I don’t usually write about music on this blog, but I decided to compile a list of what I think is a list of the most essential, most groundbreaking, heaviest metal albums of the decade. I’ve listened to hundreds of albums over the decade, thanks to Spotify.
My music system goes like this- each year has a “To-Listen” and “Approved” playlist. Everything I hear about that sounds decent, including bands I’ve never heard of, go into To-Listen. I gather album information from Sputnik Music, Angry Metal Guy, metal magazines, bands I follow on Facebook, recommendations from friends, and bands that open concerts I go to. I also scanned new release websites and added albums that appealed to me by their title and description, assuming they were a band I had not heard from before.
If the album is good, it gets put into that year’s “Approved” list and I can play the playlist on shuffle if I feel like it.
I will confess that I spent the 2013-2015 period most invested in keeping up with the genre as a whole (the 2014 “Approved” list is 1,450 tracks long, and over 111 hours in length). Other years I didn’t drive or otherwise commute as much, and so my exposure was more limited, especially in regards to bands I didn’t know.
Without further ado, here are 33 essential metal albums of the 2010s, in no particular order.
Anything marked with a * is something I was genuinely surprised by, an album I didn’t think was going to be great based on a band’s resume to that point.
Chevelle – La Gárgola (2014) *
Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas – Mariner (2016)
The Offering – Home (2019)
Polkadot Cadaver – Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
Black Crown Initiate – The Wreckage of Stars (2014)
High on Fire – Luminferous (2015)
Deafheaven – Sunbather (2013)
Chthonic – Bú-Tik (2013)
Amia Venera Landscape – The Long Procession (2010)
Fightstar – Behind The Devil’s Back (2015)
Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction (2015)
Clutch – Earth Rocker (2013)
Karnivool – Asymmetry (2013)
Bring Me The Horizon – Sempiternal (2013) *
Testament – Dark Roots of Earth (2012)
Ne Obliviscaris – Portal of I (2012)
Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini (2010)
Kvelertak – Kvelertak (2011)
Zoroaster – Matador (2010)
Gojira – L’Enfant Sauvage (2012)
The Sword – Warp Riders (2010)
Steak Number Eight – The Hutch (2013)
Red Fang – Murder the Mountains (2011)
The Ocean – Pelagial (2013)
Cult of Luna – A Dawn to Fear (2019)
Between the Buried and Me – Automata I & Automata II (2018)
Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology (2018)
Tomb Mold – Manor of Infinite Forms (2018)
Once Human – Evolution (2017) *
Prong – X – No Absolutes (2016)
Soen – Lotus (2019)
Cruciamentum – Charnel Passages (2015)
Botanist – VI: Flora (2014)
Unspoken Politics 