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 of 2024

Full of Hell & Andrew Nolan – Scraping the Divine

Full of Hell - Coagulated Bliss
Resin Tomb – Cerebral Purgatory
Necrot – Lifeless Birth
Undeath – More Insane
Couch Slut – You Could Do It Tonight
Krallice – Inorganic Rites
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield
Gigan – Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus
Ulcerate – Cutting the Throat of God
Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja
Frail Body – Artificial Bouquet
Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere
High on Fire - Cometh the Storm
Knocked Loose - You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To
Gatecreeper - Dark Superstition
Chat Pile - Cool World
Drug Church - Prude
Devin Townsend - PowerNerd
Opeth - The Last Will and Testament
Crypt Sermon - The Stygian Rose
Ihsahn - Ihsahn

Aborted - Vault of Horrors 

Lucifer - Lucifer V

Zeal and Ardor - Greif 

Job for a Cowboy - Moon Healer

Tribulation - Sub Rosa In Aeternum 

Benighted - Ekbom 

Akhlys - House of the Black Geminus 

Black Lava - Savage Winds to Wisdom

Cognizance - Phantazein 

Crypt Sermon - The Stygian Rose

Fleshgod Apocalypse - Opera

Ingested - The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams

Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses

Vale of Pnath - Between the Worlds of Life and Death

Thou - Umbilical

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

God of Thunder

Again

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

Endarkenment

Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers

Pneuma

Exercises In Futility

Pigface

Stinkfist +

Ministry

Ministry April 15, 2019 Music Hall Of Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY

The Missing
Deity
Stigmata
Jesus Built My Hotrod
Just One Fix
N.W.O.
Thieves
Burning Inside
So What
No Devotion
Supernaut
The Land of Rape and Honey
(Everyday Is) Halloween

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

Father Kenneth Petrie of Mr. Spankey and The Hipthrusters

Ghost Live In Cologne

Behemoth - Live Graspop 2016

From The Pinnacle To The Pit

For Further Reading:
Grammy Winning Band Ghost