AllMusic 2016 Year in Review
Favorite Metal Albums
The finest and heaviest releases in the metal world this year included Nails' line-drawing You Will Never Be One Of Us, Meshuggah's mighty The Violent Sleep of Reason, and the Dillinger Escape Plan's swan song, Dissociation.
The tenth LP from the pillaging and plundering Viking metal horde is also their first concept album.
All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us
An icy blast of politically charged apocalypse theater delivered by a band surveying the ruins below from their creative peak.
Powerfully cathartic debut from the genre-defying Massachusetts band that combines black metal, thrash, shoegaze, and dream pop into a dizzying blend.
Sophomore set from the Ohio metalcore outfit that turns its fury outward on a collection of cathartic, visceral anthems.
A straight-up haymaker of an album; an oil-stained middle finger rising out of the brackish water of a swamp forest.
This unwieldy mix of post-hardcore, post-grunge, punk, prog, folk, and yes, black metal exists in its own dark universe.
The veteran alt-metal quintet refuses to rest on the laurels of legacy with an enthralling juxtaposition of the pretty and the pummeling.
Devin Townsend / Devin Townsend Project
The prolific Canadian musical polymath surrenders total control to collaboration on the brilliant follow-up to Sky Blue.
Even in a catalog noted for its concept albums and sprawling ambition, this two-plus-hour rock opera pushes the band's envelope.
After four years away, this East Coast trio deliver some of their knottiest, most adventurous compositions to date.
An inward looking, but undeniably pugilistic blast of no-frills might that should please longtime fans and newcomers alike.
The French extreme metallers take a bold step forward into new territory, experimenting with melody, groove, shorter songs, more straightforward structures, and actual singing.
Muscular to the point of T-shirt ripping, and punishing enough to incite an arrest warrant.
The Seattle-based trio delivers both might and magic via an 11-track blast of glacial post-rock/stoner metal grandeur.
Obliterating genre boundaries, the Michigan quartet combines electronica, hip-hop, pop hooks, emo passion, and metalcore fury on their dizzyingly inventive fifth effort.
The Virginia quintet delivers a 71-minute behemoth of intense, devastating heavy music as darkly beautiful as it is ambitious.
The nu-metal godfathers make a welcome return to basics on their best album in a decade.
For their third LP, Kvelertak flex their greasepaint-lined NWOBHM muscles via a savage, nine-track set of Valhallic party anthems
Visceral and divine, this eighth album from the Italian goth metal vets excites and breathes life into their catalog.
The band's 15th studio album reveals a reinvigorated Dave Mustaine and a new lineup with Lamb of God drummer Chris Adler.
On this killer live-in-the-studio date, the veteran Swedes capture the ferocity and technical prowess of their concerts.
A vital and unrelenting set of high-caliber hardcore ragers that celebrate the worst that humanity has to offer.
In the second volume of their Transylvanian Trilogy, the Romanian legends deliver a welcome -- and sorely needed -- return to form.
In their 30th year, the San Francisco post-metal pioneers show no signs of creative dearth with a relatively brief, creatively abundant offering.
The extreme metal superband offers a more organic follow-up to Mutations and achieves creative symbiosis in the process.
The Swedish band's 12th studio album tautly balances prog rock and traces of its historic past while traveling in new directions.
![Desire's Magic Theatre [Deluxe Edition]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0004537778/front/400/eeGHlBgEvfnoGepJnKvK-CpQg_7iAU1wjqLgK_xGXts=.jpg)
Desire's Magic Theatre [Deluxe Edition]
The mercurial Londoners cast an aural net of kaleidoscopic doom/wonder that manages to touch on nearly every facet of the psych-rock playbook.
The Portland-based doom metal duo successfully incorporate hip-hop and dance elements into their sludgy, punishing sound.
The revered and eclectic New Jersey mathcore ensemble release their sixth and final album.
Creating a palpable aura of fear, dread, and despair, this music is like a black hole that sucks all the light out of the room.
On this date, Tennessee metal outfit deliver a further evolution, offering something for everybody, including themselves.
The sophomore full-length by this Swedish duo is more balanced and diverse than its predecessor, and pays homage to (nearly) the entire history of metal.
This most fully realized album to date from the Singapore grind merchants sees them standing tall with the biggest names in the genre.
The band's seventh studio album bristles with the zeal of a recently escaped inmate.