Category: Entertainment

From ‘Ascendancy’ to ‘In the Court of the Dragon’: Ranking the Trivium Discography

Since their formation in 1999, American heavy metal band Trivium has released ten studio albums, sold over one million albums worldwide, and have even been nominated for a Grammy. They’ve achieved a level of stardom few metal bands reach and are one of the kings of modern metal. 

While all of Trivium’s albums are solid metal releases, some are certainly better than others. Here is a ranking of every album in the Trivium discography, from worst to best. All albums are ranked solely on the criteria of how much I enjoy listening to them and how much replay value they have to me.

I will not be including Trivium’s debut album, “Ember to Inferno” in this list, as it’s the only album I’ve never listened to front-to-back.

Trivium Album Ranking: The Bottom Tier

Silence in the Snow

I’m going to take a page out of my co-host Larry’s playbook and reiterate that there are no bad albums in Trivium’s discography. Rather, there are albums that I don’t enjoy listening to as much as the others. When you’re ranking a discography from top-to-bottom, inevitably, one has to be at the bottom. For me, that is Silence in the Snow.

You’re going to sense a theme with the bottom-tier albums in this Trivium discography ranking: The reduced – or, in this case, absent – screaming era was just not for me. I’ve been vocal on the podcast about letting bands grow, evolve, and experiment with their music. It’s natural, and it shouldn’t be something that gets a fan base to turn on the band. But that doesn’t mean you have to like the direction they went.

Very little about this album works for me. At its core, it’s just a jumbled mess of mediocre songs, one right after another. Part of that disconnect is the lack of harsh vocals. Lead singer Matt Heafy blew out his voice a year before the recording this album, which likely played a role in making an album composed of only cleans. 

To Heafy’s credit, he worked hard on his clean vocals, which shows on this album. The quality of his clean singing improved dramatically from previous records. However, it doesn’t feel like the vocals fit with the backing music. His cleans are great and work with the choruses, but the instrumentation of nearly every verse feels like it’s begging for a sorely lacking harshness. 

Unlike the next album on this list, there really isn’t a song on this album that I come back to.

Vengeance Falls

Taking and showing obvious influence from a band can be a risky proposition. When done well, it can make for something beautiful – as we’ll see later in this ranking. When not done well, you get something like Vengeance Falls. David Draiman produced this album, and the Disturbed influence is evident. And not in a particularly good way.

For better or worse, Trivium, throughout their career, has drawn a lot of influence from, and comparisons to, Metallica. For me, this album feels a lot like the “Load” and “Reload” era of Metallica. The album isn’t bad per se; it’s just not what the average fan wants from their Trivium. There were a lot of good things and a lot of lessons learned from this era of Trivium, but on the whole, it doesn’t hold a candle to the rest of their discography.

The only saving grace for this album is the song “Strife.” Strife is an incredible song and doesn’t deserve to go down in history with the rest of this album. That may sound harsh, but compared to the rest of Trivium’s discography, they laid an egg on this one.

In Waves

The era immediately after the release of the “Shogun” album for Trivium was a bit of a weird one. It’s an era where they were trying new things, forming a new sound, and for me personally, it largely didn’t work. It comes closest to working on the “In Waves” record, but even then, it doesn’t rank nearly as well as the rest of the albums in the Trivium discography.

My biggest gripe with this album is the overall production of it. Whereas a lot of metal in the early-to-mid 2000s seemed to suffer from a lack of production, Trivium went too far in the other direction with “In Waves.” It feels overproduced and lacks any real depth of emotion for me throughout most of the album.

“In Waves” sees the band start to drift away from the thrash sounds they had – in my opinion – perfected on “The Crusade” and “Shogun” and explore more of their metalcore roots, and even some radio rock sounds. 

You can’t blame a band for wanting to expand their sound, and it’s hard to fault a band for trying to appeal to a larger audience. It’s simply not the sound I’m looking for with my Trivium. The saving grace on this album for me is the title track. Not so much for enjoying it on the album itself, but rather for the fact that it has made a great closing track for Trivium live sets.

Trivium Album Ranking: Mid-Tier Albums

In the Court of the Dragon

“Mid-tier” is a bit of a misnomer here. All of the albums in this tier are excellent in their own right. On other bands’ discographies, these would be at the top. The fact that these albums fall into the middle of their album ranking is a testament to how good Trivium has been over the years. A fact they highlighted on their most recent effort, “In The Court of the Dragon.”

This album is excellent. Many listeners would make a case that this is one of the top two or three albums in the Trivium discography. And I would have a hard time disagreeing with them too heavily. ITCOTD, along with What the Dead Men Say, were a true return to form for Trivium in all the best ways. So why is this album so low in my ranking if I think so highly of it?

For me, it comes down to replay value. Whenever I listen to this album, I think, “This is an excellent album. I’m not sure why I don’t listen to it more often.” But then I’ll go long stretches without listening to it, only to repeat the cycle again and again. The album just doesn’t have the staying power for me that the efforts ahead of it do.

