10 great albums from 2015

Purple marked a major turning point for Baroness.

The band’s fourth album was their first following a devastating 2012 U.K. bus crash that crushed vocalist-guitarist John Dyer Baizley’s left arm and left leg — the injuries severe enough that doctors nearly amputated both limbs. Drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni departed the group shortly after the traumatizing incident.

The album doesn’t avoid that real-life heaviness — within Baroness’ color-themed discography, its namesake title conjures a bruised visual, while “Chlorine & Wine” alludes to pain pills and getting nursed back to good health — but the rebuilt Baizley and Baroness came out of the experience performing a profoundly energetic, optimistic and even pop-adjacent kind of metal.

The Grammy-nominated “Shock Me” remains one of their most life-affirming bangers, and one made under extraordinary circumstances.

Where do you go after dropping a metalcore-elevating release like 2013’s Sempiternal?

For Bring Me the Horizon, they tamped down much of the more barbarically riffed-out moments of that release on the decidedly more pop-rounded That’s the Spirit in favor of bigger synth hooks, shadowy modern electronics (“Doomed”) and sing-along choruses that felt inspired by early-Aughts nu-metal (“Throne”).

Despite vocalist Oli Sykes occasionally leaning into a falsetto softness across the album, rock-rooted anthems like “Happy Song” implored us all to sing along with him “a little fucking louder.” Now, that’s the spirit!

Coming off their breakthrough Sunbather release from 2013, plenty of eyes and ears were affixed on how polarizing blackgaze adventurists Deafheaven would follow-up that instant-classic release. In short, the band’s debut release for Epitaph Records waded through extreme creative depths.

“Brought to the Water” and “Luna” crash through wave after wave of extreme blasting before undulating towards emo-ish melancholy, while “Gifts From the Earth” plunged the band into an existential darkness “cocooned by the heat of the ocean floor.”

New Bermuda solidified that Deafheaven were an elemental force all unto themselves.

Eighteen years sit between Faith No More’s sixth and seventh albums, but the band’s on-again/off-again nature finally was “on” enough in 2015 to deliver reunion LP Sol Invictus to their faithful.  

It’s a profoundly weird collection — rattling spoken-word-ish treatises and military rolls (“Motherfucker”) against grotesque alt-metal slinking (“Separation Anxierty”) and lite-funk-scrambled serenity (“Sunny Side Up”), with Mike Patton singing of superheroes, matadors and motherfuckers — but weirdness was always par for the course with FNM, right?

While there’s a song on here called “Cone of Shame,” FNM could collectively hold their heads high after producing this particular comeback album.

It was kinda impossible not to hear the rumble of Ghost’s “Cirice” in heavy circles back in 2015. Indeed, the iconic lead single from the Swedish occult-rockers’ third album was a revelation in gothic psychedelia, something cemented post-release by both a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance and the song’s steady hold in Ghost’s setlist ever since.

As for the rest of Meliora, the record advanced our obsession with Papa Emeritus III and his gang of Ghouls via proto-metal satanica (“From the Pinnacle to the Pit”), gnarly-chugged horror-metal (“Mummy Dust”) and more.

VII: Sturm und Drang was the first Lamb of God album to be made after vocalist Randy Blythe experience being imprisoned by Czech authorities due to a manslaughter charge related to the stage-diving death of 19-year-old fan at a show in Prague (the singer was ultimately acquitted). Understandably, this greatly affected the metal singer.

While Sturm und Drang isn’t just the band’s “prison record,” it does mix harrowing tales of state executions (“Still Echoes”) and time behind bars (“512”) with the howler’s thoughts on media scaremongering (“Engage the Fear Machine”) and meme culture.

The rest of the band kept things impressively heavy, whether leaning into a triplet-swung groove or a mega-thrashy attack, while the record also boasts big time guests spots from Deftones’ Chino Moreno and then-Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato.

Were it not for a quick stint playing a fictionalized version of himself on Showtime dramedy Californication, Manson might not have connected with now longtime collaborator Tyler Bates (who was the show’s composer at the time).

When it came to the pair’s first official team-up, The Pale Emperor was an organic, free and sometimes improvised affair that melded elements of the blues into the shock rocker’s established brew of glam, goth and heavy metal for a more mature but still menacing sound.

While an early session had Slayer’s Dave Lombardo behind the drum kit, eventually Manson drafted former Dillinger Escape Plan member Gil Sharone into the lineup —  both he and Bates continue to flank the Emperor to this day.

Slayer went out with a bang: an almost-two-year farewell tour and this 2015 swan song, which served as a characteristically uncompromising cap on the band’s trailblazing career.

Slayer’s only album recorded without Jeff Hanneman (and with Exodus’ Gary Holt playing in his stead), Repentless still bears the late, great guitarist-songwriter’s mark, in the form of “Piano Wire,” a chilling WWII-themed horror show penned before his 2013 death.

It’s title track, meanwhile, served as a spirited send-off and summation: “No looking back, no regrets, no apologies.”

Lonestar boogie and an experimental spirit reigned supreme on the Sword’s fifth full-length, High Country.

While a foundational stoniness still rammed through the proceedings like a shag-cartpeted Dodge van crashing through the world’s biggest Zig-Zag rolling paper, you couldn’t help but catch a colossal whiff of ZZ Top-styled riffage cross-pollinating with the Austin, Texas, quartet’s early sound. Other parts of the record explored folkier tendencies, while the often-shifting drum production gave each piece a potent flavor of its own.

The Sword didn’t play it straight with High Country, making the album one of the most ambitious offerings of their career.

While Turnstile’s debut album got a big boost in 2016 after being re-released through Roadrunner Records, the earliest adopters of the now beloved Baltimore outfit copped a copy of Nonstop Feeling the previous year.

Though the future blink-182 tourmates would soon glow up their hardcore sound with extra-wavy elements of modern pop, R&B-esque production and more, Nonstop Feeling stands as Turnstile’s most densely riffed-stacked effort. Its smorgasbord of percussive chunking cross-referenced turn-of-the-Nineties NYHC and the infectious bounce of 311, while likewise sporting some wild-ass shred-and-dive solos.

Vocalist Brendan Yates mostly barks or rap-rocks his way through it all, but an undeniable veneer of melody (see “Blue by You”) also hinted at the multi-scene-conquering greatness to come.