My 35 Favorite Metal Albums of 2017

35. Emmure – Look at Yourself

Emmure entered a bit of a minor renaissance with the house-cleaning by Frankie, and while the album still gives into a lot of his previous albums’ weaknesses, it’s a release whose sheer volume and raw, unadultered aggression kept me coming back to at least revel in the big fiery production and explosive attitude of the short project.

34. Cannibal Corpse – Red Before Black

Cannibal Corpse stuck to what’s worked for them and it continues to work for them. While the singles and the god-awful album cover gave me bad premonitions, it ended up being a pretty solid, up-to-par release from the group, whose unbelievably crunchy production lends itself well to the concise, mechanically efficient, classic death metal the band have perfected the art of.

33. Morbid Angel – Kingdoms Disdained

With a lot the make up for, Morbid Angel roared back on Kingdoms Disdained, opting not so much for originality as for tenacious attitude seemingly lost amidst the confused experimentation of the band’s recent work. It pushes neither death metal’s nor Morbid Angel’s boundaries the way the band did in their early days, but they needed rejuvenation more than vague, senseless ambition, and they seem like they got it.

32. Sepultura – Machine Messiah

An album that should, but still probably won’t, silence those naysayers who should have been silenced three or four albums ago, Machine Messiah is such a fresh but also familiar album from the less appreciated incarnation of Sepultura. Full of groove and lively performances from all members involved, Sepultura still sound eager to reach new heights while their former frontman continues to fly through the decade mostly on autopilot.

31. Trivium – The Sin and the Sentence

Probably the patchiest album in this list, Matt Heafy’s return to growls proved that their absence on the previous albums was not the main issue with that output, but also that they do have quite a place in Trivium’s sound. The Sin and the Sentence features some of Trivium’s most clinically performed and experience-written material that will certainly remain a part of their live shows even after future releases. Yet it also contains some seemingly lazily unambitious filler that seems meant to cover as many bases as possible.

30. Mastodon – Cold Dark Place

More laid back and purposeful than the gaudy, inconsistent, and, at this point, unexciting heavy sludge of Emperor of Sand, Mastodon’s Cold Dark Placesounds like it was actually a preconceived project and not just another round of vague song ideas plugged into the Mastodon machine to maintain the band’s relevance and the obnoxious fanfare directed at them for doing so much as breathing.

29. Sólstafir – Berdreyminn

A gem of the fine land of Iceland, Sólstafir reached for realistic new heights on Berderyminn and grasped them with transcendent songwriting and similarly passionate performances. I can think of a number of post-rock-centric bands who could use a dose of Sólstafir’s advice to revitalize their game.

28. Dead Cross – Dead Cross

A chemistry I wasn’t expecting to be as tight as it was, Mike Patton and Dave Lombardo complimented each other quite well with impressively energetic performances from both of them, heavier, faster, and more infectious than a vast majority of younger crossover thrash and hardcore punk I’ve heard.

27. Fit for an Autopsy – The Great Collapse

The Gojira influence all over this thing is hard to miss, but it made for a much more exciting deathcore album, a genre that had a surprisingly great year; perhaps the result of every deathcore-centric band banding together to save the genre from Suicide Silence, rather than the other way around. At the top of the crop, The Great Collapse doesn’t overstate what every other deathcore album already tries so hard to state harder than its competition. Instead, Fit for an Autopsy rely on the creative directions they take the music in to bring the excitement, and bring it they do, not falling victim to too many of deathcore’s pitfalls or overstating their welcome.

26. Persefone – Aathma

A band seemingly aiming continuously bigger, Persefone go beyond life-sized and reality-grounded on the hyper-spiritual Aathma, whose tracklist is an ever-ascending metallic ladder to the prog heavens, and the band conjure quite the masterpiece to finish the album off as well.

25. Suffering Hour – In Passing Ascension

With not a lot of blackened death metal to report on this year, Suffering Hour’s short, gritty output drew plenty of attention and raised its hand for the subgenre with confidence and the exact kind of fire it needed. No game-changer, the album makes its mark with technical and aggressive performance and a great lack of bullshit.

24. Dying Fetus – Wrong One to Fuck With

Speaking of no bullshit death metal, Dying Fetus also put out an album this year.

23. Power Trip – Nightmare Logic

This album I liked from the start, but when I got a super cheap physical copy and found myself replaying it, the degree of skill with which it teleports the 1980’s thrash sound into the 21^st century is truly remarkable. And it’s no cheap, nostalgic imitation either, Power Trip write like they don’t have a tribute of any older band in mind, adding to the legendary thrash legacy a mark all their own.

22. Alestorm – No Grave but the Sea

Besides the ridiculous “Fucked with an Anchor” song, Alestorm put together some of their most vivid stories and some of the most moving folk metal settings. How they keep going with pirate metal and only pirate metal, and continuing to come up with new ideas in said realm is a feat I can’t help be amazed by. Hats off to the captains of true Scottish pirate metal!

