1. Zeal & Ardor- Stranger Fruit. This is my AOTY overall. Get yourself some negro spiritual music, add a pinch of great black metal moments, and some industrial NIN influences at parts with some great production and vocals and you got yourself a stew goin. 16 tracks and not a single filler moment. Brilliant album.

2. Shook Ones- Body Feel. Great punk rock comeback album from a band that's been MIA for awhile.

3. Vexes- Ancient Geometry. Straight the fuck up Deftones worship. Better than Gore.

4. Converge-Beautiful Ruin. Band can do no wrong.

5. Atmosphere- Mi Vida Local. Old rapper still got it.

6. Slothrust-The Pact. Really solid 90's influenced alternative album that can take you back to the era with ease.

7. Joy-No Light Below. Heavy fucking metalcore

8. Masked-Bloodlust. Hard, VG sounding synthwave.

9. Abstract Void-Back To Reality. Black metal meets synthwave. It works.

10. Ice Cube-Everythangs Corrupt. Ice Cube in 2018. But the back half is surprisingly solid. Definitely has a nostalgia trip factor to it.

What is a good neofolk album from the past few years? I liked that sol invictus album. Sorry if not on topic lol.

neofolk wise ive really liked what sangre de muerdago has done the last couple years and their latest is excellent as well.

This one almost made my list. I missed them so much - one of the best melodic hardcore bands out there. They remind me of Kid Dynamite and Lifetime.

alright my top 10:

01. Pharaoh Overlord - Zero
02. Idles - Joy as an Act of Reisstance
03. Harms Way - Posthuman
04. Pianos Become the Teeth - Wait for Love
05. Ken Mode - Loved
06. Kikagaku Moyo - Masana Temples
07. Imarhan - Temet
08. Sangre de Muerdago - Noite
09. Suffering Quota - Life in Disgust
10. Lonely Kamel - Death's-Head Hawkmoth

These two really fell by the wayside for me despite being frontrunners for awhile in my list, definitely both super solid releases. That PBtT album in particular, while not absolutely gut wrenching like their previous works, is quite the nice exercise in sadguy tunes. Good list, I must revisit that Kikagaku Moyo album.

I can hear the cringe from everyone already but whatever hahaha. My top, in no order:

1- Travis Scott- Astroworld
2- Playboi Carti-Die Lit
3- Sheck Wes- Mudboy
4- JPEGMAFIA- Veteran
5- $uicideboy$- I Want to Die in New Orleans
6- Hello Meteor- Swift, Dark Water


..and uh, that's about it, because everything else I discovered this year didn't come out in 2018. Too busy for this shit haha

Thanks for all the recommendations too everyone, I'll be sure to check out a ton of these!

From this year, the Death in June and Current 93 albums were both very good, but from recent years not much comes to mind and it isn't really a genre I follow closely to be honest. I do like Rome a lot although they're a little closer to rock and roll than neofolk in my opinion, but their album "A Passage to Rhodesia" from 2014 is really marvelous. "Hall of Thatch" from this year was decent as well.

Neuroticfish - Antidoron
Legendary synth/futurepop is back with a new album, and it's as good as always

Strvngers - Amor / Noir
These guys are a bit hard to categorize, they definitely go beyond just synthpop, including little bits and pieces from all sorts of nearby genres, but always sounding coherent and holistic. Can't say I like every single track on this one, but the ones that are good are GOOD.

Orionix - Stereolife
Best pop / poprock album I came across in a long time, with a nice sweet female vocals. Diverse enough not to bore me, but simple enough to work as a relax kind of music.

Seelennacht - Gednkenrelikt
Very solid gothic electro with awesome deep male vocals. Lots of music on this album as it's quite long. Not that much variation in general and not much innovation here - but all tracks are very solid, and again those vocals are so goooooooooood.

Mari Kattman - Stay Up
Very good trip hop album leaning towards more synth sound. Great vocals, diverse enough tracks. Slide is a freaking masterpiece, though it outshines the other tracks a bit too much.

Helalyn Flowers - Nyctophilia
Perhaps their best in terms of polishing songwriting, sound, performance and production. Highly pleasant mix of postpunk rhythms, guitarwork, synth and female vocals.

Nevada Hardware - No Future
Short, sweet and to the point - three main pillars of this big beat/EBM/electro release. And the great energy of course.
All tracks are diverse so you won't get bored. Perhaps a tad too short running time is the only flaw here.

MASTER BOOT RECORD - Virus.DOS + MASTER BOOT RECORD - Direct Memory Access
8bit/chiptune that sounds like symphonic metal. This might sound like a quite beaten dead horse by now, but the songwriting and execution here is just flawless. The energy is just over the top.

W O L F C L U B - Infinity
I had to include at least one retro/synth-wave album, and I like my synthwave with vocals. So here is one. Diverse tracks, good execution. Perhaps a bit too much "by the numbers" songwriting and too standard retro 80-th sound though - but even these shortcomings might actually be merits at times depending on your mood. Sometimes you just want to go full nostalgia for those 80-th (even if you were born in the 90-th or later - that should not matter ).

Puce Mary - The Drought
It's been a while since I've been listening to any dark ambient or noise releases, but this one really caught my attention. Very interesting and diverse release with good sound and good ideas.

P.S. Bonus: Kurs Valüt - Veselo
Cold sounding synthpop with weird repetitive lyrics in ukrainian. Lots of diverse tracks, but with a flaw - they do not quite form a holistic album, but rather sound like a compilation of stuff produced during the year. Anyhow, the tracks themselves are mostly good, and while the sound is not super innovative it is at least distinct.

I think i like pianos current sound more than what they released in the past, i tend to be more into full on skramz instead of their older stuff.

Posthuman basically got the basics of what i want in metalcore right and everything they did beyond that was very good too.

How embarrassing, I forgot that the new Les Bâtards du Nord was 2018. I've amended my list

https://lesbatardsdunord.bandcamp.com/a ... nes-nordik

Mix of viking folk, medieval, all done in a Québécois style

I didn't know they reunited. Thanks for the information! I attended one of their shows with some friends years ago and had a blast. I will check out the new album and verify if they play shows anywhere nearby.