It has been a fantastic year for extreme metal or extreme music in general. First of all, you have my personal favourite Profetus who delivered an uncompromising distillation of pure funeral doom with the beautifully monikered ‘The Sadness of Time Passing’. Staying within the realm of doom a bit longer, French maniacs Ataraxie and UK’s Esoteric returned with long awaited new records, massive double albums, the both of them.

On the other end of the speed spectrum you got Cattle Decapitation’s baffling, genre defying ‘Death Atlas’ and Blood Incantation’s tour de force ‘Hidden History of the Human race’, trumping their even debut ‘Starspawn’ with its brutal yet cosmically technical prowess.

Music doesn’t have to be metal to be extreme. This year’s crowning achievement’s in musical innovation came from Kirstin Hayter’s Lingua Ignota with ‘Caligula’, a collection of survival anthems that speak of the unspeakable. Likewise Chelsea Wolfe provided some of 2019 darkest moments on the droning Gothic folk noise of ‘Birth of Violence’.

Each in their own unique and very different way, Rotting Christ as well as Swallow the Sun told tales of epic grandness yet full of melancholy. Rounding off on a lighter note comes Lindemann’s second outing ‘F&M’ , a new collaboration between Till Lindemann and Peter Tägtgren, which I actually found to be a lot more fun than Rammstein’s own comeback album.

1. Profetus – The Sadness of Time Passing
2. Ataraxie – Resignes
3. Chelsea Wolfe – Birth of Violence
4. Cattle Decapitation – Death Atlas
5. Esoteric – A Pyrrhic Existence
6. Rotting Christ – The Heretics
7. Lingua Ignota – Caligula
8. Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race
9. Swallow The Sun – When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light
10. Lindeman – F & M