Honorable Mentions
50-46
45-41
40-36
35-31

30

Long Distance Calling – Avoid the Light

This is one of my favorite post-rock CDs now. Long Distance Calling really pushes the genre dangerously close to prog territory. This is one of the heaviest and most aggressive releases in this genre that I can think of off the top of my head. Then again my memory is like a colander so that might not be saying too much.

29

Strike Anywhere – Iron Front

This is the best thing Strike Anywhere has done since Change is a Sound, and it might even be a little better in ways. That is pretty high praise considering I had almost no excitement for this album when it came out. I don’t know why they are so pissed off still, I mean the government is just awesome and everything is going so good right now. Sigh.

28

Ulcerate – Everything Is Fire

Probably one of if not the heaviest album of the year. This is just crushing. If you put headphones around a lump of coal while this album is playing, in a day you will have a diamond the size of your fist. Ulcerate is going to single-handily fix the world economy. I would say this is the best thing to ever come from New Zealand but I can’t for the life of me think of anything else from New Zealand.

27

Forever in Terror – The End

You know, I’m kind of surprising myself with the amount of metalcore I have on this list. Maybe the genre isn’t as dead as I thought. Either that or these bands are the only ones left that are interesting. Although I guess this is technically deathcore if you want to be one of those people. Forever in Terror does it with solos AND breakdowns. I like solos. I like breakdowns. I like this.

26

Ensiferum – From Afar

Awesome Finnish power/viking metal. I have such a weakspot for this stuff. If you don’t grow a full beard at 2:52 of the second track, you should see a doctor immediately. You are deficient in something important.