Written by M C Vice on 01.03.2021 at 11:11

Sort of. My vote was for the sheer number of different spellings used for Covid 19 in the write ins. I even made sure to use 2 different spellings in my vote. My vote now says it's just Covid 19.

Wack. Sorry.

4 matches, and special award, so 5. Rest was different.

Thank you again for the great nominations guys. I discovered many albums / bands this year again! Just to name a few: Dwaal, Light Field Reverie, In The Company Of Serpents, Irist.

I am also pretty surprised to see Dark Tranquility win this year's Melodeath category, I love the band and found the album ok, but I thought 2020 had much better to offer in terms of Melodeath. Some albums which were not even nominated and got me more excited than DT like Virocracy's first album (though it is strongly rooted in prog so might not have fit in the Melodeath category), or Symbolik, who also released their first album on tech-death side.

Anyway, great to see that metal still has so much to offer!

Fairly expected results in the biggest categories as usual. I'm mostly disappointed that Hail Spirit Noir didn't win but then again I think they were in the wrong category. I don't know which category they should've been in instead because the album is really hard to categorize into a genre, so avantgarde maybe? Lucid Planet is definitely a worthy winner though. Been spinning that album a lot, especially Organic Hard Drive. What a great song!

Biggest let down was (not counting 'unable to connect to database') Behold The Arctopus' Hapeleptic Overtrove. I'm pretty sure the reason it didn't make the list was because it was so atrociously bad that no one listened to it. Just as a reminder. You have been warned.



Kudos to the staff for delivering yet another great MS Awards (as expected). Cheers!

Dark Tranquillity was a major letdown and Delain sucks. Apart from that i got 90% of same answers as general people voted. Oh and Afsky's album is the best BM album of 2020.

Looking through the write-ins that the mods had to deal with cracked me up and gave me a good bit of additional respect for the stuff the mods put up with. Fantastic job to the mods for sorting this out and putting this on, and dealing with the mass of craziness.

I decided that I was not going to vote for every category because there was no f'ing way I could get through every album on each of the categories, so I selected several that I was already 'well versed' on, and focused on those instead.
Some (mostly useless) thoughts

Debut - Solid winner; I had Cryptic Shift , was great seeing Kvaen fare well as write-in vote, it would've been next behind Cryptic Shift for me

Cover song - I thought Allegaeon should've been a runaway for this one, so I'm glad they won

Thrash - Sepultura ? Seriously? First worthwhile thing they've done in about 2.5 decades, but "good" at best. Bütcher (my pick), Mr. Bungle and Warbringer were all were notably better

Meloblack - my top 3 all made the top 5, and my pick won. Great year for meloblack

Melodeath - c'mon now... DT's release was pedestrian, Mors was stellar, orders of magnitude better.

Heavy metal - Eternal Champion was a worthy winner and figured they would pull it down, but I went with Solicitor

Grindcore - good to see Anaal Nathrakh run away with this one, it was absolutely deserving

Gothic Metal - I definitely had Obsidian 3rd (behind the 2nd and 1st place winners). Figured Draconian would pull this one, but I underestimated the PL simps (kidding, it was a great album, their best in some time)

Pagan/Folk - such a tough contest, impressed to see Havukruunu pull out the win, but I absolutely loved each of the top 3, my 'fave' category this year along with gothic and meloblack

Extreme prog - Enslaved was decent, not surprised they won. I thought Black Crown Initiate and Cryptic Shift were notably better, but 2 little guys going against the Enslaved gorilla, they didn't have much of a chance

death metal - unsurprised at the victor. Not a huge fan of disso-death so Ulcerate wouldn't have made my top 10, but it was still a very interesting album. I wrote in Graceless (knowing they had zero chance), and Vredehammer would've been my 2nd choice

black metal- surprised Esoctrilihum didn't do better, but Akhlys was a good release

Avant garde - my top 3, in order, was this category's top 3, in order, so I was pleased

again, thanks a ton mods for a great job, I had a lot of fun and found some really great releases, and 2020 music is what got me through 2020 isolation and misery

I did not expect Sepultura to be the best thrash metal, it is not my favorite this year, but rather they than Sylosis, I do not understand what is so good about this band.

It's probably the case that most people are too lazy to look through the write-in votes to see whether they are superior to the crappy choices the staff make. If they did, they would see better albums. I always take my time before voting.

It was unfair for Draconian and Paradise Lost to have a head to head this time around. both were great albums. My vote was for Draconian, but can't say Paradise Lost didn't deserve the win.

Written by Starvynth on 01.03.2021 at 01:05

Written by Karlabos on 01.03.2021 at 00:19

Oh shet, I forgot to check the write-in votes in the end of the month.
Is there a way to check all the write in votes for a category, or only the 10 top ones are displayed now and that's it?

There's a list of all 600+ write-in votes.
Which category/categories are you interested in?

Is there a list on metalstorm? I did it for last year, I saved all pages yesterday evening, I'm going to post the list, but I don't want to make a duplicate.

