With 2016 slowly coming to an end, I thought it might be good to share some good albums that came out this year. Some of my favorites in no particular order are:
Bewitcher - Bewitcher: The debut album of a blackened speed metal band from portland. I stumbled upon it when I was looking through Bandcamp and I really like it! It's got nice and fast riffs and solos, as well as partially over the top/cliché satanic lyrics (which is always a plus for me). While it may not be anything particularly innotive, I find it quite enjoyable and I'm looking forward to more music from Bewitcher.
Amon Amarth - Jomsviking: Amon Amarth's first concept album. Being a concept album, it really focuses on one of the things I like most about Amon Amarth: Their amazing story telling. I find the story to be executed rather well. Musically it's a bit mixed. There are tracks like "Raise your Horns" that are just really catchy and will really include the crowd at concerts but the lyrics are almost a bit cheesy. Then there are really raw tracks with a more aggressive style like "At Dawn's First Light" or "Vengeance is My Name" and on "A Dream that cannot be" there's even a Doro Pesch feature, which is shows a nice contrast between Doro's clean vocals and Johan's deep growling. It's not my favorite Amon Amarth album (that honor still belongs to Twilight of the Thunder God and With Oden on our Side), but it's a very good one nonetheless.
Metallica - Hardwired ... to Self-Destruct: I can't really say much about this album, as it just came out today, but I already really like it. I haven't listened to a whole lot of Metallica before this (just some of the well known songs). Not because I didn't like their music but rather because I hadn't found the time). This album will change that (I'm going to start listening to some of their older stuff as well, like Master of Puppets, the black album, or Ride the Lightning). As far as I can tell, it's quite a bit like some of the older stuff, but then again I haven't really gotten around to listen to too much of the older stuff yet. Overall I can really recommend this album
Naðra - Allir vegir til glötunar: A really good Icelandic Black Metal album, that helped me get a bit more into black metal this year. As far as the actual music goes, I can't really say much as it's a bit difficult to describe so it might be better if you just check it out here. However, I can say, if you don't like black metal, this probably won't be an exception.
How about everyone else? What are your favorite metal albums of the year? Or is there anything still coming out that you're looking forward to in particular?
Edit: Can anyone tell me how to add the metal tag to this topic?