But make no mistake about it; I really like this album. Heafy’s cleans and screams are right up there at the top of their discography. The rhythm section is always a strong-suit for this band no matter the era they’re in, and Corey’s lead playing on this album is some of the best work he’s done in the band. It all comes together well, but there’s just something missing that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Ascendancy

For me, as with many Trivium fans, “Ascendancy” is where it all started. But it’s not where my love affair with the band began. A friend of mine introduced me to the “Ascendancy” album back in 2015, thinking it would be right up my alley. He wasn’t exactly right, but he wasn’t wrong, either.

I admit I wasn’t in love with this album when I first heard it. There wasn’t a lot for my ear to latch on to and hook me on those first few listens. But there was enough there that made me think, “I’m not feeling this, but I want to explore them more. I get the feeling they have other stuff I’ll really enjoy”.

And that was incredibly prescient in retrospect. It was soon after that first exposure to “Ascendancy” that I discovered Trivium’s “The Crusade” and “Shogun” albums, and THAT is where my love affair with this band really blossomed.

I have revisited this album many times in the years since, and I enjoy it considerably more than I did on that first listen. It’s still not one of my favorite albums in the Trivium discography, but it’ll always hold a special place in my heart for being the album that led me to the ones I *do* love.

The Sin and the Sentence

The Sin and the Sentence was my first new album as a Trivium fan. As previously mentioned, I was introduced to the band in 2015, but didn’t really become a fan of their music until later on in 2016. So, I came in just after Silence in the Snow had been released. TSATS was my first taste of being a Trivium fan in the moment of a new album release, and they did not disappoint!

This album from front to back is incredible. Every album on the list from this point on is. It’s really splitting hairs trying to rank these albums, and depending on my mood I’ll flip this album and the next, What the Dead Men Say. What really makes this album for me is that it’s a strong return to everything I love about Trivium. It brings back the more thrashy sound. They embrace unclean vocals again. Everything I want from Trivium is present on this album. And unlike In the Court of the Dragon, the replay value is there, as well.

The Sin and the Sentence is the album that current drummer Alex Bent first appears on, and with Bent it finally feels like Trivium has found stability with that position. Trivium has always had killer drumming, but they’ve not stuck around long. With Bent, it feels like they finally have a drummer who is the total package. A drummer who can write killer music for the albums, can replicate it live, and can gel with the guys on a personal level.

As for the music itself, the only reason this album isn’t higher in the ranking is because Trivium’s discography is just that good to me. I would love to have this album in the top two or three, but at the end of the day I simply can’t put it above “The Crusade” or “Shogun”.

What the Dead Men Say

If there was an album that encompasses everything that Trivium has been throughout the years, What the Dead Men Say probably comes the closest. There’s such a variety of influences present on this album. And, unlike some other efforts in their discography, I think everything comes together really well on this album. There’s a lot of heavy metal, metalcore, and thrash present on this album. But beyond that, they delve into a lot of progressive and even some melodeath influence.

WTDMS is an amalgamation of everything they had put out up to that point, and a sign of things to come, in the best way possible. This album is so good front-to-back that it’s almost in the “god-tier”. I love so much about this album, but what I appreciate the most is the lyrcial content we get on this one.

There’s songs that delve into the state of the world around us and the bleakness of everything. There’s songs influenced by science fiction. Heafy even explores the pain and sorrow of having to put down a beloved pet. It truly is a summation of everything that Trivium has been – and been through – during their career.

Truly the only thing that keeps this album from being ranked higher is how in love I am with the following albums. WTDMS is a phenomenal album and would be the peak of a discography for a lot of bands.

Trivium Album Ranking: The God-Tier

The Crusade

When I was first introduced to Trivium, I wasn’t feeling it – but I had a feeling that if I explored their discography a bit, I would find something that I was feeling. That album was “The Crusade”. This was the album where it truly “clicked” for me and I became a massive fan of the band. It was love at first listen, and to this day it’s one of my most-listened albums on a consistent basis. It’s just so damn good!

Unlike its predecessor “Ascendancy”, “The Crusade” mostly abandons the metalcore sound in favor of a more heavy, thrash-inspired sound. To me, Trivium is at their best when they’re embracing the thrash side of their influences, and that sound is there in spades on this one.

This album is almost a love letter to Metallica in its sound and fury. You can really hear their influence throughout, and it’s one of the reasons I love this album, as a massive Metallica fan. But beyond that, once again I come back to the lyrical content.

“The Crusade” more than any other album in the Trivium discography touches on tough subjects. There are songs on the album about police brutality. Songs that tell the story of a troubled mother killing her children. A lot of the songs revolve around famous murders in one capacity or another, but there are also songs that lift you up and make you feel like you can conquer the world.

There’s a really nice balance on this album that I think more fans should appreciate. “The Crusade” tends to not get the love I think it deserves as an absolutely fantastic album. For me, this is one of the best albums I’ve heard, regardless of the band. It’s an all-time great for me. Only exceeded in the Trivium discography by the next album.

Shogun

We’ve finally reached the pinnacle. “Shogun” isn’t just the top album in the Trivium discography for me, it’s one of my favorite albums of all-time. If someone were to reach inside my brain, pluck out my musical tastes, and write an album based upon that information, it would be “Shogun”. This album has everything I want in my metal. There’s pounding riffs. Blistering solos. Heafy has an incredible balance between clean and harsh vocals. There’s incredible diversity in the song structures, the instrumentation, and the lyrical content. Everything about this album is perfect to me.

