A strange year for metal, not really much to take note of, compared to other years anyway.

Here's my list:

1. Woods Of Desolation - Torn Beyond Reason
2. Beyond Creation - The Aura
3. Taake - Noregs Vaapen
4. Acherontas - Vamachara
6. Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising
7. Benighted - Asylum Cave
8. Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
9. Lock Up - Necropolis Transparent
10. Exhumed - All Guts, No Glory
11. Aquilus - Griseus
12. Omnium Gatherum - New World Falkenbac3. Wormrot - Dirge
13. Falkenbach - Tiurida
14. Wolfchant - Call Of The Black Winds
15. Wolves In The Throne Room - Celestial Lineage

Calling the whole decade awful is a bit rough, I think that if you know where to look, you'll find awesome stuff released in the 2010's. Case in point: 2011. While for most it might not have been a great year, I have myself found a decent amount of really good stuff, which easily beats the last few years of the 00's.

Here is my top 15, all genres and release formats combined:
1. Chryst - PhantasmaChronica
2. Bestia Arcana - To Anabainon Ek Tes Abyssu
3. goreshit - Semantic Compositions on Death and Its Meaning (breakcore)
4. Morbus Chron - Sleepers in the Rift
5. Thank You Scientist - The Perils of Time Travel
6. C418 - Minecraft: Volume Alpha (ambient)
7. GGUW - Gegen Gravitation und Willensfreiheit (black metal)
8. Kaevum - Natur (NSBM)
9. Vektor - Outer Isolation
10. Thy Catafalque - Rengeteg
11. KILLL - Killl (avant-garde metal)
12. Los Random - Todo.s Los Colores Del
13. Blotted Science - The Animation of Entomology
14. Beyond Creation - The Aura
15. Sissy Spacek - Dash (harsh noise)