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.

Black Tongue is a British band that plays an ultra heavy type of metal known as doom-core. Utilizing extremely low tunings, demonic vocals, and dirge-like tempos, this quartet have staked their claim as one of the brightest rising stars in the metal underground. But their ascent nearly came to a screeching halt back in February when lead singer Alex Teven fell from the band’s moving tour bus while on tour in Poland. The drunken frontman mistook the exit door for the bus’s toilet door and fell onto the roadway. His bandmates found him lying in a ditch with head and facial injuries.

Fortunately, Tevan’s injuries were not life threatening and the self-proclaimed “Hull Hate Crew” rebounded by September when they released their crushing new album, The Unconquerable Dark. This week’s Massive Metal Monday track is the opening salvo of the album and is entitled “Plague Worship.” Crank it up, but not too loud… this stuff will blow your speakers!