I've made an effort to listen to a lot of new music this year, and here are some of my thoughts on it.

In roughly alphabetical order:

Alcest - Les Chants de l'Aurore

I always like Alcest as an abstract concept more than I actually like their music. I love Agalloch and I always think Alcest should scratch the same itch, but, at least for me, it doesn't. This album doesn't either. The soundscapes are nice and the drumming is a real pleasure to listen to, but overall it's just a bit too bright and upbeat for it to end up in regular rotation for me. Though it might grow on me yet.

Anette Olzon - Rapture

I like Anette Olzon a lot. She gets overshadowed by being a Nightwish singer and not being Tarja Turunen or Floor Jansen, who are both technically much more proficient singers than she is, but I generally prefer listening to Anette's voice. I also really like the two Dark Element albums and think she did a fantastic job on these, as did Jani Liimatainen in writing the music. The music on Rapture is mostly modern sounding high energy metal and a bit heavier than you might expect from an Anette solo album. I don't think Rapture's songwriting is as strong as that of the Dark Element albums, but it is a fun listen. The vocal lines are written to play to Anette's strengths and she sounds as vibrant as ever. Plus, unlike several singers' solo albums on this list, the production is great with the vocals front and centre.

Blaze Bayley - Circle of Stone

I always think Blaze Bayley is unfairly underrated due to his time in Iron Maiden coinciding with some weaker output, which I don't think is even slightly his fault (I mean, it's not like Fear of the Dark or No Prayer For The Dying were great either, and I think that losing Adrian Smith was more catastrophic for their sound than losing Bruce Dickinson). I haven't kept up with his solo career but I do remember enjoying Silicon Messiah way back in the early 2000s. Circle of Stone is a pretty straightforward hard rock and heavy metal, and it's good at being so while not being groundbreaking. The production is a touch minimalist in a bad way. It sounds a bit compressed and the vocals could do with being mixed a little higher, but it still sounds better than a certain other Iron Maiden singer's solo album this year.

Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

The internet loves this album. I like parts of it, but unfortunately the parts like aren't neatly contained within song boundaries, so I'm unlikely to listen to this again. I don't think mixing death metal and Pink Floyd is really for me.

Bruce Dickinson - The Mandrake Project

The Mandrake Project is a bit of a mixed affair in my opinion. I think Bruce's solo works are usually interesting and I like that they tend to have a different and darker vibe than Iron Maiden's work. There are some good tracks on here. Afterglow of Ragnarok is a strong opener and I prefer his version of Eternity Has Failed to Iron Maiden's. But there is also a lot that's forgettable. His voice is definitely showing its age (in contrast to Rob Halford, also on this list), but he's still a strong singer at lower registers. The big shortcoming is the mix is very muddy and Bruce often struggles to cut through it. I find it baffling that a singer's solo album would not have clear vocals as a mixing priority, but here we are. It's a decent album but I would put it as being behind Accident of Birth, The Chemical Wedding and Tyranny Of Souls (probably in that order?).

Devin Townsend - PowerNerd

I really love Devin's older work. PowerNerd is good, but it's not Ocean Machine good. On the other hand, Devin has managed to keep his style sounding pretty fresh while also sounding like himself. He's definitely mellowed as he's got older, which is good for him but is probably bad news for those of us hoping for another City or Alien. PowerNerd is a fairly safe album, but I don't really listen to Devin for 'safe'. Ruby Quaker is a good song though and the least safe. I think the last Devy album I really enjoyed was Epicloud, and now I think about it, I suspect that's because Anneke Van Giersbergen's voice added a lot of extra texture to the sound.

Ensiferum - Winter Storm

I like Ensiferum a lot, but I find their releases to be very inconsistent in terms of my enjoyment, in an unpredictable way. Ensiferum's recent song writing seems pretty consistent on paper, but some of their releases have a spark and others don't. Winter Storm is solid, as you'd expect, and the mix is great, with Ensiferum's trademark sound. But the song writing is a bit generic apart from the odd flash. The last song picks up the pace a bit. Ironically the most memorable song is probably the ballad in the middle called Scars In My Heart, because it features some guest vocals courtesy of Madeleine Liljestam, who does a fantastic job on a nice melody, though it's not exactly what you listen to Ensiferum for. By contrast, the clean male vocalist on the other tracks does not really fit. I'm not sure why they've chosen to give more prominence to the clean vocals over Petri Lindroos's growls, but I think it's a mistake.