What really separates this album from “The Crusade” – and from most other albums – is the closing track, the titular “Shogun”. The song structure alone puts this song, and album, into a category all its own. “Shogun” is one of the most beautifully composed songs I have ever heard. It’s brutal and angry, yet beautiful and even bluesy in parts. The bluesy solo that Heafy busts out in the middle of the song is unexpected, yet fits perfectly and is one of the greatest bits of music I’ve ever heard.

There isn’t a bad track on this album. There aren’t enough good things that I can say about this album. It truly is Trivium at their finest. Everyone in the band was at their peak on this album, and it stands alone at the top of their discography for me by a pretty wide margin.

There you have it, my definitive ranking of the albums in the Trivium discography. You may disagree with my rankings, and that’s fine. The lead singer, Matt Heafy, himself disagrees! Not too long ago he took to Twitter asking the fans for their rankings, and dropping a few different rankings of his own. Almost universally, one of my favorite Trivium albums, The Crusade, was near the bottom of his list.

That’s the great thing about music, we all hear it differently. We all get different things out of it, and we all have different aspects of it that we like and dislike. Yet, it brings us together despite those differences. The love of music conquers all.

Senior Bowl Review: What are the Boys in the Trenches Grilling?

With this year’s Reese’s Senior Bowl in the books you’re probably thinking that you’ve learned everything you need to know about this year’s players and prospects, but I can assure I was out here at the Senior Bowl asking the tough questions that most shy away from, namely: what is your go to grilling meat and side? And what better group to survey than this years the OL and DL players?

The players didn’t disappoint, each came with their own unique answers. I must say, I wouldn’t mind sharing a meal with any of them. I did include one special guest who isn’t a trench player, but their answer definitely didn’t disappoint. With that being said. let’s see what the boys in the trenches from the Senior Bowl are grilling on their weekends

National Team, Cody Mauch OL NDSU:

Mauch was a standout this week and the first player I pitched this question to. His answer inspired me to keep polling the trenches. Cody told me, “You know, anytime we get to throw a steak on the grill is a good time for me. Medium Rare. Medium Rare.” Cody said he didn’t care what the side was, we also both agreed that’s the proper way to cook a steak and will not be hearing any arguments

American Team, Steve Avila OL TCU:

Avila was another player who had a strong week in the trenches for the OL and, while his answer wasn’t the best from the week, it definitely drew the best reaction. I asked Steve at a round table full of other guys in the trenches what his choice would be and almost immediately he said, “I love a good sausage.”

Which, of course, caused the entire table of young potential draftees to erupt with laughter and a few reminded him we were trying to keep this PG. Avila was great sport, and it was cool to see how guys who had just met each other were already showing that sense of brotherhood that many who have played the game talk about.

National Team, Isaiah Foskey DL ND:

The long-arm master kept his answer simple, “It’s chicken, but its jerked chicken. That’s fire, like not gonna lie that made me hungry right now.” He wasn’t concerned with what his side was, which might explain why he’s one of the leaner guys in the trenches. Going with chicken is a bold move in my opinion, but he saves it by going with jerked chicken specifically.

National Team, McClendon Curtis OL UTC:

I didn’t know a ton about Curtis coming into the week, but if there’s one thing I learned for sure, it’s that this man is a certified grill boss. “It’s gotta be between the tomahawk steaks and lamb chops. When we get on the grill it’s between those two. But also for my sides […] twice baked potatoes loaded or parmesan crusted asparagus. Gotta get it right every time. I don’t cook with nothing else but cast irons.” Curtis clearly doesn’t play around when it comes to the grill. His answer made me the hungriest by far.

American Team, Jalen Redmond OU DL:

Redmond attended my college’s rival, Oklahoma, but I can’t deny the impressive speed he showed in the the trenches this week. Seeing as we both attended school in the state of Oklahoma, I was curious to know if we would have similar grill takes and it turns out we did.

“I’m gonna throw some burgers on there, [but I’m] definitely a hot link guy, too. My side, I make some bomb baked beans. You ain’t never had none like mine. You know I put the little meat in there, I can’t tell you the secret… it’s something special, but not too special.” I tried to shake him down for the secret, but it’s a Redmond family recipe and Jalen wasn’t budging. Much respect.

American Team, John Michael Schmitz C UMN:

Most consider Schmitz the best OL player of the Senior Bowl, and I have to agree. The center out of Minnesota dominated the competition for the most part, and competed in every rep. I was eager to get his answer.

“Nothing beats my fiancé’s ribs, she cooks one of the best ribs I’ve ever had. She gets it from her mother. It falls off [the bone], but it also has that bit of tenderness to it.” Ribs is one of the hardest things to pull off on the grill, any BBQ master can attest to this, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear someone bold enough to say it.

Sounds like Schmitz found him a real one, and I wish him and his fiancé the all the best.

Winner:

Like I said from the beginning, the boys in the trenches know how to eat and it was tough picking a winner, but I definitely had to give the nod to McClendon Curtis. Out of all the guys in the trenches, he had one of the most unique answers. He also gets bonus points for doing all the cooking himself. You can trust a man who knows his way around a cast iron.

