Our Top 10 albums lists by genre continue with our staff picks for the best of metal and hardcore music this year. Click next to read through the albums one by one, or use the list below to skip ahead to your favourites.
Top 10 Metal & Hardcore Albums of 2014:
To see more of our Year-End Top Tens, head over to our Best of 2014 section.
10. Devin Townsend
Z2
(Inside Out)
Z2 expresses, beautifully, two familiar sides of Devin Townsend's mad musical genius: inspirational heaviness (Sky Blue, aka disc one) and bombastic ridiculousness (Dark Matters, aka disc two). Sky Blue affirms the rightness of the Devin Townsend Project for channelling the man's creativity. It's extreme — emotionally heavy even at its softest, but also very heavy metal, progressive and, now and then, almost brutal. The album is rich with atmosphere and melody, not to mention the idyllic interaction of Townsend and Anneke van Giersbergen's voices.
Dark Matters is a completely different beast, a delightfully preposterous rock opera sequel to 2007's Ziltoid the Omniscient with perhaps more niche appeal. Featuring guest appearances by Chris Jericho and Dominique Lenore Persi (Stolen Babies), Dark Matters pays heavy homage to space operas, B-movies and musicals as much as it mocks them, combining amusing storytelling with some great riffs, melodies and harmonies. It's also a quintessentially Townsend-ish reminder that his seriousness and sincerity are always tempered by a fair dose of self-deprecation and juvenile humour. As a whole, the double whammy that is Z2 (worth getting on vinyl for the oh-so-complementary science fiction artwork) proves that if you're Devin Townsend, quality and quantity coincide. (Laura Wiebe)
9. The Body
I Shall Die Here
(RVNG Intl.)
The fourth album by the American experimental doom metal duo of drummer Lee Buford and screamer/guitarist Chip King, together known as the Body, was an ecstatic expression of human pain and misery. King's demolished shrieks and howls pierced the dark spaces amidst the chaos organized by British producer Bobby Krlic, blending Buford's mammoth kit devastation and King's gnarled guitar dirge with his own penchant for brooding atmospheres into a nuanced stream of industrial dark ambient sludge that flowed straight from their nightmares into the dark corners of the public consciousness.
Given Krlic's drone-metal-tinged electronica for Tri Angle under the name of the Haxan Cloak and the Body's increasingly esoteric career trajectory, the partnership looked good on paper, but the realized vision was nonetheless shockingly sublime. Ever evolving and densely layered, their combined nightmare was so vivid, so ominous that even after multiple listens, it still feels as if it might tear through your speakers and drag you down to the hell from whence it came. (Alan Ranta)
8. At The Gates
At War With Reality
(Century Media)
For Swedish death metal troupe At The Gates, the fear was that they simply couldn't come close to achieving what they did on their swansong, Slaughter of the Soul, the pinnacle of melodic death metal. Then they did.
The kings of Gothenburg death metal complemented their masterpiece with another, expanding their sound by converging all their influences and thereby extending their legacy. Instead of writing Still Slaughtering the Soul, as they no doubt could have, they allowed their progression of sounds — both pre-disbanding and some of those explored by members in the band's aftermath — to coagulate.
While the less drastic jump from their last to their latest may cause the illusion that At War with Reality is repetition on the band's part, it's really more of a refining, and in the process, a revitalization of melodic death metal, a genre that has been so influential that, over time, its influence has paradoxically nearly disappeared under the weight of imitators imitating imitators. With At War with Reality, the kings are back. (Bradley Zorgdrager)
7. Cult Leader
Nothing For Us Here
(Deathwish Inc.)
Gaza's messy breakup in 2013, stemming from allegations of rape, had three-quarters of the Salt Lake City outfit deciding to start anew, revealing in a press release ahead of their debut EP as Cult Leader that: "We once were another band, and now we're a better one." It's an apt statement from the crew, with their Nothing For Us Here release torching the past with a virulent and thrillingly violent six-song cycle stringing together noise-scored screaming sessions, entrails-tossing grind and decayed imagery.
The band puts on a chaotic clinic, from the viciously delivered, calculator crunching rhythm shifts of high speed detonations like "Flightless Birds" and "Skin Crawler" to the bitumen-dripping licks of saddened sludge ballad "Driftwood." Accentuating the black ooze sensation of the sonics, Anthony Lucero's haunted howls are a darkened journey through distrust, self-loathing, anger and frustration.
