Here we are at Part Four of this blog series.  It’s blazing by.  Even though it seems like a lot of work, it’s going by fast, and I am still enjoying writing it.  This blog/site is much more enjoyable now that I get to share personal taste, rather than technical reviews of new albums.  Reviews are useful for promotion, and I still enjoy doing “mini reviews”.  But sharing personal experiences feels much more rewarding and authentic.  I feel like these lists of my favorite albums make it easier to understand my taste if I wish to return to reviews.  However, after completing these lists and other writing projects, including my first book, I may be taking a sabbatical from writing.  This sabbatical will be to pursue other projects such as music, an Instagram page of hobbies, and video projects.  I haven’t decided.  I am not sure what the rest of the year holds for me.  My family and I plan on moving to the city for better access to amenities, healthcare, and shows!  So, that may take up most of my time.  I can’t wait to see where this year takes me.  I am open to any positive change.  It has been an immensely challenging ten years for my family and me, and we are ready to make the changes needed to improve our lives.  None of that will be done without music, however.  And, I don’t plan to ever stop writing about music and sharing my passion in the most genuine way possible.

So, here are the next ten albums of my favorite Heavy Metal albums of all time.  As with any post, taste is subjective.  I am not aiming to list the greatest albums of all time.  These are my favorite albums.  These albums are inherent to my life through memories tied to them.  Music should always make you feel something.  Seek out poignant, deeply resonating, and impactful music that isn’t just about dancing the night away or leaving your significant other.  If you need fun music with lighthearted energy, I get it.  I listen to it, too, especially while writing romantic arcs in my books and stories.  But when it comes to music with depth, Metal is my home to find cerebral, philosophical, and empathetic music.  There’s nothing that resonates more with me than Metal music.  Maybe if more people realize the power of heavy music and Metal, the world will be a kinder and caring place.  Anything that forces you to think differently and see outside of yourself is important.  I recommend listening to these albums at least once in your life.  Who knows, one of these albums could change your life, as they have utterly changed mine for the better.

21. Beyond- Omnium Gatherum (2013)

As a fan of Melodic Death Metal, it’d be expected to see At the Gates or In Flames on this list.  As I said in the intro, conventional is not my jam.  While I love those bands and appreciate their contribution to the genre, I have to go with another band for my top thirty.  Omnium Gatherum is a band I could listen to their music for an entire month and not tire of it.  Having the pleasure of seeing this band live four times now, their energy is unmatched in Melodeath.  They bring a completely different atmosphere to a typically nihilistic or melancholy sub genre.  Gothenburg Melodeath was a huge revelation for me in my metal journey.  This genre is unlike anything else ever created.  With bands like Arch Enemy, Insomnium, The Haunted, early Carcass, Dark Tranquility, and more, this genre is a cornucopia of offerings and moods.  Omnium Gatherum is like the sun in an otherwise nocturne arena of music.   They’re a breadth of ambiance, speed, and empowerment.  Other bands of the genre are desolate and decimate your emotions, transporting you to the deep, snowy forests of Scandinavia and Finland.  Omnium transports you to places in the skies, the embrace of a long-lost loved one, and the warmth of a fire.  These positive and emotive themes are more my style these days.  While I enjoy and require the catharsis that dark, angry, and depressive music can only provide, uplifting music creates a balance in my listening habits that is extremely beneficial.  Some days, you need battle music or sounds that lift you to conquer whatever you’re dreading.  Omnium Gatherum provides that vehemently.  

Beyond is an album that is difficult to describe.  The album is cavernous in emotion and soaring sounds, and some of the deepest gutturals on the planet.  I would’ve never thought Melodeath could be innately soulful.  Beyond has more heart than most typical Metal records, and Markus Vanhala is the blood that fuels that heart.  His melodic presence on the guitar is unmatched.  He creates melodies that stick in your head for months while balancing the heaviness and Speed Metal themes.  He is forever on my favorite guitarist list.  His tone, his phrasing, and his ability to let the music breathe and not overwhelm it are all spectacular qualities I love about Vanhala.  I also enjoy his clean vocals.  There is something deeply profound and gratifying about the guitars, synths, and overall sonic atmosphere on Beyond.  It definitely sounds as if you’ve ascended to heaven and are attempting to make peace with what you’ve left behind.  It also combines the 80s synths of Rush’s Moving Pictures and modern Melodeath and speed metal all in one raw package.  I absolutely love the airiness of this record.  It is immensely heavy but extremely beautiful.  There’s a romanticism to Omnium Gatherum’s music that shines on this album.  It’s a sound I can easily get lost in.  It’s immersive.  It doesn’t get choppy or repetitive.  It smoothly flows from track to track.  The composition is peak.  The little instrumental pre-choruses and verse intros to bridges are masterful, and not a common construction in today’s music.  

