I didn’t listen to nearly as much metal this year as I have in years past, but I hope you can still find something you haven’t heard before here. Before we go any further, let me remind you that 2014 was a fucking AMAZING year for full-lengths…but not so much for EP’s.
Top 10 EP’s of 2014
Again, keep in mind that 2014 basically flat-out sucked as far as EP selection went…at least in my experience.
10. Flub – Advent
Genre: Progressive Death Metal/Experimental
Preview: “Unrequited”
9. The Healing – Transcendence
Genre: Progressive Deathcore/Atmospheric
Preview: “Continuance”
8. Lorna Shore – Maleficium
Genre: Deathcore
Preview: “Godmaker”
Some of the most evil deathcore the world has ever seen. This album would be a lot higher on my list, but I’m *really* not big on the chugga-chugga beatdown stuff that they have a tendency to focus on. Make no mistake – when Lorna Shore focus on shredding, they make my mouth water.
7. Empyrean Throne – Demonseed
Genre: Symphonic Death Metal/Black Metal
Preview: “Follow The Plaguelord”
6. Aronious – Truth in Perception
Genre: Technical/Progressive Death Metal
Preview: “Disillusionment I”
If The Faceless & Fallujah are your thing, prepare to go from 6 to midnight.
5. Writhen - Condemned
Genre: Deathcore/Death Metal
Preview: “Son of Sin”
These guys sound like an insane mash-up of Wretched, Decades of Despair, and some Thy Art is Murder. So ridiculously heavy…don’t miss out on this one!
4. Delusions of Grandeur– Reclamation
Genre: Progressive Deathcore
Preview: “Reclamation”
I’m actually pretty amazed that there were even 3 EP’s that I enjoyed as much (or more) this year, with how good that preview track is.
3. The Ralph – Fragments
Genre: Progressive Metal
Preview: “Fractured”
Easily the most under-the-radar release of the year. I saw MAYBE 2 or 3 others posting about this album, but it was one of my most-played of 2014.
2. Warforged – Essence of the Land
Genre: Blackened/Atmospheric Death Metal
Preview: “Essence of the Land”
This album made me feel like I was being dragged into the swamp by a monster. So fucking dark, deep, and spooky. Just watch that preview video, HNNNGGGHHH. I thought for sure this album would be a shoe-in for the top EP of the year, until….
1. Erra – Moments of Clarity
Genre: Progressive Metalcore
Preview: “Moments of Clarity”
This might just be one of my favorite albums of all time, EP or otherwise…seriously. I can’t recall any album, past or present, that has made me feel like “Moments” on a consistent basis – I’m getting goosebumps even thinking about it. Plus the chorus of the preview song has probably the first lyrics I’d ever even consider getting tattoed on my body, since they resonate so incredibly strongly:
“The dreams that I have followed are breathing lungs full of air right before my eyes.”
Erra has more than validated their place on the throne of the metalcore kingdom, and nobody else is even close.
1A. Mandroid Echostar – Citadels
Genre: Progressive Metal
Preview: “The Sleeper”/ “Ethereal Dawn”
This album shouldn’t even be on my list for 2014, since it came out in November 2013, but it wasn’t on my list last year…I didn’t even know this album existed until May of this year, and I couldn’t’ live with myself NOT giving this album the credit it so richly deserves. You know how I just said that Erra was up there on my all-time list? Well, so is this album, and perhaps even higher.
Mandroid Echostar sounds like an INCREDIBLE blend of I Am Abomination, Protest The Hero, and Coheed and Cambria, if you’ve never heard them before. Insane guitar acrobatics, catchy lyrics, soaring vocal melodies, and songwriting and vocal abilities rival ANY of those bands.
“Citadels” has absolutely INFINITE replay value, and it’ll be one of those albums that I’ll still be blasting in my car when I’m old enough to be a grandfather.
