Pupil Slicer arrived on the scene in a blaze of glory during the pandemic. They never expected their debut release “Mirrors” to be listened to by any more than a smattering of people. However, it was one of those word-of-mouth sensations that were spoken about with hushed tones within various extreme metal online forums. 

As we all emerged from the various lockdowns, Pupil Slicer found themselves at the heart of an almighty hype and the subject of much expectation. It is always difficult to follow a venerated release, but Pupil Slicer have managed to build on the aspirations of “Mirrors”. It avoids sounding like a direct duplication by opening up the sonics and moving away from the claustrophobic insular nature of the debut.

They are still making a disorientating and disconnected racket, but everything has much more space to breathe. By their own admission, they are all much better musicians this time around, and more able to control and channel the chaos. Still fiercely non-linear there is a lot more nuance and craftsmanship at play on “Blossoms”, resulting in album that still bewilders but in a more subtle and defined way.

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Blackened deathcore? Well, that’s a new one on me. The vocals, both those of Ricky Hoover and the numerous guest participants that pop in all across shop, are the main point of discussion here. Ricky veers from smooth clean contributions to a hellish goblin-esque screech, both of which are high up in the mix meaning that they dominate Ov Sulfur’s sound. 

It is the variance and the velocity at which they switch that makes this such an interesting and enticing record. The vocals drive everything and build the malicious atmosphere that swirls around this record. Musically it’s pretty Route 101 deathcore, but the vocals (especially when the guest contributors step in) elevate it to something else entirely. A stunning record that manages to be inventive without straying out of a rather stale genre.

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Ethereal and atmospheric Black Metal that is hypnotic in its brazen intensity. It skilfully uses light and shade, building up a colossal head of steam and then plunging into slight fragile passages, that creatively counterbalance the preceding harshness. It is enchantingly evocative, creating a tapestry of interweaving brutality and beauty. It takes two extremes and marvellously meshes them together.

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In the wrong hands, deathcore can be dull and repetitive. You have to be skilful and adept otherwise the whole thing becomes monotonous. Over this year I’ve listened to an awful lot of really bad deathcore. But here comes Distant to redeem the entire genre.

“Heritage” is a brilliantly brutal record that understands how you sculpt Deathcore. It understands perfectly the need for minimalism and space. Everything is perfectly balanced on this album and whilst there are blast beats and gnarly riffs aplenty, they are given ample room to breathe. 

It is a beautifully measured album that allows the rampant noise to dominate but not suffocate the listener. Whilst vicious and unrelenting, it manages not to fall in the trap of being undistinguishable white noise. Instead, you can hear these assaulting riffs and marvel at their precision and velocity. An astonishingly cohesive but simultaneously corrosive record

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We’ve already had native American Black Metal, so to balance that here comes the cowboy/Western-influenced black metal. America is very good at cultural appropriation. Here it is taking Black Metal and connecting it to its own folklore, namely the mythology of the Old West. 

Whilst on paper it sounds rather gimmicky, in reality, this is a highly cinematic and rather ethereal record. Yes, the Black Metal is brooding and penetrating but the Americana traces give it a uniquely haunting vibe. It has an evocative rawness that perfectly brings to mind desolate landscapes, swirling dust storms and tumbleweed. 

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Next year Haken celebrate twenty years of existence, however, they are yet to plateau either creatively or in terms of popularity. Every new release has seen them take a distinctly new musical pathway and “Fauna” is no expectation. They are still firmly within Progressive Rock’s vast sandbox however “Fauna” sounds distinctly different to 2020’s “Virus”, which in turn sounded nothing like its predecessor “Vector”. 

It is certainly darker and heavier than what has come before. It also feels distinctly modern and of its time, which is a real shift away from the retro 80’s stylistics of their previous album. This is a distinctly contemplative album and can easily be attributed as their most mature release. Their frivolous side is much more restrained this time around, and whilst in no way poe-faced, “Fauna” feels grown up and adult in both its composition and its delivery.