The personal connection I have with this album, yet again, goes back to spending time with my older brother.  This is an album we would put on repeat whilst driving to concerts, playing video games, making art, or just working in the same room.  Every time I went to stay at his house between 2013 and 2016, it seemed like we had this album on.  I don’t know what it is about this band, but they’ve always brought us together.  The memory we still joke about to this day is when we first saw Omnium Gatherum at the Bluebird Theater in Denver, Colorado.  I had come to his house the day before Friday, and he was working a half day.  He wanted to show me a game before we left to go to the concert.  We had this album playing, of course, and it was on the epic last track, White Palace, when his PC suddenly hard locked, and the sound of Jukka’s signature Cookie Monster-like growl was stuck on repeat.  It created an unforgettable cacophony of Death Metal growls that is irreplicable and utterly hilarious.  I laughed for months about this horrifying sound of a computer dying to the soundtrack of Omnium Gatherum.  Since then, we’ve seen Omnium three more times, and each time we’ve screamed “White Palace” right before the band comes on. It is one of our many music-related inside jokes that I will never forget. 

Favorite songs: New Dynamic, In The Rim, Who Could Say,  The Unknowing

22. Zenith- Seven Kingdoms (2022)

Seven Kingdoms is one of my favorite bands of all time for their speedy technicality, throwback 80s sound, and uniquely emotional Power Metal.  This Florida-based band has blended Symphonic, Power, Heavy Metal, Speed Metal, and Hair Metal with Game of Thrones-inspired lyrics since 2007.  It was 2009 when powerhouse vocalist Sabrina Cruz joined the band as lead vocalist and made the band completely soar.  They signed to Napalm Records for their second album, first with Sabrina at the helm, and the self-titled album was something truly different from anything we’d ever heard before.  Seven Kingdoms brings a flair that is unique in the “New Wave of Femme Metal”, which is overrun by a lot of Symphonic Metal with technicality and orchestral elements, but not as much heart.  Seven Kingdoms got out from under the pretenses of their contract with Napalm Records after 2017, and this is when the band shot into my radar.  This gave them complete control and freedom over the music they truly wanted to make.  This led the band to go crowdfunding the making of their albums and pay for big tours with Powerwolf, Unleash The Archers, and headlining tours.  Seven Kingdoms’ story is harrowing and awe-inspiring to me.  My respect for this band is “Neverending”, and the incredible quality of Zenith in 2022 only made my love for this band grow exponentially.

Zenith is an epic Space Heavy Metal record with insane technicality, speedy dueling guitars, and quality soaring vocals that you cannot get anywhere else.  This album is an absolute workhorse.  It pummels with riff after riff and hook after hook, unapologetically nodding to the 1980s while adding modern twists.  This band has immense energy.  It’s completely tangible and infectious.  From start to finish, this album is a supernova of emotive vocals and dynamic riffs.  This album is literally a monument to how hard this band has worked.to get back from a low point in Power Metal and personal strife.   Power Metal has taken a lot of hits from the Metal community over the past decade for being “trite”, “cheesy”, or “formulaic”.  The fixation on the elitism of sub genres is truly mystifying to me.  Seven Kingdoms isn’t simply just a Power Metal band, and the sub genre is as fantastic as it has ever been because of them.  This album has a little bit of everything and dares to break all the rules of Modern Metal.  It’s not a chugging, down-tuned, incoherent sound; It’s huge Arena sounds with no filler and no filter.  It’s refreshing after so much Deathcore and Metalcore to come back to clean Power Metal with no bull.  Variety is key to my listening habits, and Zenith is a cornucopia of different influences and sounds.  It ranges from Proggy Power Metal, to speed metal, to space-age Star One style, to 1980s Arena Metal.  I love every song on this record individually, and together, it creates a one-of-a-kind listening experience.

 Zenith is a record for anyone who’s fallen to their lowest point and is trying to climb out. It is incredibly impactful, and that is definitely due to Sabrina Cruz’s incredibly powerful vocals.  Her delivery is soul-deep with intent and fantastic diction.  Every word is sung with power and feels heavy coming out of the singer’s lungs.  There’s something immensely profound about the way Sabrina sings that is unlike anything I’ve ever heard in Metal.  She has a twang to her voice that reminds me of 1970s Southern Rock, giving a homey, comforting feel to the music.  This quality sets them apart and catches your ear upon the first note.  She is one of the favorite vocalists of all time, regardless of genre.  There’s nobody like her, and there’s nothing quite like Seven Kingdoms.   Hopefully, Power Metal comes back in a big way, and Seven Kingdoms is carrying the torch.  This band deserves 110% more recognition than they receive, and I am hoping in time, more people will discover this diamond of a band.

