You’ve waited with bated breath for 12 months (and a bit), but the moment of reckoning is finally here. Voted on by the one and only Brotherhood of ‘The Metal Observer,’ feast your eyes upon the top 20 albums of 2014!
It was a tight race this year with the top six albums separated by just 30 points and an unsigned band even made it into the Top 10.
20) MindMaze – Back from the Edge (Power Metal / USA) (64 points / 3 votes)
19) Xandria – Sacrificium (Symphonic Metal / Germany) (68 points / 6 votes)
18) Thantifaxath – Sacred White Noise (Black Metal / Canada) (69 points / 3 votes)
17) Sabaton – Heroes (Power Metal / Sweden) (70 points / 4 votes)
16) Misery Index – The Killing Gods (Death Metal / USA) (71 points / 3 votes)
15) Epica – The Quantum Enigma (Symphonic Metal / Netherlands) (72 points / 4 votes)
14) Cruachan – Blood for the Blood God (Folk Metal / Ireland) (73 points / 3 votes)
13) Mare Cognitum – Phobos Monolith (Black Metal / USA) (79 points / 5 votes)
12) Yob – Clearing The Path To Ascend (Stoner/Doom Metal / USA) (80 points / 4 votes)
11) Sinbreed – Shadows (Power Metal / Germany) (86 points / 4 votes)
10) Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta III – Saturnian Poetry (Black Metal / France) (87 points / 5 votes)
9) Dead Congregation – Promulgation Of The Fall (Death Metal / Greece) (91 points / 4 votes)
8) Bloodbath – Grand Morbid Funeral (Death Metal / Sweden) (93 points / 4 votes)
7) Viathyn – Cynosure (Progressive Power Metal / Canada) (99 points / 5 votes)
6) Falconer – Black Moon Rising (Folk Power Metal / Sweden) (102 points / 6 votes)
5) The Great Old Ones – Tekeli-Li (Post-Black Metal / France) (104 points / 6 votes)
4) Panopticon – Roads To The North (Black/Folk Metal / USA) (111 points / 5 votes)
3) Insomnium – Shadows of the Dying Sun (Death Metal / Finland) (121 points / 5 votes)
2) Mastodon – Once More ‘Round the Sun (Progressive Metal / USA) (122 points / 6 votes)
Aaaaaaand …. the winner is…….
1) Primordial – Where Greater Men Have Fallen (Pagan Metal / Ireland) (132 points / 6 votes)
Hope you found some of your own favourites from the year in the list, and maybe some albums you missed and might check out. We’ll be following up this article with the Metal Observer writers’ individual Best of 2014 lists over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for those too. In the meantime, we’ll be reviewing as much metal as we can in 2015 and hoping it’s as good a year as the last one!
