2026 Metal Academy Awards Discussion - The Horde 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.

Please use this thread to post recommendations for any Horde 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.

So far ten releases have gained sufficient ratings to be considered and currently sit thus:

1= Cryptic Shift - Overspace & Supertime [4.33]

1= Fires in the Distance - Circadian Promise [4.33]

3. Immolation - Descent [4.25]

4. Slaughterday - Dread Emperor [3.83]

5. At the Gates - The Ghost of a Future Dead [3.67]

6= Fossilization - Advent of Wounds [3.50]

6= Inferi - Heaven Wept [3.50]

6= Invictus - Nocturnal Visions [3.50]

9. Ectovoid - In Unreality's Coffin [3.13]

10. Enshine - Elevation [2.67]

I have listened to and rated a few of these but, tellingly, not the first two. I have just got my vinyl copy of the Immolation album and that would be my pick for the top at the minute, with Invictus and Fossilization not far behind.

Other decent-scoring albums in need of at least one further rating are:

Archspire - Too Fast to Die

Funebrarum - Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence

Ripper (CHL) - Towards Rebirth

Exhumed - Red Asphalt

Growth - Under the Under

At the Gates - The Ghost of a Future Dead

I have checked out the Cryptic Shift album and I hear why it is so well liked by so many, but I am not as on board with it as most at this point. Now I fully accept that it isn't an album that you can jump to conclusions about, certainly after only a single listen and I do intend to revisit it soon. However, for me, there is just so much going on that I can't really get my head round it and it is very long. Ironically, though, the track that jumped out at me is the longest of them all, "Stratocumulus Evergaol" which gave itself enough space (as in half a fucking hour) to make all that was going on there less jarring and more natural sounding, feeling like a genuinely epic piece of metal. I suspect this may be an album that might just 'click' with me all of a sudden, a bit like Archspire did, so I certainly haven't given up on it yet. Three and a half stars from me for now, but that may change at a future date.