Favorite songs: Love Dagger, Diamond Handed, A Silent Remedy

23. The Black Album- Metallica (1991)

Yes, I chose Metallica’s “sell-out” album for my favorite Metal album list.  Predictable for a ’90s kid?  Maybe so.  Nostalgia or number of plays aside, The Black album or Self-Titled album is always going to be one of my favorite Metal Records.  The notion of a made-up concept of “selling out” is one I have never believed in when it comes to the world of Heavy Music.  Heavy music since the fall of Hair Metal in the late 80s/early 90s has struggled to find huge commercial success for the most part.  Metallica has stayed successful because of their ability to create the Metal people want to listen to.  It’s the Metal we grew up with in a shinier, more compact package without bloat or flashiness.  If they dropped the raw Thrashiness of their sound like on Master of Puppets, then so be it.  No band can be successful without reinvention, it’s not possible.  I never wanted a part two of their older records.  I’ve never been a huge fan of Thrash Metal and despise the elitism the genre’s fans have created around it.  The Black Album is a perfect mix of Thrash, classic Metallica sounds, and a 90s Heavy Metal sound that set it apart from Grunge, which was huge at the time.  To me, Metallica didn’t sell out.  They did what they’ve always done; they dared to be different and were heard by the masses with emotive Heavy Metal.  And, it worked well.  Maybe it’s because I was probably listening to this album before I was even born, when my mom was still carrying me.  Maybe it’s because I rediscovered this album at the age of 13, and I learned some songs on my very first bass a year later.  But I love this album and always will have a soft spot for it, even though I barely listen to Metallica these days.

While I’ve grown out of Metallica in general, going back to this album and experiencing it again after 10 years is a refresher on my journey.  I’ve always loved metal, but this band was on a whole other level for me as a young kid.  Their live shows that got uploaded to YouTube were so influential to me.  I will never forget watching those with my cousins at all hours of the night in the summer.  We idolized this band, and they were the pinnacle of Metal to us then.  These were some of the first live Metal concerts I was exposed to.  Many firsts came for me with Metallica.  Their music just makes you feel unstoppable.  It’s powerful.  It’s a shot of testosterone.  It’s heavy, but also melodic and emotive.  It’s complex; not just your typical angry Thrash album, it’s meaningful to me personally.  It goes back as far as I can remember.  My brother and mom loved this album, and it was a part of the most formative years of my life.  I get chills every single time I listen to Nothing Else Matters.  This song is at the very core of what I love about Metal: the emotion and meaning that Metal can only harbor for me.  They dared to be vulnerable and soft.  They dared to be brash, heavy, and loud, and then completely melt you with ballads.  This mix is why I love Metal, and I don’t think I knew that until revisiting this album.  This album influenced me inherently, but also brought Heavy Metal back to the mainstream, and that contribution should never be taken lightly.  The Black Album has sold seven million copies domestically.

The instrumentation overall is fantastic on this record.  To me, this is Metallica’s tightest album.  They just sound like one heartbeat in perfect synchronization.  The Black Album was purged of all the lengthy instrumental parts and the attempts at speed metal in earlier albums.  I think if Metallica had switched drummers, maybe they would have progressed with the speedy Thrash influences.  Lars Ulrich is a basic beat drummer.  He is good at creating a pocket and a backbone, but speed and progression are not his strong suits.  The Black Album fits his style to a T.  I will never say he’s a bad drummer, because he never misses a beat and always keeps time even when Hammett is going off on his solos.  He may not be up to my ridiculously high standards, but The Black Album is flawless in the rhythm section.  My favorite part about this album is the bass.  Jason Newstead was tasked with the impossible role of Metallica’s bassist after the tragic loss of Cliff Burton in 1986.  He shines on this album.  My Friend Of Misery is one of my most influential bass lines of all time and one I still warm up with to this day.  I will never forget spending countless hours learning this album entirely on bass and cutting my chops as a heavier vocalist.

The Black album contributed to a lifetime of memories with friends and family members and influenced some of my favorite bands like Epica, The Warning, Parkway Drive, Eluveitie, Unleash the Archers,  and countless more.  I once again can appreciate this album is a whole new light and enjoy listening to it.

Favorite songs: The Struggle Within, Nothing Else Matters, My Friend of Misery

24. Dragonslayer- Dream Evil (2002)    

Dream Evil is another band from my early teen years.  I am not sure how, but my brother discovered them around the same time as Hammerfall and Lacuna Coil.  We had just moved back to Colorado from Arizona in 2004, two years after Dragonslayer came out.  This album was played heavily by my brother, and it still sits in his giant CD player in his truck.  If there’s a significant music memory worth writing down for me, you can almost always bet my brother, and driving around in his truck is a part of it.  There’s a story behind every album and song for me, as it is the way for most people, and that’s why music is so powerful.  It can become a part of an era of your life, or just a moment, or at a certain age.  This era for me was sound tracked by the bands my brother discovered in College as well as the Pop Punk I was exposed to on MTV and Fuse.  These bands were a huge comfort in a very chaotic and uncertain time in my life.  Looking back now, music is one of the only things besides movies that helped me feel comfortable in a new house, a new school, and new friends.  That’s a powerful connection that I didn’t even realize I had with music back then.  So, my music journey truly started when I was just eleven years old.  I’ve been emotionally attached to music a lot longer than expected.

