Oh, for fuck's sake. Here is the final list (after that ICP bullshit), complete with gripping commentary from yours truly. I own 11 of these albums, claim not to own one of these (my girlfriend knows which one), might have owned one, and used to own three of the others. That leaves five that I have not heard, and of those five, four are from bands I am fairly well familiar with. The only one off of this list that I have little to say about is the #5 album. So, my opinions are coming from an individual familiar enough with the list to completely detest it. Only one album from this list appeared on my own list, and that one (which is #3 here) was #21 on mine. My list is way better. Nyah!
21. Slipknot: Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses
And we start things off with a bang. First of all, NOT FUCKING METAL. Secondly, I was extremely skeptical about this list as soon as I read through the contributors, but this definitely proved that my concerns were well-founded. Even for a Slipknot album, this is horrendous. It was at this point that the band began incorporating radio friendly hard rock into their sound. I listened to this album a couple of times when I first got it (I used to listen to the band when I was younger) and I honestly hated this album. It collected dust for years and probably continues to do so downstairs. I will probably dig it out and sell it. Apparently people like this shit, they’re crazy.
20. Shadows Fall: The War Within
I actually discovered Shadows Fall randomly while working at Target. I was looking for something new to listen to and happened upon an album by the band for very cheap. It was not this album, but the preceding album. I really enjoyed it and started listening to the band. This album presents Shadows Fall at their greatest, nothing they have done since this album comes close to it. Shadows Fall has always been a little ahead of the metalcore scene because of their heavy melodeath and thrash influences. In recent years they have dropped the core, but this album is still their best. They were better when they combined their core influences and metal influences. Not many bands can say that.
19. Mastodon: Remission
Unfortunately, I have not heard this album. I don’t much care for Mastodon’s newer material, but this was their first full length. I did pick up their second album and did enjoy it. It is at least somewhat likely that this is a good enough album.
18. Lamb of God: New American Gospel
This is another band that I am familiar with, while not having heard this particular album. I like some of Lamb of God’s material, they do kind of blend Pantera-style groove metal with metalcore, and they do kind of have a tough-guy image, but the music is enjoyable enough, if not overly interesting.
17. Hatebreed: Perseverance
NOT FUCKING METAL. Hatebreed is a ridiculous tough-guy modern hardcore band. They have very few, if any, metal influences. And they write the same fucking album every goddamn time. There’s not a single thing interesting about this band. I used to own one of their albums (possibly this one, but I don’t fucking know because they’re all the fucking same), and it was boring as watching paint dry.
16. Machine Head: The Blackening
When I first got into Machine Head, they were playing a cross between groove metal and nu metal. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the most interesting music. In looking farther back in their career, they started as a groove metal band and singer/guitarist Robb Flynn was previously in Bay Area thrash metal band Vio-Lence. On this album, Machine Head ditched metalcore and nu metal and went full on thrash. Apparently they’re kind of trendwhores. Oh well, this is a quality album and while I don’t love it, I like it quite a bit. It certainly did not make my list but it was a good enough album.
15. Nachtmystium: Assassins: Black Meddle, Pt. 1
This is kind of a weird one. Nachtmystium combines black metal, psychedelic rock, and post hardcore into a compelling mixture. The band was formerly a raw black metal band until they began incorporating more and more Pink Floyd influences. They are still one of the highlights of the American black metal scene. This is their most accessible album released thus far. It is an enjoyable album and I considered it for my top albums of 2008, but it just missed. Also, excellent use of a saxophone on a metal album.
14. System of a Down: Toxicity
NOT FUCKING METAL. I first discovered System of a Down back in high school. It was at that time that the nu metal wave hit. System of a Down, unfairly or not, were lumped in with that crowd. I will admit they play more of a hard rock style than nu metal, but still, they are not metal. I enjoyed their debut self-titled release, but this one immediately dashed any lingering enjoyment of the band. I just could never get into the album and I don’t see what other people see in it. To me, it’s the band’s descent into mediocrity.
13. Mastodon: Blood Mountain
I had just recently discovered this band when this album was released. I was pretty excited for the album because "The Wolf is Loose" is an awesome song. This was my first Mastodon album and it took several years before I would check out another. I like their heavier songs, but they play a lot of songs that do not keep the interest level quite as high. It’s an okay album, but it is highly overrated. There are a handful of good songs and some filler as well. It was on this album though that Mastodon started moving away from metal, which is a shame because Mastodon could have been the next great metal band. I’m talking about a level with Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Metallica, they were that good, at least on Leviathan.
12. Tool: Lateralus
NOT FUCKING METAL. Just like the above System of a Down album, this is the Tool album that convinced me this band was not fucking worth listening to anymore. I loved their Opiate EP and the Undertow album because both of those albums actually contained coherent songs. Aenima was where the band starting getting way too proggy and experimental for their own damn good. However, it still had some enjoyable songs on there. On this album, half of the fucking tracks are pure noise, there are maybe a couple of actual songs on there, and everything else is static. Awful, I sold this album.
11. Deftones: White Pony
NOT FUCKING METAL AT ALL. I can kind of understand thinking Hatebreed, Tool, System of a Down, and Slipknot are metal. I don’t like it, but I can kind of understand it. But, fucking DEFTONES???!!! My god. I never did understand what in the hell I was thinking when I bought this fucking album. It’s essentially a more aggressive post-hardcore album with maybe .5% metal influences at all. It’s also an extremely boring and pretentious piece of shit. Thank god I sold it.
