Luke Saunders

A year like no other is finally grinding to a halt, so it is time to push aside the many challenging, unfortunate events and circumstances of a largely forgettable 2020 and focus on a tremendous year for heavy music. I am still frantically catching up on albums that have slipped me by in the end of year catch-up period, with plenty of good stuff on offer.

Thanks for all the hard work of my dedicated team of colleagues that keep the content flowing far more than I have been able to this year. And as always, my deepest appreciation to the readership here at this humble blog for your ongoing support.

1. Caustic Wound – Death Posture. Profound Lore. Filthy old school deathgrind with a barrel full of killer riffs, sick grooves, and catchy songs.
2. Shores of Null – Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying). Spikerot Records. A tremendous one-track behemoth of gloomy death-doom with huge emotional heft and a stunning mix of darkness, beauty, anguish and hope.
3. Warbringer – Weapons of Tomorrow. Napalm Records. A scorching thrash album from a band I have largely overlooked previously. This ticked all the boxes for a modern thrash album with an old school soul.
4. Faceless Burial – Speciation. Dark Descent Records. Bruising display of punishing heaviness and intelligent old school death, with modern freshness and top shelf songwriting.
5. Mr Bungle – The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo. Ipecac Recordings. An inspired reimagining of their earlier thrash metal roots, Mr Bungle dispensed with their experimental rock weirdness in favor of catchy, inspired and wacky thrash. Mike Patton, Trey Spruance and Trevor Dunn were joined by thrash icons Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian for a wildly exuberant, humor laced extravaganza.
6. The Ocean – Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic. Metal Blade. A worthy sequel to their 2018 blockbuster, The Ocean bedazzle again with a playful, dynamic prog metal album, that has grown on me considerably after some early reservations.
7. Afterbirth – Four Dimensional Flesh. Unique Leader. Intelligent, proggy, slamming, beautifully produced and crafted brutal death.
8. Green Carnation – Leaves of Yesteryear. Season of Mist. Masterful dark prog album from these long dormant Norwegian veterans.
9. Bütcher – 666 Goats Carry My Chariot. Osmose. A blazingly awesome surprise packet of old school speed metal with flashes of black, thrash, Viking and NWOBHM.
10. Anaal Nathrakh – Endarkenment. Metal Blade. There something about this album that struck a chord with me big time in a tumultuous year. It is not the band’s finest hour, but it does find the UK veterans sounding as refined, yet inspired and urgent as ever. Endarkenment is a ridiculously infectious collection of gems, featuring trademark harsh extremities with powerhouse hooks and an accessible streak, marking one of their finest albums over the past decade.

Honorable Mentions

Benighted – Obscene Repressed

Black Royal – Firebride

Haken – Virus

Intellect Devourer – Demons of the Skull

Spirit Adrift – Enlightened in Eternity

Eternal Champion – Ravening Iron

Katatonia – City Burials

Mors Principium Est – Seven

Gorephilia – In the Eye of Nothing

Ripped to Shreds – Luan

Great stuff I did not spend enough time with: Stoned God, Akurion, Cryptic Shift, Sweven, Plague