Another band on this list from the Metal Mecca of Gothenburg, Sweden, Dream Evil is one of those essential Power Metal bands that have written Metal anthems.  Their song “The Book of Heavy Metal (March of the Metallians)” is a song featured in many intros for Wacken Open Air.  The legendary band was formed in 1999 by rhythm guitarist and main writer Fredrik Nordstrom, who quickly recruited the absolute beast of a lead guitarist, Gus G of Firewind.  While he was only in the band for nearly six years, he made his mark on the sensational sound that became Dream Evil.  If you don’t know who Gus G is, he is a virtuoso guitarist with NeoClassical influences and Yngwie meets EVH shredding.  He is one of my top twenty favorite guitarists of all time.  He has played on so many fantastic Metal albums, including a stint with the Metal God Ozzy Osbourne from 2009 to 2016, before launching his mega-successful solo career.  He attributed my favorite Dream Evil and Firewind records before the age of 20.  Gus was a huge influence on the success of Dream Evil, but what continued my love for them is lead singer Niklas Isfeldt.  Niklas’s vocal delivery is smooth, unwavering, and dynamic.  He is a storyteller, much like Dio, who is a huge influence on the band.  This is what makes Dream Evil a once-in-a-generation band.

Dragonslayer is an album that sounds exactly like the name and cover portray.  If you’re going on an epic quest to slay the dragon that’s been haunting your village for a century, or just battling an ungodly onslaught of rush hour traffic, this is an album you’d put on.  It is a soundtrack for the ages.  It is bombastic, energetic, and a nonstop barrage of riffs and crisp vocals.  This album is one of the few I would ever classify as a Masterpiece.  For me, this is one of the greatest Power Metal records ever created.  I consider it to be highly influential to today’s Power Metal because of its pristine production quality.  Not many records of that era had this level of meticulous mixing, and it meshes very well with my music OCD.  It sounds spectacular.  Every instrument is crystal clear and perfectly crunchy.  The bass is punchy.  The vocals occupy the midsection and meld well with tasteful choirs, reverb, and group vocals.  The drums are like an 1980s Arena Rock record, and it somehow works perfectly.  I love how damn good this album sounds.  The way it is engineered and written, it could’ve been released in 1985 or 2016, making it timeless in concept and sound.  I love the guitar work with tasteful but epic solos and crunchy driving rhythm.  Listening to this, I realize Seven Kingdoms reminds me of Dream Evil, and it makes me love both bands even more.  

Admittedly, the main reason I love Dragonslayer so much is a single song on the album. The Chosen Ones is one of my favorite songs of all time.  It mixes Symphonic Metal with Power, which is in my wheelhouse..  You add Niklas’s immense range and smoothness to it, and it just hits me in the gut every single time.  There’s a depth on this track that I hardly hear in Power Metal, let alone any genre of music.  It’s difficult to describe, but it’s as if a Knight has reserved himself to going to hell even after he saved his lands from a nasty dragon.  The emotion in it is so tangible, it takes you to the theme of the whole album and immerses you in it emphatically.  I love music that transcends time or reality and takes you to a fantasy land.  Dream Evil does that well with Dragonslayer.  I think it is a must-hear for any Heavy Metal Fan.

Favorite songs: The Chosen Ones, Save Us, The 7th Day

25. Atoma- Dark Tranquility (2016)

As a Melodeath fan, it is impossible to leave Dark Tranquility off of a Favorite album list.  They are a quintessential band; maybe part of the “Big 4” of Melodeath.  Dark Tranquility began in 1989 under the name “Septic Broiler” until 1990 when they changed their name.  The name change was a brilliant move.  I don’t think I could ever feel the same way about a band called Septic Broiler as I feel about Dark Tranquility.  Their name reflects exactly how their music sounds.  Dark Tranquility started in Gothenburg, Sweden, along with fellow trailblazing bands of the genre In Flames, Arch Enemy, and At the Gates. This “Big 4” changed music forever with an entirely new and unique brand of Metal.  It combined Thrash, Hardcore, Melodic Metal, and Death Metal in an utterly decimating way.  Melodeath is one of the most emotive subgenres in the scene, and Dark Tranquility with Mikael Stanne is a large contributor.  This band has a song for everyone who’s experienced something beautiful, something tragic, and painful memories that everyone holds within them.  It is pure brutality in poetry, and there’s nothing else like it on the planet.  Dark Tranquility is a rare beast indeed, as it is so rare that I love every album in a band’s long catalogue.  Each of Dark Tranquility’s albums is a diamond in the rough with immense meaning and excellent writing. 

The band has had many lineup changes over the years.  Even the original iteration had Anders Friden of In Flames on vocals and Stanne on guitar.  My favorite iteration of the band contained original guitarist Niklas Sundin.  There’s something about Niklas’ Speed Metal guitars that just drives Dark Tranquility’s energy through the roof.  He is also a brilliant album cover artist, doing nearly every album for DT, many for In Flames, Eternal Tears of Sorrow, and over fifty other bands, as well as layouts for Arch Enemy.  Niklas is an incredibly artistic and introspective person.  His contribution to Dark Tranquillity from the beginning will never be forgotten, and I don’t think the band will ever be the same without him.  I loved the new albums without Nilkas, but for me, nothing will ever compare to the artistry and mastery of Atoma.

