Disillusion are not a band that likes to be rushed. This is the third record in a twenty five year history, it comes thirteen years after their last release (“Gloria”) and took two whole years to complete (including the three weeks that band leader Andy Schmidt spent in an isolated cabin in the Czech Republic writing songs). What we have ended up with, is a heady and highly atmospheric mix of Goth and melodic death. Atmospheric is the watch word here as this unfurls from the speakers like the soundtrack of an unmade movie. It is deeply cinematic and full of big bold strokes and flourishes. You can imagine vast snow coloured mountain scapes and plunging majestic valleys. It sounds divine, lush production and strident melodic riffs. If there is any justice in the world this will take them from just cult heroes.

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More atmospheric ethereal metal. This is Celtic tinged folk metal but there is no do-si-do plastic sword aloof nonsense here. This is haunting and disconcerting folk, desolate and dark, surrounded in heart-wrenching laments of injustice and tragedy rather than jaunty anthems of bravery on the battlefield. The sparse rawness of the folk mixes wonderfully with the minimalist Black Metal, harsh but also full of melody and pathos. There is only three proper tracks here (the fourth is a short instrumental) but they all reach the ten minutes mark in length and unfurl like epic poems. The most striking thing about the record is how much it immerses you. It washes over you and covers you of waves of sound. Absolutely stunning.

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The extraordinary thing about Springsteen is how a seventy year old billionaire is still regarded as the legitimate voice of disenfranchised Middle America. He is Dylan for those that the counter culture bypassed, a bard of the broken America dream. Since 1995 he has been within a stunning purple patch of astounding creativity that has seen him walk the fine line between consistency and diversity. Consistency in that he has without fail told the story of every day Americans and their everyday struggles. Diversity in that he has subtly changed style with each record. There has been no big jarring U-turn in musical direction but over the last twenty five years he has turned his hand to country, folk, rock and Americana. With Western Star he adds Californian pop to the mix.

This is a remarkably good record. It is warm, playful and hugely accessible. But it also has its darker moments as it continues to tell the tales of those that have fallen through the cracks. This time around the accompanying music is sunny, positive and deceptively simple. Springsteen effortlessly manages to weave melody and harmony to create tracks that sound like they have been in your life forever. Amazing, just amazing.

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Blackened folk that manages to combine jaunty with a huge epic cinematic quality. The sound here is big and anthemic. It has coarse and brittleness all over it (and gruff vocals) but also massive choruses and lush orchestration. Rather than clash, these two styles mesh beautifully. The jagged black edges compliment rather than contradict the plentiful dollops of folk. Over its hour duration it never lets up. It is intense and driving while remaining utterly majestic in the way that its tracks build and build in stature. A high-water mark for me in how you move folk metal forward.

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By a country mile, the most intriguing and utter confounding album on this list. As it says on the tin this is highly authentic fifties Doo-wop that tells tales of satanic rituals and praises his dark lord. It sounds like Amy Winehouse sound-tracking Rosemary’s Baby, think Back to Black Mass. The music is brilliant, her vocals are utterly mesmeric and the lyrics are evil as fuck. It is like someone has taken Behemoth’s lyric sheet and given it to the Shangri-La’s. But it works, it bloody works. This is not a novelty that you listen to once, the songs, the vibe and the vocals are extraordinary and make you come back to it again and again. A horned devil in sheep’s clothing. Defies description (even though I have tried) but is still utterly utterly wonderful. If you listen to one album on this list make it this.

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Borknagar are an anomaly. Probably the one band I adore that I am yet to see live. My good friend Steve Hulse sees it as a veritable badge of honour that he has seen them and I haven’t. Borknagar are Black prog and in many ways are/were the Black Metal equivalent of early Opeth (before they went wholesale Prog). They were very active during the late nineties and early noughties and were part of a secondary wave of Norwegian Black that started to experiment more with the template and add other influences. For a good eight years, they were more or less dormant but since 2010 they have gone through an incredible patch of creative fertility. “Universal”, “Urd” and “Winterthrice” were all utterly brilliant and “True North” shows that have no intent of slowing down. This is Prog with the added bonus of Black Metal’s brutal furiousity and atmospherics. The vocals are mainly clean and the guitars are up tuned and soar rather than gnarl. There are layers and layers and layers of sound. The depth and complexity that they manage to achieve is utterly incredible. It also feels warm and emotional. Most Black Metal is cold and heartless by its very nature, but this is full of touches that makes the whole thing feel emotive and organic. Brilliant!

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It’s a veritable French take over this year. All we needed was godfathers of French metal Gojira to release something (sadly they didn’t). Alcest have been making stunning introspective and ethereal records for years. They created Blackgaze (Black metal and shoegaze) and then left others to make it a household name. Instead they moved in a more post-black direction. Creating sonic walls of complex swirling sound that plunge the listener done a rabbit hole of contrasting tempos. This isn’t just quiet quiet loud loud quiet quiet. That is far too simple. This is intricate layers of velocity and furiousity. The two dance around each over as the tracks build and build and then step back and then build again. It is just utterly stunning.

