Best albums of 2021

[lettard]

Nice

[auslander]

4 hours ago, Glen said:

So I finally decided my order :

1. Tremonti

2. Levara

3. Lebrock

4. Vega

5. WET

6. Ronnie Atkins 

7. Creye

8. NFO

9. Art of Illusion 

10. Chez Kane

11. Nestor

12. Eclipse

13. Robin Red

14. Crazy Lixx

15. Midnite City

 

 

We have about 80% music agreement which is WAY better than most! Good taste, mate.

[Geoff]

Actually got a bit discouraged with the whole thing this year and wasn't going to bother, but I just thought why not and whipped up my list. I've cut it down to 40, because I did. 

40 . Groundbreaker - Soul to Soul ; safe, solid and consistently decent tunes.
39 . Paris - 50 / 50 ; sounds like Newman, but a much better version of Newman than the man himself, these days.
38 . Blood Red Saints - Undisputed ; surprisingly solid album matching some of the form of their surprisingly solid debut a few years ago.
37 . dEMOTIONAL - Scandinavian Aftermath ; good, catchy and heavy tunes. I diggit.
36 . Station - Perspective ; it's patchy, but I can't deny that when these guys are good they're pretty damn good. Would love better production and more consistency than this, but they're still a good band. 
35 . The Darkest Moment - Blindsight ; probably the most massive sounding album of the year. Heavy as fuck, but equally as heavy on ballads, which sound awesome. 
34 . Eclipse - Wired ; Eclipse doing Eclipse stuff and things is never a bad thing, nor is it here. 
33 . Anchors & Hearts - Guns Against Liberty ; another heavy one but featuring some absolute killer cuts.
32 . Bad Habit - Autonomy ; Bad Habit doing Bad Habit stuff and things is never a bad thing, nor is it here. These guys and Eclipse have a formula, and it works. 
31 . A Day To Remember - You're Welcome ; one of their better and most consistent albums, with less screams than ever. Very good album.

30 . Rivals - Sad Looks Pretty On Me ; excellent female fronted hard rock.
29 . Asking Alexandria - See What’s On The Inside ; one of the most consistent bands of the last decade, to be honest. Don't know why they're not more popular even on a more traditional hard rock forum. Great album, as usual. 
28 . Nestor - Kids in a ghost town ; madly over-hyped, but still a good album after the dust settled. Good, solid stuff. 
27 . Diamante - American Dream ; particularly killer title track cut, but overall another good, solid female fronted album. 
26 . Kent Hilli - The Rumble ; great voice, strong album. One of the stars of the genre today. 
25 . Supernova Plasmajets - Now or Never ; massive surprise packet, delivered a slightly scrappy, but very hook-laden album of joy. 
24 . Vega - Anarchy and Unity ; like Eclipse and Bad Habit, you know what you're going to get and it's always excellent. 
23 . Grayscale - Umbra ; probably the surprise of the year for me in terms of how much I enjoyed this album without giving it too much consideration leading into it. Features one of my top songs of the entire year too. 
22 . Levara - Levara ; very high quality melodic rock. Some more killer cuts on this, and a very fine album.
21 . Houston - IV ; like a few bands above, always delivering albums at a high level and this was no exception. 

20 . Crazy Lixx - Street Lethal ; another tried and trusted band delivering another good album.
19 . 7th Heaven - Be Here ; again, consistent as the day is long. Always can be assured of a quality album, and so happy that it now features great production work as well. 
18 . Creye - II ; one of the best current melodic rock bands, in my opinion, delivering an album which shows why. 
17 . Issa - Queen of Broken Hearts ; the moaners will moan, and the melodic rock fans will enjoy. Another high quality release from another very consistent performer in melodic rock, despite the small group of HH haters, whom I would gather are in the minority of the melodic rock community when it comes to Issa. 😉
16 . W O L F C L U B - Just Drive - Part 1 ; excellent synthwave with a lot of these tunes forming the soundtrack to my 2022. 
15 . The Night Game - Dog Years ; patchy to a degree, but incredibly catchy and even the songs I might not usually warm to, I did. Endearing, is how I'd describe this album. Love it. 
14 . Robin McAuley - Standing on the Edge ; what on earth is this doing this high up, I ask myself as I type this live. But fair play, it's a really good, consistent album and I kept waiting for a dud track that never really came. Possibly the most consistent album of his career? 
13 . The LRW Project - Fight & Climb ; one of my favourite new artists in recent years delivers a wonderful follow-up to a wonderful debut. Excellent stuff. 
12 . Holding Absence - The Greatest Mistake of My Life ; some more massive songs on another great album from this killer modern rock band. 
11 . W.E.T. - Retransmission ; surprised to see this so high on the list too, but credit where it's due. It's consistent, solid stuff and I prefer to this to their recent output. 