Atoma is a poetic masterpiece that hooked me from the beginning.  Original bassist and rhythm guitarist of the band, Martin Henriksson left the band a year before Atoma was released, marking a huge change in the band’s lineup.  I don’t know if this sad departure of Henriksson had anything to do with the exceptional bleakness of Atoma, but it feels like Dark Tranquility hit its stride here.  Atoma is a bleak outlook on the decline of value in humanity.  For me, it reflects the deep resentment humanity has developed for itself.  It marks a split for me where humans no longer value each other, and those remaining with empathy stand alone.  This album revived the depth and love for Melodeath, after so many bands had disappointing departures in sound.  This album proved that Dark Tranquility is forever.  They are inseparable, regardless of how many original members leave.  Stanne has a huge hand in this band’s momentous sound and ability to stay profound and current.  He is one of my favorite vocalists of all time and one of the most underrated lyricists in music.  His lyrics and vocals on Atoma will forever remain in my heart as one of the most important albums in my life.  To this day, this album appears in my dreams as a soundtrack to anything from the world ending, horrifying events, and falling in love.  This album is peak Melodeath to me, and will always be my favorite Dark Tranquillity album.

Favorite songs: Atoma, Encircled, Clearing Skies

26. Seasons- Sevendust (2003)

Sevendust has been a mainstay of American Metal since 1994, but has never received the recognition that other bands like Mudvayne, Korn, and Godsmack have.  They’ve only received one Grammy nomination in 30 years of great songwriting.  It is a complete mystery as to why Sevendust isn’t as consistently successful and hasn’t received awards for its unique blend of Rock and Metal.  This band is hard to nail down by critics, making it hard to put them in a box of subgenres.  I think that’s why this band hasn’t been a bombshell of commercial success.  They’re different from their peers.  You can’t compare Sevendust to anybody else. I don’t think anyone sounds like them, not even close.  They’re a once-in-a-lifetime band that has its own style that can’t be replicated.  Bands that dare to mix styles and genres and be themselves unapologetically are my bread and butter.  Sevendust is one of those bands that dares to be different, and mixes soulful vocals with deep rhythmic groove, and I just can’t get enough of it after twenty years of listening to this band.

2003’s Seasons is a Nu-Metal album with progressive and groove elements and a gorgeous tone.  After the Grunge and Post-grunge parade of toneless and needlessly twangy vocalists, Sevendust’s Lajon Witherspoon brought a gorgeous raw tone that heavy music was lacking.  This album is full of aggressive riffs, groovy drum beats, and gorgeous vocals.  Out of all the vocal performances on any album besides Evanescence’s Fallen, Seasons is undoubtedly my favorite.  Songs like Suffocate and Honesty highlight Lajon’s range, as well as the multi-part harmony Sevendust uses.  Clint Lowery’s songwriting is a mountain on this record, it rises so high it’s nearly out of reach.  The dark moodiness of it was incredibly heavy and desolate for the times.  It was a lot more emotionally impactful for me compared to the other records of the time.  Disgrace is especially soul-turning with the vocals and tension in the guitar work.  It’s exceptionally moving, and the outro is one of the most devastating pieces of music of the decade.  Apart from that, this album is impossible not to headbang to.  The pocket Morgan Rose creates is one of the best things in Metal, and the band just flows so smoothly into it.  All of their records possess this quality, but Seasons is a uniquely tight record that sets itself apart from anything of the era.  

Seasons may not be the best drum record in Sevendust’s catalog,  but Morgan Rose remains one of my favorite drummers of all time.  He effortlessly blends Progressive beats with immense groove.  He always keeps you guessing what he’s going to do next.  He’s one of the biggest parts of Sevendust’s unique sound.  As co-writer and perfectly harmonized backing vocalist, he crafted Sevendust’s eclectic mix and added well-delivered harsh vocals.  This is all crucial to every song, but Face To Face is particularly a shining moment for this accomplished musician.  Enemy is also a great, typical Morgan Rose track.  I have no idea why this guy hasn’t gone viral for his live performances.  He is one of the best drummers I have ever seen live and is immensely fun to watch.  He adds so much character to Sevendust and an unpredictability you can only find in Jazz.  Sevendust is a special band, and Seasons will always be my favorite work from them.  Although their acoustic album,  Time Travelers & Bonfires, is a close second, I like the plugged-in punchiness of Seasons.

Favorite songs:  Suffocate, Honesty, Enemy

27. Fever- Bullet For My Valentine (2010)

Bullet For My Valentine is one of the biggest genre-defining bands of the early to mid Metalcore era.  They have crafted some of the most influential riffs and choruses in Modern Metal.  Their impact on the popular Metal scene spans two decades.  Metalcore, and bands included in the subgenre like Bullet For My Valentine, have received a bad wrap on the internet by Elitists.  To me, the hatred of a corporate genre term is ignorant and completely unfounded.  The massive umbrella that is Metal has way too many subgenres.  It is pitting groups against each other, which is what I believe the entire system is based on.  No one ever became rich and successful without competition, hence the constant need to put bands in a box to create division.   BMFV is one of those bands people either love or hate.   Whether it’s based on personal preference or the bandwagon to hate metalcore, I have received a bad wrap for liking this band, as well as other bands considered Metalcore.  I couldn’t care less what people think, because BMFV has some of the best riffs and songwriting in modern Metal.  

