2015 has sucked in almost every way for me and for a lot of people that I know, too. You could say it was full of Trials and Tribulation (that’ll be funny AFTER you see the top of my list). Fortunately, we were gifted a litany of top-shelf metal albums to get us through it without losing our minds. The following are the top 20 metal records that I subjected my children to while driving them all over L.A. I have to admit that there was so much great stuff this year that I sort of cheated here by including a very extensive “honorable mentions” category for all of the other albums that might have made the list had the year ended when they came out. All of them are excellent efforts that I know I’ll be listening to for years to come.

Check out the list and let me know what you think in the comments below because if I know metalheads (and believe me, I do) you’ll all have some very strong opinions about your own likes and dislikes. The best thing about other people’s year-end “best of” list is that I always discover a few absolute gems that got past me during the year. Last year, you, the readers, even turned me on to Ne Obliviscaris and Solstafir, two amazing bands that I was unfamiliar with and whose albums should have been on my list. It is my hope that no matter what your opinion of my personal list is, that it will inspire you to check out some artists or records that you haven’t yet discovered. Who knows, maybe you’ll find your new favorite metal band contained herein.

Have a wonderful holiday season and rest up, because 2016 promises to be another pummeling year in extreme music. And be sure to stay tuned here at GoD because you know we’ll be doing our very best to keep you informed about all of it.

Seattle’s greatest blackened, crossover thrash export Black Breath is set to unleash their third full-length album on September 25th via Southern Lord Records. The album is called Slaves Beyond Death and their label Southern Lord has just released the title track via their Soundcloud page.

Check out the title track of Slaves Beyond Death here below.

Washington state band Black Breath is many things to many different people. They incorporate elements from across the metal spectrum ranging from thrash to hardcore to doom and several points in between. But the one common thread running through all of their work is the strong anti-Christian aesthetic of black metal. There may be no better example of the convergence of all of these elements than the track “Black Sin (Spit On The Cross)” from their second full length album, 2012’s Sentenced To Life. Check it out here below.

After waiting for drummer Jamie Bynum to recover from multiple fractures to his leg from being hit by a car in early 2014, Black Breath are currently hard at work on their third album. It is due later this year via powerhouse metal label Southern Lord. Keep an eye out here for details on the album as they emerge.