2026 Metal Academy Awards Discussion - The Sphere Edition

With Ben busy beavering away on developing the new site, I thought I would instigate the threads for the "Metal Academy Releases of the Year Awards" and begin them early in the hope of drumming up some interest in the concept and in promoting new releases.

There will be a "Release of the Year" for each clan and I will also compile a Top 10 for the site as a whole. In addition there will be an award for the "Cover of the Year" for each clan. These will be determined by the site rating for each release, based on a to-be-determined minimum number of ratings. It is necessary to implement a minimum number of ratings as it seems unfair for a release with, for example, one 5 star rating to be placed above a release with a 4.5 average from 5 ratings. This minimum number of ratings may be different for each clan as the participation levels vary so significantly, but I would expect the final minimum to be whatever meaningful number returns a reasonable quantity of contenders, say at least five, for each clan. In the event of there being a tie for clan winner the release with the highest number of ratings wins out.

The Sphere is the clan that probably needs most help from members outside of it. So far there are only a couple of releases that have gained more than a single rating, so please use this thread to post recommendations for any Sphere releases from 2026 that you think deserve a shot at ROTY for the clan and hopefully a bit of exposure will get folks rating it. Any suggestions and/or comments about the concept more generally are also more than welcome.

The Sphere has no albums with the minimum required number of ratings necessary for inclusion in the other clans awards.

Only two albums have more than a single rating:

Fear of Domination - Katharsis

Rob Zombie - The Great Satan

There are only two more that have any ratings at all:

Bong-Ra - Esoterik

Genghis Tron - Signal Fire

To be fair, there are only 12 releases from 2026 on the site for the Sphere which, when compared to The North with almost 280, puts it at a decided disadvantage as far as people outside the clan checking them out. I will try to listen to a few out myself, although I'm not sure I can manage a Rob Zombie album - he makes better movies than records.

I have just checked out the Fear of Domination album and the only bit of it I could engage with was when the singer yells "just make it go away" during "Last Words". Maybe Rob Zombie won't sound so bad after all.

New Godflesh album coming out this month. I really liked tge last one, so if it still fits into the Sphere (I have no idea), it could challenge at the top here. Which would be in line with some of the other clans where a new release almost 10 years after the previous release by the band stands at number 1. See Neurosis and Converge. Cult of Luna's new album could challenge Neurosis I guess, but it may come out too late in the year.