With over 1300 albums to choose from, it's not easy to narrow down to a top 20. As far as the top albums go, I think this has been a bit of a weaker year than the last few, but there's been some great standout releases.

1.Bees Made Honey In The Vein Tree - Aion

2.Sermon - Of Golden Verse

3.Ne Obliviscaris - Exul

4.The Gorge - Mechanical Fiction

5.Meridian Sun - The Curse

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Hoping to not beat last year's total albums, but to still find the good stuff this year.

1.Dvne - Voidkind

2.Persefone - Lingua Ignota: Part I

3.Eternal Storm - A Giant Bound To Fall

4.Cave Sermon - Divine Laughter

5.Dark Oath - Ages Of Man

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I reckon 735 albums in the first 6 months of this year is a 6-month record I will never match, but let's see how many I get through in Q3 and Q4

1.Bees Made Honey In The Vein Tree - Aion

2.Meridian Sun - The Curse

3.The Gorge - Mechanical Fiction

4.Earthside - Let The Truth Speak

5.Wayfarer - American Gothic

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Same deal as always - scenes if I somehow manage to break the 1200-album record I hit last year

1.Sermon - Of Golden Verse

2.Ne Obliviscaris - Exul

3.Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent

4.Enslaved - Heimdal

5.Moonreich - Amer

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I've played somewhere in the region of 1200 albums this year - there's been a lot of great stuff among them, so this will not be an easy list to narrow down - I'd like to say I can be stricter than the 25 I had in last year's list, but to be honest I feel like the competition for 25 spots is more intense this time around, so I'll stick to that (making this the top 2% of albums I heard this year) - shoutouts to Gloson, The Nest, Sum Of R, Process Of Guilt, Dysnostic and Aeviterne, who probably would have had good shots of making it onto this list if I'd made the time to revisit them more. Also shoutout to Laere and Euphrosyne, whose EPs in Clandestine Cuts indicate exceedingly promising futures

1.Psychonaut - Violate Consensus Reality

2.Disillusion - Ayam

3.Persefone - Metanoia

4.Kardashev - Liminal Rite

5.Shadow Of Intent - Elegy

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Fell just shy of 100 albums per month for the first half of the year, I imagine I won't be matching that but let's try to get to a full 1000 albums for the year at least.

1.Psychonaut - Violate Consensus Reality

2.Disillusion - Ayam

3.An Abstract Illusion - Woe

4.Panzerfaust - The Suns Of Perdition - Chapter III: The Astral Drain

5.Wake - Thought Form Descent

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Honestly curious to see if I get anywhere near 2021's ludicrous album count (~900) this year; should hopefully be some very high-scoring albums in the first couple of months, but otherwise let's hope for some good stuff this year!

Edit: Somehow managed to reach the list character limit, so going to delete some of the comments

1.Persefone - Metanoia

2.Hath - All That Was Promised

3.Rolo Tomassi - Where Myth Becomes Memory

4.Playgrounded - The Death Of Death

5.Kardashev - Liminal Rite

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Hitting somewhere within the region of 900 new albums that I've heard released in 2021, I've consumed a frankly ridiculous amount of music this year; I reckon things will return to a slightly more sensible level in 2022, but for now, these are the most impactful records from this year. I'd say the number of albums that truly stuck with me from this year is lower than 2020, but there were still gems to be found in 2021.

1.Between The Buried And Me - Colors II

2.Dvne - Etemen Ænka

3.Heliocentric - Ishmael

4.Trivium - In The Court Of The Dragon

5.Spaceslug - Memorial

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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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After clocking well over 700 albums in 2020, I'm hoping 2021 will be a bit busier IRL and thus slightly less comprehensively covered in these lists, but let's see - with all the new strains emerging, who TF knows when we might return to a semblance of normality. Until then, I'll be trying to make sure that nothing noteworthy passes my radar.

1.Vulgaris - Asundre

2.Dvne - Etemen Ænka

3.Heliocentric - Ishmael

4.Decline Of The I - Johannes

5.Dordeduh - Har

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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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Just about finished the first half of the year without losing too much to the character limit; I have learnt to make these list descriptions increasingly pithy

1.Enslaved - Utgard

2.Wills Dissolve - Echoes

3.Wayfarer - A Romance With Violence

4.Aversio Humanitatis - Behold The Silent Dwellers

5.Lucid Planet - Lucid Planet II

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If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I'm not broke yet.

Character limit maxed in mid-May (lockdown increased my music intake too much), so needed to cut down some entries.

I also gave up listing all the potential MSA candidates I ploughed through in late December

1.Psychonaut - Unfold The God Man

2.Elder - Omens

3.Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Ascension

4.Pure Reason Revolution - Eupnea

5.Barishi - Old Smoke

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I began this decade in my final year of high school, in the early phases of my metal journey (Mastodon, Machine Head, Dream Theater, Pantera and Avenged Sevenfold were still recent discoveries). One Masters degree and one PhD later, I'm now a tax-paying Londonian, and have ploughed through what must be comfortably over 2000 new releases during the previous ten years. To commemorate the end of a turbulent decade, I've put together a list of the albums that have stuck with me throughout this decade - I wouldn't consider this to be a 'best albums' list, as there have been some truly ingenious works released in more avant-garde territories, but ultimately these are the albums that have ended up dominating my listening habits, or otherwise making a sufficient impression to make this list.

1.Sylosis - Monolith

2.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

5.Cult Of Luna - Vertikal

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I've just turned 27, I guess if I'm lucky I'll live long enough to finish this list.

1.Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

2.Schammasch - Hearts Of No Light

3.Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond The Dark

4.Disillusion - The Liberation

5.Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence

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