With the end of the year nearly upon us, the various and sundry metal blogs out there are compiling their annual "best of" lists. I'm not doing one, because I'm not a music critic and don't listen to hundreds upon hundreds of metal albums every year. Maybe next year.
What I am doing, though, is compiling as many of these lists as I can, and posting them there. Everyone seems to be doing at least a top ten, so I'll list the top ten from each and then give you a link to go view the rest.
I haven't heard most of this stuff, so I can't vouch for it. I will be listening to as much of it as I can on Spotify over the next several days, and I'll post on Twitter anything that I think is really good.
Remember, it's not too late to add your favorites to your Christmas list -- or to give the gift of metal to your loved ones this holiday season.
First of all, some of the metal blogs I have in my Google Reader have far more year-end stuff than I could possibly list here. Here's Metal Sucks' "table of contents" of its year-end coverage, for example, with links to a huge number of various individuals' top ten albums. Metal Injection is just getting its year-end coverage going -- you can find the first of its top-ten lists here and I think they'll be doing a reader's choice top ten down the line. As I uncover more of these lists, I may continue to update this post.
Below, though, are the lists from the more mainstream music journalism outfits.
National Public Radio
1. Cormorant - Dwellings
2. YOB - Atma
3. Tombs - Path of Totality
4. Witch Mountain - South of Salem
5. Hammers of Misfortune - 17th Street
6. Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
7. Negative Plane - Stained Glass Revelations
8. Ulcerate - The Destroyer of All
9. Krallice - Diotima
10. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room
(To hear sample tracks from these albums and to see the other albums that round out Lars Gotrich's Top 25, click here.)
Noisecreep
1. Craft - Void
2. Krallice - Diotima
3. Junius - Reports From the Threshold of Death
4. The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
5. Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
6. Mastodon - The Hunter
7. Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All
8. August Burns Red - Leveller
9. Times of Grace - The Hymn of Broken Man
10. Vektor - Outer Isolation
11. Insomnium - One For Sorrow
(I listed 11 here, since Noisecreep did a "Top 11 for '11" thing. To read the Noisecreep staff's short reviews of these albums, click here.)
Pitchfork
1. Blut Aus Nord - Sects and The Desanctification
2. Tombs - Path of Totality
3. Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All
4. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room
5. Disma - Towards the Megalith
6. Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage
7. Circle of Ouroborus - Eleven Fingers
8. YOB - Atma
9. In Solitude - The World. The Flesh. The Devil
10. Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand
(To hear sample tracks and view the rest of Brandon Stosuy's top 40, click here.)
Loudwire
1. Anthrax - Worship Music
2. Mastodon - The Hunter
3. Machine Head - Unto the Locust
4. Children of Bodom - Relentless Reckless Forever
5. Megadeth - Th1rt3en
6. Chimaira - The Age of Hell
7. The Devil Wears Prada - Dead Throne
8. Obscura - Omnivium
9. Trivium - In Waves
10. Iced Earth - Dystopia
(To see the full article, click here.)
Decibel
1. Tombs - Path of Totality
2. Opeth - Heritage
3. Mastodon - The Hunter
4. In Solitude - The World. The Flesh. The Devil.
5. Brutal Truth - End Time
6. Hate Eternal - Phoenix Amongst the Ashes
7. YOB - Atma
8. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room
9. Inquisition - Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm
10. Junius - Reports From the Threshold of Death
(For some reason, I can't find the list on Decibel's Web site, but you can see all 40 albums that made it at Brooklyn Vegan.)
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