MMA Collaborator's Top Albums of 2016

A stalwart of US thrash metal that perhaps unjustly never got counted in the Big Four, Testament had a lengthy break between albums after First Strike Still Deadly (2001) but starting with The Formation of Damnation (2008) they've been steadily and consistently turning out strong thrash metal releases ever few years that have stayed truer to the genre than most of Big Four have, with the exception of Slayer. 

No doubt with a bit of influence from Swedish band Edge of Sanity's Crimson (1996), Finland's progressive melodic death metallers Insomnium decided to make their seventh album consist of just a single song. Albeit a single song that lasts for forty minutes. Some versions break the track up into two or even seven parts, but the true album is one continuous track.

(We could not find even a proper snippet of this album on YouTube, so we used this clip about the album instead. Stream it on Spotify here)

Making a big name for themselves with their debut album Aquarius (2010), the UK progressive metal/rock act Haken have managed to keep producing excellent records since, each with its own unique feel. On Affinity, their fourth studio album, they turned their inspiration to the eighties and came up with an album that at different times sounds both retro and yet very modern.

The Godfathers of the current wave of djent bands, the one time thrash metal act Meshuggah continues to produce technical, quality progressive metal on their latest release The Violent Sleep of Reason. A band that around here at MMA Towers we've had many debates over what genre they're best placed in, showing that they are one of the most unique acts of the modern metal scene. 

Pushing the atmospheric black metal genre to its most aggressive regions, cosmic black metal one man band Mare Cognitum dazzles on fourth full-length Luminiferous Aether. Where another bands in the genre may take their listeners on an almost soothing journey, lone musician Jacob Buczarski plays like his life depends on it, producing an album that sounds like it has the power a supernova behind it. 

Ever wondered what you get when you take a few musicians known for playing death metal and put them in a power metal band? Well you're in luck, because that's exactly what you get with Eternity's End, featuring Obscura alumni Christian Münzner, Hannes Grossmann and Linus Klausenitzer and then topped with the powerful voice of Ian Parry, The Fire Within is an exercise in power metal done right.

Always with a toe in the camp of oriental folk metal, Tunisia's Myrath really brought those elements to the fore on their fourth album Legacy, making it markedly different to their previous, more progressive metal based work, while still sounding very much like a Myrath album. 

A one man project playing progressive death metal by US musician Brett Windnagle, sci-fi themed Lascaille's Shroud produced its most ambitious release yet with The Roads Leading North. An immense double disc concept album where prog and death metal blend with electronic influences and even a bit of power metal, it's as professional as any label backed band and a lot more exciting.

All female thrashers from Brazil, Nervosa have received critical acclaim dating all the way back to their demo. With second album Agony the girls produce a furious assault of thrash metal, also drawing on some old school death metal elements. If you ever thought that maybe thrash metal was quite a tame genre by modern metal standards, this trio is here to remind all that thrash metal falls under the extreme metal spectrum. 

The only debut album in this year's MMA top 10, US technical death metallers Enthean almost seem as if they came out of nowhere. Three years on from a lone demo, they've impressed many with first album Priests of Annihilation and its tech death sound that includes elements of black metal, symphonic metal and progressive metal. It's criminal that these guys aren't signed yet, as this album certainly deserves a wider physical release.

A follow-up to the not so well received Super Collider (2013), an album almost as disliked as their earlier infamous Risk (1999), it made sense for Big Four thrashers Megadeth to return to what they do best and what their fans no doubt wanted on Dystopia, their fifteenth album: thrash metal. 

The only album to not be placed in one of MMA's metal sub-genre's to make the top 50 of the 2016 list, Canadian's Blood Ceremony at one point played doom metal, but these days perform heavy psych and are actually often considered to be all the better for it even by metalheads. With their retro sound like they could easily be mistaken for a forgotten proto-metal act whose music is only just seeing the light of day and are perhaps proof that hard rock and heavy metal is timeless.

Metallica fans can typically be split into two camps. There are the ones who won't listen to anything after ...And Justice for All (1988) and those who accept the changes in sound that the band has had since. While early hints of Hardwired... To Self-Destruct being their most thrash metal based album since the eighties turned out to be unfounded, it's still been commonly called their best album since the self-titled Black Album (1991) and serves well as redemption for the much derided collaborative album Lulu (2011) that preceded it. 

There are many types of black metal sub-genre. Atmospheric. Melodic. Symphonic. Depressive. Pagan. War. Greek act Hail Spirit Noir are none of these. They play psychedelic black metal, a tiny niche sub-genre that few other bands have explored to this kind of extent (in fact the only other artist who may truly be able to say that they have is Oranssi Pazuzu, placed at #8 on this list), but is made clear from albums like Mayhem in Blue that it has a lot to offer the world metal. 

Hated by some, yet evidently loved by many among the MMA collaborator teams, is Dream Theater's double disc concept album The Astonishing. No doubt the most divisive album from a band who have produced both much loved genre classics like Images and Words (1992) to albums of a more lukewarm reception like Falling Into Infinity (1997), it's probably going to be down to time to tell how any of us are going to feel about this one a few years down the line. 

Top Album of DippoMagoo

German band Freedom Call has earned a reputation as being the kings of happy metal over the years, and while some of their later albums showed them experimenting a bit, their previous release Beyond (2014), showed the band fully returning to their classic days of fun, cheesy power metal at its finest, and Master of Light continues this trend in full, delivering the kind of happy, insanely catchy power metal the band is known for.

Top Album of Bosh66

All good things end and the news that Dillinger Escape Plan is after 20 years bowing out while at the top of their game was met by sadness and surprise from many metal and hardcore fans worldwide. Never a mainstream act, DEP’s music runs the gauntlet between beauty and brutality, melody and discordant mathcore madness. And the final opus from the band delivers perfectly. Dissociation keeps the more melodic elements that came to the fore in the previous two releases while rejoicing in the pounding extremes of their earlier releases. Never more experimental, this is superb.

Top Album of Vim Fuego

As one of grindcore’s shining lights, Wormrot had been surprisingly quiet for the past four years, but Voices saw the Singaporean trio blast its way back into the wider metal consciousness. Voices perfectly blends a social conscience, a sense of humour, and uncompromising, razor-sharp musicianship. Combine that with almost unfathomable intensity and extremity, and you have one of the most exhilarating albums of 2016.

Top Album of rushfan4

Pretending 2 Run is US heavy proggers, Tiles, sixth studio album and it is a "a song cycle about a man blindsided and disillusioned by betrayal - and his journey through adversity as he escapes from the dark corners of seclusion on a faltering search for redemption." It features many guest appearances, including Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Mike and Matt Portnoy, and Matthew Parmenter of Discipline. They exhibit a sound that exists in that area where Rush meets Dream Theater.