Durf's Töp 15 Albums and 5 EPs/Splits/Demos of 2018

2018 was a pretty momentous year for me personally, as the Durfette and I packed up and moved from Chicago, IL, our home for over a decade, and moved out west to Boise, Idaho.  It's been a great move, but owning a home and finding a new job have definitely brought with them their own challenges, as has the addition of the Durfling just a few short weeks ago.  Because of this most recent addition, my year end lists are a bit scaled down this year; I won't be listing my favorite concerts (Fire in the Mountains, not even close), non-metal albums (Panopticon's The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness, Part 2, similarly a Crimson Tide-level blowout), or songs (Marche Funébre's "Darkness" or Panopticon's "At the Foot of the Mountain"), because it's taking all of the limited time I have to put together this admittedly half-assed list of what I consider to be the best EPs/Splits/Demos and Metal Albums of the Year.  I hope that 2018 has been good to you and yours, and that big things are on the horizon for your 2019.  Let me know if you agree with my selections or think I missed something obvious in the comments, but don't fucking talk to me about Prequelle.  That record sucked and I'm pretty sure Ghost blew their load in two albums and is running on fumes.  Here are some albums that didn't make me want to bash my head in with a square hammer.

Conjurer - Mire

The "post-" genre seems to have taken on a life of it's own in the past few years.  When I began listening to metal intently over a decade ago, it felt like "post-metal" was reserved for living legends Neurosis and ISIS (RIP), and then "post-hardcore" was bandied about for bands like Thrice and Thursday.  Now? It seems like everything new is getting "post-"ed.  It feels like a catch-all of sorts, as though when a band has a sound that doesn't fit neatly into a predefined genre, it becomes "post-whatever genre."  I bring this up because in listening to and reviewing Mire, the debut full-length by the UK's Conjurer, I am incredibly tempted to label the band post-something, and I feel that doing so would take away from the magnificence of this album.