2015 has been an awesome year for metal (again, like I said last year, it was a great year for full lengths…not so much for EP’s)…not quite as good as 2014 or 2012, but definitely up there with 2013. 2016 is shaping up to be pretty awesome as well. If you don’t see one of your favorite full lengths on this monster list, keep in mind that the point of this list is to put a lot of stuff that you guys haven’t heard before or didn’t give a chance this year, and remember that this year was pretty damn good for LP’s. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the list!
EP OF THE YEAR
5 Honorable Mentions
I, Valiance – Reject of Humanity
Genre: Progressive Deathcore
Preview: “The Pillars of Ruin”
Devils of Loudun – Entering Oblivion
Genre: Melodic / Symphonic Death Metal
Preview: “Dominion”
Falling Through The Center of the Earth – The Science of Perception
Genre: Progressive / Technical Deathcore
Preview: “Interchange II: Condition”
Haunted Shores – Viscera
Genre: Progressive Metal / Instrumental
Preview: “Harrison Fjord”
Tortuous Inception – Headfirst into Oblivion
Genre: Technical / Brutal Death / Slam
Preview: “Transmitting Within The Foul”
Top 15 EP’s of 2015
15. Ominous Ruin – Exiled
Genre: Brutal / Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Inherent Fixation”
14. Gravemind – The Hateful One
Genre: Deathcore
Preview: “Nagini’s Noose”
The riffs in that preview song, holy shit. These Aussies play a blistering version of deathcore that’s sure to tantalize fans of TAIM.
13. Cryptopsy – The Book of Suffering – Tome I
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Framed by Blood”
12. Blame – Dark Eyes
Genre: Technical Deathcore
Preview: “Anxiety”
11. Andy Rive – Acclimation
Genre: Progressive Metalcore
Preview: “Blizzard”
10. Analepsy – Dehumanization by Supremacy
Genre: Brutal Death Metal / Slam
Preview: “Worm Putrefaction”
9. Dawn of Leviathan – Emergence
Genre: Symphonic Deathcore
Preview: “Ennervate”
8. Petrychor – Apocalyptic Witchcraft
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Listen: “Apocalyptic Witchcraft”
All these feelings…what a journey.
7. Assemble The Chariots – World Architects
Genre: Progressive / Symphonic Death Metal/Deathcore
Preview: “Engulfed by Sun”
Sounds like Fallujah meets all the best parts of Born of Osiris.
6. Delusions of Grandeur – Gravis
Genre: Progressive Deathcore
Preview: “Brutiful”
5. Sanzu – Painless
Genre: Progressive Death Metal/Deathcore
Preview: “18 Days of Rain”
Think of what would happen if Black Crown Initiate and Gojira had a baby, and it played groovy-as-hell death metal – that’s Sanzu in a nutshell.
4. SikTh – Opacities
Genre: Progressive / Math Metal
Preview: “Philistine Philosphies”
These guys’ triumphant return was just as good as Extol’s last year. They’re called some of the masters/pioneers of their genre for a reason.
3. Ne Obliviscaris – Hiraeth
Genre: Progressive / Symphonic Black Metal
Preview: “Felo De Se”
The best band in the world right now has done it again with this 3-track EP of previously unreleased songs.
2. Ne Obliviscaris – Sarabande to Nihil
Genre: Progressive / Symphonic Black Metal
Preview: “Upon the Tongues of Eloquence”
Yeah, I really, REALLY like Ne Obliviscaris.
1. Entheos - Primal
Genre: Progressive Death Metal/Deathcore
Preview: “Specific Meaning In A Group of Dots”
Outside of Ne Obliviscaris, was there really any other choice for the top EP of 2015? No other group came out with an EP as fresh-sounding as Entheos in 2015. Plus, if it means Animosity is back together, I'm all for it!
LP OF THE YEAR
15-ish Honorable Mentions
Antlion – The Prescient
Genre: Technical / Progressive Metal
Preview: “Hubris”
XisforEyes – Convoluted Enlightenment
Genre: Symphonic Deathcore
Preview: “Convoluted Enlightment II – Numb Populace”
No Consequence – Vimana
Genre: Progressive / Technical / Math Metal
Preview: “Our Time Has Come”
Dark Sermon – The Oracle
Genre: Blackened Deathcore
Preview: “Starve”
Exocrine – Unreal Existence
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “World In Fire”
Ur Draugr – With Hunger Undying
Genre: Atmospheric / Blackened Death Metal
Preview: “Cult of the Greatwurm”
Arkaik – Lucid Dawn
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “That Which Lies Hidden”
Pomegranate Tiger
Genre: Progressive / Instrumental Metal
Preview: “Cyclic”
Frontierer – Orange Mathematics
Genre: Mathcore
Preview: “Bleak”
Ouroboros – Emanations
Genre: Progressive / Symphonic Death Metal
Preview: “Scion”
Mycelia – Obey
Genre: Technical / Progressive Metalcore
Preview: “Sean in the Snail Shell”
Voices from the Fuselage – Odyssey: The Destroyer of Worlds
Genre: Progressive / Melodic Metal
Preview: “A Principle God”
Ashe O’Hara, formerly of Tesseract, doing maybe some of his best work ever. The instrumentals aren’t nearly as interesting as the vocals and lyrics, though.
