Premonition | 3.0 |
| Leviathan Massive Conspiracy Against All Life | 4.0 |
| Cursed III: Architects of Troubled Sleep | 4.0 |
| Meshuggah obZen | 4.0 |
| Bloodbath Unblessing the Purity | 4.5 |
| Boris Smile | 3.5 |
| Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV | 3.0 |
| MyChildren MyBride Unbreakable | 1.5 |
| Revenge (CAN) Infiltration.Downfall.Death | 3.5 |
| Hour of Penance The Vile Conception | 4.0 |
| Genghis Tron Board Up the House | 3.5 |
| To-Mera Delusions | 2.5 |
| Dismember Dismember | 3.5 |
| Eluveitie Slania | 3.5 |
| Winds of Plague Decimate the Weak | 2.0 |
| Take every metalcore/deathcore cliche imaginable and just beat yourself over the head with it for ten songs. And throw in some "epic" keyboards while you're at it. Oh well, at least Anthems of Apocalypse is a good song. |
| Warbringer War Without End | 3.5 |
| Dead Congregation Graves of the Archangels | 4.0 |
| Decrepit Birth Diminishing Between Worlds | 3.5 |
| The Mars Volta The Bedlam in Goliath | 4.0 |
| Protest the Hero Fortress (Instrumental) | 4.0 |
| Protest the Hero Fortress | 4.5 |
| Earth The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull | 4.0 |
| Have a Nice Life Deathconsciousness | 4.5 |
| Rotten Sound Cycles | 3.5 |
| In Mourning Shrouded Divine | 4.0 |
| Attila Soundtrack to a Party | 1.0 |
| Iced Earth The Crucible of Man | 2.5 |
| Animosity Altered Beast | 2.5 |
| Gates of Winter Lux Aeterna | 3.0 |
| Weeping Birth Anosognosic Industry of the I | 3.0 |
| Island Orakel | 3.5 |
| Off Minor Some Blood | 3.5 |
| Decapitated Human's Dust DVD | 3.5 |
| 2006 |
| Cannabis Corpse Blunted at Birth | 3.0 |
| Warning Watching from a Distance | 4.0 |
| Killswitch Engage As Daylight Dies | 3.0 |
| Brand New The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me | 4.0 |
| SuidAkrA Caledonia | 3.0 |
| Devin Townsend The Hummer | 3.0 |
| I Killed the Prom Queen Music for the Recently Deceased | 2.0 |
| Tenacious D The Pick of Destiny | 3.5 |
| Yndi Halda Enjoy Eternal Bliss | 4.0 |
| Brain Drill The Parasites | 1.0 |
| Arsis United in Regret | 4.0 |
| Joanna Newsom Ys | 2.0 |
| ISIS In the Absence of Truth | 3.5 |
| Sunn O))) and Boris Altar | 4.0 |
| Meshuggah Nothing (Re-Release) | 4.5 |
| Bring Me the Horizon Count Your Blessings | 1.5 |
| Borknagar Origin | 3.5 |
| Deftones Saturday Night Wrist | 4.0 |
| Converge No Heroes | 4.0 |
| Electro Quarterstaff Gretzky | 4.0 |
| Drudkh Songs of Grief and Solitude | 3.0 |
| Cradle of Filth Thornography | 3.0 |
| Children of Bodom Chaos Ridden Years - Stockholm Knockout | 3.5 |
| Alestorm Terror on the High Seas | 3.0 |
| Trivium The Crusade | 1.5 |
| The Blood Brothers Young Machetes | 3.0 |
| These Arms Are Snakes Easter | 3.5 |
| Melvins A Senile Animal | 4.0 |
| Evanescence The Open Door | 3.0 |
| The Decemberists The Crane Wife | 3.5 |
| Amon Amarth With Oden on Our Side | 4.0 |
| Into Eternity The Scattering of Ashes | 4.0 |
| Gaza I Don't Care Where I Go When I Die | 4.0 |
| Escape the Fate Dying Is Your Latest Fashion | 2.5 |
| Ahab The Call of the Wretched Sea | 4.0 |
| Jedi Mind Tricks Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell | 3.5 |
| Suffocation Suffocation | 4.0 |
| Mastodon Blood Mountain | 4.5 |
