Best Music Of 2018

author PP date 13/01/19

As is customary each year, music magazines across the globe gather around and form an arbitrary ranking of the best music released that year. Since music is largely a matter of taste, no magazine typically agrees, not necessarily even internally on what is the best album, the second best album, and so forth.

So here at Rockfreaks.net we have always taken a different approach: we think it's far more important to try to capture all relevant albums from a given year of release that will have some significance a few years down the line. That is to say: if you look back at the albums we've picked three years down the line, will you still remember them and go: "oh yeah, that IS a good release", even if you hadn't listened to it for a while.

So our writers were given the usual task: pick and mix your favorite records from 2018 and combine them into an ordered list of sorts. No particular minimum or maximum limit for each list. The only catch? They had to be releases you'd reflect back on three to five years from now, thinking along the lines of "damn, that album was good", or ones that you'd keep returning to as they pass the test of time, thus cementing their place among the highlights in their given genre when we look back at the decade gone by at some point in the future.

Thus whatever you take interest in from below, you can rest assured that we have listened to it many times over and ultimately found that these records satisfy from the first track to the last. And usually, the ones in top three or top five are typically assumed to become classics in their respective genres as time passes by. PP

Petteri Pertola (PP)

PP is the Editor In Chief for Rockfreaks.net, primarily covering punk, hardcore, and related genres with occasional ventures into other genres as well. With between one and two hundred album reviews a year for more than a decade straight, you can be sure that if an album is on this list, it's still worth a listen a few years down the line.

Disappointing releases:

Aleksi Pertola (AP)

Our editor AP is a disciple of the riff, which means that you’ll most often find him scouring the realms of doom, prog, stoner and all things prefixed with post- for his fix. In general though, as long as the music creates bold fusions, pushes boundaries or leaves him perplexed, AP is probably the most genre-agnostic writer we have. What he abhors most are cheap tricks and clichés. In 2019, he looks forward to unearthing more treasures from old-school extreme metal, which saw something of a renaissance during the last year and sent him into a panic, having missed out on so many of the excellent releases emerging from that scene.

Honourable mentions:

Makky Hall (MAK)

In previous years MAK’s choices have been rather varied, from post-hardcore and metal to ska and pop-punk, however, 2018 was strongly about the United Kingdom's DIY punk scenes and the various albums that came out in that community. This is mostly what he reviewed and listened to, and what truly captivated his attention throughout the year.

Honourable Mentions

Rune Bøgelund (RUB)

As one of our two resident Århusian metalheads, the tall viking is as synonymous with metal as they come. If it growls and blastbeats, it has probably caught Rune's attention during the course of the year. His list is, therefore, a unique insight into what have been the best (and the heaviest) metal releases during the past year. Prepare for some serious headbanging below.

Honourable mentions:

Mind-blowingly insane gigs:

Disappointing releases:

Kristoffer Witt (KW)

The second of our Århus-based writers, Kristoffer's broad taste in anything technical, atmospheric, progressive and far-reaching takes him across a wide array of genres ranging from technical death metal to post-rock. Those of you whose music tastes aren't limited to just one style of rock or metal will find plenty of progressive gems in his list, and much more!

Biggest album disappointments:

Best live gigs:

Lærke Fenger (LF)

LF is usually intrigued by bands that fall within the genres of post-hardcore, indie/emo rock, or anything progressive or math. This year was a good year for post-hardcore and even more so for progressive metal, not least locally as several Danish bands have made their way to her list, truly competing with international releases.

YOUR TURN

And with that note, dear readers, we invite you to list your favorite records of the year below in the comments section. Feel free to argue, praise, or defame if you so wish, but please do provide your own 'best of' list that consists primarily of records you know you'll be listening to in years to come as well.

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