Good day folks! T'day, I just wanted to share the best of what Canada has to offer when it comes to Metal, eh. It seems a lot of people don't yet know that Canada's a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the heavy stuff and I'll show you just how much!

The main goal here is to help people discover the history of Canadian Metal through time and amazing releases. To do so, I'll be listing a single album per band and order the list by year of release from oldest to newest then I'll identify the genre for each of them. Note that the albums chosen aren't necessarily the best of each band but my personal favorites and in my humble opinion, good points of entry into a band's discography. I will try to fill each gaps in years over time and add new bands as I discover them. (So this list is permanently under construction).

Also, as always in my lists, releases with a ''★'' are the ones I believe you shouldn't miss because of their impact, uniqueness or just because they are my favourites.

There is a lot of different styles, I did my best to diversify so there should be something interesting for everyone!

- - - - - - - - - -

To my fellow Canadians, if you have recommendations or wanna point out obvious albums I might have missed, please feel free to let me know. To everyone else, I hope you'll like this virtual musical trip to the great white north! Enjoy. Oh and you're really all welcome to suggest albums.

- Guib -

Last Update: April 15th, 2024

1.Moxy - Moxy

2.Triumph - Just A Game

3.Rush - Moving Pictures

4.April Wine - The Nature Of The Beast

5.D.O.A. - Hardcore '81

      View entire list ››

1.The Black Dahlia Murder - Nocturnal

2.Between The Buried And Me - Colors

3.The Black Dahlia Murder - Everblack

4.Heaven Shall Burn - Veto

5.Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect

      View entire list ››

Must Listen: The First 4

1.Volbeat - Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies

2.Civil War - The Killer Angels

3.Trivium - Vengeance Falls

4.James LaBrie - Impermanent Resonance

5.Pretty Maids - Motherland

      View entire list ››

I began this decade in my final year of high school, in the early phases of my metal journey (Mastodon, Machine Head, Dream Theater, Pantera and Avenged Sevenfold were still recent discoveries). One Masters degree and one PhD later, I'm now a tax-paying Londonian, and have ploughed through what must be comfortably over 2000 new releases during the previous ten years. To commemorate the end of a turbulent decade, I've put together a list of the albums that have stuck with me throughout this decade - I wouldn't consider this to be a 'best albums' list, as there have been some truly ingenious works released in more avant-garde territories, but ultimately these are the albums that have ended up dominating my listening habits, or otherwise making a sufficient impression to make this list.

1.Sylosis - Monolith

2.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

5.Cult Of Luna - Vertikal

      View entire list ››

Back when I joined the site in 2011, I did a customary top 100 album list. Every year since then, when I've looked back at it it's become increasingly unrecognisable from my own tastes. Seeing bands I once listened to daily vanish from my playlists, new bands emerge as favourites, and bands even come and go in my reckonings during that time period (Iced Earth, Alcest, even Pain Of Salvation and more certainly peaked in my listening habits around 2011-12 to slowly vanish into obscurity). Now that it's just gone 5 years since I did that list, I thought I might do an updated list just to see how much my tastes have shifted. Whilst compiling the list, I pretty much worked on gut instinct, which was weird as I found myself almost disregarding albums I know I like whilst promoting albums I'm honestly undecided on - it almost seemed to veer away from album quality at times to embracing a subconscious effect the albums have had. Anyway, here it is, plus some honorable mentions that I was surprised missed out.

1.Dream Theater - Images And Words

2.Sylosis - Monolith

3.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

4.Agalloch - The Mantle

5.Protest The Hero - Kezia

      View entire list ››

Order is sorted by album repeat.

1.Shade Empire - Omega Arcane

2.Soilwork - The Living Infinite

3.The Safety Fire - Mouth Of Swords

4.Protest The Hero - Volition

5.Battlecross - War Of Will

      View entire list ››

The music of progressive metal features complex, layered arrangements in longer than typical songs, often including lengthy instrumental passages allowing the performers to display technical proficiency and interplay. Many time signature changes are common, as is the incorporation of Western classical music influences. The sound is generally driven by the guitars and drums, but it is quite typical to add elements non-standard to rock or metal such as synthesizers and an array of orchestral elements.

1.Atheist - Unquestionable Presence

2.Cynic - Focus

3.Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve

4.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

5.Arcturus - Aspera Hiems Symfonia

      View entire list ››

A bunch of albums with a big circle on the cover

1.Karnivool - Sound Awake

2.Skyclad - The Silent Whales Of Lunar Sea

3.Death - Scream Bloody Gore

4.Pentagram - Pentagram

5.Russian Circles - Empros

      View entire list ››

2008 might've been my first proper taste of metal, with the acquisition of albums from the likes of Metallica, Megadeth, Black Sabbath and that most grandiose of gateway bands, DragonForce. 2009 might've seen me expanding my palette, with Iron Maiden, Alice In Chains, Avenged Sevenfold, and more entering my world, and Guns N' Roses triumphantly re-entering it. But 2010 was when I delved into more 'intense' stuff with Machine Head, In Flames, and most notably of all, Sylosis, and saw my relationship with metal shift from ever-increasing interest into full-blown love affair. To commemorate this 5-year anniversary, and because I love making lists, I decided to do a retrospective of the best albums and songs that have been released during this time period, and give brief tributes to them. Yay music!

1.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

2.Sylosis - Monolith

3.Protest The Hero - Volition

4.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

      View entire list ››

1.In Solitude - Sister

2.Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks

3.Queens Of The Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

4.Anciients - Heart Of Oak

5.Kataklysm - Waiting For The End To Come

      View entire list ››

1.Letlive. - The Blackest Beatiful

2.Clutch - Earth Rocker

3.Protest The Hero - Volition

4.Alice In Chains - The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here

5.Queens Of The Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

      View entire list ››

1.Haken - The Mountain

2.The Ocean - Pelagial

3.New Keepers Of The Water Towers - The Cosmic Child

4.Persefone - Spiritual Migration

5.Leprous - Coal

      View entire list ››

This is pretty much a carbon copy of a list I posted on deviantART. If you want to see me go into a little more detail on why I picked these albums (I find it hard to do that with MetalStorm's listing system) then check out the original list here: http://shuriken95.deviantart.com/journal/Top-35-Albums-of-2013-35-21-423820869

1.Leprous - Coal

2.Ayreon - The Theory Of Everything

3.Future Of The Left - How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident

4.Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

5.Haken - The Mountain

      View entire list ››

1.TesseracT - Altered State

2.Dark Tranquillity - Construct

3.Amorphis - Circle

4.Neurotech - The Decipher Volumes

5.Bring Me The Horizon - Sempiternal

      View entire list ››

Uldreth is good at deciding what he likes and what he does not, but is terrible at setting a definitive order at them. So all albums in this list are ordered alphabetically. All albums included are positives and the degree of their positivity is measured by stars.

1.65daysofstatic - Wild Light

2.After The Burial - Wolves Within

3.August Burns Red - Rescue & Restore

4.Bad Religion - True North

5.Barrow - Though I'm Alone

      View entire list ››