| This album really lived up to all of the hype it received this past year. The band has finally harnessed all of their skills to create their strongest album to date. All twelve songs on the album offer something new and exciting to listen to, and follow an epic tale to please any headbanger out there. The guitar work has improved a ton since their past albums, as has the bass work. The drumming has become less chaotic to bring the band closer together, but still packs a really mean punch. I can?t really find anything wrong with Blood Mountain at all. In short, pick it up. It?s well worth your time. |
| Archgoat Whore of Bethlehem | 3.5 |
| Justin Timberlake FutureSex/LoveSounds | 4.0 |
| The Mars Volta Amputechture | 4.5 |
| Audioslave Revelations | 2.0 |
| HORSE the band Pizza | 3.0 |
| Dead Man In Reno Dead Man In Reno | 3.0 |
| Blind Guardian A Twist in the Myth | 2.5 |
| Dream Theater Score | 3.0 |
| Iron Maiden A Matter of Life and Death | 2.5 |
| Catamenia Location:COLD | 2.5 |
| Unexpect In a Flesh Aquarium | 3.0 |
| In a Flesh Aquarium is the soundtrack to the itchiest asshole you've ever had. |
| Easy Star All Stars Radiodread | 3.0 |
| OutKast Idlewild | 3.0 |
| Misery Signals Mirrors | 4.0 |
| The Human Abstract Nocturne | 4.0 |
| These guys are much more than just a metalcore band. Sure, there's breakdowns and the typical catchy chorus, but these guys incorporate many genres besides just your typical metalcore band. Combining technical extreme metal, classical guitars, neo-classical arpeggio sweeping with an almost poppy chorus, this album can almost seem like too much. And it is, but I never get tired of it. |
| Gorod Leading Vision | 4.5 |
| Lamb of God Sacrament | 4.0 |
| Insomnium Above the Weeping World | 4.0 |
| Slayer Christ Illusion | 3.5 |
| All Shall Perish The Price of Existence | 4.0 |
| Unearth III: In the Eyes of Fire | 4.5 |
| Agalloch Ashes Against the Grain | 4.5 |
| KEN mode Reprisal | 4.0 |
| Black Stone Cherry Black Stone Cherry | 3.0 |
| Strapping Young Lad The New Black | 3.0 |
| Muse Black Holes & Revelations | 4.0 |
| All That Remains The Fall of Ideals | 4.0 |
| Rise Against The Sufferer and the Witness | 4.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria Kerrang! / XFM UK Acoustic Sessions | 3.0 |
| Underoath Define the Great Line | 4.5 |
| Skinless Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead | 2.5 |
| Between the Buried and Me The Anatomy Of | 3.0 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Plagiarism | 3.0 |
| The Acacia Strain The Dead Walk | 3.0 |
| Anata The Conductor's Departure | 4.5 |
| As Blood Runs Black Allegiance | 1.5 |
| Alesana On Frail Wings of Vanity and Wax | 1.5 |
| Deicide The Stench of Redemption | 3.0 |
| SikTh Death of a Dead Day | 4.0 |
| Ghoul Splatterthrash | 4.0 |
| War of Ages Pride of the Wicked | 2.5 |
| Insect Warfare Endless Execution Thru Violent Restit... | 3.5 |
| Spawn of Possession Noctambulant | 4.5 |
| Runic Liar Flags | 3.5 |
| Shade Empire Intoxicate O.S. | 3.0 |
| Kiuas Reformation | 3.5 |
| Escape the Fate There's No Sympathy for the Dead | 3.0 |
| Dissection Reinkaos | 3.0 |
| Burial Burial | 4.0 |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium | 1.5 |
| I've been a fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers for man years now, but this is by far the weakest album that I own by them. I don't care what Flea says, I still like the band despite the fact that this is a poor album. It's got a few enjoyable songs here and there, but overall it's just way too long and sometimes incredibly painful to listen to. There are way too many slow songs on here for my taste. I like it when RHCP blasts out with some funk-rock songs that get you pumped up and not the slower, emotional tracks that seem more like jokes than actual passages of feeling. Even though Warlocks is one, if not the band's best song ever, I just can't listen to this album any more and I'm sick of all the positive press it's getting. |
