Listmania: Metal Noise Top #5 Albums of 2021!

After yesterday’s run down of our top #5 EPs which was a serious challenge, today’s focus is the albums and whittling them down from our list of 365 reviewed this year has near impossible with a cigarette paper width between some of them. It was close. But like any list you have to be decisive or risk ending up with a list as long as your arm. Trivium, Arcaeon, Ghost Iris and more could have been here and are worthy mentions, but none the less, here are records that we kept coming back to time and time again this year after reviewing them.

Starting with the oldest first, we rewind the tape back to February and the self titled album from Spanish Thrash Gods Angelus Apatrida. Tearing through your eardrums like the Tasmanian Devil on steroids, it’s record full of raging, rampaging riffs delivered at breakneck speed and gives the likes of Machine Head a run for their money.

The highly anticipated debut album “Culling Culture” from Vexed was so long awaited that their were whispers that it might not happen for the Technical Deathcore quartet before it hit us like being broadsided by a Juggernaut. They even surprised with a few Progressive touches towards the tail end of it and if all is right in the World it should take them wherever they want to go.

Our third choice just so happens to be “My Dystopia” by Mortyfear, an unhinged, chaotic and haunting classic full of nightmarish tales  from Finland. The cinematic quality to the material would make for a fantastic soundtrack to a psychological horror film with icy cold moments.

Which takes us to “Somnambulant Foregoer”, the debut album from Los Angeles Californian Progressive Technical Death Metal outfit Delphian. They bring plenty of Groove, intricate riffs and from Kevin Talley one of the finest performances from behind the kit we’ve heard in a long time.

A rich tapestry with flamboyance and breathtaking moments, Dimman announced themselves as Finnish Kings looking to conquer with their debut “Songs And Tales Of Grievance” that combines the achingly beautiful vocals of Jenna Kohtala with the throat splitting ones of Valtteri Halkola over some of the finest Melodic Death Metal music around…