So this, the 10th Annual Metal Storm Awards, have come to pass.

The awards have continued to grow, with numerous categories surpassing 1000 votes cast, despite a lack of big name clout. For point of comparison, Therion was the biggest vote getter in our first ever awards, racking up 191 for Lemuria. In 2014 they barely would have cracked the Top 25. And that is only if Kvelertak doesn't score two more votes as I type this during the waning hours of the month. That is some growth.

While in general this lack of big names in many genres lead to some closer contests, as with each of the prior 9 editions, we also had the typical big name beat downs. Carcass racked up nearly 600 votes, nearly half cast in the Death Metal field. TesseracT also pulled nearly half the votes in Djent, thumping their competitors. Ever popular Amorphis exorcised Ghost B.C. by over 200 votes, and garnering a third of the vote in a busy Heavy/Melodic metal.

Conversely Orphaned Land won a relatively tight 20 vote victory over Finntroll in a strong Folk / Pagan / Viking cast, and Amaranthe for eeking out a "count the difference on your fingers" victory over Shining in Industrial/Cyber Metal. Congrats and hails to Gloryhammer for winning Best Debut.

Best Clandestine Cut was the newest, bestest, tightest race ever. How tight? Try a tie. Our first tie ever. Deception was winning by a paltry two votes over Pin-Up Went Down as I wrote this up with about an hour before voting closed and went down to the wire as a tie with 20 minutes to go. This has left me furiously typing and updating this piece so it's accurate. Maybe we can find the brick who voted for My Dying Bride to break the tie?

Earlier this year your humble narrator didn't have great things to say about the latest Megadeth? Looks like the Metal Storm masses found it equally limp, Burn!ing it with Biggest Letdown, with more than double the write-ins of second place "winner" Turisas.

And much to my surprise, Black Sabbath took Biggest Surprise for making an album that wasn't even remotely surprising. Not sure what y'all were expecting from them? Grind Zydeco? Death Doom Himalayan Throat Singing?

So 10 up, 10 down. Congratulations to our winners. But more importantly, congratulations to those fans who found new bands, and those bands who found new fans.\m/

(Make sure you discuss the results on the news thread, here.)