Best Metal of 2025

Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound

Ainsoph - Affection & Vengeance

Amorphis - Borderland

Ancient Death - Ego Dissolution

Architects - The Sky, the Earth & All Between

Author & Punisher - Nocturnal Birding

Behemoth - The Shit of God

Benediction - Ravage of Empires

Between The Buried And Me – The Blue Nowhere

Blackbraid - Blackbraid III

Black Magnet - Megamantra

Bleed From Within - Zenith

Blind Equation - A Funeral in Purgatory

Byenoisegenerator - Subnormal Dives

Castle Rat - The Bestiary

Castrator - Coronation of the Grotesque

Century - Sign of the Storm

Christian Mistress - Children of the Earth

Coroner - Dissonance Theory

Corpus Offal - Corpus Offal

Creeper - Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death

Crypt Sermon - Saturnian Appendices

Cryptopsy – An Insatiable Violence

Deafheaven - Lonely People with Power
Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Innern

Dormant Ordeal - Tooth and Nail

Dream Theater – Parasomnia

Dying Wish - The Flesh Stays Together

Employed To Serve - Fallen Star

Full of Hell - Broken Sword, Rotten Shield

Ghost - Skeleta

Green Carnation - A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia

Hedonist - Scapulimancy

Hooded Menace - Lachrymose Monuments of Obscuration

Idle Heirs - Life is Violence

Igorrr - Amen

Imperial Triumphant - Goldstar

Jinger - Duel

Lamp Of Murmuur - The Dreaming Prince In Ecstasy

Lorna Shore - I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me

Messa - The Spin

Mirar - Ascension
Mongrel – Baptized in the Gutter

Obscura - A Sonication

OvO - Gemma

Panzerfaust - Fight or Die

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Death Hilarious

Plasmodulated - An Ocean ov Putrid, Stinky, Vile, Disgusting Hell

Primitive Man – Observance

Propogandhi - At Peace 

Rivers of Nihil - Rivers of Nihil

Rwake - The Return of Magik

Sacrifice - Volume Six

Sanguisugabogg - Hideous Aftermath

Sallow Moth – Mossbane Lantern

Scalp - Not Worthy of Human Compassion

Septicflesh - Amphibians

Shotgun Cock - The Thanato-Clitoral Codex of Ejaculatory Nihilism

Signs of the Swarm - To Rid Myself of Truth

Sijjin – Helljjin Combat

Species - Changelings

Spiritworld - Halldorado

Testament - Para Bellum

Thumos - The Trial of Socrates

Trauma Bond - Summer Ends. Some Are Long Gone.

Vacuous - In His Blood

Voidceremony - Abditum

Warbringer - Wrath and Ruin

Weeping Sores - The Convalescence Agonies

Witchrot - Soul Cellar

Witness Chamber - Bronze Gates

Wode - Uncrossing The Keys

Yellow Eyes - Confusion Gate

Zeicrydeus – Le Grande Hérésie

Best Metal Music of 2021

Lorna Shore - And I Return To Nothingness

Gojira - Fortitude

Mastodon - Hushed & Grim

Cerebral Rot - Excretion of Mortality

Rivers of Nihil - The Work

Full of Hell - Garden of Burning Apparitions

Obscura - A Valediction

Archspire - Bleed The Future

Hooded Menace - The Tritonus Bell

Gatecreeper - An Unexpected Reality

Cannibal Corpse - Violence Unimagined

Tribulation - Where The Gloom Becomes Sound

Devin Townsend - The Puzzle & Snuggles

Jinger - Wallflowers

Ministry - Moral Hygiene

Carcass - Torn Arteries

Bongzilla - Weedsconsin

Four Stroke Baron - Classics 

Krallice - Demonic Wealth

AEnigmatum - Deconsecrate

The Absence - Coffinized

Heavy Sentence - Bang To Rights

Worm - Foreverglade

Brand of Sacrifice - Lifeblood

Slaughter to Prevail - Kostolom

Succumb - XXI

Heavy Sentence - Bang to Rights

Vomit The Soul - Cold

Lucifer's Fall - III: From The Deep

Mega Colossus - Riptime

Bewitcher - Satanic Magick Attack

Warrior Path - The Mad King

Kayo Dot - Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike

Bummer - Dead Horse

ATVM - Famine, Putrid and Fucking Endless

Crypta - Echoes of the Soul

Lucifer - Lucifer IV

Alien Weaponry - Tangora

Cynic - Ascension Codes

Harakiri For The Sky - Maere

Inferi - Vile Genesis

Iron Maiden - Senjutsu

Soen - Imperial

1914 - Where Fear and Weapons Meet

Again

Heavy Metal Cats

Best Metal Music Of 2020

Anaal Nathrakh - Endarkenment

Rebel Wizard - Magickal Mystical Indifference

Midnight - Rebirth By Blasphemy

Enslaved - Utgard

Sepultura - Quadra

King Diamond - The Institute

Protest The Hero - Palimpsest

The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic

Intronaut - Fluid Existential Inversions

Igorr - Spirituality And Distortion

Warbringer - Weapons of Tomorrow

Cryptic Shift - Visitations From Enceladus

Lamb of God - Lamb of God

Umbra Vitae – Shadow of Life

Vader – Solitude in Madness

Cirith Ungol – Forever Black

Ulcerate – Stare Into Death and Be Still

Lucifer – Lucifer III

Sylosis – Cycle Of Suffering 

Plague - Portraits of Mind
VoidCeremony - Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel

August Burns Red - Guardians

Inferi - Of Sunless Realms

Spirit Adrift - Enlightened In Eternity

Carcass - Despicable

Pallbearer - Forgotten Days

Hellripper - The Affair of the Poisons

Uada - Djinn

Harakiri for the Sky - I, Pallbearer

Necrot - Mortal

Antichrist Demoncore - Satan Is King

Adzes - No On Wants To Speak About It

Gulch - Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress

Satan's Fall - Final Day

Testament - Titans of Creation

Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers

Pneuma

Exercises In Futility

The Legend of Zelda

Black Label

Best Metal Music 2017

Dying Fetus - Wrong One To Fuck With
Archspire - Relentless Mutation
Goatwhore - Vengeful Ascension
The Black Dahlia Murder - Nightbringers
Vomit Remnants - Hyper Groove Brutality
Septicflesh - Codex Omega
Full Of Hell - Trumpeting Ecstasy
Lunar Shadow - Far From Light
Ne Obliviscaris - Urn
Satyricon - Deep Calleth Upon Deep
Belphegor - Totenritual
Hallas - Excerpts From A Future Past
Sheidim - Infamata
Suffocation - Of The Dark Light
Elder - Reflection Of A Floating World
Pallbearer - Heartless
Power Trip - Nightmare Logic
Mastodon - Emperor Of Sand
Cannibal Corpse - Red Before Black
Sunlight's Bane - The Blackest Volume, Like All The Earth Was Buried

Igorrr - Savage Sinusoid

Darkest Hour - Godless Prophets And The Migrant Flora
Necrot - Blood Offerings
Locust Leaves - Subtler Kind Of Light

Ghost Live In Cologne

Behemoth - Live Graspop 2016

Lamb of God - Rock in Rio 2015