Special (Teams) Entry, Adam Korsak P Rutgers:

Y’all know me, I’m a special teams guy, so you know I had to talk to Ray Guy Award winner and Melbourne, Australia native, Adam Korsak. No, Korsak hasn’t made his name in trenches and isn’t one of the biggest guys here, but Aussies are known for their legendary barbecue (spelt using the Queen’s English), so let’s see what Korsak is throwing on the barbie.

“Generally I do pork-chops, sausages, onions, bacon, mushrooms, and eggs all on the grill and just throw it all together like a big breakfast, English style. I like to grill in the morning, the breakfast stuff on the grill is good stuff.”

I mean, c’mon, who can deny that this man knows his way around the grill. Further strengthening my special teams agenda.

Closing Remarks

It was fun to get to talk with players on a more personal level and let them take a small break from the barrage of X’s and O’s being thrown at them all week. You could really see the guys relax and be themselves in these small moments. It’s important to remember that these guys are all human and just entering adulthood along with their professional careers.

They’re at one of the biggest job interviews of their lives’ and the way they all handle the pressure of the week is truly admirable. This was a fantastic Senior Bowl week and hopefully the first of many for me. Can’t wait to see where some of these guys end up and how they progress as players.

2022 Metal Albums of the Year: Part 2

If you’ve been in the content creation game for long, you know that if you create something in multiple parts and tell your audience when to expect the next part, inevitably something will come up to delay that. That’s exactly what happened with the second part of my look at the 2022 metal albums of the year. But, while we’re a little late on the top 5, we made it and that’s what counts!

If you need a little refresher on the bands and albums we’ve covered so far, take a look at my choices for the numbers 6-10 on my metal albums of the year countdown. And as a reminder, all of these albums are ranked purely on my enjoyment of each. There are no wrong answers here! Now, without further ado, let’s check out my top 5 metal albums of the year from 2022.

2022 Metal Albums of the Year: 5-1

5) Malevolence – Malicious Intent

As we covered last year, hardcore isn’t a genre that I have a whole lot of exposure to. It’s one of those genres that for most of my life I just wrote off as ‘not really my thing’ without ever giving it a fair shake. Then 2021 happened and I discovered incredible albums by bands like Every Time I Die and Dying Wish. They really opened my eyes to what I had been missing with the genre, and how many great albums could be found if I was simply willing to look.

From that point on I made it a conscious point of emphasis to make sure I was checking out hardcore albums to see if anything hit me the way those two albums did. Sure enough, I found another one in 2022. We kick off the top 5 of my 2021 metal albums of the year with “Malicious Intent” from Malevolence.


This is an album that ranked highly in my “top metal albums of the year…so far” piece that I wrote back in July. Though much came out between then and the end of the year, this is an album that had staying power for me. Even after several repeat listens, I’m in love with this album as much today as I was when it first dropped. The combination of crushing riffs, wonderful harmonies, and a distinct voice on the clean vocalist really made this album stand out in a sea of great albums. 2022 gave metal fans a ton of great records and this is one of the ones that took me by surprise

4) Arch Enemy – Deceivers

“Deceivers” from Arch Enemy was one of my most anticipated albums of 2022 and had been for a long time. The band had been teasing this album for a long time before we finally got to hear the full effort in August. So much so that I even raved about one of the singles on a podcast episode months before the album finally dropped.

The wait was well worth it! If you’re a fan of melodic death metal, this is an album you need to check out. One of the criticisms of Arch Enemy throughout the years has been that a lot of their songs wind up sounding the same. They’re not known for pushing the envelope or really testing the boundaries of what the genre can be. They know their wheelhouse and they stick with it.

While “Deceivers” doesn’t deviate too far from that tried and true formula that has made Arch Enemy a melodeath titan, there is enough experimentation throughout the album to keep my ear interested and really hooked.

The star of the show is Alyssa White-Gluz finally displaying her clean vocals on “Handshake With Hell” and showing a side of their artistic expression as a band that we’ve seldom seen before. I would have liked more of this from them on the album, but that’s a discussion for another time.

What we got with “Deceivers” was straight-up melodeath goodness. White-Gluz’s vocal delivery is as powerful as ever, but between the addition of cleans on the aforementioned single and a larger focus on Jeff Loomis’ solo virtuosity, it felt like the step up from the band that fans have been waiting for.

3) Lorna Shore – Pain Remains

While “Deceivers” was one of my most anticipated albums of 2021, “Pain Remains” from Lorna Shore was easily my most anticipated album of the year. Lorna Shore took the metal world by storm when they released “To the Hellfire” and unleashed the unholy noises of Will Ramos upon the world. While that song was the impetus that got me – and most people – to sit up and take notice of Lorna Shore, it was the rest of the “…And I Return to Nothingness” EP that really grabbed my attention.

For me, both “Of the Abyss” and the title track were better songs than “To the Hellfire”. Hellfire had the shock value to bring in the ears, but the other two tracks were where the band really got a chance to shine and show their true potential. Potential that was fully realized with the release of their first full-length album with Ramos.

