Top-10 Best Metal Records By Each Year: 2003-2015

Yo everybody! I've been going back and forth over the years after 1996 or 1997, basically from where the last list stopped. There were some years, like 1998-2002, that are too hard to even find as much as ten(!) metal records that I like from each of those years. It's impossible to be honest. 

Anyway, from 2003 it was manageable to find ten from each year, even if that wasn't the easiest task either. Anyways, here are the lists for my personal - top-10 favorite metal records - by year - each year - 2003 to 2015. I will also comment some short thoughts on each year respectively. I hope you enjoy!

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2003:

Type O Negative – Life Is Killing Me

Chimaira – The Impossibility Of Reason

Watain - Casus Luciferi

Lamb of God – As The Palaces Burn

Children of Bodom – Hate Crew Deathroll

Septic Flesh - Sumerian Daemons

Iron Maiden – Dance Of Death

Jane’s Addiction - Strays

Strapping Young Lad – S/T

Black Label Society – The Blessed Hellride

Comment: The first year in quite many that actually began to take metal music uphill again. Not a very rich year (metal) musically, the the first 5-7 albums in this list are rather strong efforts in my opinion.

2004:

Lamb of God – Ashes Of The Wake

Mastodon - Leviathan

Megadeth – The System Has Failed

God Forbid – Gone Forever

Scarve – Irradiant

Motörhead - Inferno

Fear Factory – Archetype

Amon Amarth – Fate Of Norns

Saxon – Lionheart

Damageplan – New Found Power

Comment: A small step backwards, decreasing the strength in musical quality from the previous year, and not a very good year overall. What's in this list is pretty much "it" of what I either liked or found the slightest interest in.

2005:

Chimaira – S/T

Strapping Young Lad - Alien

DevilDriver – The Fury Of Our Maker’s Hand

Bolt Thrower – Those Once Loyal

Judas Priest – Angel Of Retribution

Crashdïet – Rest In Sleaze

Grand Magus – Wolf’s Return

Kreator – Enemy Of God

Soulfly – Dark Ages

Trivium – Ascendancy

Comment: A pretty big improvement from the previous two years, and quite a massive improvement if looking back to, like, 1998-1999 and onward. This was where (good) metal started to get a firm base to build upon again.

2006:

Iron Maiden – A Matter Of Life And Death

Lamb of God - Sacrament
Mastodon – Blood Mountain

Trivium – The Crusade
DragonForce – Inhuman Rampage
Amon Amarth – With Oden On Our Side

Celtic Frost - Monotheist
Cannibal Corpse - Kill 
Strapping Young Lad – The New Black
Tool – 10.000 Days

Comment: I'd say this year was not worrying as it was a quite good one, but it's a slight decrease in quality from the previous year. At least it was nothing that worried me at the time. Lamb of God and Trivium step it up a notch each, while Celtic Frost returns with a brooding dark album, and DragonForce gets interesting (I actually do like them).

2007:

Type O Negative – Dead Again

Chimaira – Resurrection
DevilDriver – The Last Kind Words
Samael – Solar Sun 

Machine Head – The Blackening

Ozzy Osbourne – Black Rain

Megadeth – United Abominations

W.A.S.P. – Dominator

Helloween – Gambling With The Devil

A Perfect Murder – War Of Aggression

Comment: Now this was the best year in over ten years time, I believe. 1996 and '97 weren't bad years at all (I have not listed anything for them in my previous list, though), but this year was like an official statement that "yes, metal is back, and it's here to stay". Bands like Machine Head and Helloween release their best albums in many years, while Type O Negative unknowingly releases what would ultimately be their last album, but a damn fine one.

2008:

Judas Priest – Nostradamus

Amon Amarth – Twilight Of The Thunder Gods

DragonForce – Ultra Beatdown

Trivium - Shogun

Cavalera Conspiracy – Inflikted

Soulfly - Conquer
Cannabis Corpse – Tube Of The Resinated

Dismember – S/T
Unleashed – Hammer Battalion

Texas Hippie Coalition – Pride Of Texas

Comment: After an excellent year in 2007, this year had a lot to do if it was going to top it, and it just didn't - unsurprisingly and understandably so. I for one loved "Nostradamus", like my favorite form Priest to be honest. Amon Amarth, Soulfly and DragonForce released their best albums (so far) respectively in my opinion.