Their mission statement is screamed succinctly on the record's beatless, electro-jolt soundscape "God's Lonely Children": "We turn our backs on our burning homes. There's nothing for us here. Move on." Having salted the earth with Nothing For Us Here, Cult Leader have proclaimed themselves an oppressive new force metal fans need to follow. (Gregory Adams)
6. Indian
From All Purity
(Relapse)
Released at the outset of 2014, Indian's From All Purity made a quick case for being one of the best metal records of the year. It's an intense listening experience — from Dylan O'Toole's harsh and acrid vocals to the band's heaving, crushing doom — but how the band achieve that intensity is what makes the record so appealing.
While the guitars and drums are mixed lower, allowing O'Toole's performance to rise to the top and cut through, the electronics occupy the space in between, providing texture while also adding to the level of abrasiveness the band can achieve as they coalesce around every song. Those moments of unity, like on the repetitive but insistent "Directional," are at the very core of this record, with each new part driving the songs into extreme territory. (Michael Rancic)
5. Pallbearer
Foundations of Burden
(Profound Lore)
In a year when Mastodon seemed to have lost the plot musically — we're not about to go near that whole twerking video worm-can — a number of younger bands picked up the slack when it came to proggy doom metal. Leading them was Pallbearer, who followed up their impressive 2012 debut with the epic scope of Foundations of Burden. Lush and foreboding, this sophomore effort from the Little Rock, AR quartet traverses a wide variety of grooves and moods, from the Iron Maiden-esque guitarmonies of "Worlds Apart" to the sludgy main riff of "Foundations" to the Pink Floyd–style comedown of "Ashes."
With four of the six songs clocking in at over ten minutes apiece, Pallbearer clearly weren't courting any sort of mainstream airplay, yet this is one of the year's most listenable metal albums — carefully orchestrated, structurally intriguing, packed with sumptuous guitar textures and never too abrasive to harsh a good mellow. (The only strike against them might be that singer/guitarist Brett Campbell delivers his vocal lines a little too sweetly.) While Foundations of Burden wasn't exactly a massive leap forward for Pallbearer, they've clearly bypassed the sophomore slump in what's looking to be a promising march toward the peak of Mount Metal. (Chris Bilton)
4. Opeth
Pale Communion
(Roadrunner)
While genre purists wring their hands, bemoaning the progression of one of heavy music's most diverse and accomplished groups toward stewardship of the court formerly held by the Crimson King, those with a less solidly fixed perspective can dive in and revel in the bombastic glory of the Swedish titans hitting yet another landmark moment in an already epic career. Argue all you want about whether or not it's still metal if Åkerfeldt refuses to dust off his death growl, opting instead to challenge himself as an expressive singer; nailing the complex contours and naked intimacy of a masterfully crafted vocal melody is, other than in a purely physical respect, a hell of a lot tougher than straight-up bile gargling.
And testing one's self, extending personal boundaries of ability — what's more badass than that? So what if Pale Communion, which trades abrasive tones for a much more nuanced form of harmonic menace, is likely to be your mom's favourite Opeth album (if your mom is awesome)? Opeth don't fucking care; they're busy fanning the long-neglected flames of prog rock, nurturing emotional heaviness and exploring increasingly Goblin-esque sound textures to further their superlative union of folk, classical, jazz and sinister metallic grit. (Scott A. Gray)
3. Triptykon
Melana Chasmata
(Century Media)
Triptykon have only existed for a few years, conceptually since 2008 and physically since their debut full-length, Eparistera Daimones, was released in 2010, but this project from Tom G. Warrior (aka Tom Gabriel Fischer) has always possessed more weight and gravity than its relatively short history would suggest, functioning as the spiritual successor to his longest-running project Celtic Frost and seminal extreme metal band Hellhammer. The weight of that history, experience and aesthetic mastery made Eparistera Daimones an exceptional debut, and now that the band has had time to cohere and solidify creatively, it's made sophomore effort Melana Chasmata something beautiful.
The lyrics are personal, even intimate, with Warrior giving over more of himself in the writing while also loosening his grip on the project, allowing more creative contributions from other members. There is something grand, almost baroque to the emotional landscape the record explores, which is illuminated exquisitely by sweetly darker numbers like "In The Sleep of Death" and blasted apart by the thunderous "Tree of Suffocating Souls." The combination of rich history, genuine emotion and absolutely massive compositions make Melana Chasmata a towering triumph. (Natalie Zina Walschots)
2. Eyehategod
Eyehategod
(Housecore)
On their fifth studio album since 1989's foreshadowing In the Name of Suffering first dragged our eardrums through the now-famous Bayou swamplands, sludge-metal pioneers Eyehategod returned from their own primordial muck to release the best material of their 25-year career. That it was also the final recording before the sudden passing of founding drummer Joey LaCaze makes it that much more essential. Opener "Agitation! Propaganda!" and "Framed to the Wall" deliver the short, sharp, speed anthems that keep EHG patches safety-pinned to punkers' jackets. "Trying to Crack the Hard Dollar" and "Parish Motel Sickness" maintain their sludge-blues chops, thanks to the guitar necromancy of Down's Jimmy Bower and Soilent Green's Brian Patton.