The star of the show on this album was the first part of the Pain Remains trilogy: Dancing Like Flames. This song really showcased that there’s more to Lorna Shore – and the deathcore genre as a whole – than just trying to be lower, slower, and more brutal than the next band. With Pain Remains, and to steal a line from The Charismatic Voice, Ramos and the band truly achieve the next ascension of emotional tension. The breakdowns and animal noises are great. But deathcore that can make you cry? That’s where the good stuff is!

Rest assured, “Pain Remains” isn’t Lorna Shore going soft. The first part of the trilogy may qualify as a “ballad” by deathcore standards, but the rest of the album still goes hard as fuck. There is plenty of absolute destruction on this album to satisfy even the most staunch of deathcore purists.

This isn’t a case of, say, a Whitechapel putting out an album that is a ton of cleans, a ton of experimentation, and really just a “deathcore” album by way of being put out by a deathcore band. Instead, Pain Remains stays true to the genre while also giving enough variety to push the genre forward in new and exciting ways.

2) Enterprise Earth – The Chosen

If you follow me online or know me in person, it’s no secret that the deathcore genre has a chokehold on me right now. It has ever since Whitechapel, Lorna Shore, and Slaughter to Prevail dropped their albums in 2021 and opened my eyes to the potential of the genre. That chokehold ramped up to 11 in 2022, as evidenced by the genre holding the top three spots in my metal albums of the year countdown.

The second of the three deathcore albums on this list comes from Enterprise Earth with their release “The Chosen”. As we’ve established, I’m a guy who loves songs that tackle difficult subjects, and who appreciates vocal or instrumental variety in his music. I love songs that make me feel, and albums that have enough variation to keep my ear interested and keep me from getting bored. So from the moment, I heard the song “Overpass”, I was hooked.

“The Chosen” hits on everything I want from an album. There are great melodies, there are crushing, brutal vocals. We have some clean singing in parts. There are songs, like “Overpass, that tackle tough subjects such as addiction and suicide. Enterprise Earth even gave us songs that hype you up, give you a pep talk, and make you feel like you can take on whatever shit the world throws at you.

The album doesn’t paint a rosy picture of the world around us. Instead, it tells us that “You know what? The world around you is shit. But you are THE SHIT. Now get out there, rise up, and conquer whatever it is you’re dealing with”. I think that’s a message we could all use a bit more of these days.

1) Fit for an Autopsy – Oh, What the Future Holds

In a genre where everyone is trying to be heavier, more brutal, and more outrageous than the last guy, Will Putney, Joe Bad, and the guys in Fit for an Autopsy said “Nah, fuck that”. And it worked tremendously. Fit for an Autopsy might be the forgotten step-child of the deathcore genre right now, but for my money they’re at the top of their game – and the genre as a whole. And that’s reflected not only in my 2022 metal albums of the year ranking, but also on the charts.

Oh, What the Future Holds was quietly a massively successful album for a deathcore band. The album topped out at #2 on the US Heatseekers chart, #3 on the US Hard Rock charts, and #23 on the Billboard Top 200. One listen to the album and it should be obvious as to why this album had such wide-ranging appeal, and what makes it my top metal album for 2022.

With Oh, What the Future Holds, Fit for an Autopsy chose to eschew the accepted norms of the deathcore genre and really take it back to the hardcore roots. The breakdowns are a far cry from the heavy, brutal sounds of the previous deathcore efforts on this list.

Instead, they embrace their hardcore roots and make you want to get out on the floor and throw fists. The vocals aren’t trying to get lower or more absurd than some of their genre brethren, either. Joe Bad isn’t blowing anyone away with his lows like an Alex Terrible. He’s not making inhuman noises like Will Ramos or Dickie Allen.

On the contrary, he’s giving you an incredibly consistent, heartfelt, angry performance that draws the listener in and makes them feel the anger and resentment at what the world around them has become. That’s the central theme of “Oh, What the Future Holds” – anger at what we’ve become, with a hope for a better future. Things may be fucked up right now, but it’s within your power to rise up and change it. Things may look bleak now, but Oh, What the Future Holds…

2022 Metal Albums of the Year (Part 1)

Chris Spooner's 2022 Top 10 Metal Albums of the Year

The year has come to a close, so it’s time to talk about the metal albums of the year for 2022. Last year was another great year for metal music. There were a ton of solid releases from bands all across the extreme music spectrum. 2021’s releases were a bit more top-heavy than what we got this past year, but I have no problem saying that 2022 was more consistent across the board. There wasn’t as much that blew me away this year, but there was a ton of really good, really consistent metal all year.

This year’s Metal Album of the Year piece is going to look a little different than how it was laid out last year. My methodology has gotten a little bit more precise in my second year of ranking albums, and the scoring is going to reflect that. I want to give a big shout-out to Thrash Metal Dad on TikTok for inspiring me to get a bit more granular with the way I grade each album.

At the end of the day, the grading is still all about my enjoyment of each album. How much did I enjoy listening to it initially, how much replay value did I get out of it, and how much did I enjoy it upon a year-end re-listen? If you caught my mid-year article outlining the best metal albums of 2022 so far, you’ll notice a few big changes. Another big change is that this year the list is coming out in two parts!

Now, without further ado, let’s get into my choices for the best metal albums of 2022, starting with 10-6!

