Wow! What a suck-fest 2016 was, huh? Lemmy goes and dies in the waning moments of 2015 and it’s all gone to hell since then. Bowie, Brexit, Prince, Trump, Mohammad Ali, ISIS, Leonard Cohen, Glenn Frye, Harambe, Keith Emerson AND Greg Lake, Standing Rock… the list of death, destruction, and atrocities goes on. Hell, The Cubs even won the World Series, so you know the end must be near! Thankfully though, we metalheads had a treasure-trove of great new music in which to drown our sorrows. There were so many great albums released that it was more difficult than ever for me to work up my year-end best-of list! Who would’ve though that Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, and Darkthrone would all drop their greatest albums in decades? Perhaps another seal of the apocalypse breaking? I’ll let you decide that one for yourself. And as for the younger bands, there seem to be great ones crawling out of the woodwork everywhere.

So, without further ado, I present to you my favorite metal albums of 2016 from across all of the myriad subgenres. Keep in mind please, that this is exactly that… my favorite albums of the year. Yours are undoubtedly different. You probably even strongly disagree with some or all of my selections. Which is perfectly fine. Go write your own damn column!

Unless you are a new reader of this column (and “welcome” if you are), you are keenly aware of my affection for former Immortal frontman Abbath and his new eponymous band. I recently gave the new band’s debut album a score of 9.5 out of 10. You can read the full review at this location.

So, when Abbath releases a new video it’s pretty much a shoe-in to be my Black Metal Friday track of the week. And so it is this week with the just released fourth video from the album. The song is called “Winterbane” and it is one of the many highlights of the spectacular self titled outing. If you have not done so already, I implore you to pick up a copy of the record which is simply titled Abbath.

If you need further convincing, crank up the video for “Winterbane” right here below and just try not to bang your head. Go on… I dare you!

Abbath
Abbath
MP3 | CD | Vinyl | Cassette
Label: Season of Mist
Release date: January 22, 2016

Abbath may be one of the most recognizable people in all of black metal. The singer/guitarist has been one of the staples of the scene ever since his former band Immortal burst onto the scene at the dawn of the second wave in 1992. He definitely possesses the best sense of humor in the genre which, along with nearly 25 years of cranking out excellent music, has endeared him to fans across the globe. So it was a devastating blow when he announced that he had parted was with Immortal last year.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Abbath immediately set out to assemble another band and gave it his own name, so now we have Abbath, the band, as well as Abbath, the man. A few short months later, the band has released its debut record. Care to guess what it’s called? If you said Abbath, you’re starting to get the pattern here.

Former Immortal frontman Abbath is set to return with his new band which is cleverly named Abbath. The group will release its debut album on January 22, 2016 via Season of Mist records. The disc is titled (what else?) Abbath (pre-order at Amazon). Apparently the man really likes his own name!

All of the advance tracks from the album point to it being the singer/guitarist’s strongest work since Immortal’s legendary Sons of Northern Darkness period from the early 2000s which is great news for fans of symphonic black metal. Abbath has just released another preview track titled “Ashes of the Damned” and it is a ripper! Check it out right here below and check back in a couple of weeks for my full review of the new album.

The king of Northern darkness has returned! Former Immortal frontman Abbath is back with a brand new band, which is also called Abbath. The band made its live debut back in June at the Tuska Open Air festival in Helsinki, Finland. At that show, most of their set consisted of tunes from Abbath’s (the man) other bands Immortal and the metal supergroup I. They did however debut one new original track called “Fenrir Hunts.”

Now Abbath (the band) has created a live video for the song, which is scheduled to appear (in studio form as opposed to live) on their upcoming debut album. That recording is slated for a January 2016 release on the Seasons of Mist label. Expect an in depth look at that right here at GoD as the release date approaches.