10 . Maverick - Ethereality ; another great release from one of, if not the best straight up hard rock band doing the rounds these days. Great stuff. 
9 . Chez Kane - Chez Kane ; even better than Crazy Lixx themselves. Love this album, and it was a very pleasant surprise package. 
8 . Nitrate - Renegade ; nothing spectacular, but the Midnite City b-sides shine through in another extremely enjoyable album.  
7 . First & Forever - Let This Love Lie Dead ; super consistent modern rock release. Each song delivers the goods and this was a joy to listen to in 2021. 
6 . At 1980 - Late Night Calls ; quality synthwave. Eclipsed by an exceptional release this year, but still a great album itself. 

5 . Ronnie Atkins - One Shot ; one of my favourite artists of all time releases an album I'd always wanted to hear from him, with so many awesome melodic cuts. Ear candy. 

4 . Midnite City - Itch You Can't Scratch ; an unstoppable force release another album full of melodic hard rock perfection, or close to it. 🙂

3 . The Motion Epic - Boardwalk Arcadia ; tossed off and turned a bit on whether I should put this here, or in the EPs, but decided to leave it here for the 6 songs and 3 great instrumental cuts. Delicious, smooth snythwave which caressed the ears.  

(and as good as all those albums are, I do have to admit that it was well and truly a two-horse race for me this year, with two albums being a massive cut above the rest, in my opinion. Sad that one has to take second place as they're both albums of the year in most other years, but this is how the last two fell)-

2 . The Broken View - On The Mend ; dropped late in the year with a lot of hope and expectation in my small little brain, and this lived up to it all. Sensational, extremely emotive tunes with a whole handful of 10/10 perfect songs on display. Love this album, and it pains me to not have it in the top spot. 

1 . LeBrock - Fuse ; ... but I just couldn't go past this. Ironically, this and TBV are extremely different albums, and maybe the order changes depending on the way I feel on a certain day, but every time one of these songs comes on my playlist it lifts me up and I just find the whole thing a battering of joy on my ears. Love everything about it. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Geoff

[Glen]

won't say too much Geoff aside from I found Midnite City to be a disappointment (when compared to the last 2) - just scraped my top 15 and Maverick to be a huge step backwards in quality, and to be above Vega & Levara (one of freshest releases in the last 5-10 yrs) is crazy talk IMHO 👄 😜 

[Geoff]

1 hour ago, Glen said:

won't say too much Geoff aside from I found Midnite City to be a disappointment (when compared to the last 2) - just scraped my top 15 and Maverick to be a huge step backwards in quality, and to be above Vega & Levara (one of freshest releases in the last 5-10 yrs) is crazy talk IMHO 👄 😜 

Mate, to be completely honest, this was the laziest list I've ever done. I usually re-rate my entire top 50 in the last few weeks of the year in question, but I didn't re-rate anything this year... just left it as it all was. I did re-rate 'Allow' on the Levara disc last night, after I did this, and it pushed it up a few spots, but I do personally prefer Midnite City (I still love what they're doing) and I really liked the new Maverick one too. I won't say my list is a 100% accurate interpretation of the year, but I was content enough with it and don't think re-rating it all would make any significant changes, to be fair. I'm cool with it, and very cool with people not to be cool with it.  

[Glen]

9 minutes ago, Geoff said:

Mate, to be completely honest, this was the laziest list I've ever done. I usually re-rate my entire top 50 in the last few weeks of the year in question, but I didn't re-rate anything this year... just left it as it all was. I did re-rate 'Allow' on the Levara disc last night, after I did this, and it pushed it up a few spots, but I do personally prefer Midnite City (I still love what they're doing) and I really liked the new Maverick one too. I won't say my list is a 100% accurate interpretation of the year, but I was content enough with it and don't think re-rating it all would make any significant changes, to be fair. I'm cool with it, and very cool with people not to be cool with it.  

I'm cool enough to admit that Lebrock blew it out of the park. Excellent album and depending on my mood could easily be no 1 for me. A great year all said and done 

[Metal T]

       Best Metal record of 2021........by a mile.