Metal Albums of the Year Methodology

Inspired by Thrash Metal Dad, I have taken a deeper look at the rankings for the 2022 version of the Metal Albums of the Year article. Last year it was based mostly on just vibes and arbitrarily attributing a score to how much I enjoyed listening to the albums. This year is largely the same, but we’re getting a bit more granular with it and judging each song individually, and then the album as a whole. But what does that mean, exactly?

For me, it means that I’m judging my enjoyment of each song on a scale of 1 to 5. A 1 would be a song that I would likely skip were I listening to the album on my own outside of writing a piece on it. A 5 would mean that the song is something I’m going to listen to repeatedly, and is one of the best songs on the album – if not the best. An extra point was given to the songs that I felt were the best singles of the year.

As far as the album ranking as a whole, this took things like the overall storyline of the album, production quality, overall lyrical content, and sonic diversity into consideration. Again, graded on a scale of 1 to 5. Once all of the songs were scored and averaged, the rankings were added together and divided by the number of songs on the album. That score was then added to the overall album score to get a final grade out of 10. And now, onto the rankings!

2023 Metal Albums of the Year: 10-6

10.) Korn – Requiem

We’re starting off our look at the 2022 metal albums of the year with a throwback of sorts. If you’re of a certain age, like me, the Nu-Metal wave had an absolute chokehold over some of your formative years. You couldn’t grow up in the late 90s and early 2000s and not hear bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot absolutely dominating the airwaves. Korn was certainly the leaders of the movement – whether they wanted the ‘nu-metal’ moniker or not.

While the genre was largely derided at the time, it has persisted into the present day. Looking back on the genre, I would argue that it was just as important for the popularization of heavy music for my generation as thrash metal was for the generation before me. You can see it in the nu-metal influences popping up in today’s new music, even in genres you wouldn’t expect.

You can plainly hear the “Iowa” influence in Slaughter to Prevail’s “Kostolom” album from last year. Tallah is leading the nu-metal revival wave. And the titans of the genre, Korn, have come back with a vengeance

2022 saw Korn drop arguably their best album since the “Untouchables” era. This album has all of the classic nu-metal sounds the genre is known for, but it doesn’t feel dated at all. It has enough modern metal flair that it feels in place with things that are coming out new and fresh today.

It still packs the emotional punch that Korn is known for, and was an absolute masterpiece in the genre’s revival. The newer bands have taken the torch and ran with it, but the old guard still has plenty to contribute!

9.) Machine Head – Of Kingdom and Crown

From one titan of heavy music to another. Machine Head has been kicking people’s asses in the groove metal genre for decades now. They’re a band I never really got into until pretty recently. But once again, if you’re of a certain age they’re a name you can’t help but have heard at some point in your heavy music journey.

I never caught their previous album before, “Of Kingdom and Crown” but the consensus was that it was… not a great effort, to put it mildly. This one, however, was a true return to form for one of heavy music’s stalwart bands. Of Kingdom and Crown comes in and from the very beginning grabs your ear and tells you to strap in for a heavy journey.

OKAC is a concept album, which gets bonus points from me. I love when an album has a cohesive story that you can follow throughout its entirety. An album with general themes that pop up in every song is great, but I love a good, well thought-out story that plays out from cover-to-cover, and for the most part that’s what this album gave us.

There were a couple of interludes that I felt took me out of the story for a bit, and are the reason this album isn’t higher on my 2022 Metal Albums of the Year list. Overall, though, I thought this was a fantastic album.

8.) Shadow of Intent – Elegy

If you’ve followed along with the Blast Beats Twitter account or know me in real life, you know that I’ve become somewhat of a Deathcore fanboy over the past year-plus. It started with the 2021 releases by Slaughter to Prevail, Whitechapel, and Lorna Shore, and it has only grown from there.

Indeed, the deathcore genre will be well represented in this look at the top metal albums of the year in 2022, and it all starts here at number eight with Shadow of Intent.

Lorna Shore and Will Ramos take up the lion’s share of the headlines when it comes to the Deathcore genre, and for good reason. They are absolutely blowing up lately, and as we’ll get into in a bit, their “Pain Remains” release was a masterpiece. It’s been great to see what they’re doing in the genre, but it can overshadow some other worthy bands and vocalists. I think that’s the case here, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been guilty of it myself.

When “Elegy” first dropped in January of 2022, I was a fan of it, but it didn’t hit me quite enough to be a top 10 album for me. It was good. I really liked it. But there was just something that was getting lost on me. Something that kept it from really making that top-tier category. After seeing Shadow live a couple of times this year and after going back to Elegy, what it was was not appreciating Ben Duerr’s vocal performance enough.

My main “complaint” about Elegy when I listened to it initially was that I wanted more vocal variety from the album. Initially I felt that the vocals were a bit too flat and one-note for me. After going back and listening a few times in getting my top metal albums of 2022 list settled, I realized that I’d really discounted just how much variety there was. It’s a different type of variety than Lorna Shore and Will Ramos’ vocal acrobatics, which I think slipped by me the first time.

With “Elegy”, the variety is in the layering. Duerr isn’t going back-and-forth between gutterals, mids, and crazy highs like a Ramos. Instead, those tracks are all layered and in such a way that it can be easy to miss if you’re not intently listening. That’s not to say Lorna Shore doesn’t do their fair share of layering – they absolutely do – but the vocal performances are drastically different in how they’re done.

