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.

The Satanic Swedish metal juggernaut known as Ghost is streaming its brand new album Meliora in its entirety right now ahead of the official release this Friday (August 21, 2015).

Listen to the entire album here below.

Meliora is Ghost’s third full-length effort and finds them exploring a heavier side of their sonic palate than ever before. It is also the first to feature “new” singer Papa Emeritus III. The joke there is that it’s the same singer dressed as an evil Pope, but with each album he gets a new mask and the next sequential Roman numeral just like the succession of real Popes.

Last week I told you all about Meliora, the upcoming third album from Swedish occult rock ghouls Ghost (aka Ghost B.C. in the US for legal reasons) and gave you the first listen to the album’s lead single “Cirice.” Now the band has graced us with the official video for that superb track.

The clip finds the band invading a school talent show and possessing one creepy-eyed little girl who ends up going all Carrie on unappreciative audience members.

Check out the video here below. Meliora will be available worldwide on August 21, 2015.

Swedish metal juggernaut Ghost (known as Ghost B.C. in the U.S. due to legal issues) is ramping up for the release of their third full-length album titled Meliora in August and at midnight on Saturday night they debuted the album’s first single “Cirice” via their website.

For those unfamiliar with the band, Ghost are extremely divisive amongst the metal community. Metalheads either view their weirdo brand of ABBA meets metal as groundbreaking and brilliant or they hate them with a passion. One metalhead went as far as starting an online petition to break the band up (for the record, I’m firmly entrenched in the pro-Ghost camp). The band members dress in anonymous costumes with the majority of members taking on the personas of “nameless ghouls.”

File this under Haters Gonna Hater: An extreme non-fan of Ghost wants the group to break up and has started a petition at Change.org in hopes of getting enough people to join the cause.

In his statement, titled “Shut down the Swedish retro metal band Ghost,” petitioner Sven Armdacht claims that people just starting to get into metal listen to the Ghost thinking “they are the real deal” and that said incoming fans of the genre believe that “we should forget the real bands like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden.” He also accuses Ghost of trying to “destroy real metal.”

He goes on and on complaining that Ghost is not a real metal band and that they are really more like Blue Oyster Cult than King Diamond and Mercyful Fate, the latter two of which they are often compared to. Check out the full petition here below.