Top 30 in alphabetical order plus some honourable mentions, the top 3 EPs and the best split. Here in the Black Lodge we had some other 20 album that could get in, but the gates in Twin Peaks woods slammed down in flickering flashlights...
The comments are from my delirious tulpa...

1.Above Aurora - The Shrine Of Deterioration

2.Acherontas - Psychic Death - The Shattering Of Perceptions

3.Akhlys - Melinoë

4.Ars Magna Umbrae - Apotheosis

5.Blaze Of Perdition - The Harrowing Of Hearts

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Surely not everything I've listened to, not even close. Every year I use Spotify to make some megalist and start plowing through. Most albums are listened to and discarded, but those that pique my interest get shunted into the Keeper playlist. (I also use other media when needed - particularly Bandcamp - but Spotify remains my favorite.)

1.10,000 Years - 10​,​000 Years

2.Acid Mammoth - Under Acid Hoof

3....And Oceans - Cosmic World Mother

4.Aversio Humanitatis - Behold The Silent Dwellers

5.Baardvader - Baardvader

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My Top-15 list for 2020. Great year despite the f***ing virus shutting everything down.

1.Sacred Outcry - Damned For All Time

2.Cirith Ungol - Forever Black

3.Eternal Champion - Ravening Iron

4.Armored Saint - Punching The Sky

5.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

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No order. Just pure black-pill shoved straight up the arse no-lube.

There are too many boring bullshit, selective choices as usual from listers who add anything (and everything) they remember what they seem is good but be merely impressionable/ unmemorable as a whole. Thus forgetting what's deemed truly to be best are outliers.

1.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

2.Esoctrilihum - Eternity Of Shaog

3.The Alex Jones Prison Planet - Corrupt Them All

4.Evoken - Atra Mors

5.Mooncitadel - Night's Scarlet Symphonies

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2020 has been nothing short of a horrific year. The music industry was quite possibly changed forever due to the pandemic, we saw tours and festivals canceled, and as of now, live shows seem to be a thing of the past.

However, this year ( especially in metal), we saw some big releases, impressive debuts, and the return of several bands that had been on hiatus for decades. Overall for albums, 2020 was rather impressive. Here's my favorite 100 metal albums of 2020...

1.Spectral Lore - Wanderers: Astrology Of The Nine [Collaboration]

2.Cryptic Shift - Visitations From Enceladus

3.Psychotic Waltz - The God-Shaped Void

4.Akhlys - Melinoë

5.Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still

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I don't think these are necessarily the best 30 albums of this year, but they're the ones that have I guess endured in my psyche and inspiried revisits more than most others. I was tempted to do a top 50, but after around #26 or so, I found myself confronted with about 50 albums that could've conceivably made it in, most of which I hadn't relistened to enough to rank above the others with confidence.

1.Psychonaut - Unfold The God Man

2.Elder - Omens

3.Enslaved - Utgard

4.Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Ascension

5.Pure Reason Revolution - Eupnea

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Maybe this is a top, but those albumes are just the ones that I will listen recurrently.

1.Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville

2.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

3.Draconian - Under A Godless Veil

4.Afterbirth - Four Dimensional Flesh

5.Igorrr - Spirituality And Distortion

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1.Inquisition - Black Mass For A Mass Grave

2.The Ruins of Beverast / Almyrkvi - Split

3.Katla. - Allt Þetta Helvítis Myrkur

4.Sodom - Genesis XIX

5.Lunatic Soul - Through Shaded Woods

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1.Turia - Degen Van Licht

2.Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still

3.Fluisteraars - Bloem

4.Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville

5.Elder - Omens

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1.Konvent - Puritan Masochism

2.Paradise Lost - Obsidian

3.Incantation - Sect Of Vile Divinities

4.Anaal Nathrakh - Endarkenment

5.Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville

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updated, but still more bands to consider

1.Spectral Lore - Wanderers: Astrology Of The Nine [Collaboration]

2.Lunatic Soul - Through Shaded Woods

3.Abigor - Totschläger (A Saintslayer's Songbook)

4.Enslaved - Utgard

5.Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny Demo

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It's closing in on the end of 2021, so revisiting the year of the lockdown

1.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

2.Akhlys - Melinoë

3.Black Curse - Endless Wound

4.Cryptic Shift - Visitations From Enceladus

5.Draconian - Under A Godless Veil

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Well here it is!

1.Ensiferum - Thalassic

2.Skyforest - A New Dawn

3.Avatar - Hunter Gatherer

4.Vredehammer - Viperous

5.Finntroll - Vredesvävd

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Reviving the old tradition of yearly lists. I was uncertain, because my lists have barely any metal and certainly none that MSers don't already know about, but there's nowhere else to publish this shit, either!

1.Ichiko Aoba - "Gift" at Sogetsu Hall

2.Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters

3.Ichiko Aoba - Adan no kaze

4.tricot - 真っ黒 (Makkuro)

5.tricot - 10

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Keeping track of what I heard and liked in 2020

1.Protest The Hero - Palimpsest

2.The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic / Cenozoic

3.Orbit Culture - Nija

4.Eternal Champion - Ravening Iron

5.Necrophobic - Dawn Of The Damned

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