How has 2015 shaped up for you musically?

[bosk1]

For me, the year started pretty slow.  Neal Morse's release was pretty good, but there wasn't really much else on the radar.  For all the hype over Maiden, I thought The Book of Souls was just "good."  But I have to say, Symphony X floored me and is the biggest surprise of the year for me.  Best album of 2015 definitely goes to them.  Queensryche is a close second.  Those two alone have made the year for me.  Add to those already mentioned a pretty good live set from Neal (Morsefest) and a solid Stryper album in Fallen, and 2015 turned into a pretty good year for my tastes.  How about you guys?

[Train of Naught]

Dear Hunter's Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise was the "miracle of 2015" for me so to speak. A lot of good efforts on second/third place (Tesseract, Periphery, Symphony X, Tremonti). Iron Maiden didn't live up to my expectations, which weren't that high, I just highly prefer TFF.

Oh and musically 2015 was probably the year I discovered more new music than I've ever done before, not necessarily new stuff, but just by hearing from others, not to mention the roulette that will deliver me atleast 96 new songs. 

[Art]

2015 was an excellent year in music for me. Iron Maiden, Ghost, Symphony X and many others released some awesome records. It was also an year that i made an effort  to listen to some new (at least, new to me) stuff, thanks mainly to Spotify.

[LieLowTheWantedMan]

2015 is the greatest year of music I've been around to actively follow. So many amazing albums. Spectacular year after a mediocre 2014.

[Evermind]

Excellent year indeed. So many great releases scattered all over the year. Started strong with Steven Wilson and a few other releases in January and February, turned to awesome with Nightwish and Arjen in March, then lost a bit of steam in the summer but then exceeded all my expectations in September and onwards. The new David Gilmour album alone was enough for me to make this year awesome, and we got like 20 more releases ranging from great to fantastic.

[Crow]

Well, I haven't been floored by too many releases from this year, but I've spent a lot of time finding older stuff that I dig a ton 

[RoeDent]

I'm still catching up with the past. I've never purchased more than four albums in the same year as they were released. My main bands of the year have been Marillion (5 albums so far) and Spock's Beard (3). My SB collection has grown steadily over the last 3 years (3 albums bought in 2013, and 2 in 2014).

Re. 2015 albums though, I feel like the only person I know who even owns A Spark in the Aether by The Tangent and King for a Day by Magic Pie. Both are utterly brilliant albums and you all must hear them.

[Sacul]

2015 is the greatest year of music I've been around to actively follow. So many amazing albums. Spectacular year after a mediocre 2014.

Absolutely this. I don't really listen to many albums in the same year of release, but I've found amazing stuff these last 12 months.

Aside from that I've gotten into lots of genres, specially electronic music in general, hip-hop, experimental stuff, and trip-hop. My musical tastes have never been so broad, yet there's still a lot to explore, something I hope my next roulette helps me to

[Train of Naught]

And I'll be there, sending African Psychedelic Jazz Funk Fusion Rock.

[TheCountOfNYC]

2015 hasn't been a great year for music for me but it wasn't terrible either. None of my top three bands released an album or toured the states this year, with A7X replacing their drummer while Metallica and DT were in the studio recording and playing shows in Europe. Halestorm and Shinedown released albums this year, but I hated both Into the Wild Life and Threat to Survival. On the plus side, In This Moment released Black Widow, The Winery Dogs released Hot Streak, and Disturbed made a big comeback with Immortalized. Also, Dave Baksh returned to Sum 41. I also got to see In This Moment twice, Halestorm once (almost twice, but it was an outdoor show in Central Park that got cancelled due to an incoming hurricane), and I got to meet my favorite living musician in October when I met Mike Portnoy at a Winery Dogs meet and greet.

[yorost]

Not been a great year. Sampled lots of new stuff but little caught my attention. At least one of my favorite artists released one of his best albums, Schon: Vortex. I'm probably looking in the wrong places, again, things like jazz fusion still hold much of my attention.

Re. 2015 albums though, I feel like the only person I know who even owns A Spark in the Aether by The Tangent ... utterly brilliant albums and you all must hear them.

Listening now. I long ago gave up on their new releases, but I'll give you some faith.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

This year was amazing, if for nothing else, Nightwish, Kamelot and Symphony X's collective triumphs!

[Mebert78]

2015 was a weird year for me, musically.  I had high expectations for several albums -- including Faith No More's Sol Invictus and Tesseract's Polaris, both of which did little for me personally when they were ultimately released.  Fortunately, there were some unexpected surprises this year that I was happy about -- particularly the debut albums from two little-known progressive metal bands: Voices From the Fuselage and The Great Discord.  We also had solid releases from the long-time acts such as Queensrÿche, Steven Wilson, Leprous and Symphony X.  So the year ended up shaping up pretty well!

