What is the best metal album of the 2010s?

The 2010s delivered an extraordinary range of heavy music — from Gojira's ecological metal to Ghost's occult rock, Deafheaven's blackgaze, and a new wave of progressive and extreme bands. Which metal album of the 2010s is your favorite?

1

Sunbather

Deafheaven's 2013 album that fused black metal with shoegaze and post-rock, igniting fierce debate about metal's identity.

2

Magma

Gojira's 2016 album that distilled their ecological themes into more accessible songs while retaining their metallic ferocity.

3

L'Enfant Sauvage

Gojira's 2012 breakthrough that solidified them as the most important metal band of their generation.

4

Nightmare Logic

Power Trip's 2017 crossover thrash masterpiece that fused 80s thrash with hardcore punk in a tragically short discography.

5

The Anthropocene Extinction

Cattle Decapitation's 2015 extreme metal statement about humanity's destruction of the biosphere featuring unnerving clean vocals.

6

Sorrow and Extinction

Pallbearer's 2012 debut doom metal album full of soaring melodic guitar harmonies and crushing emotional weight.

7

Meliora

Ghost's 2015 album that brought occult rock and melodic metal to mainstream rock radio with irresistible hooks.

8

Exercises in Futility

Mgła's 2015 Polish black metal album widely considered one of the finest black metal records of the modern era.

9

The Hunter

Mastodon's 2011 more accessible hard rock-influenced album following the expansive Crack the Skye.