Ho ho ho! Metal Christmas! And since you’ve all been such good little boys and girls, we’re going to cram four hours of the best metal of 2019 right up your asses! Ignore everyone else’s lists, since they’re just screen-caps of Nuclear Blast and Prosthetic Records’ online stores! Ho ho ho!!!
A few notable stats from this bountiful year of brutality:
– Four of the year’s best albums were death/thrash, with three of them from the US. Who would have guessed?
– Five additional releases were from long-running veteran underground bands, proving again that greatness has no expiration date.
– Four of our favorite releases were from here in Texas. We got the goods, y’all!
– Black metal as it was intended is alive and well in Northern Europe, with Finland having a shockingly good showing of three bands on our list. Norway followed with two great entries as well.
– Quebec continues to dominate North American black metal unabated, with four releases of their own making the cut, and three of which were on Sepulchral Productions, per usual!
– 2019 was an even better year for metal than we originally anticipated, and it was pretty inspiring to round out this list with so many great releases (including a few we managed to forget, sorry). Hail metal, and let’s keep the machine rolling in 2020!
Top 10 of 2019
1) Sadistic Ritual, “Visionaire Of Death” [ALBUM OF THE YEAR] – A caustic collision of the most violent moments of Razor and Kreator, Sadistic Ritual rushes forward with the death/thrash banner held high and goes for the throat. This one got the most rotation from both The Undertaker and DJ Slitzkrieg, which is why it gets the top spot!
Banners Of The Funereal War” – Far more interesting than the usual Finnish output, this one-man endeavor heads back west towards Norway to create a legitimate article of black metal majesty.
Supreme Darkness” – Another Finnish black metal act that bucks the tepidness trend, Vargrav puts the unabashed love for early Emperor on full display, and the results are most welcome.
Choir” – The true follow-up to “Seven Chalices”, this new effort from Spain’s most diabolical black/death act is toothsome and massive. Prepare to be overcome.
And the best of the rest:
- Imprecation – Damnatio Ad Bestias
- Hellvetron – Trident of Tartarean Gateways
- Cemetarian – Tomb of Morbid Stench
- Monarque – Jusqu’à la mort
- Délétère – Theovorator: Babelis Testamentum
- Csejthe – L’horreur de Čachtice
- Ossuaire – Premiers Chants
- Corpsessed – Beyond Abysmal Thresholds
- Hagzissa – They Ride Along
- Mortiferum – Disgorged from Psychotic Depths
- Baxaxaxa – The Old Evil
- Ectovoid – Inner Death
- Cult of Extinction – Ritual in the Absolute Absence of Light
- Musmahhu – Reign of the Odious
- Genocide Shrines – All And-Or Nothing (split tack from Scorn Coalescence)
- Förgjord – Ilmestykset
- Excarnated Entity – Stillborn in Ash
- Impiety – Versus All Gods
- Black Curse – Endless Wound
- Slutvomit – Copulation of Cloven Hooves
- Nucleus – Entity
- Sepolcro – Amorphous Mass
- Mortem – Ravnsvart
- Drastus – La Croix de Sang
- Sühnopfer – Hic Regnant Borbonii Manes
- Slaughtbbath – Alchemical Warfare