"Robitussin and Rejection" revisits the band's early doom output, while the rollicking "Nobody Told Me" is sure to draw in younger listeners with frontman Mike Williams' eternally pained vocals. "Worthless Rescue" is a LaCaze fill-fest, complete with his syncopated outro that shows he was a true drum master. The Corrections House-esque "Flags and Cities Bound" marries the band's past and present with Williams' twisted poetry slams woven into thick feedback. The choice to self-title this album in 2014 made perfect sense, as Eyehategod both sums up the band's continued relevancy in 2014 and looks toward the future. (Chris Ayers)
1. Godflesh
A World Lit Only by Fire
(Avalanche)
For many years, the thought of a new record from UK legends Godflesh has been a fantasy. The duo, composed of frontman Justin K. Broadrick and bassist Ben G.C. Green, disbanded in 2002 and reunited in 2010 for some festival performances, reigniting hope for new material. Following four years of intense anticipation, Godflesh have finally released their first new album in 13 years, A World Lit Only by Fire.
Revered as pioneers of industrial metal, standards for the band's seventh album, and followup to 2001's Hymns, were set high. What makes A World Lit Only by Fire one of the best releases of the year is the fact that Godflesh not only lived up to the hype, but they surpassed expectations that have been building for over a decade, shattering any doubts that the new recordings would be anything short of extraordinary.
The album is a return to their iconic, early '90s sound, featuring some of their heaviest and most aggressive rhythms to date, and seamlessly picking up where their classic 1989 debut LP, Streetcleaner, left off. The incorporation of modern production and technical elements gives A World Lit Only by Fire even more of a monolithic, full and contemporary sound, while their raw approach, as well as bleak and nihilistic themes, create the perfect past-meets-present Godflesh release. (Denise Falzon)
Top 10 Metal & Hardcore Albums of 2014:
- 1. Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire
- 2. Eyehategod - Eyehategod
- 3. Triptykon - Melana Chasmata
- 4. Opeth - Pale Communion
- 5. Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden
- 6. Indian - From All Purity
- 7. Cult Leader - Nothing For Us Here
- 8. At The Gates - At War With Reality
- 9. The Body - I Shall Die Here
- 10. Devin Townsend - Z2
To see more of our Year-End Top Tens, head over to our Best of 2014 section.
10. Devin Townsend
Z2
(Inside Out)
Z2 expresses, beautifully, two familiar sides of Devin Townsend's mad musical genius: inspirational heaviness (Sky Blue, aka disc one) and bombastic ridiculousness (Dark Matters, aka disc two). Sky Blue affirms the rightness of the Devin Townsend Project for channelling the man's creativity. It's extreme — emotionally heavy even at its softest, but also very heavy metal, progressive and, now and then, almost brutal. The album is rich with atmosphere and melody, not to mention the idyllic interaction of Townsend and Anneke van Giersbergen's voices.
Dark Matters is a completely different beast, a delightfully preposterous rock opera sequel to 2007's Ziltoid the Omniscient with perhaps more niche appeal. Featuring guest appearances by Chris Jericho and Dominique Lenore Persi (Stolen Babies), Dark Matters pays heavy homage to space operas, B-movies and musicals as much as it mocks them, combining amusing storytelling with some great riffs, melodies and harmonies. It's also a quintessentially Townsend-ish reminder that his seriousness and sincerity are always tempered by a fair dose of self-deprecation and juvenile humour. As a whole, the double whammy that is Z2 (worth getting on vinyl for the oh-so-complementary science fiction artwork) proves that if you're Devin Townsend, quality and quantity coincide. (Laura Wiebe)
9. The Body
I Shall Die Here
(RVNG Intl.)
The fourth album by the American experimental doom metal duo of drummer Lee Buford and screamer/guitarist Chip King, together known as the Body, was an ecstatic expression of human pain and misery. King's demolished shrieks and howls pierced the dark spaces amidst the chaos organized by British producer Bobby Krlic, blending Buford's mammoth kit devastation and King's gnarled guitar dirge with his own penchant for brooding atmospheres into a nuanced stream of industrial dark ambient sludge that flowed straight from their nightmares into the dark corners of the public consciousness.