After going back and giving “Elegy” the attention it deserves, this album is a masterpiece. It easily holds up against anything else the Deathcore genre has to offer, and I truly believe that Ben Duerr should be held up with the esteem of the likes of Ramos, Alex Terrible, Phil Bozeman, and the titans of the genre.

7.) Venom Prison – Erebos

For someone who isn’t a fan of ‘progressive’ as a genre, I really tend to gravitate towards progressive elements in my music. I can’t really explain what it is about the ‘progressive’ genre that turns me off from it, but I love when those elements are introduced into other genres. Like the death metal genre with Venom Prison’s “Erebos”.

This album has everything I want musically speaking. There are a plethora of parts that are just heavy and punishing. It gives you parts that are melodic and catchy. There are parts that push the boundaries of what the death metal genre is and what it can be. Lyrically, it covers topics that always resonate with me, like social justice and reform, loss and sorrow, and pure, unadulterated anger.

I’m honestly surprised this album didn’t score higher for me; and initially it did. This is one of the albums that slid down my rankings a bit when I finished my end of the year re-listens. Not entirely because the album didn’t hit the same way for me, but rather because a few albums caught my attention more on re-listen than I gave them credit for. But make no mistake about it, I absolutely loved this album.

Some things have come to light recently about Venom Prison that have put a bit of a sour note on this album for me personally, but this list was completed before those things came to light and did not have an effect on my rankings. What ultimately made me lower on this album than I was initially is that there are a few tracks in the middle of the album that, while good, don’t quite live up to the rest of the album.

It sort of lost me in those moments, but for the most part “Erebos” is a fantastic example of pushing the boundaries in a genre that can feel like a lot of the same things over and over.

6.) Revocation – Netherheaven

One of my favorite discoveries of 2022 was stumbling upon the band Revocation. I’ve missed a lot of music that came out between 2005 and 2020, unfortunately, and it seems like Revocation is one of those big misses. I still need to go back and do a deep dive on their discography, but they made a massive first impression on me.

My first exposure to Revocation was in the early portion of 2022 when I saw them out in Chicago. They were on the bill with Shadow of Intent, Whitechapel, and the headliner Cannibal Corpse – who I also fell in love with, but that’s a story for a different time. After Shadow of Intent played, I was expecting Revocation to come next, simply because I’d never heard of them and knew that Whitechapel was a decently big name.

Revocation wound up being the band right before the headliner, and they showed why they were deserving of that bill. Their brand of technicality, speed, and catchiness was infectious. It was absolutely one of those “holy shit” moments for me, and I’ve been a fan ever since. So when Revocation started dropping singles for Netherheaven, I was all the way in.

When the album finally dropped, it exceeded my expectations. I don’t know whether to call this band a tech death band or a death-thrash band, but no matter what label you put on it, it’s incredible. The tones on the album are everything I want from my thrash metal. There’s so much anger and aggression in the lyrics. The features with Trevor Strnad (RIP) and Corpsegrinder were phenomenal and left me wanting more.

I can’t wait to see what comes next from this band, and I can’t wait to see what’s hiding for me to discover in their back catalog.

Come back later this week as we dive into my top 5 metal albums of 2022! Until then, here’s hoping the first part gave you something to go back to that you may have missed. See you next time!

2021 or: How I Learned to Stop Cringing and Love the Deathcore

Photo collage of deathcore albums by Whitechapel, Lorna Shore, and Slaughter to Prevail

If you’re of a certain age, just seeing the word MySpace brings a flood of emotions, memories, and reactions. MySpace, a driving force behind the cultural movement of sorts, shone a spotlight on some of the best and worst the millennial generation had to offer. As a precursor to sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter, Vine, and TikTok, it introduced us to concepts we know and love today, like ‘virality’ and trends. One of those trends that persists today is the “Deathcore” genre of metal.

Be honest, when you read the word ‘MySpace’, did you cringe a little? It’s okay, I did too when I came up with the concept of this article. And if you cringed at the mention of MySpace, you probably cringed at the mention of deathcore, too. That’s okay, too.

Since its inception, the deathcore genre has been highly divisive within the metal community. It has often been looked down upon. Often thought of as “unserious” and “hokey”. I’ll be the first to admit, if you’d talked to me a year ago, I would have had the same reaction.

Now, this isn’t a “discovering metal for the first time” story like you’d see if you’re familiar with someone like Elizabeth Zharoff and her wonderful YouTube channel, “The Charismatic Voice”. No, I’ve long fancied myself a ‘metalhead’.

I grew up listening to classic rock, falling in love with guitar solos and riffs. When I was in my childhood, the grunge era was hitting the scene and I couldn’t get enough of bands like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. As I grew up, I gravitated towards progressively harder music. Metallica. Slipknot. Bullet for my Valentine. Killswitch Engage. But, inevitably, I always tended to stick within the same few genres, namely thrash and metalcore.

Then something changed. Or, rather, three somethings changed the way I think about the deathcore genre – and to a greater extent how I thought about heavy, extreme music as a whole. It may sound weird to some to say you went through a musical epiphany at the age of 34, but that’s exactly what happened to me thanks to releases from Slaughter to Prevail, Lorna Shore, and Whitechapel.