I love all of their albums, although the newer ones are not my favorite iteration. But Fever was a highly influential album to me while I was a Sophomore in High School.  The darkness and bravado of Fever spoke to me very deeply at the time.  It’s still a very chilling album today.  This album reminds me of Metallica’s “Black Album” in that it balances raw riffs, heartfelt vocals, and pummeling heaviness while remaining as catchy as Metalcore can achieve.  The balance of clean guitar melodies and down-picking riffs is one of my favorite aspects of Metal, and BMFV nailed it on Fever.  Matt Tuck and Michael Paget provide hooking, perfectly technical, and Thrashy riffs.  They provide a complimentary melody and chunky, groovy rhythms.  Fever is a treasure trove of hooks that forever stick.  It’s an album that sits on the cusp of “Emo”:  With beautiful, heart-wrenching melodies on Bittersweet Memories and A Place Where You Belong, it hits that niche explosion right in the gut.  While original fans of the band didn’t care for the departure on Fever compared to Scream Aim Fire, I found it to be a refreshing, diverse balance between the super heavy BMFV and Matt’s alt-metal style vocals.  I appreciate bands who want to evolve, and BMFV achieved this hugely on Fever.  It’s fast, punchy, gripping, and an extremely cohesive album.  A Place Where You Belong and Bittersweet Memories hit me every single time with the emotional diction of Matt Tuck and the melodic licks.  In High School, I lived a very isolated life.  I didn’t have many friends.  The friends I made in Middle School faded away with school changes and me coming out in a Lutheran school.  This album was a huge comfort and one of my earliest memories of an experience with catharsis.  This album helped me through the loneliness and find the Metal community online.

 I was never impressed with the “Emo” bands of the time, nor the Death Metal or many other Metalcore offerings.  BMFV hit in between these scenes, while keeping a classic Heavy Metal sound that peaked in the 1980s.  That era seemed more vocal-centric and replaced screams with good guitar playing.  Bullet dared to keep riffs pure and still put out shredding solos.  The music industry has been trying to kill good guitar playing and riffs since the 90s.  The Grunge era, despite Jerry Cantrell and Kim Thayil’s offerings, truly popularized lazy noisy riffs instead of technicality.  Metalcore in the early 2000s gave the industry the middle finger and made sick riffs and solos anyway.  That’s why my appreciation for Metalcore is so profound, and I choose not to believe the haters.  BMFV is a band that kept solid and clean guitar playing alive, along with bands like Killswitch Engage, Parkway Drive, and Trivium in the early 2000s.  I truly believe that kept Metal alive and kept it mainstream. 

Albums like Fever make me think that Grunge and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 didn’t kill Metal, like so many people and I originally thought.  Maybe Metal just evolved so much that not everyone was prepared for such a huge advancement and departure after Hair Metal.  Maybe BMFV and other industry leaders that were classified as Metalcore hit in between times and generations, and that’s why they get such a bad wrap.  They’re not just Heavy Metal, or Thrash, or Emo, or Metalcore, they’re their band that you can’t put in a box.  And when people can’t put something in a society-designated box, they get angry.  That’s becoming more apparent.  Our society is driven by emotion and immediate gratification, and hating on successful bands in the Metalcore scene seems to be a fun, quick, and easy way to get attention or confirmation bias.  Whether you like Bullet For My Valentine or not, you can’t deny that their albums have had a huge positive impact on the Metal scene for the past 20 years.  I will always appreciate their contributions and the memories I have tied with this legendary band.

28. Disarm the Descent- Killswitch Engage (2013)

I love Metalcore, especially the main bands that popularized the scene.  These bands have produced some incredibly meaningful music.  Killswitch Engage is the very first band I think of in Metalcore.  They are absolute trailblazers of Metal, bringing a new take on a blend of Melodic Metal and Death Metal.  They have a unique blend of screaming vocals, melodic vocals, and melodic guitars with chunky riffs.  Metalcore is an enormous genre, but to me, KSE  is the pinnacle right above Bullet For My Valentine.  The band started in 1999 in Massachusetts and began mixing Hardcore Punk, Heavy Metal, and Melodic Vocals.  They became local icons very early on, and rightfully so.  Their ability to combine so many good influences and put on fantastic, high-energy shows is legendary.  There were other bands in the scene doing similar things, and they’re great as well. But KSE’s songwriting and consistency make them stand out to me.  There’s a soulfulness to their music that speaks to me more than other bands of that early Metalcore scene.  Their depth to capture the forlornness of existence is

As Daylight Dies is one of the most iconic Metal albums ever released.  It is highly rated among three generations of Metal fans.  Howard Jones brought a new tone and flavor to heavy music that was unlike anything I’d ever heard before.  I’d been searching my entire life for music like KSE’s Melodic Metalcore. Their music is a huge influence on my music taste as well as my love for guitars and vocals. Songs like This is Absolution, The Arms of Sorrow, and My Curse put KSE in my top ten all-time favorite bands for fifteen years.  My brother and I discovered this band, as many others did, from the horror action hit Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack.  The song was The End of Heartache, and it blew my mind in 2004.  From there, it was all about KSE for a long time for me.  I don’t think I realized how huge and early on their impact was for me until I started this article.  While I didn’t choose the early albums for this list, they’re still a big deal in my life.  These albums helped shape Metal and take it in a new direction.  For me, this band has been instrumental in helping me overcome any obstacles I have faced.  I might’ve been too young at the time to fully understand it.  This band stayed with me.  As Daylight Dies will always be one of my favorite albums, but I didn’t pick it for this list.  Another album personally impacted me more than words can ever express.

