2026 Metal Academy Awards Discussion - The Guardians 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 Guardians 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.

At this point six releases from The Guardians have received three or more ratings and are:

1. Myrath - Wilderness of Mirrors [4.00] (Myrath is #1 by virtue of more ratings than Crimson Glory)

2. Crimson Glory - Chasing the Hydra [4.00]

3. Lovebites - Outstanding Power [3.50]

4. Edenbridge - Set the Dark on Fire [3.33]

5. Exxûl - Sealed Into None [3.17]

6. Wildhunt - Aletheia [2.83]

There are several bubbling under with a couple of ratings each and the following actually have higher average ratings than Myrath:

Therion - Con orquesta

Iron Savior - Awesome Anthems of the Galaxy

Beyond the Black - Break the Silence

Masterplan - Metalmorphosis

Personally, it appears I haven't rated anything from this year in The Guardians so if anyone has any hot recommendations that I should check out then I would be glad to hear them.