After clocking well over 700 albums in 2020, I'm hoping 2021 will be a bit busier IRL and thus slightly less comprehensively covered in these lists, but let's see - with all the new strains emerging, who TF knows when we might return to a semblance of normality. Until then, I'll be trying to make sure that nothing noteworthy passes my radar.

1. Vulgaris - Asundre

2. Cult Of Luna - The Raging River

3. Heliocentric - Ishmael

4. Sunnata - Burning In Heaven, Melting On Earth

5. Yoth Iria - As The Flame Withers

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I don't think these are necessarily the best 30 albums of this year, but they're the ones that have I guess endured in my psyche and inspiried revisits more than most others. I was tempted to do a top 50, but after around #26 or so, I found myself confronted with about 50 albums that could've conceivably made it in, most of which I hadn't relistened to enough to rank above the others with confidence.

1. Psychonaut - Unfold The God Man

2. Elder - Omens

3. Enslaved - Utgard

4. Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Ascension

5. Pure Reason Revolution - Eupnea

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Just about finished the first half of the year without losing too much to the character limit; I have learnt to make these list descriptions increasingly pithy

1. Enslaved - Utgard

2. Wills Dissolve - Echoes

3. Wayfarer - A Romance With Violence

4. Aversio Humanitatis - Behold The Silent Dwellers

5. Lucid Planet - Lucid Planet II

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If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I'm not broke yet.

Character limit maxed in mid-May (lockdown increased my music intake too much), so needed to cut down some entries.

I also gave up listing all the potential MSA candidates I ploughed through in late December

1. Psychonaut - Unfold The God Man

2. Elder - Omens

3. Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Ascension

4. Pure Reason Revolution - Eupnea

5. Barishi - Old Smoke

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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

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I've just turned 27, I guess if I'm lucky I'll live long enough to finish this list.

1. Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

2. Schammasch - Hearts Of No Light

3. Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond The Dark

4. Disillusion - The Liberation

5. Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence

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Cos Radu won't leave me alone

1. Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree - Grandmother

2. Dreadnought - Emergence

3. Methadone Skies - Different Layers Of Fear

4. A Secret Revealed - Sacrifices

5. Cartographs - Wilt & Blossom

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I'll be spending 2 months in the US so probably won't manage to beat the 130-odd albums I heard in the first half of the year, but I'll do my best.

1. Dirge - Lost Empyrean

2. Ingrina - Etter Lys

3. Between The Buried And Me - Automata

4. King Buffalo - Longing To Be The Mountain

5. A Forest Of Stars - Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes

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Actually getting onto this year relatively early, let's see what it's got in store for us all.

1. Weedpecker - III

2. Amorphis - Queen Of Time

3. Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology

4. Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It

5. Aviations - The Light Years

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Still got plenty of stuff to catch up from Q1 and Q2 from this year, but will probably end up checking out some stuff from second half of 2017 before I'm done with all of that, so here's this list.

1. Mastodon - Cold Dark Place

2. The Contortionist - Clairvoyant

3. Passages - Lucid

4. Enslaved - E

5. Dvne - Asheran

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Getting started on this later than usual

1. Persefone - Aathma

2. Schammasch - The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite

3. Au-Dessus - End Of Chapter

4. Heretoir - The Circle

5. Mastodon - Emperor Of Sand

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Very late starting on this one, been rather unable to keep up with releases over the summer so will try to catch up on as many cool releases as possible in the last couple of months of the year. Be prepared for pithy reviews

1. Ortega - Sacred States

2. Riverside - Eye Of The Soundscape

3. Oathbreaker - Rheia

4. Devin Townsend - Transcendence

5. Allegaeon - Proponent For Sentience

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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

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For me more than you, as the sheer amount of music in the world has turned me into a goldfish as far as remembering what I've listened to and what I thought of it. However, if you find something cool from here, more power you my friend!

1. Cult Of Luna - Mariner [Collaboration]

2. Fallujah - Dreamless

3. Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

4. Death Grips - The Bottomless Pit

5. Iamthemorning - Lighthouse

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Been a bit slow checking releases around the halfway point of the year, but should get back into it soon and hopefully flesh out this list.

1. Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2. Horrendous - Anareta

3. Slugdge - Dim & Slimeridden Kingdoms

4. Teramaze - Her Halo

5. Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Exile

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