21. Elder – Reflections of a Floating World

Out-Mastodon-ing Mastodon this year, Elder came forth with more than just a proggy sludge album this year. Reflections of a Floating World is expansive, emotionally complex, and more immersive than what I’m used to from a sludge metal album.

20. Deadspace – Reaching for Silence

Technically half of a split release off Bandcamp, Deadspace took me by surprise with this album with the unique mingling of musical elements (particularly vocal styles) outside the world of ambient black metal, enhancing the emotional vulnerability of the songs. I hope the band continue to chase new territory within the now quite in-bloom subgenre, because they’ve shown they can make it happen.

19. Suffocation – …of the Dark Light

Suffocation also happened to put an album out this year. What else can I say? It’s the technical, fascinating Suffocation that’s always been, and they’re operating at maximum on this album.

18. Soen – Lykaia

Tool’s benchwarmers and Opeth’s B-team look to be playing for their mentors’ starting positions with Lykaia. Though likely never to escape the comparisons to either band or replace them as big-name headliners, Soen are proving them to be not as on-of-a-kind as they’re often thought to be. Lykaia is an oxymoronically straightforward prog metal album more intent on cultivating moods and crafting memorable songs than showboating or wandering off into some silly musical no-man’s-land under the guise of innovation.

17. Hell – Hell

Another excellent find on Bandcamp, the Hell from Portland, Oregon provide and addictive combination of sludgy doom metal and tortured DSBM. Unlike anything I’ve heard all year, Hell’s enveloping darkness and horrifying premonitions of eternal damnation and gutting of the soul makes their name a fitting one.

16. Marilyn Manson – Heaven Upside Down

While this album has somewhat fallen from my favor since I first listened to it, it’s still a respectable album from the aging Marilyn Manson, and one that sometimes puts that age to good use. I know a lot of people continued to complain about him the same way he’s been complained about for years now, but Heaven Upside Down continues its predecessor’s positive trend of focused and appropriate songwriting.

15. Boris – Dear

Hilariously set to be their farewell album that instead spawned enough material for a series of goodbyes, the perhaps too-prolific Boris drones through bright and bleak with blazing valor on Dear. Though their repertoire spans a myriad of genres, Dear finds them kind of at home field in resonant, booming amplifier worship and heavenly vocal-backed soundscapes.

14. Pallbearer – Heartless

Pallbearer both continued to do what has been working for them and injected some freshness into their proggy, doomy sound on Heartless. Going bigger on the prog and thinking outside the traditional doom emotional mindset, Pallbearer make themselves much easier to pay attention to with a more multifaceted approach that doom of their style doesn’t get much of.

13. Septicflesh – Codex Omega

Codex Omega has continuously grown on me since its release and I have since come to think of it as Septicflesh’s most practiced and perfected effort, even more than Communion. The band have clearly been figuring out their strengths and weaknesses in symphonic death metal through trial and error, and Codex Omega shows that the band has been taking notes on what works and what doesn’t. With a number of exceptional headbangers, Septicflesh have found the right combinations for just about everything in their sound; the next challenge will be outdoing this already massive release

12. Goatwhore – Vengeful Ascension

I feel like I might have a bit of a soft spot for the sweetly named Goatwhore, but I have been continuously drawn to this album, and I’ve come to appreciate it this year as a strong, culminative report of all their experience in blackened thrash and blackened death metal. Not a summarizing statement of artistic progress, but rather a reoptimization of an already repeatedly optimized system, Vengeful Ascension is Goatwhore continuing to perfect Goatwhore as they play to begged for by fans rather than begging for the fans.

11. Converge – The Dusk in Us

Metalcore’s oldest and most consistent band still on the hunt for greatness they’ve already earned in spades bursts from the dust in expectedly enigmatic fashion. Tapping into the rawest of human emotion and putting it on display, Converge wrangle, seemingly effortlessly, their emotional volatility into violent and beautiful works of art like old masters all their students dream of being like.

10. Zeal and Ardor – Devil Is Fine

A not 100% blackgaze album, the slave rituals over the expansive black metal instrumentation gave a depth and breadth to this album that I can’t wait to see expanded on in future releases. I had this in the number one spot for a good portion of the year and it’s still a stunning debut, but it shows its faults after its novelty wears off. It’s a good album, and its flaws are tangible and excellent directing marks to where the band needs to grow. They’re a young band that formed out of the blue as a result of a solo project’s explosion and I hope Zeal and Ardor grow into a strong, mature project with a strong sense of direction.

9. Full of Hell – Trumpeting Ecstasy

Full of Hell’s standalone project this year wore me down as I kept working out to it. A more than average deathgrind album, Trumpeting Ecstasy blazes efficiently through its deathgrind core and brings some needed experimentation to the genre’s table. It’s short and over before you know it, but it’s not cutting any corners or turning anything in unfinished even if it definitely leaves you drooling for more.

