| Iron Maiden Somewhere In Time | 5.0 |
| Lorna Shore Maleficium | 4.5 |
| NAILS Abandon All Life | 4.5 |
| Protest the Hero Volition | 4.5 |
| ERRA Augment | 4.5 |
| Lorelei Lore of Lies | 4.0 |
| Issues Black Diamonds | 3.5 |
| Parkway Drive Horizons | 4.0 |
| Sleeping With Sirens If You Were a Movie, This Would Be Your Soundtrack | 4.0 |
| Shaded Enmity Forsaken and Forgotten | 4.5 |
| Ovid's Withering Scryers of the Ibis | 4.5 |
| Pathology Lords of Rephaim | 2.5 |
| Pathology Legacy of the Ancients | 3.5 |
| Nebulous The Quantum Transcendence of Death | 2.0 |
| King Conquer 1776 | 2.5 |
| I See Stars New Demons | 4.0 |
| City in the Sea Below the Noise | 4.0 |
| Attila About That Life | 2.5 |
| Elitist Between The Balance | 2.0 |
| Glass Cloud Perfect War Forever | 2.0 |
| Arsonists Get All the Girls Listen to the Color | 4.0 |
| The Amity Affliction Chasing Ghosts | 4.0 |
| A Day To Remember Common Courtesy | 4.0 |
| A Day To Remember For Those Who Have Heart | 4.5 |
| Born of Osiris Tomorrow We Die Alive | 3.5 |
| Shadow of the Colossus End Game | 4.5 |
| TesseracT Altered State | 4.5 |
| Katalepsy Autopsychosis | 4.0 |
| Coprocephalic Gluttonous Chunks | 4.0 |
| Whitechapel The Somatic Defilement (Remaster) | 4.0 |
| Iron Maiden Iron Maiden | 5.0 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Everblack | 5.0 |
| Chelsea Grin Desolation Of Eden | 4.0 |
| Attila Rage | 3.0 |
| Feed Her to the Sharks Savage Seas | 4.0 |
| Within the Ruins Elite | 3.0 |
| Within the Ruins Invade | 4.5 |
| Volumes Via | 4.5 |
| After the Burial This Life Is All We Have | 3.5 |
| After the Burial Rareform (Re-release) | 4.0 |
| Wormed Exodromos | 4.0 |
| August Burns Red Messengers | 4.0 |
| Sleeping With Sirens With Ears to See and Eyes to Hear | 3.5 |
| Suffokate Return to Despair | 3.5 |
| As I Lay Dying A Long March: The First Recordings | 3.5 |
| Killswitch Engage As Daylight Dies | 4.0 |
| Killswitch Engage Alive or Just Breathing | 4.5 |
| Killswitch Engage Disarm the Descent | 4.0 |
| Fallujah Nomadic | 5.0 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Unhallowed | 4.0 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Nocturnal | 4.0 |
| Heaven Shall Burn Veto | 4.0 |
| Dark Sermon In Tongues | 3.5 |
| Bring Me The Horizon Sempiternal | 4.0 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan One of Us Is the Killer | 4.0 |
| As Blood Runs Black Allegiance | 4.0 |
| Sea of Treachery At Dagger's Dawn | 4.0 |
| Thy Art Is Murder Hate | 4.0 |
| Thy Art Is Murder Infinite Death | 4.0 |
| Whitechapel The Somatic Defilement | 3.5 |
| Suicide Silence Suicide Silence (EP) | 3.5 |
| Suicide Silence The Black Crown | 2.5 |
| Suicide Silence No Time to Bleed | 4.0 |
| Suicide Silence The Cleansing | 4.5 |
| The Zenith Passage Cosmic Dissonance | 4.0 |
| Misery Signals Controller | 5.0 |
| Of Mice and Men The Flood | 4.0 |
| Rings of Saturn Dingir | 4.5 |
| August Burns Red Sleddin' Hill | 4.0 |
| As I Lay Dying Decas | 3.0 |
| As I Lay Dying Frail Words Collapse | 4.5 |
| As I Lay Dying An Ocean Between Us | 4.5 |
| Entities Aether | 4.0 |
| Apparitions Pre[CURSE]r | 4.0 |
| Aether Realm One Chosen By The Gods | 3.5 |
| The Holy Guile FSU | 4.0 |
| Bury The Existence Programming the Herds | 3.5 |
| Point Below Zero Point Below Zero | 4.0 |
| Revocation Teratogenesis | 4.0 |
| Sentenced To Dissection Between the Worlds | 4.0 |
| Ovid's Withering The Cloud Gatherer | 4.5 |
| Circle of Contempt Entwine the Threads | 4.5 |
| Ascariasis Ocean of Colour | 4.5 |
| Job For A Cowboy Doom | 4.5 |
| Job For A Cowboy Demonocracy | 4.0 |
| Signal The Firing Squad Abnegate | 4.0 |
| Slice the Cake Other Slices | 4.0 |
| Cattle Decapitation Monolith of Inhumanity | 4.5 |
| I Am Abomination Let The Future Tell The Truth | 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. |
| In the Eyes of A Mistress Nobody Move! This is A Breakdown Shakedown | 3.5 |
| Impurity of Mriya The Fourth Reich | 3.5 |
| I See Stars Digital Renegade | 3.5 |
| The Holy Guile Guardians 2.0 | 4.5 |
| For Today Immortal | 3.0 |
| For Today Breaker | 3.5 |
| Dying Fetus Reign Supreme | 4.0 |
| The Devil Wears Prada Dead Throne | 4.0 |
| The Devil Wears Prada Zombie | 4.5 |
| A Day To Remember What Separates Me from You | 3.0 |
| A Day To Remember Homesick | 3.5 |
| Crown the Empire The Fallout | 3.0 |
| Chelsea Grin My Damnation | 3.5 |
| Chelsea Grin Evolve | 1.5 |
| Casino Madrid Robots | 3.0 |
| Born of Osiris The New Reign | 4.5 |
| Born of Osiris The Discovery | 4.5 |
| The Black Dahlia Murder Ritual | 4.5 |
| Between the Buried and Me Colors | 4.5 |
| Beneath the Veil Circle City | 2.0 |
| Beheading of a King Quasar: Preserving Legacy | 3.0 |
| Attila Outlawed | 2.5 |
| Asking Alexandria Reckless and Relentless | 3.0 |
| Ashton Butcher Carlton Shanks | 3.0 |
| As I Lay Dying Shadows Are Security | 4.5 |
| As I Lay Dying The Powerless Rise | 4.0 |
| And Hell Followed With Proprioception | 3.0 |
| Adestria Chapters | 4.0 |
| Veil of Maya [id] | 4.5 |
| Veil of Maya Eclipse | 3.5 |
| The Faceless Autotheism | 2.0 |
| Disfiguring the Goddess Sleeper | 4.0 |
| The Acacia Strain Death Is the Only Mortal | 2.5 |
| Pathology The Time of Great Purification | 4.0 |
| The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza Danza IIII: The Alpha - The Omega | 3.5 |
| Abominable Putridity The Anomalies of Artificial Origin | 4.5 |
| Drag The Lake I Am Violence | 4.0 |
| Glass Cloud The Royal Thousand | 4.5 |
| As I Lay Dying Awakened | 4.5 |
| Converge All We Love We Leave Behind | 3.5 |
| 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. |
| Parkway Drive Atlas | 4.0 |
| Memphis May Fire Challenger | 4.5 |
| Memphis May Fire The Hollow | 4.5 |
| Fallujah The Harvest Wombs | 5.0 |
| 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. |
| ERRA Impulse | 5.0 |