10. Opeth: Ghost Reveries
This is one of my least favorite Opeth albums (not my least favorite, that title belongs to the all-prog-no-metal Damnation). It starts out great on "Ghost of Perdition", but as it goes on, the prog parts become much more drawn-out and meander a great deal more than on previous albums. The production is at its best on this album: it is crisp and clean and all of the instruments can be heard well. The songwriting just was not as good on this one as some of the band’s previous efforts. Not a bad album, just not as good as their earlier works.
9. Gojira: From Mars to Sirius
I’ve never been quite sure how to categorize this band. They play some sort of mix between death metal, thrash metal, and progressive metal. The album is heavier than hell, it really is. The riffs are extremely bass-heavy giving them massive bludgeoning power. The drums are pounding and the music in general is fairly slow to further emphasize the heaviness. The song "From the Sky" is one of the heaviest songs I have ever heard. Lyrically, the band is interested in eco themes. It is a very interesting album, but it can get a little tedious as it plods along. Still though, this was a fairly interesting choice for the list because it’s not as mainstream-friendly as many of the other bands. Mainstream, yes, but not as accessible.
8. In Flames: Clayman
In Flames was once one of my favorite bands. I thought about trying to get one of their albums into my list, but I could not justify choosing any of their albums of the 21st century over any of the albums in my list. My favorite In Flames albums came out in the 1990's. This album is not bad, but it is a step down from their prior album, Colony. I am not at all surprised to see In Flames make it on this list, I just would not have chosen them. I would have rather seen some of Dark Tranquillity’s work make it in opposed to this. Still though, I don’t have a problem with the choice.
7. Lamb of God: Ashes of the Wake
This was the first album I had heard by Lamb of God. Yes it’s kind of dumbed down groove metal in the vein of later Pantera with some metalcore influences thrown in. But, it is brutal, aggressive, and menacing. In that vein it’s certainly not a bad album. There are much worse albums out there, of course. This is the best I have heard from Lamb of God, but the band really isn’t doing much that Pantera hasn’t done before. There are much better albums out there as well, which makes the inclusion here a little dubious. Still though, at least it’s a decent enough album.
6. Killswitch Engage: The End of Heartache
This is pretty much the quintessential metalcore album. It features riffing influenced by Swedish melodeath bands, clean and rough vocal interplay, and breakdowns. As such, it is pretty much a no-brainer to make this incredibly mainstream list. It’s an enjoyable album, I will not try to deny it. It is catchy, with its pop-inflected chorus lines, and decent guitar riffs. It just gets a little old after awhile. I loved it when I first got it, but the novelty has worn off a little bit. I still listen to it occasionally, but not nearly as often as I did when I first bought it. The later releases from the band do not come close to matching this one, which further adds to its inability to stay relevant.
5. Converge: Jane Doe
NOT FUCKING METAL. I have neither heard this album, nor this band so I can’t really comment much on them. However, I know they are not metal and that they are greatly responsible for the endless wave of shit called metalcore that we are still dealing with. There are some good metalcore bands, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
4. Killswitch Engage: Alive or Just Breathing
This is the band’s debut release. I have not heard this album, but I have of course heard other albums by the band. This one is a little different though because Jesse Leach, not Howard Jones, is the singer. I have only heard him on a song on the Roadrunner United album and he is an impressive vocalist. I keep meaning to check this album out, but have not gotten around to it yet.
3. Opeth: Blackwater Park
At last, one we can agree on. This album reached my list, the very end of my list, but at least it was there. This is widely considered Opeth’s masterpiece. It’s not my favorite of their albums, but it is certainly up there. It is also the one qualifying album from the band that should be here. After this one, Opeth got a little too proggy and their quality suffered. This represents their best balancing act of the prog and extreme metal elements, however they were always better when they were not trying to balance the styles. They were better when they focused on the extreme metal aspect and threw in prog influences once in awhile. This is a great album and should be on the list. It just shouldn’t be this high.
2. Lamb of God: As the Palaces Burn
I’m not sure I can agree with any list of top metal albums that gives Lamb of God three fucking places. I have not heard this album, but I can’t imagine it’s that much different than Ashes of the Wake, the #7 album. Lamb of God is not a bad band, they just aren’t a great one. I’m not sure how they managed to be as lucky to have the success they do. Perhaps, people just desperately wanted another Pantera. I can’t imagine why.
1. Mastodon: Leviathan
As mentioned earlier, this is a great album and I won’t dispute that. It is a little uneven in places and there are tracks here that I don’t really care for, which is why it did not make my list, but there are some other great tracks that help to make up for the misses. If Mastodon had built on this album and continued to develop the heavier stuff, then they probably would be considered the next really big metal band. However, they built upon the more progressive parts and started to move away from metal on their next album. By the time Crack the Skye was released, most of the band’s metal elements had already been stripped away. There are moments that still show the band’s metal influences but they are now few and far between. But that doesn’t affect the enjoyment of this album which is a very good album. Now, I wouldn’t consider it one of the best of the 21st century, but for a mainstream metal album, I suppose it would qualify.
