Here's some other ones that didn't make anyones lists that I liked
Edge of Haze - Deluge - Young Finnish band, amazingly melodic metally prog (proggy metal?)
Kadinja - Ascendancy - French tech metal band. I liked this the best of all the tech metal this year, more than Persefone, which was awesome.
Disperse - Forward - Polish tech melodic metal (whatever that means) They are just amazing
Brother Ape - Karma
Anthriel Transcendence (someone else may have mentioned this one)
Xanthochroid - Of Erthe... - No idea what genre this is, but it was pretty sweeping
The Ralph - Enter Escape - From Serbia I think This thing blew me away. Just rocking pop metal.... yowza
Pentakill - Grasp of the Undying - Video Game metal, with Jorne Lande, and Noora (battle beast) on vocals. Tear of the Goddess is amazing
Odd Logic - Effigy
Finally, Nightflight Orchestra - Amber Galactic - From everywhere, with Bjorn (Speed) on clean vocals. Just a great hard rock album