| Lye By Mistake Arrangements for Fulminating Vective | 4.5 |
| Everyone on sputnik should really check out these guys, and soon. Think Calculating Infinity meets Focus meets Spastic Ink-level shredding, with a ton of experimentation to boot. A must have for all listeners of technical, progressive, and psychotic music. |
| Drop Dead, Gorgeous In Vogue | 1.0 |
| Scar Symmetry Pitch Black Progress | 3.0 |
| Tool 10,000 Days | 4.0 |
| Intronaut Void | 4.0 |
| Om Conference of the Birds | 4.0 |
| Satyricon Now, Diabolical | 3.0 |
| Korpiklaani Tales Along This Road | 2.5 |
| Sodom Sodom | 4.0 |
| Ihsahn The Adversary | 4.0 |
| Novembre Materia | 3.5 |
| Dio Holy Diver - Live | 4.0 |
| Jesu Silver | 4.0 |
| Various Artists (Metal) Kerrang Remastered: Master of Puppets... | 3.0 |
| Lacuna Coil Karmacode | 2.5 |
| Ghostface Killah Fishscale | 4.0 |
| Cannibal Corpse Kill | 4.0 |
| Army Of The Pharaohs The Torture Papers | 4.0 |
| Katatonia The Great Cold Distance | 4.0 |
| Dismember The God That Never Was | 4.0 |
| Daylight Dies Dismantling Devotion | 4.0 |
| David Gilmour On An Island | 4.0 |
| Darkthrone The Cult Is Alive | 2.5 |
| Kalmah The Black Waltz | 3.0 |
| Catacombs In the Depths of R'lyeh | 3.0 |
| Mastodon The Workhorse Chronicles [DVD] | 4.0 |
| Ensiferum Dragonheads | 3.5 |
| Psycroptic Symbols of Failure | 3.0 |
| Dimmu Borgir Stormblåst MMV | 3.0 |
| Decapitated Organic Hallucinosis | 3.5 |
| Mastodon Call of the Mastodon | 4.0 |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Diadem of 12 Stars | 4.5 |
| In Flames Come Clarity | 3.0 |
| Waking The Cadaver Demo | 1.0 |
| The Sword Age of Winters | 3.5 |
| Kataklysm In the Arms of Devastation | 4.0 |
| The Devin Townsend Band Synchestra | 4.5 |
| Norther Till Death Unites Us | 3.0 |
| Mirrorthrone Carriers of Dust | 3.5 |
| Bleeding Through The Truth | 3.0 |
| Kayo Dot Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue | 4.0 |
| DragonForce Inhuman Rampage | 3.0 |
| Every Time I Die Sh!t Happens | 4.0 |
| Warbringer One by One the Wicked Fall | 2.5 |
| Xasthur Subliminal Genocide | 3.0 |
| Dream Theater Dark Side of the Moon | 3.5 |
| Yawning Man Rock Formations | 3.5 |
| Dissection Rebirth Of Dissection | 4.0 |
| Drudkh Blood In Our Wells | 4.5 |
| The Faceless Akeldama | 4.5 |
| 2004 |
| Ludacris The Red Light District | 2.0 |
| Devin Townsend Devlab | 3.0 |
| Defeated Sanity Prelude to the Tragedy | 4.0 |
| MF DOOM MM.. Food | 4.5 |
| R.A. The Rugged Man Die, Rugged Man, Die | 4.5 |
| Eminem Encore | 1.5 |
| Tsjuder Desert Northern Hell | 4.0 |
| Death From Above 1979 You're a Woman, I'm a Machine | 4.0 |
| GWAR War Party | 4.0 |
| Behemoth Demigod | 4.5 |
| Six Feet Under Graveyard Classics 2 | 1.0 |
| Cult of Luna Salvation | 4.0 |
| YOB The Illusion Of Motion | 4.0 |
| ISIS Panopticon | 4.5 |
| mewithoutYou Catch For Us the Foxes | 4.0 |
| Pig Destroyer Terrifyer | 4.5 |
| Dream Theater Live at Budokan | 3.0 |
| Nightwish Once | 3.5 |
| Grails Red Light | 3.5 |
| Wintersun Wintersun | 4.5 |
| Inquisition Magnificent Glorification of Lucifer | 3.0 |
| Jesu Jesu | 4.0 |
| Talib Kweli The Beautiful Struggle | 3.0 |
| Cradle of Filth Nymphetamine | 3.5 |
| Bloodbath Nightmares Made Flesh | 4.0 |
| Slayer Still Reigning (Video) | 4.0 |
| Lamb of God Ashes of the Wake | 4.5 |
| It Dies Today The Caitiff Choir | 1.5 |