Top 30 Full Lengths of 2014
2014 was impossibly good for metal, so a lot of deserving albums didn’t even make the cut in my honorable mentions…sorry if the album you were looking for isn’t on here!
By the way…Unique Leader completely owned 2014. When you’re a (relatively) small label, and you put out like 7 or 8 albums that are more than good enough to contend in a “Best of” list, you’re doing something right. That being said…let’s get to the list.
Honorable Mentions
Creatures of Habit – Hyperion
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Knife of the Fortified”
Wretched – Cannibal
Genre: Technical Death Metal/Thrash
Preview: “Cranial Infestation”
This band never fails to riff me to death, and this is their best offering since “Beyond the Gate”. I almost hate myself that this isn’t in my top 30.
Acrania – Totalitarian Dystopia
Genre: Technical/Brutal Deathcore/Slam
Preview: “Disillusion in a Discordant System”
Fuck You And Die – Elements of Instability
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Roar, Allay, and Alter”
Septycal Gorge – Scourge of the Formless Breed
Genre: Technical/Brutal Death Metal
Preview: “No Spawn No Reign (Sons of Enoch, Pt. 1)”
Bloodbath – The Grand Morbid Funeral
Genre: Death Metal/Blackened Death Metal
Preview: “Anne”
So. Fucking. Heavy.
Allegaeon – Elements of the Infinite
Genre: Progressive/Technical Death Metal/Thrash
Preview: “1.618”
Well, Allegaeon definitely win the top music video of the year for the preview song.
At The Gates – At War With Reality
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “The Book of Sand (The Abomination)”
Adversary – Ruination
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “A Hero’s Tragedy”
For fans of bands like Amon Amarth!
The Dali Thundering Concept – Eyes Wide Opium
Genre: Progressive Metal/Deathcore/Mathcore
Preview: “Phoenix (feat. Nick from Molotov Solution)”
Abysmal Dawn – Obsolescence
Genre: Death Metal
Preview: “Perfecting Slavery”
Artificial Brain – Labyrinth Constellation
Genre: Death Metal/Post-Death Metal?/Atmospheric Death Metal
Preview: “Absorbing Black Ignition”
For fans of Portal, Ulcerate, Gorguts. Also, this is a side project of one of the guys from Revocation!
Shokran – Supreme Truth
Genre: Progressive Deathcore/Groove/Djent
Preview: “Dark Desert”
Architects – Lost Forever // Lost Together
Genre: Metalcore
Preview: “Gravedigger”
The Seer – The Seer
Genre: Progressive/Symphonic/Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “Embrace Pestilence” / “Eternal Cataclysm”
This album was the hardest of all to leave out of my top 30…
Ageless Oblivion – Penthos
Genre: Progressive/Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “A Crawling Ingression”
The Antioch Synopsis – The Antioch Synopsis
Genre: Technical Deathcore
Preview: “A Foreign Concept of Forgiveness”
Monuments – The Amanuensis
Genre: Progressive Metal
Preview: “I, The Creator”
The Top 30 Full Lengths
30. Hope For The Dying – Aletheia
Genre: Metalcore/Death Metal
Preview: “Acceptance”
29. Separatist – Motionless & Closure
Genre: Death Metal/Blackened Deathcore
Preview: “Deluge Arterial”/ “The Reprieve”
This was technically two albums, but they were released on the same day, so I’ll just go ahead and count it as one…Anyways, some of the most diverse, heavy, gloomy music of 2014.
28. Bloodshot Dawn – Demons
Genre: Technical/Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “Demons”
The blasts at 2:52 in the preview song will LEGITIMATELY make you feel like running through a fucking brick wall, guaranteed.
27. Aeon of Horus – Existence
Genre: Progressive/Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “Dissipate”
Un-fucking-believable musicianship.
25. Structures – Life Through A Window
Genre: Metalcore/Hardcore
Preview: “Follower (feat. Adrian from Northlane)”
Easily the surprise album of the year – I usually don’t enjoy this type of music at all, and I’ve never really been into Structures, but Life is savage.