Given Krlic's drone-metal-tinged electronica for Tri Angle under the name of the Haxan Cloak and the Body's increasingly esoteric career trajectory, the partnership looked good on paper, but the realized vision was nonetheless shockingly sublime. Ever evolving and densely layered, their combined nightmare was so vivid, so ominous that even after multiple listens, it still feels as if it might tear through your speakers and drag you down to the hell from whence it came. (Alan Ranta)
8. At The Gates
At War With Reality
(Century Media)
For Swedish death metal troupe At The Gates, the fear was that they simply couldn't come close to achieving what they did on their swansong, Slaughter of the Soul, the pinnacle of melodic death metal. Then they did.
The kings of Gothenburg death metal complemented their masterpiece with another, expanding their sound by converging all their influences and thereby extending their legacy. Instead of writing Still Slaughtering the Soul, as they no doubt could have, they allowed their progression of sounds — both pre-disbanding and some of those explored by members in the band's aftermath — to coagulate.
While the less drastic jump from their last to their latest may cause the illusion that At War with Reality is repetition on the band's part, it's really more of a refining, and in the process, a revitalization of melodic death metal, a genre that has been so influential that, over time, its influence has paradoxically nearly disappeared under the weight of imitators imitating imitators. With At War with Reality, the kings are back. (Bradley Zorgdrager)
7. Cult Leader
Nothing For Us Here
(Deathwish Inc.)
Gaza's messy breakup in 2013, stemming from allegations of rape, had three-quarters of the Salt Lake City outfit deciding to start anew, revealing in a press release ahead of their debut EP as Cult Leader that: "We once were another band, and now we're a better one." It's an apt statement from the crew, with their Nothing For Us Here release torching the past with a virulent and thrillingly violent six-song cycle stringing together noise-scored screaming sessions, entrails-tossing grind and decayed imagery.
The band puts on a chaotic clinic, from the viciously delivered, calculator crunching rhythm shifts of high speed detonations like "Flightless Birds" and "Skin Crawler" to the bitumen-dripping licks of saddened sludge ballad "Driftwood." Accentuating the black ooze sensation of the sonics, Anthony Lucero's haunted howls are a darkened journey through distrust, self-loathing, anger and frustration.
Their mission statement is screamed succinctly on the record's beatless, electro-jolt soundscape "God's Lonely Children": "We turn our backs on our burning homes. There's nothing for us here. Move on." Having salted the earth with Nothing For Us Here, Cult Leader have proclaimed themselves an oppressive new force metal fans need to follow. (Gregory Adams)
6. Indian
From All Purity
(Relapse)
Released at the outset of 2014, Indian's From All Purity made a quick case for being one of the best metal records of the year. It's an intense listening experience — from Dylan O'Toole's harsh and acrid vocals to the band's heaving, crushing doom — but how the band achieve that intensity is what makes the record so appealing.
While the guitars and drums are mixed lower, allowing O'Toole's performance to rise to the top and cut through, the electronics occupy the space in between, providing texture while also adding to the level of abrasiveness the band can achieve as they coalesce around every song. Those moments of unity, like on the repetitive but insistent "Directional," are at the very core of this record, with each new part driving the songs into extreme territory. (Michael Rancic)
5. Pallbearer
Foundations of Burden
(Profound Lore)
In a year when Mastodon seemed to have lost the plot musically — we're not about to go near that whole twerking video worm-can — a number of younger bands picked up the slack when it came to proggy doom metal. Leading them was Pallbearer, who followed up their impressive 2012 debut with the epic scope of Foundations of Burden. Lush and foreboding, this sophomore effort from the Little Rock, AR quartet traverses a wide variety of grooves and moods, from the Iron Maiden-esque guitarmonies of "Worlds Apart" to the sludgy main riff of "Foundations" to the Pink Floyd–style comedown of "Ashes."
With four of the six songs clocking in at over ten minutes apiece, Pallbearer clearly weren't courting any sort of mainstream airplay, yet this is one of the year's most listenable metal albums — carefully orchestrated, structurally intriguing, packed with sumptuous guitar textures and never too abrasive to harsh a good mellow. (The only strike against them might be that singer/guitarist Brett Campbell delivers his vocal lines a little too sweetly.) While Foundations of Burden wasn't exactly a massive leap forward for Pallbearer, they've clearly bypassed the sophomore slump in what's looking to be a promising march toward the peak of Mount Metal. (Chris Bilton)
4. Opeth
Pale Communion
(Roadrunner)
While genre purists wring their hands, bemoaning the progression of one of heavy music's most diverse and accomplished groups toward stewardship of the court formerly held by the Crimson King, those with a less solidly fixed perspective can dive in and revel in the bombastic glory of the Swedish titans hitting yet another landmark moment in an already epic career. Argue all you want about whether or not it's still metal if Åkerfeldt refuses to dust off his death growl, opting instead to challenge himself as an expressive singer; nailing the complex contours and naked intimacy of a masterfully crafted vocal melody is, other than in a purely physical respect, a hell of a lot tougher than straight-up bile gargling.