KSE released Disarm the Descent when I was 20 years old.  It was a big time in my life.  I had just started treatment for the depression I’d been suffering from since High School.  I was just starting to realize my off and on long distance relationship was toxic.  I had just fallen back in love with soccer, specifically the United States’ Women’s National Team and the new budding National Women’s Soccer League.  I started getting back in shape and taking care of my mind, body, and spirit.  I left the toxicity behind.  And, Disarm the Descent was a soundtrack to my healing and growing.  This album was played every day for six months.  Whether it was for a road trip to see a game, a concert, or family, this album was in the car CD player.  While I was devastated that Howard Jones left KSE and music due to health problems, I quickly found a new bond with original singer Jesse Leach.  This guy is a force of nature.  His voice, scream, and lyrics are unmatched in Metal.. To compare anyone to Howard Jones is ridiculous, so I never compared the two singers.  I loved both iterations equally.  Disarm The Descent hit me at the right time, where I just wanted new KSE.  Little did I know, it’d become one of my favorite Metal records of all time.  

I’m glad I didn’t focus too much on the order of this list.  In order, this album should be much higher in importance.  It is vital to my mental health to this day.  I listen to this album, and it centers me every time..  No matter how chaotic or dark life gets, this album is a fire in the darkness.  It is a perfectly crafted storm of emotion and riffs, and brilliant dynamic vocals.  Every song gets better with time.  In Due Time is a hit for the ages with pure emotion, almost reading like a power ballad, but it’s a motivational speaker’s anthem.   It is one of the most inspiring songs of all time, especially for a late bloomer like me.  This album is written for anyone who’s ever struggled with inner demons.  Jesse Leach and the incomparable Adam D on lead guitars wrote one of the most profound albums.  I think a lot of people slept on this album, unfortunately, because this is the peak of their songwriting with Jesse.  Many Metalcore albums have tried to reach this songwriting depth, but I don’t think it’s possible.  Songs like The Hell In Me, A Tribute to the Fallen, and Always are among my favorite songs of all time.  These songs are masterpieces, for lack of a better word.  They are so epically satisfying for me to listen to.  They hit the perfect spot for me of heavy and melodic.  It’s emotional, lighter, and immensely inspiring.  I love this album and every single song.  KSE outdid themselves with this album.  Disarm the Descent is my favorite Metalcore album of all time.

29. The Storm Within- Evergrey (2016)

2016 is among my favorite years in music of the decade (2010-2020).  I feel like music took a big leap in innovation.  Prog peaked in 2016 with albums from Opeth, Haken, Porcupine Tree, Dream Theater, and so many more legendary bands.  This was a particularly good year for me, for the most part.  I was on fire with writing, attended some great shows, became close with my best friend, and we decided to go full-time to commit to moving out of my childhood home.  Things were looking up in the meantime.  Although I discovered that dealing with change is not one of my strong suits.  These changes and the amount of work I was putting into everything caused great anxiety.  I hadn’t had much anxiety since high school. 2016 was full of change and relationships that made me vastly uncomfortable.  That’s when Evergrey came into my life, and they lulled the anxiety more than any band before.  2016 was a bittersweet year.  While overall it had good points, the anxiety for me peaked here and didn’t calm until ten years later.  The Storm Within will always be a positive memory from this year, however.

When Evergrey released The Storm Within, I was doing a lot of music reviews.  I received this album from Napalm Records’ promo list.  I had never heard of the band and was excited to find something new.  What caught my interest about the album was two tracks featuring the great Floor Jansen, who was my favorite singer at the time.  The song In Orbit immediately caught my ear.  This was the first song I listened to from Evergrey.  I was blown away by Tom Englund’s soaring and soulful vocals and the bluesy guitar solos.  The bridge is truly one of my favorite pieces of music ever written.  From there, I was hooked on The Storm Within.  Distance perfectly sums up any long-distance relationship with tasty chugging guitars and a Pantera-like groove.  I could listen to this song as well as In Orbit on repeat for days, and never tire of it.  They give me butterflies and back-of-the-head chills with every single listen.  There is something deeply special about Evergrey’s music.  The heartfelt diction of Tom Englund’s voice and smooth delivery is what makes it special.  It is a melodic triumph.  Their music hits an emotionally similar place as The Police’s Every Breath You Take, Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence, Nights In White Satin by the Moody Blues, and Nina Simone’s cover of House of the Rising Sun.  It is difficult to describe Evergrey.  It’s a unique experience with music.  The song that explodes this sentiment into the atmosphere is The Paradox of the Flame, a ballad featuring the gorgeous vocals of sister Carina Englund.  This song is one of the most devastatingly beautiful things I have ever heard.