| Green Day American Idiot | 1.5 |
| Shadows Fall The War Within | 3.0 |
| Jedi Mind Tricks Legacy of Blood | 4.0 |
| Converge You Fail Me | 4.5 |
| Amon Amarth Fate of Norns | 4.5 |
| Drudkh Autumn Aurora | 4.0 |
| Mastodon Leviathan | 5.0 |
| Dio Master of the Moon | 3.0 |
| Old Man Gloom Christmas | 3.5 |
| Melvins Pigs Of The Roman Empire | 3.5 |
| Iced Earth The Blessed and the Damned | 3.0 |
| Rise Against Siren Song of the Counter Culture | 3.5 |
| Borknagar Epic | 4.0 |
| Say Anything ...Is a Real Boy | 3.0 |
| Necrophagist Epitaph | 4.5 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Miss Machine | 4.5 |
WITHOUT MY EXISTENCE
YOU AREEEEEEEEEE
NOTHINGGGGGGGG |
| Metallica Some Kind of Monster | 2.5 |
| Meshuggah I | 4.5 |
| Xasthur To Violate the Oblivious | 3.5 |
| Misery Signals Of Malice and the Magnum Heart | 4.0 |
| Atreyu The Curse | 1.0 |
| From First to Last Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count | 1.5 |
| Unearth The Oncoming Storm | 4.5 |
| Metalcore is a genre that most metalheads look to in shame. I know I have in certain occasions, as it seems awfully commercial at times and there are lots of bands that just bore me to death. But fear not! Unearth has come to save the genre. The band, while still using the qualities of the genre, has improved on the sound quite a bit by including some more advanced riffs, occasional shredding and overall better songwriting than before. This album is great for a broad range of fans, from the fans of hardcore all the way to the fans of maybe even death metal. If you were ever to pick up a metalcore album, make it this one. |
| Neurosis The Eye of Every Storm | 5.0 |
| Electric Wizard We Live | 4.0 |
| Sunn O))) White2 | 2.5 |
| Underoath They're Only Chasing Safety | 2.5 |
| Hawthorne Heights The Silence in Black and White | 1.0 |
| Slipknot Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses | 4.0 |
| Secret Chiefs 3 Book of Horizons | 4.0 |
| New Found Glory Catalyst | 1.0 |
| Killswitch Engage The End of Heartache | 3.5 |
| Judas Priest Metalogy | 4.0 |
| Insomnium Since the Day It All Came Down | 4.0 |
| Suffocation Souls to Deny | 3.5 |
| Ensiferum Iron | 4.0 |
| Satyricon Volcano | 3.0 |
| Quo Vadis Defiant Imagination | 4.0 |
| In Flames Soundtrack to Your Escape | 1.5 |
| Soulfly Prophecy | 3.5 |
| 100 Demons 100 Demons | 3.5 |
| All That Remains This Darkened Heart | 3.0 |
| Madvillain Madvillainy | 4.5 |
| Kataklysm Serenity in Fire | 3.5 |
| Norther Death Unlimited | 3.0 |
| God Forbid Gone Forever | 2.5 |
| Anata Under a Stone With No Inscription | 3.5 |
| Cannibal Corpse The Wretched Spawn | 4.0 |
| Deicide Scars of the Crucifix | 2.0 |
| Orphaned Land Mabool (The Story of the Three Sons...) | 4.5 |
| Vintersorg The Focusing Blur | 3.5 |
| Lamb of God Terror and Hubris | 3.0 |
| Circle Takes the Square As the Roots Undo | 4.5 |
| Iced Earth The Glorious Burden | 2.0 |
| Edguy Hellfire Club | 2.5 |
| Animal Collective Sung Tongs | 3.0 |
| Kanye West The College Dropout | 3.0 |
| Basilisk Vintyrhell | 3.0 |
| The Acacia Strain 3750 | 3.0 |
| Ratatat Ratatat Remixes Vol.1 | 3.0 |
| DragonForce Sonic Firestorm | 3.5 |
| Peccatum Lost in Reverie | 3.5 |
| Darkthrone Sardonic Wrath | 3.5 |
| Decapitated The Negation | 3.5 |
| Pig Destroyer Painter of Dead Girls | 3.5 |
| Lustmord Carbon/Core | 3.5 |
| Xasthur Telepathic With The Deceased | 4.0 |
| Nasum Shift | 4.5 |
| Disillusion Back to Times of Splendor | 4.5 |
| Arsis A Celebration of Guilt | 5.0 |
