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!

The answer is no… I don’t know how to pronounce their name either. What I do know is that Chthe’ilist is a two-man atmospheric death metal band from Canada that formed in 2010 from the ashes of the band Spheres. They released a demo titled Amechth’ntaas’m’rriachth which turned the metal underground on its ear in 2012. Now, nearly four years later comes the release of the duo’s full-length album Le Dernier Crépuscule, which came out January 29, 2016 on Profound Lore Records. Once again Chthe’ilist has grabbed the attention of the entire metal world. The album is absolutely amazing. If you are a death metal fan in any way, shape, or form, I highly recommend giving this record a listen. I played it straight through three times in a row upon first listen.

This week’s Massive Metal Monday track comes from Le Dernier Crépuscule. Check out the crushing track “Voidspawn” right here below and, as always, if you like what you’re hearing, buy a copy to support underground metal.