Welcome, welcome everybody! I know we all have lots of fun with the Album of the Year poll that I've been running since 2016, so it stands to reason that it would be twice the fun to do it twice, no? So with that in mind, I present to you all:

THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA METALLUM MID YEAR OFF TOPIC POLL

Now before we even get started, I want to make one thing clear right off the bat. That's that the rules will be loosened for the mid year poll. I'll explain the changes as we go, but the general idea is that this will be much more relaxed, much more informal, and I'll be less of a dickhead during the runup.

THE CATEGORY IS "ALBUM OF THE DECADE"
Y'all knew this one was coming and I'm incredibly excited to finally get this show on the road. Eligibility this time is obvious, anything released within the span of time of January 1st, 2010 through December 31st, 2019. Ten whole years of great releases to choose from, and extra fun since I only started the AOTY polls in 2016 so there are six whole years with no data for us to reference MA's favorites. So much of this will be new for all of us, and I'm stoked to see how the community comes together here.

You should all know the rules by now, but as a refresher, all you need to do is:

Select your top ten:
This is very easy, all you need to do is choose your top ten albums of the decade.

PM your top ten, in order, to me, BastardHead:
It's that simple, just make a top ten and send it to me, I'll take care of all the number crunching nonsense!

What happens next is that I will assign each position a point value, grand prix style, so that first place votes are seen as more valuable than second place, and so on. The point values are as follows:

1 = 25 points
2 = 18 points
3 = 15 points
4 = 12 points
5 = 10 points
6 = 8 points
7 = 6 points
8 = 4 points
9 = 2 points
10 = 1 point

That may seem confusing and semi random for people who don't follow F1, but the idea of the point system being set up the way it is is that consistency is valued over a lucky win. So an album with twenty third place votes will fare better than one with ten first place votes. Regardless, we want you to put some good thought into this. Every vote counts! The idea is to get a collective snapshot of what we, as MA forumgoers, see to be the best albums of the decade. So give it a lot of thought and let your voice be heard!

As with all things, there are a few guidelines we ask you to follow, but they're all quite simple, common sense rules.

1) METAL ONLY!: This is obvious, but just know that the only way I'll truly be judging this is by whether or not the band has a page on MA. If they do, they're eligible. This is a metal site so it's only logical to keep it this way, it's just so people don't go trying to sneak in Chelsea Wolfe or whatever. However if the album itself isn't metal, I don't care as long as it's listed on the site. So if you're a huge fan of Anethema or late-era Opeth or something then it's your lucky day, everything they released during the window of eligibility is fair game.

2) Make sure you vote for ten albums: This rule is stricken for the mid year poll. It should be very easy to come up with 10 when we're talking about such a broad window of time anyway but if you don't want to then hey, don't sweat it! It'll make it harder for me to tally up the total amount of ballots (because usually I'm a lazy ass and just divide the point total by 101 to get this answer) but this is the low stress summer poll. If for some reason you can't think of ten, don't worry about it too hard. The vote to possibly expand the ballot wound up deciding to keep the maximum at 10 by a huge majority, so if you really want to do 20 or something, you've gotta bite the bullet and trim it down. But if you just don't like any of these new styles of metal and only really loved six albums, go ahead and vote for six.

3) Put your list in order: I'm assigning point values, it's important that they're in order. If you just give me something alphabetically with no determined ordering, I'll either just discard the entire ballot or change every vote to something stupid out of spite. In the event of a tie, the album with more higher placed votes counts, so an album with ten votes all for fourth place will rank above one with a hundred and twenty votes only for tenth place, so please, order them!

4) New, original material only: Usually this rule is to eliminate live albums and rereleases and whatnot, but here? Nah whatever, I don't care. If the best album happens to be a live album or a demo compilation or something, go nuts. Every release listed on MA is eligible, no matter the format.

5) Only albums actually released from 2010-2019: Again this should be obvious but it needs to be said anyway. And yes the decade ends in 2019 for the same reason 2000 isn't part of the 90s, miss me with that bullshit.