 

           

[Gotthardline]

10 - Rivals - Sad Looks Pretty on me

9 - W.E.T - Retransmission 

8 - Creye - II

7 Beast In Black - Dark Connection

6 Defences - In the balance

5 Bad Wolves - Dear Monsters

4 Levara -Levara

3 Normandie - Dark & Beautiful Secrets

2 grayscale - umbra

1 Caskets - Lost Souls 

[Glen]

so I thought I'd try Caskets. Unfortunately it's more tinkly verses and huge crescendo chorus with the dude shouting so I'll have to pass.....again.

It all sounds the same these days.

Patiently waiting for a modern band to live up to or surpass Destine. 

#hoping 

[KarpetRydOFunk]

6 hours ago, Glen said:

so I thought I'd try Caskets. Unfortunately it's more tinkly verses and huge crescendo chorus with the dude shouting so I'll have to pass.....again.

It all sounds the same these days.

Patiently waiting for a modern band to live up to or surpass Destine. 

#hoping 

Try Grayscale. It'll likely be more appealing to you. 

[Geoff]

23 hours ago, Gotthardline said:

10 - Rivals - Sad Looks Pretty on me

9 - W.E.T - Retransmission 

8 - Creye - II

7 Beast In Black - Dark Connection

6 Defences - In the balance

5 Bad Wolves - Dear Monsters

4 Levara -Levara

3 Normandie - Dark & Beautiful Secrets

2 grayscale - umbra

1 Caskets - Lost Souls 

Defences, Bad Wolves and Caskets all slipped under my radar. Checking them all out asap. Where do you keep track / find out about modern rock releases? 

14 hours ago, KarpetRydOFunk said:

Try Grayscale. It'll likely be more appealing to you. 

Love that Grayscale album. That 'King of everything' tune really snuck up on me to be one of the all time classics of my 2021. 

[Glen]

1 hour ago, Geoff said:

Defences, Bad Wolves and Caskets all slipped under my radar. Checking them all out asap. Where do you keep track / find out about modern rock releases? 

Love that Grayscale album. That 'King of everything' tune really snuck up on me to be one of the all time classics of my 2021. 

Defences is cookie cutter vocals so a no go for me, Caskets is tinkly verses and dude screaming so I passed (you'll prob love it lol), Bad Wolves are supporting Tremonti in June so I need to check that out.

Agree that Grayscale sounds v promising - have downloaded on Spotify for a good listen 

[Ponen]

1 hour ago, Geoff said:

Defences, Bad Wolves and Caskets all slipped under my radar. Checking them all out asap. Where do you keep track / find out about modern rock releases? 

Love that Grayscale album. That 'King of everything' tune really snuck up on me to be one of the all time classics of my 2021. 

So many awesome tunes but if I had to pick just one then I think I would go for Dirty Bombs. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Ponen

[nyoilers]

On 1/28/2022 at 2:40 PM, Glen said:

won't say too much Geoff aside from I found Midnite City to be a disappointment (when compared to the last 2) - just scraped my top 15 and Maverick to be a huge step backwards in quality, and to be above Vega & Levara (one of freshest releases in the last 5-10 yrs) is crazy talk IMHO 👄 😜 

I'll say that I don't have any of those 40.Not a one !

And I'm proud to be a HH hater of no. 17

[tobi is an animal]

1.  Epica – Omega 

2.  The Night Flight Orchestra - Aeromantic II

3.  The Pretty Reckless - Death By Rock And Roll

4.  Beast In Black - Dark Connection

5.  Lordi – Humanimals

 

 

6.  Lordi – Superflytrap

7.  Lordi – Spooky Sextravaganza Spectacular

8.  Lordi – The Masterbeast From The Moon

9.  Lordi – Abusement Park

10.Lordi – Abracadaver

11. Lordi – Skelectric Dinosaur

12. W.e.t. – Retransmission

13. Eclipse – Wired 

14. Volbeat - Servant Of The Mind

15. Seven Spires - Gods Of Debauchery 

 

16. The Agonist - Days Before The World Wept

17. Ronnie Atkins – One Shot

18. Lucifer - Lucifer IV

19. Noora Louhimo Experience - Eternal Wheel Of Time And Space

20. Seventh Crystal – Delirium

21. Laurenne/Louhimo - The Reckoning

22. 13 - Running Games

23. Nestor - Kids In A Ghost Town

24. Temperance – Diamanti

25. Inglorious – We Will Ride

[auslander]

13 minutes ago, tobi is an animal said:

1.  Epica – Omega 

2.  The Night Flight Orchestra - Aeromantic II

3.  The Pretty Reckless - Death By Rock And Roll

4.  Beast In Black - Dark Connection

5.  Lordi – Humanimals

 