And testing one's self, extending personal boundaries of ability — what's more badass than that? So what if Pale Communion, which trades abrasive tones for a much more nuanced form of harmonic menace, is likely to be your mom's favourite Opeth album (if your mom is awesome)? Opeth don't fucking care; they're busy fanning the long-neglected flames of prog rock, nurturing emotional heaviness and exploring increasingly Goblin-esque sound textures to further their superlative union of folk, classical, jazz and sinister metallic grit. (Scott A. Gray)
3. Triptykon
Melana Chasmata
(Century Media)
Triptykon have only existed for a few years, conceptually since 2008 and physically since their debut full-length, Eparistera Daimones, was released in 2010, but this project from Tom G. Warrior (aka Tom Gabriel Fischer) has always possessed more weight and gravity than its relatively short history would suggest, functioning as the spiritual successor to his longest-running project Celtic Frost and seminal extreme metal band Hellhammer. The weight of that history, experience and aesthetic mastery made Eparistera Daimones an exceptional debut, and now that the band has had time to cohere and solidify creatively, it's made sophomore effort Melana Chasmata something beautiful.
The lyrics are personal, even intimate, with Warrior giving over more of himself in the writing while also loosening his grip on the project, allowing more creative contributions from other members. There is something grand, almost baroque to the emotional landscape the record explores, which is illuminated exquisitely by sweetly darker numbers like "In The Sleep of Death" and blasted apart by the thunderous "Tree of Suffocating Souls." The combination of rich history, genuine emotion and absolutely massive compositions make Melana Chasmata a towering triumph. (Natalie Zina Walschots)
2. Eyehategod
Eyehategod
(Housecore)
On their fifth studio album since 1989's foreshadowing In the Name of Suffering first dragged our eardrums through the now-famous Bayou swamplands, sludge-metal pioneers Eyehategod returned from their own primordial muck to release the best material of their 25-year career. That it was also the final recording before the sudden passing of founding drummer Joey LaCaze makes it that much more essential. Opener "Agitation! Propaganda!" and "Framed to the Wall" deliver the short, sharp, speed anthems that keep EHG patches safety-pinned to punkers' jackets. "Trying to Crack the Hard Dollar" and "Parish Motel Sickness" maintain their sludge-blues chops, thanks to the guitar necromancy of Down's Jimmy Bower and Soilent Green's Brian Patton.
"Robitussin and Rejection" revisits the band's early doom output, while the rollicking "Nobody Told Me" is sure to draw in younger listeners with frontman Mike Williams' eternally pained vocals. "Worthless Rescue" is a LaCaze fill-fest, complete with his syncopated outro that shows he was a true drum master. The Corrections House-esque "Flags and Cities Bound" marries the band's past and present with Williams' twisted poetry slams woven into thick feedback. The choice to self-title this album in 2014 made perfect sense, as Eyehategod both sums up the band's continued relevancy in 2014 and looks toward the future. (Chris Ayers)
1. Godflesh
A World Lit Only by Fire
(Avalanche)
For many years, the thought of a new record from UK legends Godflesh has been a fantasy. The duo, composed of frontman Justin K. Broadrick and bassist Ben G.C. Green, disbanded in 2002 and reunited in 2010 for some festival performances, reigniting hope for new material. Following four years of intense anticipation, Godflesh have finally released their first new album in 13 years, A World Lit Only by Fire.
Revered as pioneers of industrial metal, standards for the band's seventh album, and followup to 2001's Hymns, were set high. What makes A World Lit Only by Fire one of the best releases of the year is the fact that Godflesh not only lived up to the hype, but they surpassed expectations that have been building for over a decade, shattering any doubts that the new recordings would be anything short of extraordinary.
The album is a return to their iconic, early '90s sound, featuring some of their heaviest and most aggressive rhythms to date, and seamlessly picking up where their classic 1989 debut LP, Streetcleaner, left off. The incorporation of modern production and technical elements gives A World Lit Only by Fire even more of a monolithic, full and contemporary sound, while their raw approach, as well as bleak and nihilistic themes, create the perfect past-meets-present Godflesh release. (Denise Falzon)