This was another tough list to put together.  The top 5ish spots are usually pretty easy, and deciding which albums to cut in the last few spots are a struggle.  For the past month I've been going through the bajillions of best of lists. As usual there was a TON of stuff I missed.  I just have to be ok with the face that there's only 24 hours in a day and it's damn near impossible to get to everything.  Last year I made an unsuccesful attempt to catch up everything I missed, but eventually gave up and finalized my list a month or two into the new year.  This year I've drawn the line at the end of the year, and if I missed anything, then so be it.  Onward to my list!

With the election just in the rear view mirror, I admit I was a little apprehensive to visit Alabama. I've been to the south before and have had no issues so far.  This election cycle seems to have changed the landscape of America for brown people (et al) like me.  It turns out I really had nothing to worry about.  The majority of my encounters were all positive, and the few crazies were no different than what I would see at home.

This was a year I had a really hard time narrowing it down to just 10.  I had a pool of over 100 albums to sift through!  I thought I would be so amazing and clever and make it my Top 15 of '15. Unfortunately, it didn't make it any easier to narrow it down.  

This was a tough year to narrow it down to just 10.  This was also the year where I started to make a feeble attempt to listen to more non-metal genres (see Honorable Mentions).  I also hoped for a new Tool album in 2015 (LOL silly me).