6) One ballot per user: Again, should go without saying, but don't try to vote multiple times to inflate the numbers. I will notice and I'll just wipe your whole vote if you decide to be a numbskull.

7) Your account must have been registered before this thread was created: This shouldn't apply to pretty much all of you, but it's just to prevent duplicate sockpuppet accounts trying to game the system. Don't do that.

8) Don't be a dick: We're running on the honor system here, and I obviously can't police the intentions of everybody who votes, but please don't be a troll who votes in a bunch of crap you've never heard of for yuks. Nor should you vote in things you actually think are terrible as some weird form of protest. Nor should you vote the same album ten times. Nor should you vote for something your own band released. We're trusting you to take this seriously enough to have fun with this but not act like an idiot, just use common sense and don't waste our time.

The one other big change is that, if you want to posts your lists in here ahead of time, go wild. I try to curb that during the main year-end poll in December to discourage vote gaming and stuff like that, but with the category being so broad this time I see no harm in doing so to remind people of great stuff they may have forgotten about. I'll keep the actual running totals secret while the ballots are rolling in still in order for the final reveal to have some essence of ceremony, but the idea is for this to be informal and fun, so I'm not gonna be a dickhead about it during June. Posts your lists if you want to, but please remember to PM it to me if you want it to count in the final tally. There will obviously be a new thread when the results are posted where you can share and discuss there as well, but if you want to do it here too, go ahead, I don't care this time.

We decided to axe the side category for the last mid-year poll since it didn't really fit the category, but I've decided to modify it a bit and reintroduce it this year. This year, the OPTIONAL SIDE VOTE IS:

BAND OF THE DECADE
We usually do "Debut of the Year" but that seems less interesting in a decade poll, and my original idea here was for whichever band that debuted in or after 2010 would be the category, but most bands take a few years to really get going so it'd functionally be a vote for a much shorter period of time. Instead, if you'd like to, you can also submit a vote for whichever band you think had the best run during this decade. In the spirit of the loosened summer poll, you can determine this by any metric you like. The band you think had the strongest run of albums? An old band that had an incredible comeback during this time? New band that came out of nowhere and smoked the veterans? However you want to judge it, I want to know who you think had the overall strongest decade. The only real rule here is the obvious one, please ensure they actually have a page on MA, that's all. This is optional but if you want to vote for this category, please send me ONE entry and we'll see who comes out on top in raw numbers.


The polls will be open until Midnight, July 1st, MA TIME (EST, or GMT -5:00). I know people always get confused as to when this actually means, but know that as soon as July starts, the polls are closed. This gives us the entire month of June to vote. The final results should hopefully be posted sometime on the 1st, though I have a real job and shit so it may take until the 2nd, but I've done a good job of always getting the results out on time in the past so I feel confident in being able to do it again this time.

Have fun and happy voting!

Oh, I forgot to mention it in the OP, but if you could also just add in which year each release you vote for, that'd be swell. Napalm_Satan will be handling some just-for-fun analytics with this info again like she did for the BM poll and if you could remember to add it yourself it'd cut down on the time I spend hunting down band pages to find the year of release. I'll still count your vote either way but it'd be doing us a favor.

Oh man this will be difficult but I'm pretty stoked to try and whittle it down. I can't imagine my tastes will sync with many others (I like that wanky tech-death so expect some of that in my list), but this should be pretty cool.

1 = Teitanblood - Death 2014
2 = Svartidauði - Flesh Cathedral 2012
3 = Ulcerate - Shrines of Paralysis 2016
4 = Sinmara - Apothic Womb 2014
5 = Chaos Echoes - Transient 2015
6 = Deathspell Omega - Paracletus 2010
7 = Misþyrming - Söngvar elds og óreiðu 2015
8 = Gris - A L'Âme Enflammée, L'Âme Constellée... 2013
9 = Esoteric - A Phyrric Existence 2019
10 = Cultes des Ghoules - Henbane 2013

Band of the decade = Ulcerate

That was easy.