BTW even as a DT fan, I think it was one of the worst albums among the picks (which were nearly all great, while Moment is just ok)

Written by Maxder on 01.03.2021 at 21:16

Is there a list on metalstorm? I did it for last year, I saved all pages yesterday evening, I'm going to post the list, but I don't want to make a duplicate.

Nah, my list is just a trivial spreadsheet on my PC.
The one and only essential MSA 2020 All Write-ins list is somewhere else...

Happy to see Delain getting the Sympho Metal album award. Apocalypse & Chill was my favourite from 2020 it just hit right as if they predicted covid was hitting soon after. Sad what happened to them though

I just want to state my big appreciation for the work you mods do. Some of my picks won, some don't, some categories I didn't had enough knowledge to vote, but above all, thanks for your hard work MS staff.

Ah crap, forgot to vote again... well, time to listen to the winners and some nominees.

Written by Zap on 02.03.2021 at 11:12

Ah crap, forgot to vote again... well, time to listen to the winners and some nominees.

From what I know of your tastes I think you should dive into all the stuff you don't know on Black, Extreme doom, Metalgaze and maybe ambient. A lot of more out there stuff on those cats.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 02.03.2021 at 13:17

From what I know of your tastes I think you should dive into all the stuff you don't know on Black, Extreme doom, Metalgaze and maybe ambient. A lot of more out there stuff on those cats.

Thanks for the tips! Metalgaze isn't something I'd quickly check out on my own, but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

Written by ScottyM on 01.03.2021 at 10:46

The passive aggression from the MS Staff in the summary is hilarious. Time for an overhaul of your awards process next go-around?

Nah, it's a necessary part of the experience to fail at herding people into voting properly

Haha, the best video isn't even metal, but it really is the best video.

Written by ChapuLviz on 02.03.2021 at 19:10

Haha, the best video isn't even metal

It's not very metal, but it is very noise.

Written by ThrashingSpeed on 01.03.2021 at 18:46

I did not expect Sepultura to be the best thrash metal, it is not my favorite this year, but rather they than Sylosis, I do not understand what is so good about this band.

same, on both counts. I can't figure out why Sylosis does nothing for me, because they are, stylistically down my alley.

Written by Night Theater on 01.03.2021 at 19:21

It's probably the case that most people are too lazy to look through the write-in votes to see whether they are superior to the crappy choices the staff make. If they did, they would see better albums. I always take my time before voting.

well, you managed to insult both the staff and "most people" on the forum here. Cheeky.

Written by The Melting Snow on 01.03.2021 at 20:22

It was unfair for Draconian and Paradise Lost to have a head to head this time around. both were great albums. My vote was for Draconian, but can't say Paradise Lost didn't deserve the win.

yep. I was hoping PL, Draconian, and On Thorns I Lay would be in 3 dfiferent categories so I could vote for each of them

Super glad to see how well Judicator did in power metal considering they were competing against Unleash (the new hype) and D&W (giants). They're a pretty sick band so I voted for them. I got 5 lined up with the general voting. Super glad Obsidian won, it's my personal AOTY.

Also why the hell did Sepultura win best thrash? It was a solid album but it was less interesting/good than Butcher and Warbringer *at the least*.

Written by Khaotica on 03.03.2021 at 00:11

Also why the hell did Sepultura win best thrash? It was a solid album but it was less interesting/good than Butcher and Warbringer *at the least*.

It's probably the only band most voters recognised. Just like Soulfly winning it with a steaming pile of an album 2 years ago. This was a good album by Sepultura's standards, but that's about it. Bütcher was a great release, and it came 5th.

Listen, I am a huge Dark Tranquillity fan, but Moment was not an amazing album. Enjoyable, but really nothing special. Mors Principium Est got robbed, Seven is spectacular.

Their last album won in 2017 over Arch Enemy, which surprised me based on popularity, so I figured they'd win again this year with an even better album.

Written by Druss on 01.03.2021 at 04:51

I'm baffled Unleash the Archers beat D&W by that amount.

Didn't get to listen to as much this year, but still got to enjoy a bunch of stuff I didn't know existed. Cheers as always, MS

This is basically my existence as a member of this website - thanks as always to the community and staff for maintaining this wonderful place to find good interesting music

I'll probably respond to the actual discussion after my exam tomorrow, but then again I might forget again

Power metal: Unleash The Archers HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Doom: WTF

Rest is disappointing and unknown like every year on this portal.

Quote:
you'd better believe that we still had three (3) votes for Poppy's bubblegum-evil I Disagree in Post-Metal

So if they told you that Poppy's newest album is post-metal...
...you'd tell them "I Disagree"?

Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry.

I like a way how you guys did do writing part there. Good details, facts and short description what nails all.... Such getting into article.

What-what-what? Nightwish were not album of the year?! )

Written by Duck Dodgers on 04.03.2021 at 14:30

What-what-what? Nightwish were not album of the year?! )

Well they did win one award

Written by skelator on 04.03.2021 at 00:35

Power metal: Unleash The Archers HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Doom: WTF

Rest is disappointing and unknown like every year on this portal.

"Rest is disappointing and unknown"

translation: "you never bothered listening to them so you have no clue if they're good or not"