2015 was another excellent year. While there are some fairly obvious candidates for a top 30 I missed out on or discovered too late in the year (Nechochwen, and Obsequiae to name two) there was still plenty of good material out there this year. Here’s some of it:
Thirty
Melechesh-Enki
Ashmedi and company returned with a very solid album.
Twenty-Nine
Necrowretch-With Serpents Scourge
No frills black/death that’s as old-school as it gets.
Twenty-Eight
Vreid-Solverv
Seven albums in and Vreid are still going strong and releasing quality melodic black metal.
Twenty-Seven
Demon Eye-Tempora Infernalia
Extremely fun retro hard rock/doom album with some really catchy songs.
Twenty-Six
Locrian-Infinite Dissolution
An apocalyptic mix of black metal, noise, and post.
Twenty-Five
Vehemence-Forward Without Motion
Melodic death metal masters return with a vengeance.
Twenty-Four
Tad Morose-St. Demonius
A welcome return from these power metal stalwarts.
Twenty-Three
Der Weg Einer Freiheit-Stellar
Yet another great atmospheric black metal album in a year full of them.
Twenty-Two
Abyssal-Antikatastaseis
Swirling, chaotic black/death/doom that’s as evil and nasty sounding as it gets.
Twenty-One
Motorhead-Bag Magic
It’s been a rough year for Lemmy and company, but this is another fine album in a legendary discography.
Twenty
Tribulation-The Children of the Night
Perhaps the year’s most polarizing release, Tribulation shifted to more of an occult rock/psychadelic sound.
Nineteen
Brothers of the Sonic Cloth-Brothers of the Sonic Cloth
Absolutely crusing stoner doom/sludge.
Eighteen
Ghoulgotha-The Deathmass Cloak
A great doom/death debut with slight progressive edges.
Seventeen
Hooded Menace-Darkness Drips Forth
Everything you’ve loved about this Finnish doom/death band is present on their fourth album.
Sixteen
Destruktor-Opprobrium
If you’re tired of waiting for the new Destroyer 666, give these fellow Aussies a shot. Plus, look at that cover art.
Fifteen
My Dying Bride-Feel the Misery
Another beautifully depressing album from one of the genre’s longest running and most respected acts.
Fourteen
Year of the Goat-The Unspeakable
Cosmic occult doom of the highest order.
Thirteen
Christian Mistress-To Your Death
Incredibly fun retro heavy metal. Christine Davis’s vocals are something special.
Twelve
Blaze of Perdition-Near Death Revelations
One of the best black metal albums this year. Unrelenting and oppressively heavy.
Eleven
Blind Guardian-Beyond the Red Mirror
Captivating and catchy as always.
Ten
An Autumn for Crippled Children-The Long Goodbye
Beautiful, moving, and depressing, this is one of the better atmospheric black metal albums of the year, and there are a lot.
Nine
Witchsorrow-No Light, Only Fire
One of the year’s strongest doom releases.
Eight
Leviathan-Scar Sighted
Incredibly varied black metal, including touches of funeral doom.
Seven
Rivers of Nihil-Monarchy
I’m not normally one for tech death, but for the songs on here I’ll make an exception.
Six
Panopticon
No surprise, the year’s best atmospheric black metal album.
Five
Paradise Lost-The Plague Within
Still one of the leaders of doom/death, The Plague Within is the heaviest album Paradise Lost have put out in a while.
Four
Leprous-The Congregation
Bleak progressive metal with excellent songs. Einar Solberg’s voice is fantastic.
Three
Enslaved-In Times
This band can seemingly do no wrong; In Times is another fantastic album.
Two
Bell Witch-Four Phantoms
For not having a guitarist, this duo created one of the most emotionally intense albums of the year and what, to me, is a classic of the funeral doom genre.
One
Mgla-Exercises in Futility
It’s hard to explain what makes Mgla so great. There are a million ‘orthodox’ black metal bands that sound similar, but Mgla flatten almost all of them.