@BH: This is just for the sake of sharing, a copy was sent via PM

1. Ulcerate - Shrines of Paralyzis 2016
2. Asphagor - The Cleansing 2018
3. Autokrator - Hammer of the Heretics 2018
4. Throne - Altar of the Dying 2018
5. Véhémence - Par le Sang Vérse 2019
6. Vitriol - To Bathe from the Throat of Cowardice 2019
7. Wiegedood - De Doden Hebben Het Goed 2015
8. Archspire - Relentless Mutation 2017
9. путь - Песни смерти 2018
10. Avslut - Tyranni 2019

Band of the decade: Ulcerate

Damn, I feel called out. Chelsea Wolfe's Hiss Spun was on my consideration list I've been narrowing down, but to my dismay, she is indeed not on the archives. Oh well.



Yeah, I'm pretty sure a number of us are going to have quite unique lists. I don't expect most of mine will be on many others' lists.

Man, all you crazy people with their lists already done.

Went through my discogs collection by year and picked out eligable candidates on gut feeling and am listening through all of them to even determine which ten will be in the list, let alone what order to put them in. Here's the initial list of contendors I am working through:

Yeah, I started working on mine when the thread was announced a week ago or so, but I want to try and listen to most of my candidates again to fine-tune their placing and be sure I have the right 10, so I probably won't submit mine until towards the end of the month.

I mean, in all technicality, I've been working on this list for 10 years now. :V

Yeah, I make lists every year to share with my friends who do the same. Its fun, but totally pointless. We are not journalists.
So this xmas I had compiled the past 10 years of lists (I had to go and create 2011 and 2010 to make the whole decade) and trimmed it down by genre.
When this thread popped up I just quickly grabbed a few of the tops spots from the varying genres and slapped them together without overthinking it.

painful, painful list from my part, i had to exclude a lot of great records
I left only the ones who made a lasting impact on me and will continue to do so. I'm expecting some rando corner material, but overall i'm happy with the albums i've chosen

01. Septic Flesh - The Great Mass (2011)
02. Tiamat - The Scarred People (2012)
03. Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini (2010)
04. Vader - Welcome to the Morbid Reich (2011)
05. Kontinuum - Kyrr (2015)
06. Peste Noire – La Chaise-Dyable (2015)
07. Hail Spirit Noir - Oi Magoi (2014)
08. Sadist - Season in Silence (2010)
09. Solefald - Norrøn Livskunst (2010)
10. Idle Hands – Mana (2019)

1. Deathspell Omega "Drought" 2012
2. Weapon "From The Devil's Tomb" 2010
3. Grave Miasma "Odori Sepulcrorum" 2013
4. Wolves In The Throne Room "Celestial Lineage" 2011
5. Inquisition "Ominous Doctrines..." 2010
6. Deathspell Omega "Paracletus" 2010
7. Ulcerate "The Destroyer Of All" 2011
8. Autopsy "Macabre Eternal" 2011
9. Furia "Nocel" 2014
10. Batushka "Litourgiya" 2015

And there you have it! What! An EP is a record of a decade? Damn right! My most enjoyable listening experience deserves to be just that!

Cheers!

Here are my choices.

Power Trip - Nightmare Logic (2017)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Infest The Rat’s Nest (2019)
Behemoth - The Satanist (2014)
Possessed - Revelations of Oblivion (2019)
Sleep - The Sciences (2018)
Immortal - Northern Chaos Gods (2018)
Blood Incantation - Hidden History Of The Human Race (2019)
Deafheaven - New Bermuda (2015)
Carcass - Surgical Steel (2013)
Vektor - Terminal Redux (2016)

Oh, are we posting? Hooray! Time to follow the crowd!

