MMA Collaborator's Top Albums of 2014

The Evergrey…half of the album was very good, the other half was just ok. Not nearly as good an album as In Search Of Truth or Torn.

Never bothered with the Falconer. I own one Falconer album, and it sucks. Chapters From A Vale Forlorn. Never bothered with anything else they've done.

I've been meaning to check out that MindMaze. I have their debut which I thought was decent but needed a bit better production, and the vocals needed a bit more oomph, not that either were bad, mind you. Loved the guitar work on it. He might not be the next Michael Romeo, but his playing and phrasing made me want to hear more.

I really need to listen to a lot more of these.

As for my thoughts: I honestly had a hard time picking just 7 albums, because as some folks here would know, I tend to listen to hundreds of albums in a year (my RYM list for 2014 has 328 albums, for example,) so narrowly it down even to 30 would probably be tough. WIth that being said, there's obviously a bunch of stuff here that fell just a bit short of making it for me, most notably Mayan (exactly one spot short of making it,) Anubis Gate, Mindmaze, Evergrey, Dragonforce and Agalloch (not really something most people would expect me to like, but I love most of their albums, for some reason.)

Now that it's finally all together it's nice to be able to sit back and comment on a few of the albums included that didn't make the cut on mine.

That Falconer album is a beast. I played a few tracks from it last night while working on this and I'm actually wondering if I didn't sell it short by not going to the full five stars when I reviewed it. Much like their earlier Among Beggars and Thieves album it seems to get better every time. 

Glad to see that Lascaille's Shroud got a look in somewhere. Another brilliant album. I like it so much that even though it's a free download I still bought a CD copy (very limited run done through a crowdfunding website). Going to need to give that one a spin again and soon.

I'm not sure why I've never bothered with the new Ne Obliviscaris album, seeing as their debut got a 5 star/100% review from me. I need to change that.

Couple of albums on here from bands I like but I only listened to once despite giving high first impression ratings to: Mastodon and Evergrey.

For me the Sanctuary comeback album isn't as good as their 80's work. They're a fairly new discovery for me though and that is definitely the album I know the least well. 

Accept is an album I need to listen to. Despite not knowing their early stuff at all I enjoyed their previous two albums quite a bit, especially Blood of the Nations. 

Viathyn is another band I need to hear ASAP.

Nice to see Xandria mentioned. I'm a pretty big fan of that album myself but for me it is a step back from their last one which meant it was never going to make the cut for my top 5 when it was such a good year for me. 

Kobra and the Lotus, now there's a another album/band I love. They always seem to end up with a 4.5 star review from me, yet they addict me a lot more than some stuff that got a higher rating due to the initial wow factor, one of the reasons I'm reviewing new stuff at a slower pace now. Awesome band.

I always find the diverse choices of these lists interesting as well as a few things to check out that I've missed. Many of other people's choices that didn't make my top 5 I rate highly myself like Behemoth, Exodus, Helstar, Bloodbath, Agalloch and Cruachan to name a few.