Here's my AotY for each year from 1970, with a runner up (or two) following.
Pink Floyd and Yes aren't here, King Crimson is, so I'll include King Crimson

1.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Deep Purple - In Rock

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

4.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

5.Uriah Heep - Demons And Wizards

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1 album per band per subgenre
work in progress, updating as I go through the song-by-song ratings on RateYourMusic.com
I will typically update my black metal faves - https://metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6924
and my death metal faves - https://metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6298
prior to updating this one

1.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

2.King Diamond - Abigail

3.Voivod - Dimension Hatröss

4.Mastodon - Crack The Skye

5.Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

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This year we have one best album plus a top 30 list in alphabetical order. We people of the Black Lodge are f***ing evil, but we're also quite sick, that's why our album of the year maybe is not metal anymore, but it's still the sickest album of the year. The Top 30 is full of that malicious, tortured music that made us even more malignant this year.

1.Emptiness - Vide

2.1914 - Where Fear And Weapons Meet

3.Amenra - De Doorn

4.Antediluvian - The Divine Punishment

5.Barús - Fanges

      View entire list ››

For those interested in suggestions of albums by genre

Removed:
- Trolls
- Limp bizkit outside of Alternative category
- albums already nominated. After the results, I will add the nominated albums that don't receive enough votes to be displayed in the results, as "staff write-ins".
- albums with a release date not in 2021

1.

2.Heleven - Into The Oceans

3.Imminence - Heaven In Hiding

4.Lantlôs - Wildhund

5.Leprous - Aphelion

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Another year, another list. My favorite DM from 2021, listed alphabetically by band name with subgenres. Some notable omissions include: Altarage, Asphyx, At The Gates, Be'lakor, Deviant Process, Massacre, Omnium Gatherum, Slaughter To Prevail, Swampbeast, The Beast Of Nod, The Monolith Deathcult and Vulvodynia. I've enjoyed those bands' new releases, just don't find them worthy of the company down below. Hopefully you will find a record you haven't heard of here. Feel free to recommend stuff in the comments. Enjoy!

1.200 Stab Wounds - Slave To The Scalpel

2.1914 - Where Fear And Weapons Meet

3.Abiotic - Ikigai

4.Aborted - ManiaCult

5.Abscession - Rot Of Ages

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My very subjective ranking of all heard metal and metal-adjacent albums 2021.

1.Atvm - Famine, Putrid And Fucking Endless

2.Worm - Foreverglade

3.Noltem - Illusions In The Wake

4.Dream Unending - Tide Turns Eternal

5.Ad Nauseam - Imperative Imperceptible Impulse

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* Updating this as I get around to doing song-by-song on RYM.
* 1 album per band
* limiting this to actual black metal releases, as opposed to releases by bands that were, at one time, black metal.
>> Some bands really do incorporate a lot of both death metal or doom (or avant garde or folk, etc) and black metal in their albums, so I consider them to be 'black metal adjacent' even if it might not be 'purely black metal'

1.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

3.Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum

4.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

5.Altar Of Plagues - Teethed Glory & Injury

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1.Ethereal Shroud - Trisagion

2.Veilburner - Lurkers In The Capsule Of Skull

3.First Fragment - Gloire Éternelle

4.Replicant - Malignant Reality

5.Dormant Ordeal - The Grand Scheme Of Things

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At around 450 album, I've been averaging something like 75 new albums per month since the start of 2021, not to mention albums I only listen to 1-2 songs of before moving on. It's been intense, and I'm hoping the lifting of restrictions will mean I get through slightly less music in the rest of this year, but let's see what the rest of 2021 has in store musically.

1.Between The Buried And Me - Colors II

2.Year Of No Light - Consolamentum

3.Be'lakor - Coherence

4.LLNN - Unmaker

5.Spaceslug - Memorial

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A list of albums released in 2021 that I've listened to and thought "Hmmm, hey, ya, I'll probably listen to that again." I try to keep it in order of personal ranking.

1.Turnstile - Glow On

2.Ekulu - Unscrew My Head

3.Elder - Eldovar - A Story Of Darkness And Light [Collaboration]

4.Enforced - Kill Grid

5.Thorn - Crawling Worship

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My favorite BM records. Recommendation are more than welcomed.

1.777Babalon - Eschatological Beast Of The Revelation

2.Advent Sorrow - As All Light Leaves Her

3.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

4.Agruss - Morok

5.Aion - Verses Of Perdition

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