10 Great Rock & Metal Albums From 2018 You May Have Missed

10. Tyranny Of Hours - Darkling

The four-piece band from Oregon released their debut album back in 2013 and made us wait 5 whole years for a follow-up. Hard to blame them as the band is admittedly a side project and not their main effort.

Take the musicianship of progressive metal, throw in some power metal vocals, top it off with a symphonic backing, and you have Darkling. Don't let that fool you into thinking you know what to expect. Yes, the soaring vocals by Michelle Mattair seem prototypical, but Alex McDonald's drumming is captivating on nearly every track and Matt Galligan and Don Graham prove to be quite the duo with their charging riffs and creative backing when not the focal point of the track.

The tone of everything will be this album's hardest criticism. The guitars do seem a bit muffled and Michelle sounds like she's holding back throughout the album. Or that could just be how she sounds normally. Nonetheless, lovers of Symphonic and Progressive Metal should find themselves at home with Darkling.