Even Metallica released a decent album this year, just to give you an idea of how fruitful 2016 was for this rebellious type of music. Except for Slayer and Exodus, all other prominent names in Thrash Metal blasted the world with their high-speed, thrilling music, led by another superb album by Testament. And I’m not even going to talk about all other types of disasters and tragedies that happened all over the world, as the list is too macabre and grievous to be remembered in full.įortunately, 2016 was considerably generous for us headbangers in terms of the quantity and quality of albums released throughout the entire year, especially for diehard fans of old school Thrash Metal. In addition, important names in the history of Heavy Metal also left us in 2016, such as Nick Menza (Megadeth) and Jimmy Bain (Rainbow, Dio), not to mention the disbandment of amazing groups like Eths (who are by the way part of our top 10 this year), Crucified Barbara and Bolt Thrower. We lost Prince, Leonard Cohen and Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), to name a few, all irreplaceable losses to music in general. If that was not enough to make 2016 a miserable year, we also had to endure the passing of other icons who, despite not being metal, have always inspired countless bands and artists in heavy music. That dark prophecy was confirmed less than two weeks later, more specifically on January 10 when we lost another true star in rock music to cancer, the unparalleled chameleon David Bowie, just two days after the release of his final masterpiece Blackstar. The unexpected death of the most badass musician in history, Motörhead’s heart and soul Lemmy Kilmister, on Decemwas a harbinger of all the bad, shocking and revolting things that would turn the year of 2016 a true nightmare for mankind. Goddamn I love that man.“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.” – David Bowie And, in classic style, Abbath lets us know it really is him by making the cover his face. I mean, it’s a solid, serious metal album with musicianship to back it up, but it’s still fun and corny enough to merit a strange sort of nostalgia upon listening. Shades of Abbath’s I project, whose Between Two Worlds turns ten this year, make their way through, especially in the bouncing 'Winter Bane', which really drives this album home for me.

With his solo debut Abbath’s unique, powerful 'Teutonic thrash'/black/heavy metal approach is as strong as ever, pummeling and sharp, but with a distinctly melodic backbone which is distinctly his.

The master shows he’s just as well off after the, erm, 'Immortal debacle.' I know, I know, most of us outgrew following the 'heavy hitters' a while ago, I openly admit to hesitation upon good ol’ Abbath announcing a band (even though it was with King ov Hell, who wrote my favorite Gorgoroth material ), but we seem to forget just how solid our old friend’s body of work is.

Upcoming metal albums 2016