This was a bountiful year for all genres at large, and I found myself diversifying into all sorts of avenues of extreme metal, beyond my conventional tastes in prog, doom, traditional and power metal. I probably listened to something in the vicinity of 200-250 new albums this year; the list could have included at least another ten entries that I found to be well worth my time, with all genres well-represented – a testament to sustained quality in songwriting even in the throes of an overlong pandemic. Again, there were stellar performances all across the board. A slew of amazing newsprint progressive power/heavy acts like Edu Falaschi, Silver Talon, Pharaoh and Witherfall take up a large chunk in the top 10, owing not least to the energy and inventiveness that they approached to the niche, managing to stand out amid a throng of fluffy symphonic denizens and Euro power metal. Speaking of symphonic, the only record this year that managed to capture my attention with that tag was the Seven Spires full-length, a wonderful, swashbuckling mirage that wasn't afraid to straddle a number of influences, proving the band should be every bit the successor of the Nightwishes and Epicas of the world. The spectrum, however, was as equally proficient in its musical wizardry as it was epic and memorable, thanks in no small part to groups like Archspire, First Fragment and Obscura, the latter of which stunned me with what seems almost like a perfect 'one step back, two steps forward' approach in the evolution of their style, harkening back to the Gothenburg melodeath etiquette to refresh their established tech death pedigree. Some of these pickings are also grim and beautiful in their own quaint ways, with Sarke, Worm, Thy Catafalque, King Woman, The Silver and most notably Tribulation generating eclectic, forbidding and morose spins on more standardized genre narratives. All in all, this was one of the more memorable years in recent memory, and a lot of musical windfall here provides us with compelling listens well into 2022.
Links to the albums are embedded below.
*Top 20 Metal Albums of 2021*
I also write short blurbs for all the albums I enjoyed yearly on RateYourMusic. Link to the full, non-hierarchical list of my 50 favorite metal albums of the year here.
As per usual, anything that drew my attention this year that wasn't metal was probably a splurge of synthwave and synth pop, with a couple of rock records that weren't 'heavy' enough to qualify for the metal list. I don't get to explore that much when it comes to these genres, but I do my best to weed through the relevant releases. I've rounded things off with a sprinkle of pop and and punk/hardcore, although truth be told I'm probably neglecting a lot of really phenomenal efforts that unfortunately went under my radar. All in all, the Jess and the Ancient Ones record was the most addictive, something I've listened to intermittently throughout the year. The Finns have clearly injected an excellent sense of folk, psychedelic and prog rock elements into their compositions, filled to the brim with sequences with sequences so catchy and inspiring that the few sentences on this blurb would do them little justice. Reliable acts like TNFO, Steven Wilson and Perturbator also produced terrific music that probably received nods from a large chunk of the metal crowds, while I was pleased to discover a novel set of pop and synth-pop finesse via Actors, Magdalena Bay and Japanese Breakfast, setting the stage for a future cohort of artists to look out for.
*Top 15 Non-metal Albums of 2021*
Bonus: Top 10 Books That I Read This Year
Honorable mentions:
- The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead (2020)
- Providence [graphic novel] – Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows (2021)
- Down and About in Paris and London – George Orwell (1933)
- Afropean – Johny Pitts (2019)