8. Decapitated – Anticult

I mentioned my reasons for including Decapitated on my year-end lists of honor despite their entrapment in legal purgatory at the moment quite at length when I talked about “Kill the Cult”, and it carries over to Anticult as well, a hungry, applaudably recalibrated album from a band that’s had a hard time getting their bearings back after a series of hardships. Anticult finds Decapitated pushing through the boundaries they had difficulty surmounting on the last two albums, slowly reclaiming their place in the throne room of technical death metal.

7. Death from Above – Outrage! Is Now

Quite a bit less overtly heavy than its surrounding company on this list, Outrage! Is Now makes its mark with well-crafted songs, soaring melodies, and bold attitude. Poking at the petty, grumpy social climate it rises from, the album hides its critique in sing-song-y hard rock and alternative metal working its melodies into the ear canals to implant its message before it’s realized.

6. Mutoid Man – War Moans

A whimsical listen that I’m so glad for, War Moans is so consistently full of refurbished vintage thrash and sludgy stoner rock songs ready to become classics, I don’t know how it’s not so many editors’ favorites. “Bone Chain”, “Kiss of Death”, “Date with the Devil”, “Melt Your Mind”, “Wreck and Survive”, “Micro Aggression”, and the audible heartache, “Bandages”. So many incredible songs, played to their optimum by a group unconcerned with technical wanking or diva bullshit. Mutoid Man have an unnoticed classic under their belts now.

5. Chelsea Wolfe – Hiss Spun

Chelsea Wolfe went full metal on Hiss Spun, or perhaps the metal on Hiss Spunwent Chelsea Wolfe. She sounds comfortable as though she’s been doing this style of music her whole life. Her music has always had that unsettling, ghostly presence that no one else can quite capture like her; the dramatic, loud, overtness of the darkness metal seemed like it might destroy the subtlety of her sound, and to a degree it is diminished. But in the drone-y doom distortion, Chelsea still lures, even from deep within the darkness, and it’s a darkness she sounds more than comfortable and at home within.

4. Igorrr – Savage Sinusoid

Death metal, opera, electronica, groove metal, classical music, dubstep, operatic screaming, accordion, flute, a chicken. This is the weirdest album I have heard all year, and incredibly, all that weirdness is weaved so nicely into enjoyable tunes. It’s still not all that serious of an album, I mean, it doesn’t take itself so damn seriously it can’t through in a few cracked wails and a chicken. But for all its eccentricity its emotional width is pretty impressive and the consistency with which the band put forth tasty material is astounding. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a brew I have greatly enjoyed rocking out to and goofing off to this year and it’s definitely worth the try.

3. Primitive Man – Caustic

The most abusive and dense album to come out this year by far, Caustic is a bloody assault upon the soul that doesn’t stop or take any breaks. Primitive Man plunge any willing listeners straight into a vat of boiling tar for almost a straight eighty minutes with not a moment of mercy or ounce of sympathy. Primitive Man hold up the sonic black mirror with an indescribably heavy slow bludgeoning of sludge metal, death metal, and doom, all with a healthy nihilistic dose of not giving a fuck about anything or anyone.

2. Havok – Conformicide

Havok have made the thrash metal album of the decade, at least in my eyes. And while it may be easy to write thrash off in this day and age in favor of more extreme metal, Havok remind with serious power just how intense thrash can still be. Conformicide may be years late to the thrash party and its current competition may not be as high bar as that of thrash metal’s golden age, but I think Conformicide can hold its own next to even the 80’s classics. While they do thrash as traditionally as most revivalists thrash these days, skewering religion and governmental corruption as Dave Mustaine did for breakfast every morning in 1986, Havok up the musicianship, distill and expand the writing, and update the subject matter on Conformicide. The thrash spirit is alive and well inside Havok and on Conformicide, unyielding in its speed, its criticism, and its supply of riffs and double bass.

1. Code Orange – Forever

2017 has been the year of Code Orange, and since its release, Forever has pretty much consistently held this top spot for me. Coming out of hardcore nowhere to earn so many album-of-the-year accolades, I feel a little less original now calling it my favorite too, but I don’t care, it’s an incredible fucking album. Violent as all hell, bruising and bone-breaking, and poetic even in its aggressive hardcore bravado, Code Orange aren’t fucking around. Taking cues from Converge and somewhat reinventing the hardcore breakdown, Code Orange make just as many new rules as they break old ones, usurping the throne of metalcore in an unstoppable firestorm coup de tat in front of the entire world who can only watch as it unfolds. Code Orange have seized power by driving their own engine, stepping outside the lines and beating into submission the less zealous, reaching incredible heights at incredible speed the DIY way. And it has been such a fucking pleasure to watch them. Their success, they earned it. Their recognition, they deserve it. This is real now, motherfucker. Code Orange is Forever.