2009:

Chimaira – The Infection

Mastodon – Crack The Skye

DevilDriver – Pray For Villains
God Forbid - Earthsblood
Lamb of God - Wrath 

Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know

Dethklok – Dethalbum II

Devin Townsend - Addicted

Immortal – All Shall Fall

W.A.S.P. – Babylon

Comment: Despite this list being fucking awesome, with Chimaira, LoG, Mastodon, God Forbid and DevilDriver all releasing my favorite albums of theirs respectively in this year, the year as a whole (outside of this list) was pretty poor. Not really a weak year musically, but just too few interesting releases. A thin but strong year.

2010:

Watain – Lawless Darkness

Enforcer – Diamonds

Helloween – 7 Sinners
Death Angel - Relentless Retribution

Raintime – Psychromatic

Overkill – Ironbound

Fear Factory – Mechanize

Black Label Society – Order Of The Black

Accept – Blood Of The Nations

Valkyrja - Contamination

Comment: A new decade, new trends and possibilities ahead, and it started rather good I'd say. First off, and of most worth to me, the current trend of "retro metal" crawls out of the underground and starts to become popular, with bands like the almighty Enforcer leading the pack to my ears. Watain also just kills everything in their way, and Helloween, Death Angel, Fear Factory and Overkill release their strongest material in a long time.

2011:

Skull Fist – Head Öf The Pack

Samael – Lux Mundi

Chimaira – The Age Of Hell

Mastodon – The Hunter
DevilDriver – Beast

Revocation – Chaos Of Forms

Jane’s Addiction – The Great Escape Artist

Amon Amarth – Surtur Rising
Vicious Rumors – Razorback Killers

Machine Head – Unto The Locust

Comment: This was a really long/slow and worrying year for me. Not only was the amount of interesting albums very small this year, but some bands like Machine Head and DevilDriver delivered a lot weaker material than their previous releases. Fans of Chimaira and Mastodon thought the same of their releases this year, but I actually liked both "The Age Of Hell" and "The Hunter" a lot. All in all though, this was not a very good or fun year for me as a metal music fan.

2012:

Steelwing – Zone Of Alienation

Overkill – The Electric Age

Unleashed - Odalheim
God Forbid - Equilibrium

Accept – Stalingrad

Bleeding Through – The Great Fire

DragonForce – The Power Within

Fear Factory -  The Industrialist

Lamb of God – Resolution

Cauldron – Tomorrow’s Lost

Comment: After the most mediocre year of 2011, this year was to become a whole lot better. More "retro metallers" deliver some great albums (Steelwing and Cauldron), while an old band like Unleashed suddenly comes back and releases their best album like...ever! It was at least an interesting year again, even if it wasn't on par with, say 2007 and 2010.

2013:

Power Trip – Manifest Decimation

Enforcer – Death By Fire
Death Angel - The Dream Calls For Blood

Watain – The Wild Hunt

Carcass – Surgical Steel

In Solitude – Sister

Sepultura – The Mediator Between The Head And Hands Must Be The Heart

DevilDriver – Winter Kills
Motörhead - Aftershock

Chaos Invocation – Black Mirror Hours

Comment: Once more, this particular year was an improvement over the last year(s). This year really passed by fast for me, I found my life's love and everything just went by so goddamn fast. There was a lot of good music this year, even outside of the actual top-list. Enforcer and Watain continue to release really strong and great albums, while DevilDriver returns with their strongest album for a while, and the biggest surprises of all: Sepultura delivers their best album since Chaos A.D., possibly even Arise. If fans weren't convinced of their quality without Max after this year, then those fans are fucking inbred or brainless or something. The second: Hardcore-thrashers Power Trip just rip metal a new asshole with their awesome debut.

2014:

DragonForce – Maximum Overload

Mastodon – Once More ‘Round The Sun

Accept – Blind Rage

Satanic Warmaster - Fimbulwinter

Wolves In The Throne Room - Celestite

At The Gates – At War With Reality

Behemoth – The Satanist

Arch Enemy – War Eternal

Skull Fist – Chasing The Dream

Revocation – Deathless

Comment: Once again a strong year, even though if it wasn't perhaps just quite as good as the previous one. Anyway, I had nothing to complain about - apart from time passing by so fucking fast. These albums feel like they were released yesterday to me. Fuck, I feel old.