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Aside from the French take over, the other thing we have had a lot of this year is albums that we have waited a long time for. Whilst not in the league of Xentrix and Acid Reign, it has been a whole decade since we last had any original new material from the German overlords. In many ways, the spectacular nature of their shows has outshone them as a studio act. Which is a great shame as Rammestein make great albums and with this year’s self-titled offering they have outdone themselves. Their template or sound doesn’t change too much, this is distinctly Rammstein but there are obvious pieces of evolution. The playing is looser, for the first time they actual seem like they are having fun… Perversely, there are also harder edges than ever before. Yes, it’s very much a Rammstein record, but it is a bloody good one!!

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First, Nick Cave material to be recorded after the death of his fifteen years old son Arthur (though most of the lyrics were actually written before the incident). This is, as would be expected a down tempo and deeply maudlin record that that is heavy on the emotional and bleak subject matter. However it is not as dark as you would expect. Yes, it has passages that are disturbing and desolate but there is actually a lot of light and dare i say it, positivity on offer. What is left of it though is scaled back and stripped down to the bare bone.

Usually the Bad seeds provide layers and layers of textured sound. Here the instrumentation is restricted to a haunting piano, various synthesised sounds and the occasional blast of stirring strings. This minimalism allows Mr Cave’s distinctive baritone vocals to soar. His deep tenor voice displays extraordinary variation in emotion on the album. It is an open book of hurt, lose and desperation. Overall this isn't an easy album to listen and never builds beyond subdued, but it is an utterly fascinating and immersive listen.

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Black Metal from Liverpool that ditches the Satan infatuation in favour of social inadequacy and anarchism. This is elven diatribes of undiluted anger. Anger at the economic inequality that is inherent in the system, anger at the sexism, racism and cruelty they see all around them. This is another album that completely re-writes Black Metal’s rules book. There is a core simplicity here with all the instruments used being a guitar, drums and violin. The guitar is used to create a harsh patchwork of searing jagged sound, then when the mounting cacophony has ceased the mournful violin cuts in. I get tingles each and every time the modest maudlin folk meanderings of Simon Barr’s violin sequences into the stark brittle guitar work. This is stripped down and minimal but utterly effective. Black Metal remade as a revolutionary call for change.

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An absolutely stonking slice of commercial Metal that frankly puts everyone else doing slick chorus driven stuff to shame. This sounds sumptuous. Exquisitely constructed and highly polished. It has the songs, twelve of them. All strong, bold and catchy. To coin the phrase “This is all killer, no filler!”, there is no weak link, no chink that lets the side down. Just wonderful, plain wonderful.

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Like Code Orange last year, Car Bomb have managed to create an album that is aggressive, inventive which constantly surprises. The tracks continually evolve, jagged juddering riffs give way to sudden shifts in tempo and style. You just have no idea where any of the songs are actually going. They morph mid listen and slow down and or speed up unexpectedly. It is bewildering at time but the level of creativity is staggering. Each and every song challenges conventional song structures and rhythmic patterns, as a listener you are constantly aware that it may be a shift in texture at any given moment. Disarming but staggeringly good.

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By far and away the most anticipated release of the year. Thirteen years after their last release and five years in the actual making, this record has a hell of a lot to live up to. In the main, it does. Nobody does complex intelligent heavy rock like Tool and the tracks on “Fear Inoculum” loop and unfurl like massive puzzles. The six actual song are fantastically constructed, full of precise guitar and regimented time signatures. My only issue (and I do have one) is the fact we get six songs (the other four tracks are instrumental interludes). It’s been thirteen years guys, am I wrong to be wanting a little bit more…

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Our last slice of Black and this is an utterly incredible record. It is powerful, punchy and huge in its sound. In places, it is positively Wagnerian in its epic nature. This is Black Metal designed to fill stadiums, not tiny clubs in provincial back waters. It retains Black Metal’s atmospherics and swagger, but it has replaced the coarse under-produced guitars with a wonderful strident solid walls of pulsating riffs that pound out of the speakers. It is in your face, big and bold. Every track here is an anthem, massive choruses and catchy hooks. It is just stunning how far they have managed to push Black Metal’s envelope, but still retain the aesthetics of the genre. An utter game changer of an album.

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What Cult of Luna do is highly unique. Over eight distinctive records, they have developed and evolved a singular continually morphing sound. “A Dawn To Fear” manages to be aggressive and tender. It is forceful and vociferous but also has moments of reflective beauty and spiritual calm. It is those disconcerting and variable waves that makes this such an interesting and intriguing record. It has hardcore sensibility and directness, but then it drops back into pure minimalism before it scorches forward again with almost unlistenable white noise. It may seem incoherent and messy from my description, but it’s not. It’s actually a stunningly well-structured thought out record. Everything has a place, every twist and turn is there for a specific reason. Extraordinary both in its vision and in its delivery.