[Polarbear]

Pretty good overall!

Faith No More's Sol Invictus was one of the best comeback albums in recent memory, new Riverside was awesome, and David Gilmours new album was a beast!

Toto had a great comeback with XIV, The Sword released a great new album, and i thought the new Iron Maiden was pretty good. Lots of smaller bands like Kylesa, released great stuff as well but i'm too lazy to list them all.

[yorost]

This year was amazing, if for nothing else, Nightwish, Kamelot and Symphony X's collective triumphs!

Them and Iron Maiden really left me disappointed over old favorites. Love After Forever, but Nightwish just seems bent on being generic instead of dominating their own style. Floor seemed so under utilized in how she could perform with Nightwish.

@RoeDent: Tangent seems a lot better than I would have expected.

[Evermind]

I don't agree, I thought Nightwish record was pretty good. Not venturing outside Tuomas comfort zone, that's true, but pretty good nonetheless.

Kamelot though, yeah, I expected better of them.

[yorost]

Tuomas and the band sounded very uninspired, but my problem was that it seemed like they were holding Floor in check from letting loose to sound more like the style with Tarja. It comes off like they want an Annette style, just with someone that can still sing the old songs in their original style. I thought it would be a return, instead if came off as a boring sign they will never go back to what they used to be.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Native Construct is still the best album I've heard from this year.

I think it might also be the only one, but still, it's really good.

[425]

Well, my 2015 isn't nearly over. I have a lot of catching up to do in the last month and a half here (realistically I won't have an AOTY list until probably well into January).

I don't really have a definitive choice for my favorite album right now. Iron Maiden was really good, as was Nightwish and The Gentle Storm. I liked Death Cab for Cutie's new album, but it didn't blow me away—I think Codes and Keys is better. Voices from the Fuselage had an awesome debut. And Sufjan Stevens released a really intimate album that has been hard for me to get into so far because of how personal it is.

I still have to go back and get to a ton of stuff, including Kamelot, Neal Morse and The Dear Hunter.


And my year is not over yet. Two of my top four all time bands, Nightwish and Iron Maiden, have already put out solid releases. But on December 3rd, #AHFODiscoming. Coldplay might well get my AOTY two years running if A Head Full of Dreams is as good as their last two albums.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Great.  I got to see ZZ Top, the M3 Rock Festival, Rush, Cooper/Crue, and AC/DC.  Listened to a lot of classic hard rock and metal albums for the first time.  This Saturday, I'm working up the beginnings of a new band after a year-ish hiatus from playing.  Booyah.

[krands85]

First half of the year was pretty quiet for me - The Congregation by Leprous is the only thing I can think of that I've really enjoyed which came out before June. Since then though, there's been a fair bit of stuff I've really liked.

Drones by Muse was a pleasant surprise - a bit of a return to form from a band I used to consider my favourite. Disturbed returned from a hiatus and released Immortalized which is decent. Underworld by Symphony X is a good, consistent album too - though it hasn't quite grabbed me as much as a lot of other people. My 3 favourite releases of the year though are probably: The Book of Souls by Iron Maiden (already one of my favourite albums by them); Polaris by Tesseract (couldn't really live up to their previous album for me after their change of vocalist, but still really good and growing on me with each listen) and Netherworld II by Vanden Plas (still getting to grips with it, but loving it so far. Great continuation of the story from part I).

I probably don't listen to as much music as I used to, or seek out as much new stuff either - so there isn't quite the variety there used to be for me sadly. Was a disappointing year in terms of live music too as I've only managed 2 gigs. Next year already looking much better on that front though and there should be plenty of new releases from some of my favourite bands to look forward to as well

[Zantera]

2015 started off fairly mediocre for me, it wasn't really until May or June that I started coming around on it, and now I'd say it's been a really great year. Not sure how I would rank it against 2014, 2013, 2012, but I'm happy with 2015. Some disappointments, some surprises, but overall a bunch of great albums.

[Anguyen92]

A very fantastic year, for me.  Despite the fact that Alter Bridge did absolutely nothing, all year, due to other project commitments (Myles Kennedy working with Slash, and Mark Tremonti doing his solo band, more on that one later), I listened to 35 new albums, released in 2015.  The most number of new albums that I have ever listened to.

In addition, to that, the palate of music expanded a good amount where I pegged a country album (Zac Brown Band's Jekyll + Hyde) in my fave five albums. 

