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.

Swedish blackened death metal up-and-comers Tribulation are giving us the first glimpse of their highly anticipated third album The Children of the Night. The band has just released the first single from the album via Decibel’s website. The track is titled “In the Dreams of the Dead” and finds Tribulation upping the ante another notch from the brilliant 2013 album Formulas of Death .

The album is due out April 20th in Europe and April 21st in North America via Century Media Records. The European album pre-order will start on March 23rd. The North American pre-order has started already at this location.

Tribulation is a blackened death metal band from Arvika, Sweden. They have released two great records thus far and have just announced their signing with Century Media Records for a worldwide deal. I personally discovered these guys when they opened for Watain and In Solitude on their first American tour late last year and can vouch for the fact that they are a phenomenal live act. I’ve been addicted to their second album, Formulas of Death, ever since. The band is preparing to enter the studio in December to begin work on their third full-length album and if it’s anywhere near as good as the last two, with the strength of Century Media behind them, they should soon be a household name in metal circles.

Here live from Party San in 2010 is Tribulation with a song from their first album, The Horror, entitled “Graveyard Ghouls.”