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Twenty years ago, Edguy frontman Tobias Sammet had a vision to create a rock opera. Not opera in terms of orchestration or symphonic styling, but opera in terms of multiple distinct vocalists playing specific parts and telling a story. He recruited Michael Kiske (formally of Helloween), Bob Catley (of Magnum), Sharon Von Atten (of Within Temptation) and the late great Andre Matos; and Avantasia was born. Twenty years later, this side project now over shadows Tobias’ day job and has become a juggernaut headlining arenas and festivals across the world. Every few years, he threatens to put it on hiatus because of the sheer scale of the endeavour and then he changes his mind because he has written material that fits Avantasia better than it does Edguy.

“Moonglow” is business as usual as the regular cast members Catley, Kiske, Geoff Tate (ex-Queensyche) and Eric Martin (Mr. Big) are all present and correct. This time around Tobias has also gone home grown and added the Teutonic trio of Blind Guardian’s Hansia Kursch, the coarse strangulated yelps of Kreator’s Millie Petrozza and the sultry tones of Candice Night (Ritchie Blackmore’s misses). “Moonglow” is big, pompous, overblown and utterly wonderful. It’s like the best musical ever, packed to the gills with massive chorus and luscious arrangements. It is full of skyscraping melodic segments with vast harmonies and sumptuous melodies. It just sounds utterly amazing and you cannot help being staggered by both its ambition and its scale. It may indeed be cheesy, but this is the rich, luxurious cheese that you only get out at Christmas or when the Queen pops over. Sensational, just sensational.

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Wow. What a way to come back! In the early nineties, The Wildhearts were the UK heavy rock’s great white hope. They released a corker of debut album in 1993, headlined the second stage at the 1994 Monsters of Rock and in ‘Caffeine Bomb’ and ‘I Want To Go Where The People Go’ released two of the finest pop rock singles of the decade. However, by 1997 it had all fallen apart fuelled by a toxic mix of substances misuse, personal turmoil and a sudden right turns into distinctly dark material. The band resurfaced again in the early noughties but the spectres of drugs and mental ill health continued to dog them as they spent most of the decade playing a hockey cocky of splitting and reforming and splitting again. This decade saw no new material but numbers of one off nostalgia tours in a host of different line up iterations playing their classic first two records in their entirety.

Then last year something truly magical happened, the classic 1993 line up played together for the first time in twenty four years and it clicked, it just clicked. It was like the tumultuous off, on and off again years had not happened. Sensing there was something very special happening, they rushed back into the studio and produced this. “Renaissance Men” is certainly their best record since the first one and perhaps even their best ever record. This is a masterclass in pop rock. Gorgeous hooks, harmonies a go-go and melodies all over the shop. Every song is a banger. Jaunty, jump and down classics. I want to see the band perform the entire album live as it is designed to be sung along to. It is a veritable work of genius. You need to work hard to make it look this effortless. This is pop rock at its very very best, infectious and highly accessible, but never light-weight. This is the perfect marriage of stinging lyrics and soaring choruses. A return from the brink has never been this triumphant.

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I have overused the word Genius in this list. I have given the title to every bunch of Nordic socially inept corpse painted weirdos, who decide to make less noisy Black Metal. Devin Townsend is the real deal, truly an utter genius and probably one of the most important figures in modern Metal. A child prodigy, he was plucked from obscurity by Stevie Vai to be the lead vocalist on his Vai vanity project. Suddenly this reclusive young lad from Canada was touring the world and playing to vast audiences. His initial experiences of the music industry made him determined to plough his own furrow. So rather than take up offers to join bands and become part of existing collaborations, he instead created his own unique extreme Metal project “Strapping Lad” and also prolifically chucked out solo material. By the mid-noughties the rock and roll lifestyle was playing hell with his bipolar condition and he went into hibernation.

Come the start of this decade he remerged from self-imposed isolation, sober, spiritually focused and brimming with self-assurance. Reassembling as the Devin Townsend Project (DTP) he seemed to be omnipresent, making up for five years of exile by being every-bloody-where. There were albums every year, a constant round of tours, festival slots, special shows, spoken word performances and acoustic gigs. Without much fanfare Devin became Metal’s very own renaissance man.

With concern that DTP was becoming caught in a rut of mid table Prog Metal (his term not mine), he called time on the band in early 2018 and disappeared into his custom built studio. “Empath” is the result and it is an utterly glorious mismatch of every genre under the sun. Everything that Devin has ever put his hand to is in some way or form referenced here. This is overblown, transcendental and utterly bonkers. This much alteration and style jumping should not work, but bloody hell, it does. You get swept up in the majestic splendour of the whole thing. The fluctuating musical forms dance across your senses and it is intoxicating in its complexity and also its unashamed ambition. There is simply nothing that has ever sounded like this. Devin has created a piece of unique beauty. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

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