Skeletonwitch- Breathing the Fire

I debated whether or not I was going to include bands I worked with but I figured if I like the record, I shouldn't punish the band by not including them on my illustrious list. (note sarcasm) This was one of the first things I got to work on when I started at Prosthetic and I was pumped. I liked "Beyond the Permafrost," but hadn't seen the band and didn't know all that much about them. It's definitely a good start to a job when your first project is to promote an album that totally fucking smokes. A lot of the albums/bands on my list you could debate whether or not they're metal. Some of them could be tagged "hipster metal," or prog, or hardrock, or hardcore or whateverthefuckcore. There's absolutely no debating this band is METAL. In fact, I'd say they're in the top 5 "true metal" bands in the US at this point. The band combines elements of black metal, death metal, thrash and NWOBM. The album flies by in no time (the longest track is 3:40) but manages to hold onto a real sense of melody, mainly due to Maiden/Thin Lizzy-esque leads. They're also monsters live and I've been lucky enough to see them several times in the past 6 months, with a few more coming in the next month.