Best albums of 2018

[JSTHECONQUEROR]

I am going to come up with my list and post it later. I need to give this some thought in order to rank my favorites. Whats your top albums of the year?

[Jack the Stripper]

My top five for the year

1. Firepower - Judas Priest
2. Electric Messiah - High on Fire
3. Damned I You Do - Metal Church
4. U.D.O. - Steelfactory
5. Solstice - White Horse Hill

Most looking forward to in 2019

Overkill - The Wings of War
Megadeth -

[Tyr66]

very bad year for me , very bad. I've never listened to so little music, especially during the second semester. Fucking 2018 year.

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - The Age of Absurdity
Judas Priest - Firepower
A Perfect Circle - Eat The Elephant
Ghost - Prequelle
Immortal - Northern Chaos Gods
Behemoth - I Love you at Your Darkest

[Charger]

Oh Js you beat me to the punch!

I was just today gonna make this thread and my list!

I'm gonna be doing it later on...

[Charger]

Okay finished the monster task of putting the TOP 10 ALBUMS of 2018 in order!

10.
Thomas Zwijsen – Nylon Metal

Acoustic guitar mastermind Thomas Zwijsen returned again with an album full of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock classics preformed with an acoustic guitar. Thomas started with doing Iron Maiden tracks acoustically and became quite famous with his incredible talent in both playing and turning metal songs into acoustical masterpieces.
This time he has picked songs from several legendary bands including Rainbow (Temple Of The King), Kiss (Detroit Rock City and Forever which features Bruce Kulick on second guitar), Judas Priest (Living After Midnight), Metallica (Enter Sandman and The Unforgiven II), Deep Purple, Iron Maiden naturally and more. Blaze Bayley also joins Thomas again for a fantastic preformance of Lightning Strikes Twice, a song you wouldn’t think would work well acoustically, but which in the hands of these two does...and very well I might add. Anne Bakker offers some vocals as well as her incredible violin skills for some tracks including Purple’s Burn!
This is a must have album for anyone who likes acoustic stuff, and I’d highly recommend this even for people who normally don’t...

9.
Lucifer – Lucifer II

Johanna Sadonis returned with a completely new line-up featuring her husband Nicke Andersson and Robin Tidebrink. Also the sound of the band changed quite a bit, still bowing strongly to 70s hard rock but is a lot less doomy as their first album was...the Gaz Jennings touch is somewhat missed. But eventhough this is on the softer side it still has some incredible tracks like the super rocking California Son which is something that could have easily been recorded in the 70s, the groovy Dreamer, heavier Phoenix and the egypt themed Faux Pharaoh.
Johanna’s vocals are incredible through out, her voice is the thing that carries this album for sure. Eventhough I personally miss the heavier edge of Lucifer I, I can easily see this band getting a much wider audience with a sound like this, and the groove of the 70s is something that one has to like....and the vocals...oh the vocals.

8.
Witch Mountain – Witch Mountain

This years new comer for me is the American Doom Metal band Witch Mountain which I found from Band Camp. They have been around for few years now but this is their first album with the new singer Kayla Dixon who delivers an incredible mixture of beautiful soft melodies and gut wrenching growls suitable for ultra heavy doom metal.
I can admit I have a soft spot for female fronted doom metal bands but even in that category Witch Mountain stands high. The album only contains 5 tracks but they are all really strong and the album closer the 14 minute epic Nighthawk is pretty close of being the best track of 2018.

7.
Blaze Bayley – December Wind

First time ever have I had 2 albums from the same artist in my top ten albums of the year list.
Blaze has been keeping himself quite busy. With 100+ shows supporting the trilogy and then recording an acoustic album with his long time acoustic partner, Netherlands’ gift to guitar world, the incredibly talented Thomas Zwisjen. The album features 8 new tracks, one of them being a new version of the Iron Maiden classic 2 A.M. (which works incredibly well as an acoustic track) and the 5 track acoustic EP Russian Holiday he released with Thomas few years ago.
This once again proves how great of a singer Blaze really is as with acoustic songs the singer’s voice carries so much more weight and strength...and Blaze once again delivers the goods. Tracks like Eye Of The Storm, December Wind and the lighter The Love Of Your Life all prove that.
Acoustic metal is a hard thing to do well...but there is so much talent between Blaze and Thomas (and Anne Bakker who adds some violin to the mix!) that this works flawlessly.

6.
Tourniquet – Gazing At Medusa

Tim “Ripper” Owens is one of those singers that one just has to follow what ever he does because his vocals never disappoint, quite the opposite really, they just keep on amazing you. So when I found out he had a new project which also features one of the originators of thrash metal mr. Chris Poland from Megadeth I knew this would be something special. The band Tourniquet is a project run by drummer extraordinaire Ted Kirkpatrick who also handles the bass duties on the album. Rythm guitar is provided by Aaron Guerra and Deen Castronovo provides some guest vocals on the title track.
Tracks Longing For Gondwanaland, Memento Mori, The Crushing Weight Of Eternity and The Peacful Beauty Of Brutal Justice and the title track are all fantastic. The mixture of hard hitting thrash metal and softer hard rock-y parts gel together perfectly. And Tim’s vocals are just incredible through out. This is one of the heaviest albums he’s ever done and he still after all these years manages to impress me with finding whole new sides of his voice.

5.
Judas Priest – Firepower

Metal giants Judas Priest returned with their second album without the talent of founding member KK Downing. The previous album Redeemer Of Souls was a very mixed bag of stuff and it was clear that the new guitarist Richie Faulkner was still looking for his place in the band and the band was trying to find a place for him. Well now the place has been found. Sure Richie is no KK and his style, although is quite close by design, is still different. Also soon after the album news had been released a sadder news came about as well with Glenn Tipton being diagnosed with Parkinson’s and was forced to step down from the band. Thus the live preformances have only featured 2 members of Classic Priest (or 3 if you count drummer Scott Travis). Richie did pick up the slack quite well but the live preformances have been rather lackluster with the magic that made up majority of what was Priest (KK and Glenn) both missing. But I digress.
Firepower is a very strong album. Much more coherent than the mixed Redeemer was and it even manages to capture a lot of what one can call classic Priest feel. Tracks like Lightning Strike, Evil Never Dies, Necromancer, Children Of The Sun (which is by far the best song on the album), Traitor’s Gate and the best album closer Priest has done since the epical Catherdal Spires Sea Of Red are all absolute top notch. But like nearly always with Priest there are some weaker ones as well like the semi-ballad Rising From The Ruins which never really reaches the highs it clearly was intented to, Flame Thrower which is bit too cliché even for Priest and again just like on Redeemer the title track fails to deliver the goods.
Still though Priest proves why they are one of the all time greats, even with the number of classic band members diminishing like Rob’s vocal abilities. If this does remain the last ever Priest album they can be proud of it as they would be going out on a high note.

4.
DORO – Forever Warriors / Forever United

Metal Queen Doro Pesch returned with a bang after few years of album hiatus. Or should I say double bang, as this is a full blown double album. The first part Forever Warriors is more in your face heavy metal with tracks like All For Metal, Bastardos and Turn It Up where as the second part Forever United is bit more on the softer side with tracks like Heartbroken, Love Is A Sin, Living Life To The Fullest (which is dedicated to Lemmy) and the Motörhead cover Lost In The Ozone.
Doro has once again delivered what she does best. A great mixture of hard hitting heavy metal accompanied by beautiful soft ballads where her unique voice really shines. And speaking of her voice, she hasn’t lost a beat over the years, which is rather uncanny really as well. As great as her past 2 albums were this might just be a notch better. With Doro you pretty much always know what to expect but still she somehow manages to surprise you as well. Here the big surprise is the closer for the first album Bring My Hero Back Home Again (taken from the movie Anouk III) which pretty much just features Doro by herself...a hauntingly beautiful track and she sound better here than I think she ever has before.

3.
Metal Church – Damned If You Do

One of the most underrated heavy metal bands of all time returned with their second album featuring the return of legendary singer Mike Howe. Their previous effort XI was clearly the album of the year in 2016 and this ain’t much behind. We’ve got 10 tracks of brilliant old school heavy metal, with crushing riffs, thundering bass, pounding drums and insane vocals by Mike Howe, who is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best singers in the heavy metal world...still.
Tracks like the title track, By The Numbers, Monkey Finger and Out Of Balance are all just as good as anything on XI or on the classic Mike Howe fronted albums. And all in all there isn’t a single bad track on the album. The term “all killer no filler” comes instantly to mind when listening to this album. But there is one down side to the album as well...it is missing that one bigger epical track that Metal Church has always done on each of their albums. Most of the tracks here clock between 4 and 5 minutes, only Revolution Underway and The Black Things barely clocking over 5 minutes.
But with material this strong that is actually still a very minor gripe. And eventhough this didn't quite make it to the top this year it is still a fantastic album that proves once and for all Metal Church is back and hopefully for good!

2.
Blaze Bayley – The Redemption Of William Black

Blaze Bayley delivered the goods one more time with the conclusion of his epical sci-fi album trilogy which follows the 1000 year journey of William Black through space and time. Blaze has gotten stronger and stronger both lyrically and vocally over the years and he is definitely living his top years now. The Infinite Entanglement trilogy is a testament of that. The final part included fast rockers like Immortal One, Prayers Of Light, The Dark Side Of Black as well as slower more complex tracks like Human Eyes 18 days (which features brilliant guest vocals by Liz Owen) and the absolutely epical closer Eagle Spirit.
Blaze’s current band which features the guys from British metal band Absolva is probably among the finest he’s ever had and eventhough Chris Appleton handles the guitar duties alone it matter none, as he is the most talented guitar player Blaze has ever had in his solo career.
A fantastic ending to a fantastic trilogy.




And then it is time for the album of the year....I have to say the struggle between the albums 3 through 1 was extremely close as they are all absolutely SUBERB.



1. (ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2018)
Dream Child – Until Death Do We Meet Again

Old DIO band members, Guitar master Craig Goldy, Drummer extraordinaire Simon Wright and Bass legend Rudy Sarzo joined forces with Keyboardist Wayne Findlay and singer with extreme power Diego Valdez to deliver an album Ronnie would be proud of.
Musically the album combines some of the best elements of good old fashioned hard rock and metal, drawing inspiration from Sabbath, Rainbow, Deep Purple and ofcourse DIO. Craig has once again proved why he is THE best guitarist the DIO band ever had. He can play melodic, hauntingly beautiful solos filled with emotion the one minute and crushing fast heavy riffs the next.
Rest of the band is top notch ofcourse as well, Simon and Rudy providing the backbone and Wayne delivering some very Don Airey-esque keyboard sounds...However the biggest surprise here is provided by the singer Diego Valdez who I had not even heard of before this. He sounds just amazing here, his vocals are filled with power and presense and yes he bares an uncanny resemblance to Ronnie....so much in fact that there are times that it is easy to imagine Ronnie actually singing these songs which makes it even that much more special.
Song like Under The Wire, the epical You Can’t Take Me Down, Game Of Shadows, fast rocker Playing With Fire, the monsterous title track and the very Rainbow-esque Washed Upon The Shore are all absolutely suberb tracks that show the incredible talent that resides in this band.
But truth be told there isn’t a single bad track on this album, just various degrees of brilliance. Every now and then there just comes that album which is a true joy to listen through, an album that leaves you to wonder how on earth could it have been done...this is most certainly one of those albums and it most certainly deserves to be called the album of the year!


I have to say (unlike my buddy Tyr) this was a great year for heavy music! Been truly enjoying all of these albums and will keep on enjoying them for as long as I shall live!

Next year...who knows...
New Megadeth
New Rob Zombie
New Anthrax
Spirits Of Fire
New Hammerfall
And who knows what else!

Should be great as well...

[AnnoMundi]

I don't really buy much albums anymore, so I can't list.

