The Best Metal of 2015
by Andrew Sacher
photo: Tribulation at Webster Hall in November (more by Amanda Hatfield)
We already posted Pallbearer‘s favorite albums of 2015, Stephen Brodsky‘s (of Cave In and Mutoid Man), and Decibel Mag‘s, and we told you that James Hetfield‘s favorite album of the year was Baroness‘ Purple. Here’s more of the best metal of 2015:
Our metal sister site Invisible Oranges had writers post their individual lists. You can check out lists by Joseph Schafer, Vanessa Salvia, Jon Rosenthal, Skid Rÿche, Dan Lawrence, Rob Sperry-Fromm, Bruce Hardt, Rhys Williams, Mat Schmahl, Jason Bailey, Ian Cory, Greg Majewski, Chris Rowella, Chris Brown, Ben Sas, Avinash Mittur, and yours truly. The top 3 consensus picks from the IO staff were:
3. Mgla – Excersises in Futility
2. Deafheaven – New Bermuda
1. Panopticon – Autumn Eternal
Deafheaven were probably the band who appeared most on non-metal lists, including our own. They also topped a few metal-specific lists, including Pitchfork, SPIN, and my personal metal list.
Panopticon topped Stereogum‘s list, Marilyn Manson (?) topped Rolling Stone, and Horrendous topped that aforementioned Decibel list. Tribulation didn’t come in at #1 on any major lists we saw, but they cracked the top ten (and often top five) of almost every one. For more, check out MetalSucks‘ individual writer lists, Metal Injection‘s individual lists, and NPR‘s heavy songs.
Two great albums that popped up on a lot of lists that we never got a chance to talk about here on BV were Dead to a Dying World‘s atmospheric black metal opus Litany (ft. members of Pallbearer, Sabbath Assembly and Pinkish Black) and Khemmis‘ sludgy debut Absolution. Listen to those below.
What was your favorite metal of 2015?
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