20 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2018 (So Far)

With melodies more enchanting than your mum and riffs fatter than your dad, TesseracT somehow outdid themselves once again on their beloved fourth album, Sonder, landing squarely at number five here.

Heavenly and heavy in equal measure, the British prog darlings capture lightning in a bottle with what is easily their best release to date. Its magnificent guitar-work and the equally enticing vocals of prolific frontman Daniel Tompkins make Sonder an experience that transcends the archetypes of metal: its simultaneous adventurousness and harmonic expertise result in an album that is both intellectual and accessible.

Sonder is the type of album that you show your non-metalhead mates in the desperate hope of luring them over into rock ‘n’ roll’s blessed fan-base. It’s also a perfect union of every other TesseracT disc that has come before it, mixing the adrenaline of One, the atmospheric loveliness of Altered State and the tautness of Polaris into a titanic masterpiece of modern experimentalism.

With every song fuelled by an ear-catching shred or powerhouse melody, the record is one that perfectly slots with the newfound minimalist approach that is bringing similar game-changers like Gojira’s Magma and Mastodon’s Emperor of Sand to unprecedented success.