Alustrium – A Tunnel to Eden
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Preview: “A Tunnel to Eden”
Thy Art Is Murder – Holy War
Genre: Deathcore
Preview: “Emptiness”
This album is good, but the hooks simply doesn’t hold up like those in “Hate” did.
I Chaos – Masterbleeder
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Waking Hell”
This band is one of the unsung masters of writing groovy tech death riffs.
Top 40 LP’s of 2015
The order of these albums is up for some debate, outside of the top 6-10…
40. Ending Tyranny – Evolution of Deceit
Genre: Technical Deathcore
Preview: “The Stench of Repression”
39. Singularity – Singularity
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Spacetime Devourment”
Technically a 2014 album, but who cares? I just heard about this album this year, but this album fucking rules, and they deserve some attention for it.
38. Bermuda – Use Your Burdens
Genre: Deathcore
Preview: “Grave Dancers”
I enjoyed this album way more than I ever expected to…it seems almost like 2015’s answer to Humanity’s Last Breath’s incredible debut album, albeit not as good.
37. Lost Soul – Atlantis: The New Beginning
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Aqueous Ammonia”
These guys sound like a mixture between Fleshgod Apocalypse and Behemoth, and if that doesn’t get your nipples in a tizzy, I don’t know what will.
36. Deafheaven – New Bermuda
Genre: Post Black Metal / Atmospheric Black Metal
Preview: “Luna”
I didn’t enjoy “Sunbather”, but this album really got me. I hope this band keeps pushing the boundaries of the black metal genre like this.
35. Irreversible Mechanism – Infinite Fields
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “Infinite Fields”
LYLE FUCKING COOPER, EVERYBODY.
34. Hate Eternal – Infernus
Genre: Death Metal
Preview: “The Stygian Deep”
33. Intervals – The Shape of Colour
Genre: Instrumental / Progressive Metal
Preview: “Black Box”
One of my favorite instrumental albums ever. The riffs in that preview song are just unfuckwithable.
32. Alkaloid – The Malkuth Grimoire
Genre: Technical / Progressive Death Metal
Preview: “Carbon Phrases”’
Holy mother of god this album was good…it should probably be higher on my list, but there were so many other great albums this year. Hannes Grossman and Christian Muenzner both collaborated on this baby, and you can tell. With a pedigree like that, how could it possibly be bad?
31. Sylosis – Dormant Heart
Genre: Progressive Thrash Metal
Preview: “Mercy”
Their best since “Edge of the Earth”.
30. Chaos Divine – Colliding Skies
Genre: Progressive Metal
Preview: “Before the Dawn”
This album was 2015’s analog to Being’s “Anthropocene”. Absolutely beautiful, epic progressive metal.
29. The Raven Autarchy – The Obscene Deliverance
Genre: Technical Deathcore
Preview: “The Whistleblower”
The main reason this is so high on the list is almost entirely because of the preview song….that intro riff, I think, is one of the slickest I heard all year.
28. Leviathan – Scar Sighted
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Preview: “Scar Sighted”
This album is a masterpiece of black metal. If you like black metal, you need this in your collection.
27. Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
Genre: Progressive Metal
Preview: “Memory Palace”
This album didn’t hook me anywhere near the way Future Sequence did, but BTBAM has earned a spot this high on the list, well, because they’re BTBAM.
26. Tesseract – Polaris
Genre: Progressive Metal
Preview: “Phoenix”
Again, not as good as Tesseract’s last album, at least in my opinion…I just prefer Ashe as their vocalist I guess!
25. Continuum – The Hypothesis
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Preview: “A Surreal Descent”
Unique Leader didn’t have too many great albums this year, considering they basically dominated last year’s list, but this album was pretty fucking awesome.
24. Fit for an Autopsy – Absolute Hope. Absolute Hell.
Genre: Deathcore
Preview: “Saltwound”
Best straight-up deathcore album of the year…we’ll have to see where the best technical deathcore album of the year falls…
23. The Ritual Aura – Laniakea
Genre: Technical / Progressive Death Metal
Preview: “Era of the Xenotaph”
If you’ve never heard them, prepare to have your skull blown clear open. Riffs and shredding for days.
22. Entities – Novalis
Genre: Progressive Deathcore / Groove
Preview: “Synthetic Divinity”
Rest in peace, spacecore. :(
21. Kardashev – Peripety
Genre: Progressive / Atmospheric Death Metal
Preview: “Lux (feat. James Martin of Aegaeon)”
Since 2015 wasn’t a Fallujah year, we got this instead…and god damn, did Kardashev deliver the vibes.
20. August Burns Red – Found in Faraway Places
Genre: Technical Metalcore
Preview: “Blackwood”
In my opinion, their best album ever. The hooks on “Blackwood”, “Martyr”, “Identity”, “Ghosts”, and a bunch of other tracks are some of the best their guitarist has written in his career.
19. Northlane – Node
Genre: Progressive Metalcore
Preview: