10. Insomnium – Winter’s Gate9. Trap Them – Crown Feral8. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree7. Kvelertak – Nattesferd6. Nails – You Will Never Be One of Us5. Inter Arma – Paradise Gallows4. Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas – Mariner3. The Body & Full of Hell – One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache2. Chance the Rapper – Coloring Book1. Bon Iver – 22, A MillionMaybe it’s that the genre as a whole just fits my post-election mood but I had a hard time finding non-metal albums to put on my list this year. It could also be that some of this year’s most highly praised albums (Radiohead, Frank Ocean) left me mostly cold. Still, I was able to reserve my #2 and #1 picks for hope and beauty, respectively. Honorable mentions include albums by Mitski, Astronoid, Michael Kiwanuka, Anohni and Eight Bells. Dishonorable mention goes to Avenged Sevenfold for making an album that’s not very good to begin with and then having the gall to stretch it out to 73 goddamn minutes. And rest in peace to David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Phife Dawg, who all left behind some great new music this year.
