I've been waiting for that best of '17 for 12 months! A 'best of' from B&B is NEVER irrelevant.
As for my top albums of '18, well, the one that is likely to be my AOTY is not exactly fit for a B&B podcast, and I haven't put together my proper ranking yet (I still have about 5 albums to listen to). I'll just mention a few random gems:
Sergey Golovin - Sculpture. Ruslan gave this to Kade in his roulette. Very tasty instrumental album
Kissin Dynamite - Ecstacy. Why have I never heard of these guys before? This is their 6th album!
Ethernity - The Human Race Extinction. Hard to believe it's *not* Magali Luyten on vocals.
Walls of Babylon - A Portrait of Memories. Forget how I stumbled across this one, but it's a beaut
Trond Holter - Vlad the Impaler. This time, it's Nils K. Rue on vocals. Not quite as good as Swing of Death, but still really good.
Hexed - Netherworld. Female led melodic metal
Dark Horizon - Aenigma. Kinda a mashup of Pretty Maids/Kamelot, with a splash of Accept and Saxon. Very solid Hard Rock. I think you boys would dig this one.
Helion Prime - Terror of the Cybernetic Space Monster. Some cheesy power metal, but in a good way.
And two more to make it a nice round 'top' 10... these are TAC-comendations that I just listened to this week, and they were both insta-purchases
Diving Ascension - The Uncovering
Primitai - The Calling
P.S. Guardians of Time - Tearing up the World. This is one I'm partway thru as I type this... one of the 5 that I still have to listen to. Some straight-up kickass metal that you blokes would love. I'm diggin this bigly.