No disrespect whatsoever to all-time metal greats such as Mastodon, Gojira and Between the Buried and Me, to name but a few who put out. The most furious, brutal and extreme albums that offered an assault on the senses: these are the 10 best death metal albums of 2021 (Image credit: Press) From the hellish shrieks of blackened death metal to the technical ecstasy of the tech-death scene and beyond, death metal's landscape teems with life in the 2020s. Like my best bud Axl, 2021 was the year I officially grew bored of all the bands you might expect to see on year-end lists (and you’ll likely see elsewhere). In a world of down-tuned melodic death metal, Summoning the Lich brave the storm in standard tuning, delivering a layered assault of string skipping, tremolos, blast beats and putrid vocals bound together by black magic. Vince Neilstein’s Top 15 Metal Albums of 2021. NovemI don’t think there’s any disagreement about it: 2021 has been a very weird year. Throw in gems by veterans like the Foo Fighters, 59-year-old literary country-rock artist James McMurtry, and (get yours, Eighties-metal kids) Iron Maiden, and the weekly clip of must-hear stuff was as bountiful as it’s ever been. What do you get when Summoning the Lich write an album You get United in Chaos, the best record of 2021. The 25 Best Metal Albums of 2021 by Jeff Terich. Perhaps most exciting was the continuous arrival of wonderful records by truth-telling women from throughout the ever-shifting global hip-hop/R&B/grime/afrobeats diaspora (with stellar releases from Jazmine Sullivan, Pinkpantheress, Dawn Richard, Little Simz, and Tems, to name just a few). Sign up to receive the latest news, rumors and updates from Metal Sucks. Includes The Crown, Hooded Menace, Black Sheep Wall, and more Newsletter. It was a fantastic year for indie singer-songwriters whose storytelling hit as hard as their guitars ( Lucy Dacus, Snail Mail) and for pop synthesists from across the Spanish-speaking world (from Afro-Cuban hip-hop fusionist Cimafunk to omnidirectional reggaeton showman Rauw Alejandro). Modtoid Man’s Best Metal Albums of 2021 So Far.
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The biggest curveball of all was an unstoppable chart phenomenon few saw coming a year ago: Olivia Rodrigo, who arrived out of nowhere (or at least the Disney Channel) to rewrite the rules of the Top 40 with her instant-classic debut, Sour. But while those blockbuster releases lived up to the industry’s ever-swelling hype, this year was often more about welcome surprises - like ornery rap visionary Tyler, the Creator meeting the world halfway with the most focused performance of his career, or Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner going from low-fi bedroom dreamer into futurist New Wave maximalist. 2021 had plenty of marquee events in the music world: Superstars like Adele, Billie Eilish, and Lil Nas X all came through with albums that deepened their stories and solidified their greatness.