2014 had some disappointments to it (my colleague Goat had some downhearted moments in his awards, which he posted a day before me), but I missed a lot of them. Continuing a trend I've noticed in the past few years, we're getting more gems released by individual artists; three out of five of my top picks are small projects, and two are by individuals, though we had some established acts releasing some good albums as well. On top of that, at least two older bands, Riot and Corrosion of Conformity turned out some new material that I could say was truly excellent and worthy of their glory days. So sure, we've had a few duds this year, but I don't feel like I got terribly disappointed. The surprises I got this year were in the non-metal category that managed to sneak into my listening queue due to their close affinity with metal.

Even though I missed some of the disappointments of 2014, it pains me that I also missed -- thus far, anyway -- a number of albums I'd probably have enjoyed. I still haven't even heard Opeth's latest, for instance. Luckily, there's a way to remedy that. I recommend that you do the same and check some of these picks out this coming year if you haven't heard them yet.

Happy 2015, folks!