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Highly experimental Black Metal that switches from dense instrumental claustrophobia to expansive atmospherics at a moment's notice. The distinctive and continual changes in tempo and tones are done incredibly well, meaning that instead of feeling messy and incohesive, “Earth Sall Shed Its Skin” comes across as a coherent and linear whole. 

The songwriting is exquisitely balanced, and nothing is overused or overplayed. Instead, we are dragged into a conflicted world where tormented darkness and euphoric light endlessly fight for dominance. Powerful, passionate, and eternally intriguing. 

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Yet more Black Metal. Whilst this has far more old-school traits than Chrome Waves’ effort, it still is distinctively atmospheric and overbearing. It is slow and methodical in its delivery and the notes maliciously creep out with devilish intent. There is no light or redemption to be found in this album and it possesses a chard black heart. The blatant malevolence is achieved through a glacially slow delivery that leaves an icy trail in its wake. The sound of your nightmares catching up with you. 

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Astonishingly well-done melodic black metal from Cambridge. They stick pretty much to Melo-death’s tried and tested formula (Maiden guitars with guttural vocals) but still manage to make a distinctly overdone style feel fresh and rather exciting. It is an incredibly enjoyable album that rather than skit around different styles, is content to do what it is doing really well. 

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One of the most inventive and underrated bands in current music. It makes my heart bleed that Green Day can headline stadiums, whilst these true punk pioneers still struggle to fill the titchy Gorilla. This is another borderless album that sees them explore multiple musical dimensions, without once losing their distinct sound. It is Damian Abraham’s gruff delivery that pulls everything together and frankly makes Fucked up sound like Fucked Up. 

This is an album about growing up. It is about staying true to oneself in a shifting world and it's about being middle-aged outsiders. It has more spontaneity about it than their recent releases and every song has been written in a twenty-four-hour period (one day) with all members contributing compositions. 

It is an album that perfectly demonstrates that punk is an aesthetic and an ideology as opposed to a rigid style of music. In forty minutes it manages to be joyous, simplistic, challenging, and endlessly contrary. Nobody makes music like Fucked Up and in this identikit world, we need them more than ever. 

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With a name like that, you know this is not going to be light, breezy pop. But even I was taken aback by how dark, desolate, and nihilistic this record is. It dispenses wave after wave of deep penetrating sound that washes over you like a tsunami of pessimism. 

There is little hope or redemption to be found in this album but there is beauty in its sorrowful monotony. It is unexpectedly soothing in its redemptive simplicity, and you find yourself drawn into a circling eternal misery. Hauntingly minimal and deeply affecting. Its solemn tones stay with you long after the record has finished. 

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The triumphant and unexpected return of Antony and the Johnsons, now renamed to mark Anohi’s transition. This is not just Anohni reclaiming the name to reaffirm her unique musical brilliance, as she has brought previous conspirators Doug Wieselman and Rob Moose back into the fold.

This is a beautifully soulful record. Anohni's voice is still bewitchingly intoxicating. The aural equivalent of bathing in luxurious hot chocolate. But for all its intimate beauty this is not an easy album. It is alarmingly confessional, and they use the gorgeous modern soul to paint tragic tales of rejection and loneliness. A splendidly stark album that is equally warm and redemptive. 

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There are a lot of hauntingly minimal albums on this list and the Swedish kings of maudlin misery are here to add to the sorrowful refrains. Katatonia exist at the peripheries of Metal. They sculpt highly intelligent and articulate doom that long hence dispensed with the heaviness. 

“Sky Void of Stars” is a slight and restrained album that rejects anything as banal as histrionics. It is reserved and measured in the way that it unfolds, staying away from grandstand moments and musical pyrotechnics. All of this results in an album that builds on each listen. There are plenty of magnificent moments, but they are not instantaneous. Instead, it is a record that bides its time, slowly blooming as opposed to revealing all on the first listen. Bear with it but it is so worth it. 

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Pure unadulterated old-skool Death Metal. This is a brilliant album that venerates Bolt Thrower, Benediction, and Cancer as it extolls the virtues of stripped-down brutal death metal. 