Only went to one concert, which was a Foo Fighters concert, but it was a great one.  Probably, the best overall experience, out of four concerts, of a concert that I have ever had.

Favorite albums: Iron Maiden's The Book of Souls, Tremonti's Cauterize, Breaking Benjamin's Dark Before Dawn, Zac Brown Band's Jekyll + Hyde, Stryper's Fallen.

Yep, it was a fine year for music, for me.

[jjrock88]

I was very impressed with the QR, Symphony X, Iron Maiden, Saxon, CIIC and Stryper releases.  Then a handful of other great albums, so for me, it was a great year musically.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I was very impressed with the QR, Symphony X, Iron Maiden, Saxon, CIIC and Stryper releases.  Then a handful of other great albums, so for me, it was a great year musically.

At first I was like "How did I miss Quiet Riot putting out a new album this year?" 

[jingle.boy]

Absolutely stellar.  Have purchased 22 albums outright; another 25 saved on Spotify, and another 7 live albums (5 of which are DVDs).

Only a couple of disappointments.

[jjrock88]

I was very impressed with the QR, Symphony X, Iron Maiden, Saxon, CIIC and Stryper releases.  Then a handful of other great albums, so for me, it was a great year musically.

At first I was like "How did I miss Quiet Riot putting out a new album this year?" 

ha still waiting for it

[Nothingface]

2015 was an amazing year for music (well, unless the only thing you listen to is disposable modernized prog/folk music.)

[Crow]

And Sufjan Stevens released a really intimate album that has been hard for me to get into so far because of how personal it is.

oh god is the entire album like that
not just the one song i was sent off it?
might be a hard listen then 

[LordCost]

2015 is the greatest year of music I've been around to actively follow. So many amazing albums. Spectacular year after a mediocre 2014.

In 2014 I was interested only in 3 albums released in that year, but this year I've listened and liked almost 15 albums from my favourite bands or new discovered bands and I think it never happened before.

[425]

And Sufjan Stevens released a really intimate album that has been hard for me to get into so far because of how personal it is.

oh god is the entire album like that
not just the one song i was sent off it?
might be a hard listen then 

Yeah, it's a really tough listen. Just very, very personal. I'm not typically one to get uncomfortable with personal lyrics, but with this album I almost feel like I'm eavesdropping. It's musically very good though.

[SoundscapeMN]

Every year seems to be about as good in terms of quality. There's always some standout records, some comebacks or long awaited records that are good but not as great as it seemed they might be. And there always seems to be as lot of mid-level records.

2015 is no exception to that.

The biggest thing for me though was 2015 saw the 1st 5-star record in 3 years in Small Leaks Sink Ships - Face Yourself and Remove Your Sandals.

And the Kaddisfly album Horses Galloping on Sailboats finally came out. A record I like many, questioned if it ever would. And it turned out about as good as I or anyone else could have hoped.

Where all the Set Sail the Prairie fans have been? the fuck if I know now. But my memory of Kaddisfly being the cat's ass back in 2007 and 2008 should have translated to a lot more people talking about it. But I can't be too surprised by it as it always seems to happen with my favorite records (see Fjokra last year).

[senecadawg2]

Really good year for me, with still a few more exciting ones to get into (Vanden Plas, Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall and some albums from earlier in the year that I haven't listened to as much yet as I'd like to).

And Sufjan Stevens released a really intimate album that has been hard for me to get into so far because of how personal it is.

oh god is the entire album like that
not just the one song i was sent off it?
might be a hard listen then 

Yeah, it's a really tough listen. Just very, very personal. I'm not typically one to get uncomfortable with personal lyrics, but with this album I almost feel like I'm eavesdropping. It's musically very good though.

My favorite album of the year, or at least in the top 2-3.

[Calvin6s]

2015 is a lot like 2014.  I'm going more and more mainstream everyday (or at least the mainstream version associated with heavy guitars, which aren't very mainstream).

Getting into more and more synth.  And not just samples of real instruments, but the unworldly samples.  So when I see a list of full on prog and avante garde music, it does much less for me each year.  2015 was no different.  I can't think of a 2015 album that reshaped my current trajectory though.  But I will be searching all the artists people mention that I'm not very familiar with.  A place like DTF shapes me in that way.

[bosk1]

I was very impressed with the QR, Symphony X, Iron Maiden, Saxon, CIIC and Stryper releases.  Then a handful of other great albums, so for me, it was a great year musically.

At first I was like "How did I miss Quiet Riot putting out a new album this year?" 

I had forgotten about Nightwish.  Easily the biggest disappointment of the year for me.  I might be done with them, despite them having Floor.