This week, I, and others in my Odyssey group, were tasked with coming up with our favorite thing of the year. What that "thing" was or is, was left up to us. I decided to be basic and do my favorite music album that came out this year, being the album King from the symphonic death metal band, Fleshgod Apocalypse.

This album is pretty great. As put by Tommaso Riccardi, the band's lead vocalist,

"The King in this album represents the brave part of ourselves: the one we should cultivate to become strong and rise again from this Dark Age. He’s the only positive figure of this story—a man who has integrity and love for the values and truth that we all should hope for ourselves. All the other characters in the court represent the fears that can lead us to make everything worse. They try to affect the King’s decisions for their own advantage and hope for a loss of power, regardless of the suffering they’re going to create for their own world and people. As we already said when we presented King to our fans, we should all hail the King who lives inside every one of us."

Overall, the album punches through 12 beating tracks that showcase the musicality of these skilled artists, including a softer operatic track, Paramour, in which Veronica Bordacchini sings as a piano plays in the background.

There is something for everyone to love in this album, be it it's sharp technicality, fantastic vocals, catchy melodies, or beautiful orchestral backing.

I had the opportunity to see this band live a few months ago, and they played a bunch from this album, and I can say from experience that they sound just as good, if not better, live.