It is pure unadulterated viciousness. It dispenses with all the tricks and trappings of the modern incarnation of the genre and heads back to a simpler time when all you needed was corrosive guitars and explosive blast beats. Exquisite in its blatant simplicity. 

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Fresh from an impressive standing at Eurovision this is a deliciously retro romp through the 80’s. Quite a while ago modern prog stopped plundering the 70’s and shifted its greedy eyes towards the slick MOR-tinged version of Prog being purloined by Marillion, IQ, and the woefully underrated Twelfth Night. 

This is polished commercial prog that wears its adoration of Big Generator and Moving Pictures era, Yes and Rush respectively on its selves. It's energetic, optimistic, and just wonderfully positive. It also has a remarkable self-deprecating sense of humour that runs through the whole album. It knows that this is all overtly cheesy, and it revels in that. 

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A dark, evocative journey into the soul. This is full melt experimental avant-garde Black Metal. It is consciously emotional record, and it deftly uses Black Metal’s inherent intensity to explore inner turmoil and angst. It is stunningly insular, creating an immersive linear voyage into the inner physic. Its masterstroke is to invert Black Metal’s cartoon anger and belligerence into something far more inward-looking and personal. Stunning!

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More modern prog, however this is firmly of the 70’s variety. Tusmørke are a Norwegian collective intent in recapturing prog mystic and pagan origins (yes most music produced in Norway is essentially about sticking two fingers up at Christianity). 

It manages to be even more eccentric and varied than its predecessor, “Nordisk Krim”, which in its self is rather a feat. It is really all over the place in its use of diverse instrumentation. There are flutes, organs, chimes and mellotrons all over the shop, with no evident rhythm or reason on how they are being used. 

It all feels very stream of consciousness, with the component tracks being more like a series of interconnected passages as opposed to coherent songs. But, and there is a massive but, it works. The musicianship is astounding, and it manages to merge together into an incredibly excoriating whole. Frequently disconcerting, its discombobulated approach results in it being a highly intriguing album that I am still going back to, long after I have grown bored with other entries. 

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I expect this to top lists all over the shop as this has been Metal’s word-of-mouth smash of the year. Yet here is another one-person vehicle, this highly aggressive thrash metal from Scotland. It has been receiving plaudits because it so well constructed. 

Good Metal is an intricate balancing act between precession musicianship and uncontrolled brutality. No matter what the uninitiated think, the last thing it is is incoherent noise. 

To create great metal everything needs to be on the edge. It should sound unchained and raw, but that rawness needs to be under a tight leash so that it doesn’t become messy and untamed. James McBain has concocted a wonderful mix of well-constructed songs that feel like the last word in molten anger. It is organised chaos at its best and it sounds divine. 

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Will Haven are the true definition of cult act. They are simultaneously highly revered and completely unknown. They have been doing this for thirty years and whilst they command a fercisley loyal fanbase, they have never been given the plaudits that they deserve.

Poignantly entitled “VII”, this is indeed their seventh album and follows a rich heritage of high emotional maelstroms of potent noise and raw passion. Will Haven sculpt songs that harness their crude emotional state. The tracks here feel like boiling pots of anger and resentment. They are protest songs for the 21st century, waging war with themselves. 

Nothing outstays its welcome. Instead, these are short and sharp incisions that bore deep into your consciousness. Angry music never felt so redemptive. 

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This is an album that has slowly but surely climbed the list. I was initially disappointed. Tesseract are known for combining vocal passion with clinically precise instrumentation. This album felt different. It felt raw and conflicted and to be honest I was not sure I liked it. 

So, I lived with it and over the proceeding months I started to see its primal beauty. This is a far more reflective and fragile Tesseract. The grandstanding technicality has been sacrificed for something much more visceral and purer. 

It is a given that they are all virtuoso musician who practically invented that type of music. For the first time they not trying hard to show us how good they are. Instead, they have crafted a deeply personal record that feels confessional and cathartic. This is Tesseract finally showing their true selves. It is introspective and emotionally powerful and whilst I still don’t fully get it I am now aware what an immense record it is. 

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