10 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2018
1. Zeal & Ardor – Stranger Fruit
Zeal & Ardor snatched the bronze medal last year in our “Best Metal Albums of 2017” list with their debut album Devil Is Fine. Twelve months later, the solo project of Swiss-American enigma Manuel Gagneux had climbed up the podium to claim their deserved number one spot; they have done so thanks to the brilliance of sophomore release Stranger Fruit.
In short, Stranger Fruit is everything a metal fan could ever want from an album in 2018. It’s rabid in its heaviness, it’s entirely unique, it boasts a parade of luscious hooks, it has dark and meaningful lyrics, and it represents the metalhead dream: finding success through pure musical skill, not gimmicks or selling out.
Musically, Zeal & Ardor fuse two seemingly incompatible genres: all-out black metal and African-American slave music. The end result is masterful songs like “Gravedigger’s Chant” and “Don’t You Dare”, where the luscious hums and harmonies of archaic black folk are directly contrasted against the harshness of dissonant guitars.
For Zeal & Ardor themselves, Stranger Fruit also cements their legacy as the future of extreme metal. Devil Is Fine established the crew as immensely hyped ones to watch, but the danger was always that that debut could be a one-hit wonder.
Happily, that is not the case to any measurable degree. Gagneux is destined to become a heavy metal hero and Stranger Fruit proves it.
Check out our list of the best heavy metal songs of 2018 here.