BAD TASTE! LOUD RIFFS! TOO MUCH CUM!
Delain
Apocalypse & Chill balances glossy modern textures with strong melodies, even when its long runtime softens the impact.
Amorphis
Amorphis transform death metal through Finnish folk melody and mournful keyboards on a landmark album that remains strange and absorbing.
Jinjer
Macro is full of striking performances and sharp contrasts, but its emotional and musical fragments rarely form a convincing whole.
Wind Rose
Wintersaga turns a tightly defined fantasy-metal identity into huge hooks, brisk pacing and near-constant replay value.
HammerFall
HammerFall deliver sturdy choruses and bright steel, but Dominion spends too long marching through familiar territory.
Children Of Bodom
Children of Bodom at full velocity: vicious, melodic, absurdly catchy and nearly flawless in its balance of hooks and aggression.
Sabaton
The Great War is compact, rhythmically sturdy and hook-heavy, though Sabaton’s formula occasionally turns history into assembly-line spectacle.
Eluveitie
Ategnatos contains flashes of Eluveitie’s old force, but its crowded arrangement and uneven pacing blunt the impact.
Arsis
Technically dazzling melodic death metal that impresses immediately, though its relentless density eventually becomes exhausting.
Emperor
A landmark of symphonic black metal: vast, hostile and atmospheric, with grandeur outweighing its occasional murk.
Beast In Black
From Hell with Love turns shameless synth-metal excess into a near-perfect sequence of hooks, riffs and heroic nonsense.
Gamma Ray
Gamma Ray’s cosmic power metal marathon delivers speed and strong choruses, but its bloated running order weakens the impact.