Well, what a year it has been. A year that was shaping up to be somewhat medicore, has turned out to be a year of fantastic discovery, reinvention and for some, the redefining of preferential parametres. We have seen every genre make significant contributions to the scene, but most predominantly from the doom genre. Old favourite bands have rebuilt pride that once was, and are set to please fans of old and grow hordes of new supporters. New bands are making their marks on relevant genres, fusing multiple influences in ways not previously seen. The boundaries of what is classified as "metal" are being pushed by the typically avant-garde bands, but more suprisingly, also the rock-orientated bands!

Death metal:

A mixture between the melodic, technical, progressive and brutal appeases a broad fanbase. The brutal and technical being standouts with praised releases from bands such as Hate Eternal / Bolt Thrower / Nile and Stargazer / Crimson Massacre respectively.

Black metal:

Somewhat quiet for the year - as far as the HM staff and contributors were concerned. Few releases were noted as being stand-out, compared to prior year dominance across the community world-wide. Without the widley praised "masterpieces" of the past few years such as Watain's Casus Luciferi, Deathspell Omega's Si Monumentum and Blut Aus Nord's The Work Which Transforms Gods, black metal seemed to fade into the shadow of doom. However, the genre still saw some releases worth note including Drudkh's The Swan Road, Nactfalke's As the Wolves Died and Averse Sefira's Tetragrammatical Astygmata.

Doom and folk influenced metal:

A great year of doom with countless contenders for peoples favourite albums. Candlemass almost 20 years after their first release have produced a self-titled album, the previously unknown (to HM staff anyway) Mournful Congregation was pimped to everyone by HM contributor Decadent for its epic and slowly engrossing soundscapes. From here, we moved to a number of drone doom bands and the absolutely brilliant Irish contingent of Primordial and Mourning Beloveth.

Thrash, NWOBHM and other metal:

Too detailed to run through in totality, but again a broad mix of killer albums ranging from Slough Feg to Witchcraft and classics like Kreator and Judas Priest. The remainder proving that the metal scene across the world is alive and well!

How this list was composed:

Pretty simple really. Each of the HM staff members developed listings of releases this year. We then ran through the list ourselves and ensured a decent coverage of albums released. From there we began compiling our top 15 releases for 2005, with each placing being allocated a number of points. Once our lists were developed, we opened the voting to the public to allow you to give us your input and tallied the votes for these albums accordingly.

So the winner, as noted below, is the one with the most overall votes - and that works all the way through the list to #20! In addition, staff have listed their choices for a number of other categories to provide feedback on the overall metal scene from our perspectives.

Finally, we asked a number of Australia's top bands to provide their feedback on their own highlights for the year! So without further adieu, we present our "best of" list, for 2005!

~ Mike (misfit), HM Staff

Skull crushing music, simple yet esthetically beautiful.

Toss up between Mortal Sin and Alchemist this year. Went to Alchemist because they have been involved with the community more and have basically been more active (as well as being a kick arse band). Although if MS can get Death Angel out here next year, they will win next years best local act, by a mile!

Successfully supported Anthrax earlier in the year and played a number of other great shows in recent time, Mortals never fail to impress live always giving us 200% shows. Look out for them in 2006 as they are just getting started with some huge things coming up... They are great bunch of guys you can ever meet.

Hate Eternal just kept playing throughout the morning with about 10 songs in their encore. Amazing experience! Read the review. View the photos.

Australian metal scene in general in 2005 was as active as it gets. We were very blessed with the amount of international bands touring down here and was phenomenal to see most of them here for the very fist time: Angra, Hate Eternal, Megadeth, Arch Enemy, Nile, Motorhead, Dismember, etc... With well over 10 international bands touring, I'm left to wonder, will 2006 be as good?

2. Kreator - Enemy of God

Seeing their mini-comeback at Nile was an amazing privilege. They played a fantastic set and proved that they're far from finished.

Machine Head - Elegies, Leaves Eyes - Elegy, Meshuggah - Catch Thirty Three & Candlemass - Essential Doom

I have always enjoyed Nicklas Sundin's work, not only as a great musician in a cool band, he's also a great artist!

Obviously we are still planning our year and all of this is tentative and hopeful!

February - 20th Anniversary show Feb 4th at Gaelic Club with Alarum & Transfix, Hopefully record album and sign record deal
March - Possible few shows Sydney
April - Prepare for album launch and Australian tour
May - Prepare for European tour - rehearsals
June - Germany (Possibly live in Germany for 8-10 weeks playing all the
festivals in Europe)
July - Germany
August - Germany
September - Asian tour including Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China
September - Australian and New Zealand Tour

My plans are to knuckle down with my bro's in the band and to write/record the next Vanishing Point album, which we will be recording this year. We can't wait!

Apart from that, I wish for more time with my wife, to go fishing [laughs] and just generally be in good spirits, good health and hope that my family and friends have the same.

Machine Head - Elegies, Leaves Eyes - Elegy, Meshuggah - Catch Thirty Three & Candlemass - Essential Doom

Tacky, and unimpressive! Album is DAMN GOOD, but surely they could have done a better job on the artwork?! I'm disappointed, boys...

After nearly 25 shows around the country supporting the album, we are going to take a well deserved break - play a few of the larger shows
here and there (overcranked etc..) and then we should be back into writing mode again. We are definately looking forward to it!.

First and foremostly, the release of the new Chaos Theory album,
'Whispers of Doom'. In a traditional vein of metal, influenced by Iron Maiden and other similar bands, this is an album I'm proud to be a part of.Also very much looking forward to Opeth's Aus tour Chaos Chick aka Leanne (keyboardist of Chaos Theory
www.whispersofdoom.com)

Eyefear will begin recording their 2nd CD titled A WORLD FULL OF GREY in January 06. No release date as yet. It will be recorded at Peak Tima Productions and will be mixed again by none another than Andy La Rocque at Los Angered studio in Gothenburg Sweden. Also check eyefear.com for news on a very special show coming up. Stay tuned for more details !!!!!!!!

Finally finish this album we started last year. We are hoping to be done by April then i guess the plan is to just play as many places as we can all over the country. We already have some interstate plans, we play in Adelaide 14th January (probably already missed that one by the time this goes up!) with Raven Black Night and Melbourne in February but we have plenty of Sydney gigs coming up so please check our website www.transcendingmortality.com and come along if you like melodic metal.

*Play as many shows as possible (ANNANDALE HOTEL 14/01/2006).
*Re-release our 2nd album "The Violence Continuum" special edition
CD/DVD
(February/March)
*Release shirt range
*Record & release our third album at years end.