[Zzzptm]

I'll need to respond at length once I get home, but my Stoner Top Ten has MOS Generator's Shadowlands in the list.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[JSTHECONQUEROR]

This year wasn't the best year for music. I listened to a lot of stuff though and re-kindled my love for many older albums. I have been scouring bandcamp a lot and listening to a lot of underground bands.I am sure there are albums I would have liked to mention I will start off with some albums I like but, but were not necessarily my favorites:
Merlin-  The Wizard (Bandcamp find check them out. Classic rock/proto doom that doesn't suck. Definitely have a unique sound to my ears with the saxophone thing going on.
Turtle Skull- Turtle Skull ( Psychedelic 60's style music that reminds me of a heavier King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.)
BLS- Grimmest Hits ( Its Ok I guess)
Paul McCartney- Egypt Station (FUH YOU MAN)
Death Grips- Year of the Snitch (not very cohesive, they have been on a downward trend for me for the past couple albums. First one I didn't buy. )
Mike Patton- 1922 Soundtrack (Not a huge fan of soundtracks usually, but this one is creepy!
Daughters- You Won't Get What You Want ( Can't figure out what the hell I am listening to half the time)
High On Fire- Electric Messiah (HOF by the numbers. Pike is a riff master but not my favorite singer.)
Haunt- Burst Into Flame (Kind of what I want when I listen to Ghost. Just started listening to this recently and I love it!)
Khemmis- Desolation ( Just a solid doom metal, much like YOB I can tolerate the death metal style vocals only so much. Khemmis is actually more of a BM raspy scream here or there though.)
Favorites:
YOB- Our Raw Heart ( Honestly, this has grown into a chore to listen to all the way through. I still love the song The Screen though, its heavy!)
Jack White- Boarding House Reach ( Might be my most listened to album of 2018. It came out pretty early in the year buts its just a fun album. Genre hopping madness that is definitely not for everyone. I think it is his best solo album to date!)
Judas Priest- Firepower (Same old Priest which is a good thing! I will never not enjoy listening to new Priest. Far superior to Reedemer!)
Ghost- Prequelle ( I listened to it a lot when it came out then haven't touched it since. Its only better than there EP's and Infest. Not enough heavy songs but I did enjoy the poppy style of it enough.)
Voivod- The Wake ( This album I am still trying to wrap my head around. That is always the case for me with Voivod. It is defiinitely the best album cover of the year!)
AIC- Rainer Fog (Alice in Chains is probably my favorite band and have been with me since i was a young lad. Its AIC by the numbers but I don't care. I am glad they are still putting out material and Cantrell is a guitar god. As long as he doesn't die, AIC  will continue to capture my heart.)
Sleep- The Sciences ( Absolutely love the Jack White's label released this monster of an album. Just wish it had all new songs and had the older ones like Antarcticans and Sonic as bonus tracks or something. This would have to be my AOTY still because there are no other options unless you count EP's.)
Dead Cross- Dead Cross EP. This is my AOTY if an EP would count. Two new songs and remixes. Patton makes this EP a special listen, and there was simply nothing that could beat those two new songs out. Their album from 2017 was also my AOTY and also one of my most favorite albums ever! Kind of sad that nothing was better than 2 new tracks, but that is of course just my opinion.

[AnnoMundi]

My God JSTHECONQUEROR, that's a big list, you must buy a lot of records.

[Charger]

Oh bollocks! I had completely forgot about Black Label Society's Grimmest Hits! I quite enjoy that one...and I do believe it would have made it to the Top 10...bugger bugger bugger...but I won't redo it though...

[Thelemech]

I bought quite a few albums this year, but most of them were reissues of old classic albums.
This year I did like
The Sciences - Sleep
Firepower - Judas Priest
Eat the Elephant  - A Perfect Circle
I Loved you at Your Darkest - Behemoth
 - and that is about it for current records.

[Thelemech]

Oh bollocks! I had completely forgot about Black Label Society's Grimmest Hits! I quite enjoy that one...and I do believe it would have made it to the Top 10...bugger bugger bugger...but I won't redo it though...

I liked Grimmest Hits as well but I would not call it a favorite album of the year. It is pretty solid but not one of their strongest releases. IMHO of course.

[Jack the Stripper]

I still have not listened to Grimmest Hits in full and I'm quite the Zakk/BLS fan. I have everything else he's played on. I don't know how this release has passed me by.

I missed putting Prequelle in too, not sure it would've made my top 5 though, it's my least favourite Ghost album but at least still deserved an honourable mention.

[Charger]

Now that I'm thinking about it Grimmest Hits probably would have been #8 on the list dropping Tom's album out...but I am happy with that list too...