Every year it’s like screaming into the void.

I sit and scramble, fine-tuning, adjusting, and then justifying why I listed albums a certain way. Why albums I listen to way more are in the Honorable Mentions list rather than this one. Why some albums aren’t really metal, why “metal” is not the same as “heavy” and some albums are one, some the other, some both.

Some neither.

In the end, this year, here’s what I came away with: I do this because I love music, and I want this silly website to succeed because behind its CSS scripts and server costs I found lifelong friends and brothers (broyters even, Dan). As frustrating as this scene makes us, as infuriating as the gatekeepers who gatekeep even as they scream about gatekeeping are, in the end there is nothing like sitting back and completely geeking out over an album that moved us, that spoke to us in a way that keeps the light of this silly flame called heavy metal from extinguishing.

So again, once more into the breach. Stoner and Psych callouts are here, Honorable Mentions are here. And now, another 25 albums that rocked my world, to close out the old and welcome in the new. Because if I’ve learned nothing else, it’s that there’s still so much I haven’t heard yet, and so much yet to be created.