Ihsahn - Ihsahn

Ihsahn is really good at what he does. Unfortunately, I don't always enjoy it as much as I feel like it deserves. I don't know what to say really - it's a really well made album and Ihsahn deserves a lot of respect for being so creative and artistic... but I don't really get the music.

Judas Priest - Invincible Shield

Rob Halford has no business being able to sing like this in his 70s, and, really, Judas Priest have no business still releasing hits at this point of their career. Judas Priest are one of the oldest metal bands around, having existed since the early 1970s (depending on exactly how you define Judas Priest), so you'd think they might be getting a little creatively stale by now, but nope. Invincible Shield is a mostly fast, high energy speed metal affair. The song writing is great, Rob Halford sounds fantastic and nowhere near his 73 years of age, and the production is brilliant.

Kerry King - From Hell I Rise

From Hell I Rise sounds a lot like modern Slayer. Whether or not that's a good thing is going to depend on your views on Slayer. Personally it exceeded my expectations but I think Slayer's real appeal was that Jeff Hanneman's arrangements tended to be just slightly unusual. Kerry King's writing is solid but it's not particularly original. I enjoyed the album while I listened to it but it didn't really grab me enough to put it on regular rotation.

Nightwish - Yesterwynde

Nightwish have committed the classic symphonic metal blunder of shifting their focus from metal to symphonic as they gained experience and creative confidence. I always think it's a mistake because moving from synths and guitars to large orchestras blunts the edge of the music. Despite this, I enjoyed Yesterwynde a lot more than I expected to. The first half is pretty strong, while the second half drags a little. It's no Oceanborn (or even Imaginarium), but Yesterwynde still has a decent amount of energy even if the orchestra softens the attack. I think the orchestra is overdone and there are a lot more instruments than are required by the music. As a result of this, it seems like Floor Jansen is often competing for space in the mix. It's not terrible but the sound would be improved if she was clearer, and, frankly, when you have a singer like Floor it's inexplicable not to make her the focal point (but Nightwish seems to have a history of treating its singers badly...). Also, the decision to include the male vocals is a little questionable. He's no Marko.

Opeth - Last Will And Testament

Opeth are too proggy for me to enjoy as much as other bands on this list but I do kind of like them. Opeth have always been experimental and in their last few albums they experimented so hard that they ended up being a totally different genre, which upset a lot of people. It didn't upset me and I think it's nice to see bands try to be original, but I also didn't like those albums. Last Will And Testament is a return to progressive death metal in a style reminiscent of Blackwater Park or Ghost Reveries. The sonic side is strong with the mix being a great wall of sound and Mikael Åkerfeldt sounding ferocious as ever. The songwriting and progression is a little bit too far on the progressive scale for me to really get into, but if you like 2000s era Opeth sound then you should like this.

Spectral Wound – Songs of Blood and Mire

This album is a total ear assault, in the best way. The production hits you with a wall of sound. It's very modern while still being firmly rooted in classic black metal, and it sounds amazing. Black metal can be a creatively restrictive genre and I think it's worth noting when a band manages to do something unique within it; Spectral Wound have injected a lot of life into genre while staying very firmly within black metal boundaries. I can't recommend Songs of Blood and Mire enough, unless you don't like black metal, in which case you'll hate it.

Winterfallyth - The Imperious Horizon

Winterfallyth create some very solid atmospheric black metal. It's also very dense and somewhat difficult to digest as a result of its density. But The Imperious Horizon is a great album that rewards a few listens. One of the things I really like about some black metal is that it can almost become ambient noise I can listen to while I'm working (Darkspace perfected this approach in my opinion). The Imperious Horizon doesn't have a lot to distinguish one track from the next, which also means it really works as black metal noise.

Wintersun - Time II

I think it's difficult to top Jari Mäenpää's work in Ensiferum and the first Wintersun album, but later releases haven't done much for me. I found Time II pretty forgettable and the mix quite muddy with a lot going on. Maybe it would reward repeated listens to pick out the details, but I haven't felt the urge. Time II seems to have been a bit of a white whale for Jari, having taken him 18 years to complete. I hope that whatever he does next comes together a bit easier for him.