Evergrey’s songwriting is masterful to my ears.  They can cover such a range of influences from Doom, to Symphonic, to Hard Rock, to Prog Metal.  This band can bend any genre to make a song impactful.  Their music stays with you.  It’s a lingering thought, like a dream you remember for the rest of your life.  The Storm Within is one of those perfect albums that only come once in a lifetime.  I have no idea why it didn’t go Platinum in most countries.  It deserves far more credit and recognition than it has ever received.  This album deserves radio play.  It deserves awards.  But like with anything beautiful and deep, it falls under the radar.  Corporate music thrives on quick money, something basic and formulaic that is a crowd pleasure.  If they put the same budget into promoting bands like Evergrey, the payoff would be immeasurable over time.  I truly believe that bands like Evergrey deserve more recognition.  More people just need to give this music a chance, because it might change their lives.  Maybe with music so profound and all encompassing, the obsessive need to take in social media, politics, news, and be overwhelmed by the negativity of society would fade.  This music has a chance to impact humanity, and I wish people would realize the gravity and quality of Evergrey.

30. Abrahadabra- Dimmu Borgir (2010)

2012 was a big year for me in Music.  It was also the year I graduated from High School and decided to skip college.  The discovery of European music had me on a high.  It seemed Euro Metal was on a roll, as well as my love for Stone Sour, Evanescence, and Halestorm.  My taste was highly evolving, and that opened me up to the world of Death Metal.  Cradle of Filth, Epica, Insomnium, System Divide, and Dimmu Borgir came into my radar.  I went to Colorado Springs to see Halestorm headline a show at the famous local dive bar, The Black Sheep.  It is one of the last small venues Halestorm ever played.  It was a great show.  From there, I spent a week with my brother on a summer vacation.  This is when more music discoveries happened that would forever change my life.  Getting into Death Metal in 2012 would impact my music taste and my life for the foreseeable future.  Death Metal and its subgenres would go on from 2012 to inspire me almost more than any genre of music in my lifetime.  I had already experienced forms of it with Fear Factory, Early Within Temptation, and After Forever, but Dimmu Borgir took my appreciation to a whole new level.

Abrahadabra is a Symphonic Death Metal album that combines the drama of Mozart with Norwegian Black and Death Metal.  The mix has a shock factor to it, which made it popular in early reaction videos, especially the live performances with an orchestra.  Dimmu Borgir took two very intense sections of music and combined them.  This mix is brilliant to me.  Both aspects have to be truly technically perfect to work, and Dimmu Borgir is just on the money with it.  Gateways blew my mind from the get-go.  The speed of this song was unlike anything I’d ever heard.  Fear Factory is fast, but Dimmu Borgir’s blast beats just seemed even faster to me back then.  Combine this with a cluster of shrill violins, horns, and a choir, and it’s a match made in heaven (or more fittingly in this context, a match made in hell).  The costumes and face paint added another thing to the grand and horrific ambience of Dimmu Borgir to me, and it hooked me.  It was like a perfect soundtrack to Dante’s The Divine Comedy: Inferno.  Abrahadabra is the first Death Metal album I ever purchased.  This album led me to countless more discoveries..

Gateways was literally a gateway to a whole new world for me.  This track featured vocals from Agnete Kjølsrud.  Her vocals are some of the most harsh and interesting vocals I’ve ever heard to this day.  She sounds like a priestess right from hell or an imp.  And her scream on this just completely blew my mind.  I’d never heard a woman sing like that.  I think this is one of the most important discoveries in my life, because it led me to find more female vocalists like her.  I think this opened me up to the world of female harsh vocals.  This was an origin story for me.  Honestly, if I’d never heard this song, I don’t think my uncorrupted brain would’ve been open to bands like Arch Enemy, Spiritbox, Jinjer, and most importantly Ankor.  I had always loved harsh vocals deep down.  I’d been doing them as a joke since I was a kid, because my brother dabbled in harsh vocals as a teen, and I thought it was hilarious.  When I started taking it seriously, harsh vocals became one of my favorite things in my life.  Deep down, I always wonder if it’s something I should pursue as my small pension to be able to do them in multiple types and ranges without much effort.  Regardless of whether I ever pursue them, Agnete will always be a huge influence on me.

While Abrahadabra wasn’t a hugely emotional album for me, it lured me into more Technical, darker, Neo-Classical influenced Metal.  Their proficiency at what they do is still mind-blowing.  I love to watch people in Music, sports, and Art who are at the pinnacle of their craft.  Dimmu Borgir is one of those bands that is just perfect live, despite the chaotic nature of their music.  While this album wasn’t well received by Dimmu Borgir’s cult of fans or critics, I still think it’s their best contribution to music.  This is still one of my favorite Death Metal records of all time.  I will be forever grateful to my brother and Dimmu Borgir for exposing me to this extreme form of art and music.  My life would not be as joyous, cultured, or well-balanced without it.

What are your favorite Metal albums? Let me know below!