Blast Beats: Top 10 Metal Albums of the Year

Chris Spooner’s Top 5 Metal Albums of the Year: 5-1

5.) Dying Wish – Fragments of a Bitter Memory

We start my top 5 metal albums of the year with what was probably my favorite discovery of 2021: Dying Wish. I’ve never been a big fan of the Hardcore genre, but last year opened my eyes. This band, in particular, was instrumental in that. The raw emotion and pain in lead singer Emma Boster’s voice simultaneously kicks you in the face and takes you on an uncomfortable, emotional journey.

I’ve said before that some of my favorite songs are those that deal with tough subjects: suicide, addiction, abuse, etc. Every track on this album deals with the challenging issues in one form or another. Some tackle abuse at the hands of someone you love. Others deal with societal ills and their effects on us. All of them are brilliantly penned and strike a particular chord with me.

However, perhaps my favorite aspect of this album is the sense of nostalgia I get from listening to it. Instrumentally, it reminds me a lot of the mid-to-late 2000s metalcore scene. The songs transport me back to my early 20s, discovering Bullet for my Valentine — who dropped a banger of an album in 2021, too — for the first time. The guitar tones and rhythms are reminiscent of “The Poison” era Bullet, which I love. Front-to-back, “Fragments of a Bitter Memory” is marvelous. I can’t wait to hear more from this band in the future.

4.) Carcass – Torn Arteries

If there was one thing I learned in 2021, it’s that past me was missing out on some GREAT music. Whether it was because he’d never been exposed to it, he thought he didn’t like harsh vocals, or it simply fell through the cracks. Such was the case with the band Carcass.

Carcass was a name that I’d heard through the grapevine for years. They formed in 1986 — by far the oldest band on this list — and were contemporaries with many bands that I grew up loving. But they were always one of those bands that I never gave any time to because “I need clean vocals in my songs.”

Oh, how naive I was back then. And, were it not for starting the Blast Beats podcast, I still might be in that headspace. But, having a (loosely) metal-focused podcast forced me out of my comfort zone. And I’m never going back.

When Carcass dropped “Torn Arteries,” my timeline BLEW UP with folks talking about it. It seemed like every time I refreshed the Blast Beats Twitter account; someone else was singing its praises. If I were going to continue the podcast, I would have to keep exposing myself to the “No Clean Singing” movement.

I fired up “Torn Arteries” and immediately realized what I’d been missing all these years. The feeling was almost indescribable. Incredibly, music can have such a profound impact like that. Nearly every song was a masterclass in extreme metal from beginning to end.

I say “nearly” because, like “Eternal Blue” from Spiritbox, this album does have one song that sticks out as a noticeable low point. “The Devil Rides Out” just didn’t hit for me. That may be a bit controversial, as I know a lot of people dug that song, but for me, it just felt out of place with the rest of the album. I don’t skip it like I do the Spiritbox song, but it does keep “Torn Arteries” from cracking my top 3.

3.) Every Time I Die – Radical

I don’t think any album in 2021 took me more by surprise than Every Time I Die’s “Radical.” ETID was always one of those bands that I was tangentially aware of but never gave a chance. It’s hard to listen to modern metal and not at least have heard of vocalist Keith Buckley. He’s a legend, and yet I had never given any of their music a proper listen, so I wasn’t expecting anything from this album.

I certainly wasn’t expecting to be blown away. I had heard the single “Post-Boredom” before the albums’ release and didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until I listened to the next single, “Planet Shit,” that I thought there might be something here. This song convinced me to listen to the album, and I’m so thankful it did.

What stands out most about “Radical” is their usage of time. The album is 16 songs and clocks in just short of one hour in run-time, yet it still feels short. It leaves you wanting more at the end. Aside from the finale, every song is under four minutes long, yet every song packs such a punch. It’s incredible the breadth they could cover in such short bursts.

Unfortunately, it seems like — at least for now — this is the last release we’ll get from Every Time I Die. Since releasing “Radical,” the band has gone through a rather public breakup, and at least for the moment, it seems like reconciliation won’t be coming anytime soon.

2.) Slaughter to Prevail – Kostolom

If Dying Wish was my favorite discovery of 2021, Slaughter to Prevail is a close second. I’m not sure how this band didn’t come onto my radar sooner, especially considering that the first single from “Kostolom” was released about a year before this album dropped.

Alex Terrible is one of the hottest names in the metal world, and for a good reason. Some of the sounds he makes on this album are nearly inhuman. His guttural lows are disgusting in the best way possible. But I was equally impressed with the range Terrible showed on this album.

The deep gutturals steal the show, but they’re far from the whole story on “Kostolom.” Instead, the album brings a nu-metal vibe that sees Alex venture into some mids and highs and even a little bit of clean singing. He may not have quite the vocal range of some in the Deathcore genre, but it was done better than just about anyone this year.

Much like with Dying Wish, one of the things that separate “Kostolom” for me is, again, the sense of nostalgia. It hit me as an answer to the question, “What if someone made Slipknot’s “Iowa” album death metal?” So it was tough for me not to make this my top metal album of the year.

1.) Whitechapel – Kin

Phil Fuckin’ Bozeman! If you’ve kept up with Whitechapel through the years, you probably had some idea what you were getting into with Kin. You knew that Phil had been delving into the realm of clean singing. Particularly with 2019’s The Valley and the song “Hickory Creek.”

However, if you’re like me and lost track of the band after “The Saw is the Law,” this came as a *massive* shock. It’s one thing to hear an artist, you know, for their screams try their hand at cleans. It’s another thing entirely for them to do this well.

Phil has some of the most powerful unclean vocals in metal. But, with “Kin,” he showed that he’s also got some of the most hauntingly beautiful cleans. When “Orphan” dropped as a single, I was blown away and pre-ordered the album immediately.

As much as I love “Orphan” and Phil’s cleans on that track, they aren’t even the best cleans on the album. Instead, songs like “Anticure,” “Without Us,” and the closing title track are even better.

We’ve talked a lot about bands changing their sound on the podcast and how it can come with mixed results. With “Kin,” Whitechapel put out a master class on how to do it. I can’t wait to see what the next album has in store for us. “Kin” easily takes the top spot in my list of top metal albums of the year.