THE SHORT LIST (OR: AXL’S PICKS FOR THE TOP 22 ALBUMS OF 2008, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)

Different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes. While we’re arguing about the best releases of 2008, I thought I’d tip all you MetalSucks Maniacs off to the list of 21 albums from which I will be whittling down when creating my own top 10 year-end list (Which, as Vince said, will be published on Monday, December 15, along with all the other MetalSucks Mansion inhabitants’ lists.). There’s some overlap with Vince, natch, but maybe not as much as you’d expect.

In order to give you no clue whatsoever as to where my head is at, I’ve put all my picks in alphabetical order.

And if there’s an album that you love that you don’t see on here, it’s not because I forgot it and it’s not (necessarily) because I didn’t like it – it’s just because, at the end of the day, I know it ain’t gonna make the cut. Dem’s da breaks. Sorry.

Arsis, We Are the Nightmare

Bloodbath, The Fathomless Mastery

Cynic, Traced in Air

Daylight Dies, Lost to the Living

Enslaved, Vertebrae

The Faceless, Planetary Duality

Genghis Tron, Board Up the House

Gojira, The Way of All Flesh

Guns N’ Roses, Chinese Democracy

Hate Eternal, Fury & Flames

The Human Abstract, Midheaven

Intronaut, Prehistoricisms

Jarboe & Justin K. Broadrick, J2

Landmine Marathon, Rusted Eyes Awake

Made Out of Babies, Ruiner

Meshuggah, Obzen

Misery Index, Traitors

Nachtmystium, Assassins Part 1

Opeth, Watershed

Origin, Antithesis

Various Artists, This Comp Kills Fascists

Virgin Black, Requiem: Fortissmo

-AR