2015:

Enforcer – From Beyond

Lamb of God – VII: Sturm Und Drang

Fear Factory - Genexus

Ghost – Meliora
Motörhead - Bad Magic

Queensrÿche – Condition Hüman

W.A.S.P. – Golgotha

Europe – War Of Kings

Tribulation – The Children Of The Night

Saxon – Battering Ram

Comment: Another strong year to my ears, even if it's still on a slight downfall (again). At this pace however, it will be a few years till metal is truly gone to shitters again. I must admit though, I did not have as much focus on releases during this year than the years before. So much happened in my life last year, so I just didn't have the same time to discover music, and thus I don't really have an overall picture of what the year provided as a whole, but I really enjoyed these albums at least.

The Best AND Most Disappointing Albums Of The Year 2012

I remember back during the first half of my teen years, maybe like 2003-2007, there were very few new(er) bands that I liked. I was a very closed-minded, old school-only listener and listened to almost 80's music exclusively, apart from the 70's Gods like Sabbath, Zeppelin, AC/DC, Purple, and so on, you get the picture. In 2007, however, all that changed and I started to expand my musical mind with a big step into the 90's music (still dissin' the modern metal of that time, which still is pretty much the same metal today, unfortunately). The music was Death Metal, particularly the Swedish, classic old school-era and the East coast (Stockholm) sound. Entombed was the first band to break me into it with their legendary debut "Left Hand Path", but was soon followed by Dismember, which from that point to this day remain my favorite death metal band ever.

Anyway, in late 2007 I needed to cool off from all the ultra-pissed off extreme metal with something more mellow, but I wasn't really in the mood to return to my old NWoBHM / heavy and thrash metal, as well as AOR. To add is that I totally abandoned AOR in mid-06 when my band got a re-charge and we started to crank thrash metal 24/7 for some innovative influence and cleansing (the others were into Sum 41-punk, which is faggot punk, as well as nu metal, very much to my distaste as I've never liked those music styles). After that, whenever I hear AOR, I can't listen to it. It's just too much "midlife crisis music" to me, and I'm still young, hungry, and in need of going crazy to music, not in need of some cozy fucking and tender words during it after some wine and a luxious dish.

But as I was trying to explain, in late 2007 I took a pause from death metal and got addicted to early 90's alternative music and metal. With the great Jane's Addiction cracking me into this wave, it all soon followed with bands like Alice in Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mr. Bungle, and particularly Faith No More, which today is my favorite band. Danzig was another band I really cranked a lot every day, but I actually started to get into them in 2005 already (they had one 80's album ... they passed my then-rule #1: only 80's) and in 2006 they pretty much were the only non-thrash band that I listened to. I even had a T-shirt with their classic Devil's skull and logo (it became to small later on and I gave it to a skinny friend in 2009 or early 2010). So Danzig was pretty much the first 90's band I ever listened to and they are to this day a top-5 favorite band o'mine. Then I also got into old school hip-hop, electronic music and so on. My musical has expanded all the time and still does.

BUT NOW I'M DONE WITH THE HISTORY LESSON. I'm sorry, I just have so many fond memories and too much love for the music to not wander off like that. The point with all that is that today, I listen to all kinds of music, or at least I give it a shot, and it doesn't matter what time it was made in either.

So 2008 was a pretty bad year musically, I wanna recall? However, it WAS a year when things started to get better, and it has gotten better with each year since then. I thought 2011 was a pretty great as well as surprisingly good year musically, but I think I dare to say that 2012 has topped it!

Here's my list of this year's best albums:

1. Overkill : The Electric Age
- Intense, high-energy, "electrified" thrash (see what I did there! *ba-dum-tsch*). After the phenomenal Ironbound in 2010, Overkill went for a less proggy approach this time, but still kept the total-ass-kicking intact. The album of the year for me, congrats guys!

2. Steelwing : Zone Of Alienation
- As a fan of the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal retro style, particularly the Swedish bands, this was a real solid ball of metal. I love everything about this album. I'm actually even going back and forth whether this is even better than Enforcer's Diamonds (2010) or not.

3. Unleashed : Odalheim
- And this one goes for the Death Metal album of the year. While they actually are a band whose latter material I prefer before their old, classic stuff, this album only made it more obvious: it fucking kicks ass! Their best album yet!

4. Rage Against The Machine : S/T remastered "XX 20th Anniversary"
- I know, not nearly a "new" album by any means, but a nice remaster, if not too different from the original, and it's got their first demo as well as some live tracks as bonus material, and that is what makes this release so great for any RATM fan.

5. Kill Devil Hill : S/T
- Maybe there are a few releases that would deserve this spot more, but I chose this because, 1. I for one really like this album, 2. I really looked forward to it for quite many months. I can confess that I wasn't reaaally satisfied with my expectations upon hearing it, but still it's a great album. I really like the voice.