24. Silent Planet – The Night God Slept
Genre: Progressive Metalcore/Hardcore/Emotional?
Preview: “Tiny Hands (Au Revoir)”
The best metalcore full length of the year….with one exception. This album also went unbelievably under the radar.
23. Mapmaker– Automation
Genre: Progressive/Atmospheric Deathcore
Preview: “Genesis”
22. Mors Principium Est – Dawn of the 5th Era
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “Monster In Me”
21. Alterbeast – Immortal
Genre: Technical Death Metal/Deathcore
Preview: “Flesh Bound Text”
Unique Leader album #1 in the top 21.
20. Son of Aurelius– Under A Western Sun
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
Preview: “The Great Liberation” / “Chorus of the Earth”
19. Beyond Creation – Earthborn Evolution
Genre: Progressive/Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Elusive Reverence”
18. Archspire – The Lucid Collective
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Spontaneous Generation”
17. Hour of Penance – Regicide
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “The Sun Worship”
16. Invent, Animate – Everchanger
Genre: Progressive Metalcore
Preview: “Nocturne: Lost Faith”
The top metalcore full length of the year, hands-down.
15. The Contortionist– Language
Genre: Progressive Metal
Preview: “Thrive”
14. Hideous Divinity– Cobra Verde
Genre: Technical Death Metal/Holy Shit
Preview: “Alonest of the Alone (feat. Dallas from Nile)”
Unique Leader album #2 in the top 21.
13. Inanimate Existence – A Never Ending Cycle Of Atonement
Genre: Progressive/Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Bioluminescent Photophores”
Unique Leader album #3 in the top 21.
12. Nero di Marte – Derivae
Genre: Death Metal/Doom Metal/Post Death Metal
Preview: “Il Diluvio”
THE FEELS OH GOD
11. Nexilva – Eschatologies
Genre: Symphonic/Blackened Deathcore
Preview: “Eschatologies”
10. Hadal Maw – Senium
Genre: Progressive Death Metal/Post Death Metal
Preview: “Coil” / “Altar of Ire”
9. Aborted – The Necrotic Manifesto
Genre: Death Metal/Brutal Death Metal/Deathgrind
Preview: “Chronicles of Detruncation”
8. Fall In Archaea – Aura Magenta
Genre: Progressive Metalcore/Mathcore
Preview: “Aureolin”
If mathy breakdowns or grooves in the vein of Danza have ever been your thing, prepare to have your neck broken.
7. Revocation – Deathless
Genre: Thrash Metal
Preview: “A Debt Owed To The Grave”
Best riffs of the year, hands-down.
6. Soreption – Engineering The Void
Genre: Technical/Industrial (?) Death Metal
Preview: “Engineering The Void (feat. Trevor Strnad of The Black Dahlia Murder)”
NOBODY sounds like Soreption. Probably my favorite overall tech death band right now – lightning precise, basically an all-out onslaught of technicality. And oh by the way, Unique Leader album #4 in the top 21.
5. Black Crown Initiate – The Wreckage of Stars
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
Preview: “The Great Mistake”
4. Job For A Cowboy – Sun Eater
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
Preview: “Sun Of Nihility” / “Buried Monuments”
3. Inferi – The Path Of Apotheosis
Genre: Technical Death Metal/OH MY GOD HOW IS HE PLAYING THAT
Preview: “The Ancients of Shattered Thrones”
Never before has an album so totally made me feel like I’m on a battlefield. And oh…Unique Leader album #5…
2. Fallujah – The Flesh Prevails
Genre: Progressive/Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Sapphire”
Unique Leader album #6….also, “Sapphire” might actually be one of my favorite songs of all time.
1. Babymetal – Babymetal
Genre: J-Pop/Power Metal
Preview: “My Heart Will Go On”
Just kidding, obviously.
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