Metal Awards

Goat's Top 15 albums of 2014

  1. Opeth - Pale Communion
  2. Agalloch - The Serpent & The Sphere
  3. Primordial - Where Greater Men Have Fallen
  4. Artificial Brain - Labyrinth Constellation
  5. Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
  6. Darkspace - Darkspace III I
  7. Panopticon - Roads to the North
  8. Bolzer - Soma
  9. Triptykon - Melana Chasmata
  10. Abigor - Leytmotif Luzifer
  11. Voices - London
  12. Scar Symmetry - The Singularity (Phase I: Neohumanity)
  13. Teitanblood - Death
  14. Sivyi Yar - From the Dead Villages' Darkness
  15. GODFLESH - A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE
Goat's Top 5 surprises of 2014

  1. Hannes Grossmann - The Radial Covenant
    Prog-death done so, so right.
  2. Conan - Blood Eagle
    DOOOOOM
  3. Fu Manchu - Gigantoid
  4. Pyrrhon - The Mother of Virtues
    I'm still not sure if I actually like this album, but it's brain-melting enough to cause plenty of surprise, at the very least.
  5. Kriegsmaschine - Enemy of Man
Goat's Disappointment(s) of 2014

  1. Mysticum - Planet Satan
    A hellish comeback. Hellishly boring!
  2. Anaal Nathrakh - Desideratum
    The formula is wearing thin, despite attempts to patch the holes with electronics.
  3. MASTODON - ONCE MORE 'ROUND THE SUN
    Pretty lame that this once-great band used to be one of metal's most important. Now, the only thing that's controversial about them is the twerking in their music videos.
  4. Anubis Gate - Horizons
    Aside from the poor production, the complexity and spirit that made earlier releases from this band seems to be gone, which is a real shame.
  5. 1349 - Massive Cauldron of Chaos
    Massive Cauldron of yawn, more like. The new Slipknot was more interesting than this.
Goat's Joke(s) 2014

  1. BABYMETAL - BABYMETAL
    Feel free to get into metal through Japanese children dancing to bad melodeath, just don't expect me to like it.
  2. Nachtmystium - The World We Left Behind
    A poor album from an artist who managed to destroy a good reputation and steal from his fans in order to feed an addiction. It's not a joke at all, really, but there's no 'Depressing Tragedy' section.
  3. IN FLAMES - SIREN CHARMS
    As if this band could get any worse, they go and release this. IN FAILS, morelike!
Goat's words about 2014
  1. Call me harsh, but I don't think that 2014 was a particularly great year for metal. Sure, we had plenty of pretty okay albums from the likes of Decapitated, Behemoth, and Mayhem, but is that the best we can hope for, albums that are pretty okay? Metal should stir the blood, and aside from the above, my blood was more often than not unstirred. I spent most of the time it took to put this list together wondering where to put At The Gates' comeback At War With Reality - I'm still disappointed by it, but after hearing the songs live it's grown on me considerably, so it doesn't really deserve an official 'disappointment of the year' slot. Anyway, hopefully 2015 will be better, and we can chalk 2014 up to water-treading.

    (If you're the type of person who looks for non-metal recommendations from metal websites (not that I've done a great deal to dissuade this in the past, I know) then Nicole Atkins' Slow Phaser album was a terrific collection of catchiness. Also, Run The Jewels 2 was the best hip-hop album of the year (sorry Body Count))