6. Down : Part IV: The Purple EP
- I love Down, especially their third and latest full-length album. This was not a let-down apart from the one little fact: this is an EP. If it only would've been a full-length release and pretty much as good or better than Over The Under, it would've landed on fourth place.

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Here's my list the most disappointing albums of 2012:

1. Testament : Dark Roots Of Earth
- Well. I love them, they're one of my absolute favorite bands, but no, something went wrong here. I was sooo anticipated about this one, and it finally showed to have been way too much. I was totally disappointed. It's not a bad album and Alex Skolnick is amazing, one of my favorite leads ever. The music's just too mediocre and Native Blood was a bad choice for a single. Also disappointing that my favorite drummer Gene Hoglan didn't get to do what he does best - beating the shit outta the drums, making tsunamis all over the world from the blastwaves.

2. Fear Factory - The Industrialist
- I had a moment of a few months in 2009 where I was addicted to their classic album Demanufacture, but just like then, the rest of their stuff still just sound recycled in a shittier form. Boooring.

3. The Devin Townsend Project - Epicloud
- I love Dev, I love his music, I have followed his music since 2007 I think, when I discovered Strapping Young Lad. Never has any of his albums really disappointed me. Some were not master-masterpieces, but they were great. This one was not a funny listening experience. After hearing preview samples from it, I didn't feel like anything really stuck out to me, and upon hearing the album I got it confirmed. It was kinda boring. But I don't judge Devin. The man is constantly trying out new approaches with his music, even if his trademark wall-of-sound is present everywhere, and one cannot simply make awesome albums without failing at least once. To me, this was Dev's first failure, and not a big one at that.

Review: Overkill - The Electric Age

 Overkill have always been one of those thrash bands that to me, never released any bad albums. Sure there were a few that obviously wasn't as good as the others, but never an album I felt "what the fuck is this shit?" about. Though it seems like the band had their peek during the eighties and early nineties, like most thrash bands, Overkill seem to have gotten a new peek in recent years. Ironbound was a bomb that got dropped in 2010, a thrash album every true fan of the genre had wanted for a long time. The Electric Age is no exception two years later as the band is in the middle of a nuclear war, it seems!

Since its release I've had the time to go through it a bunch of times and it sure is one solid piece of metal music! While unfortunately most other big thrash bands today put out mediocre albums, Overkill really do the opposite. I think it shows in albums sales / popularity as well. When the album kicks in with "Come And Get It" my first thought was "is this Megadeth?". It sounds like something Megadeth should've done, but did not. It's a very great opening track that shows what this album is like. After the Megadeth-like opening the song kicks into traditional Overkill style, but the song has one more big surprise ahead! The middle section turns into a sort of marching thing reminiscent of many great eighties heavy metal bands. Throughout the whole album there actually is an Iron Maiden-feel in particular songs, so think classic Overkill meets Megadeth cirka 2007-2009 meets Iron Maiden. Next song to go is the lead single "Electric Rattlesnake" - a catchy, fun, and to-be live staple kind of tune. As the album continues we hear "Black Daze", a mid-paced song that also is very catchy and reminds me a little of Megadeth's "In My Darkest Hour". "Drop The Hammer Down" is a given to-be fan favorite and the ending track "Good Night" stands for this album's most "ballad" like tune, which is a very common and great thing Overkill have on most of their albums. It's very catchy and I sure only hope the song doesn't point at that this could be the last Overkill album. In between all these stick-outs there are some very solid and good Overkill album, though maybe not of lead single-caliber?

The album sound continues in a similar vein to Ironbound but the songs are overall shorter and not as progressive. Think that this is a stripped-down, more straight to the point Ironbound version and I think you've got the idea. I think this was a great move by the band as another "that" progressive album maybe wouldn't have matched its predecessor. Instead Overkill take the energy and quality of Ironbound and put it into a more "classic Overkill album" style.

In conclusion this album was both very surprising and not. It was surprising that the band managed to do an equally good album after the awesome Ironbound, but at the same time it's not surprising as I imagine that the band got really fired up by the great response Ironbound got. In the end this album shows that Overkill are in a new peek in their career and I feel a need to mosh and drink beer while listening to it. I raise my fist in honor of Overkill for succeeding once again, with hope that there will be more albums of this caliber in the near future!

I feel pretty secure when I say that Overkill will most likely be the winners in 2012!

Final rating: 9.5/10

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