This year has been lousy for a lot of reasons, but as this Best of 2020 list shows, hard rock and heavy metal were not among them.

Is Annihilator’s ‘Ballistic, Sadistic’ a little one-note? Sure. But it’s a very good note.

Annihilator finally seems to have found a bit of stability, releasing a string of very good records with vocalist David Padden – including this one.

Thrash was a wide genre, and there are great, pioneering bands that rarely get recognition in the wider music world.