Best Albums of 2018

As the self-proclaimed "Authority on HEAVY METAL Since 1983 and Counting...," I present to you my list of favorites from the year in alphabetical order. Though I haven't been crowning a winner the past few years, if I had to this year it'd be The Ocean, with, perhaps, Harakiri for the Sky and Alkaloid rounding out the top three.

Alkaloid - Liquid Anatomy

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Ascension - Under Ether

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Augury - Illusive Golden Age

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Funeral Mist - Hekatomb

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Gaerea - Unsettling Whispers

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Harakiri for the Sky - Arson

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Imperial Triumphant - Vile Luxury

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Obscura - Diluvium

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The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

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Rivers of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

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Shining - X - Varg Utan Flock

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Thy Catafalque - Geometria

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​Wayfarer - World's Blood

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Albums That Didn't Make the Cut
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Amorphis - Queen of Time
Antlers - Beneath.Below.Behold
Arsis - Visitant
Azusa - Heavy Yoke
Bloodbath - The Arrow of Satan Is Drawn
Burial Invocation - Abiogenesis
Drudkh - They Often See Dreams About the Spring
Erdve - Vaitojimas
Esoctrilihum - Pandaemorthium (Forbidden Formulas to Awaken the Blind Sovereigns of Nothingness)
Firtan - Okeanos
Genocide Pact - Order of Torment
Gevurah - Sulphur Soul
Glorior Belli - The Apostates
Hegemone - We Disappear
Hissing - Permanent Destitution
Horrendous - Idol
Howling Sycamore - Self-Titled
Immortal - Northern Chaos Gods
In the Woods... - Cease the Day
Infernal Coil - Within a World Forgotten
Irreversible Mechanism - Immersion
Monotheist - Scourge
Nigredo - Flesh Torn - Spirit Pierced
Nocturnal Graves - Titan
Of Feather and Bone - Bestial Hymns of Perversion
Oubliette - The Passage
Panopticon - The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness Part I
Psycroptic - As the Kingdom Drowns
Skeletal Remains - Devouring Mortality
Tourniquet - Gazing at Medusa
Uada - Cult of a Dying Sun
Verheerer - Maltrer
Voices - Frightened
Vreid - Lifehunger
Wessenwille - I: Wessenwille
Wolvhammer - The Monuments of Ash & Bone

Albums That I Didn't Hear This Year, Damnit, but Wish I Would Have

Ayahuasca - Beneath the Mind
Centaurus-A - Means of Escape
Cerebrum - Iridium
Gorod - Aethra
Kriegsmaschine - Apocalypticists
Nachtmystium - Resilient
Sulphur Aeon - The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos
Svartidaudi - Revelations of the Red Sword

Looking Forward to in 2019
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Contrarian, Dream Theater, Kaleikr, The Moth Gatherer, Vanum, Vltimas