Slipknot + Death Metal + Russia = ????

I’m not sure if there’s a better way to explain the sound of Slaughter to Prevail’s “Kostolom” than, ‘What if Slipknot’s ‘Iowa’ was a death metal album?” That was sort of the description I got when their single “Baba Yaga” first came onto my radar, and when I tell you I was blown away by the accuracy!

Iowa is one of the most important records to who I am as a person today. That album got me through some dark times, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.

That connection, I think, is a large part of the reason I connected so strongly with ‘Kostolom’. It hits a lot of those same notes of anger, brutality, and hopelessness that both the ‘Iowa’ record had, and that I had personally when that record was getting me through.

That was the first thing that really got me to begin to reconsider my stance on the genre of a joke. How can something be a joke if it’s legitimately making you feel emotions? Deathcore can make you feel emotions? That can’t be right, can it?

Oh, it can and it is! For all the shit this genre gets, there’s so much more to it than the memey vibes it was giving off during the MySpace days of its infancy, and there’s so much more that the genre can become as it continues to evolve and pull from other influences like hardcore punk and nu-metal.

Deathcore Evolves with Lorna Shore

“Kostolom” was the album that got me to a place where I was intrigued by the deathcore genre. But it was another album, one that coincidentally dropped on the same day, that picked up where Kostolom left off and convinced me to accept – and eventually love – the genre. That album, or EP if we’re being technical, was Lorna Shore’s “And I Return to Nothingness”.

At first, I was hesitant to give the Lorna Shore release a chance. I’d never listened to the group in the past, but I knew there was some… not great stuff in their past, so I avoided it at first.

Upon learning that this iteration of the band swiftly ousted a member responsible for said stuff and had a brand new vocalist, I caved and listened to their new single “To the Hellfire”.

If I remember correctly, my first impression was something to the effect of “HOLY SHIT…WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?” Said in the best way possible!

What that was, was the absolute vocal gymnastics of new lead singer Will Ramos. The ease with which he flowed from deep, guttural tunnel screams to his goblin-esque highs blew me away. Then, of course, the pig squeals into that final, sustained tunnel scream to close out the song. My mind was absolutely blown. 

Then, when the EP finally dropped and I got to check out the other two songs – “Of the Abyss” and the title track – my mind was blown yet again. You can do that with deathcore? You can just… go and add symphonic elements to it? I didn’t know that was allowed!

This is Deathcore? Then Why Can’t I Stop Crying?

The entire idea behind this piece stems from a conversation I was having with a friend (@HobbyistBrendan on Twitter) about Whitechapel’s latest album “Kin”. We discussed how much of an absolute masterpiece I think this album is and lamented the (relatively) poor sales performance it had.

Part of that “poor” performance has to do with the music industry as a whole and its evolution. Album sales across the board just aren’t what they used to be. The industry by and large has moved to a place where physical media just isn’t as popular.

The other factor in that performance is fan reception and, let’s be honest, gatekeeping. There’s going to be a contingent who reads this article, sees the mention of Whitechapel, and immediately thinks “KIN WASN’T A DEATHCORE ALBUM YOU ASS!”.

And that’s fine, people are allowed to have their feelings about what characteristics do and do not make up a genre. However, that kind of thinking is a double-edged sword. But that is an article for another day. For now, let’s get back to the overall masterpiece that was “Kin”.

Whether you think “Kin” qualifies as a deathcore album or not, Whitechapel is a quintessential deathcore band, and there are more than a couple of songs off the album that absolutely go hard, so I’m counting it.

In that context, and much like the Lorna Shore album before it, “Kin” pushes the boundaries of what deathcore can be, and adds elements to the genre that should have had fans really excited for the future of the genre. Namely, in this case, incredible storytelling.

“Kin” continues the story from Whitechapel’s previous album, “The Valley” and continues the journey of lead singer Phil Bozeman dealing and coming to terms with the childhood traumas he endured. And all of that anger, pain and suffering really comes through in the lyrics. 

The lyrical content of “Kin” ascends beyond the typical brutality and gore that deathcore typically brings. It really attempts to take the listener on an emotional journey through those emotions, and eventually to a place of coming to grips with them. Getting to a place where you can accept the past for what it was. Appreciate the good times that were had even through the suffering, and move on with life a healthier and better person for it.

Find Music That Makes Your Heart Sing

To me, music is at its best when it piques your curiosity, connects with you, and makes you feel. Whether those emotions are a cathartic release of anger and trauma, or an overwhelming sense of joy, music at its best is uniquely capable of drawing out emotions, and providing an endorphin rush that few other things can.

That’s something that all three of these albums have in common. And to get all of that from a genre that I previously wrote off as a joke was an eye-opening experience, to say the least.

If you get nothing else from this piece, I hope it’s to always keep an open mind on your musical journey. Don’t be afraid to listen to something just because of the label it’s been given. Limiting yourself to certain genres is depriving yourself of so much incredible music and so many wonderful stories.

Now get out there and discover something that makes your heart as happy as these albums have made mine. And be sure to catch the return of the Blast Beats podcast!