 

6.  Lordi – Superflytrap

7.  Lordi – Spooky Sextravaganza Spectacular

8.  Lordi – The Masterbeast From The Moon

9.  Lordi – Abusement Park

10.Lordi – Abracadaver

11. Lordi – Skelectric Dinosaur

12. W.e.t. – Retransmission

13. Eclipse – Wired 

14. Volbeat - Servant Of The Mind

15. Seven Spires - Gods Of Debauchery 

 

16. The Agonist - Days Before The World Wept

17. Ronnie Atkins – One Shot

18. Lucifer - Lucifer IV

19. Noora Louhimo Experience - Eternal Wheel Of Time And Space

20. Seventh Crystal – Delirium

21. Laurenne/Louhimo - The Reckoning

22. 13 - Running Games

23. Nestor - Kids In A Ghost Town

24. Temperance – Diamanti

25. Inglorious – We Will Ride

So, you like Lordi?

[auslander]

23 hours ago, Glen said:

Defences is cookie cutter vocals so a no go for me, Caskets is tinkly verses and dude screaming so I passed (you'll prob love it lol), Bad Wolves are supporting Tremonti in June so I need to check that out.

Agree that Grayscale sounds v promising - have downloaded on Spotify for a good listen 

I had the first Bad Wolves album but on-sold it. I just couldn't get into it. Sounded like Disturbed-lite to me or Five Finger Death Punch Ultra-Lite. Maybe they got better on their second album?

[Ponen]

 

My top 12 albums of 2021 

12. Ronnie Atkins - One Shot

11. The LRW Project - Fight & Climb

10. Chez Kane - Chez Kane

9. W.E.T. - Retransmission

8. Grayscale - Umbra

7. Wolfclub - Just Drive Part 1

6. The Night Game - Dog Years

5. Creye - ll

4. Nitrate - Renegade

3. Midnite City - Itch you can't scratch

2. Loveless - Loveless 1

1. Lebrock - Fuse (was there ever any doubt?! Truly magnificent)

[Glen]

4 hours ago, Ponen said:

 

My top 12 albums of 2021 

12. Ronnie Atkins - One Shot

11. The LRW Project - Fight & Climb

10. Chez Kane - Chez Kane

9. W.E.T. - Retransmission

8. Grayscale - Umbra

7. Wolfclub - Just Drive Part 1

6. The Night Game - Dog Years

5. Creye - ll

4. Nitrate - Renegade

3. Midnite City - Itch you can't scratch

2. Loveless - Loveless 1

1. Lebrock - Fuse (was there ever any doubt?! Truly magnificent)

v nice list, I now need to check out Loveless ( sorry if I missed it on other lists)

[Ponen]

2 hours ago, Glen said:

v nice list, I now need to check out Loveless ( sorry if I missed it on other lists)

Knowing very well you have given up on so many modern rock music, am not sure if that will be right up your alley but you can definitely check out. It's a pretty strong album with some killer tracks imo. 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Ponen

[Geoff]

4 hours ago, Ponen said:

Knowing very well you have given up on so many modern rock music, am not sure if that will be right up your alley but you can definitely check out. It's a pretty strong album with some killer tracks imo. 

Something tells me it'll be the exact type of quiet to loud that Glen dislikes so much these days, but a good album with this gem being my favourite cut from it-

 

 

[Glen]

4 minutes ago, Geoff said:

Something tells me it'll be the exact type of quiet to loud that Glen dislikes so much these days, but a good album with this gem being my favourite cut from it-

 

 

yep . but I have grayscale lined up for a listen as that sounds promising 👍

[Geoff]

12 minutes ago, Glen said:

yep . but I have grayscale lined up for a listen as that sounds promising 👍

If you do like Grayscale, be sure to check out The Maine. An incredibly catchy and infectious modern rock band that one might argue Grayscale have moulded their current sound on. 

[Doug]

Dan, the lists you and the other contributors put together is beyond impressive! Just incredible. 

[Gotthardline]

On 1/31/2022 at 12:17 PM, Geoff said:

Defences, Bad Wolves and Caskets all slipped under my radar. Checking them all out asap. Where do you keep track / find out about modern rock releases? 

Love that Grayscale album. That 'King of everything' tune really snuck up on me to be one of the all time classics of my 2021. 

A real mixture to be honest

YouTube & Spotify recommendations are usually pretty good for finding new stuff 

I  regularly check on a few subreddit pages too ,   pop punk , post Hardcore & Metalcore all have pages that are pretty active