1. Mary's Blood - Bloody Palace (2015)
2. Lovebites - Clockwork Immortality (2018)
3. Avantasia - Ghostlights (2016)
4. Threshold - Legends of the Shires (2017)
5. Vektor - Terminal Redux (2016)
6. Metalite - Heroes in Time (2017)
7. Triosphere - The Heart of the Matter (2014)
8. Helion Prime - Helion Prime (2016)
9. Overkill - White Devil Armory (2014)
10. Symphony X - Iconoclast (2011)

Honorable Mentions:
Wuthering Heights - Salt (2010)
Black Majesty - Stargazer (2012)
Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful (2015)
Serenity - Lionheart (2017)
The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Digital Resistance (2014)

More albums from the same band don't count. :[

Multiple from the same band absolutely counts, just don't put them in the same slot you dork

@BastardHead,
Do you have any preferences when it comes to band/album names that uses non-Latin script? For example, should I list the 2017 Nokturnal Mortum album as Істина or the official English translation Verity? Does it make a difference in your total workload?

Aah finally <3. I've been waiting a while for this one to roll around as I might have said elsewhere. I love watching the numbers of it all fall into place as the votes come flooding in, and seeing what albums take the lead and for how long. It's like a very long and large horse race.

It doesn't really matter to me since I tend to just copy and paste anything my stupid keyboard doesn't have a key for, but it'd generally be better to use the standard English characters just so I don't accidentally wind up having two separate point totals for the same album without me noticing.

Unless it's one of those bands that purely uses Cyrillic or Chinese characters or something, either way it's not a big deal whichever you do, I'll figure it out.

Your submissions are being checked for this anyway, but please check that you state the correct year for your picks if you do decide to list those (which is very much appreciated.) The less chance of an error being made on our end, the better.

Here's my list. A few I was sad to cut but happy enough with this.

This was actually more difficult than I initially reckoned, probably could have gone with 15 after all and had to cut a few deserving choices - just couldn't squeeze in any Oranssi Pazuzu even though they've been incredibly consistent across the decade.

1. Midnight Odyssey - Shards of Silver Fade [2015]
2. Evilfeast - Wintermoon Enchantment [2011]
3. Negative Plane - Stained Glass Revelations [2011]
4. Nocte Obducta - Umbriel [2013]
5. A Forest of Stars - Opportunistic Thieves of Spring [2010]
6. The Meads of Asphodel - The Murder of Jesus the Jew [2010]
7. Lunar Aurora - Hoagascht [2012]
8. Paysage d'Hiver - Das Tor [2013]
9. Ruins of Beverast - Blood Vaults - The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer [2013]
10. Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn [2013]

A few observations...my choices are heavily weighted towards the beginning of the decade, not quite sure how much of that is due to the quality of releases that fall within the sub-genres I lean towards and my listening habits.

We really are long overdue a new album from Negative Plane! I used to track my favourite albums on Last fm journals and remember that album blindsiding me right at the beginning of the year and held the spot then onwards (albeit, now revised to place Evilfeast above).

I reckon Enslaved - Axioma is going to chart highly within their genre, that's my one prediction...again couldn't quite find space for it myself.

1. An Autumn for Crippled Children - Try Not to Destroy Everything You Love (2013)
2. Lantlôs - .neon (2010)
3. Cradle of Filth - Hammer of the Witches (2015)
4. Alrakis - Alpha Eri (2011)
5. Sorrow Plagues - Disconsolate (2015)
6. Mgła - Exercises in Futility (2015)
7. Woman Is the Earth - Torch of Our Final Night (2016)
8. Woods of Desolation - Torn Beyond Reason (2011)
9. NONE - Damp Chill of Life (2019)
10. My Useless Life - Negative Memories (2014)

Band of the decade: Deafheaven. Very consistent from Sunbather until this day.

I'm glad that so many people voted for black metal albums.

Kvelertak's self-titled would have been in my top five, didn't realize they got removed from the Archives

Yeah do double check your ballots to catch things like that. Off the top of my head Kvelertak is the only high profile candidate I can think of that was removed this past decade, but it also happens in reverse as well. I had about ten votes for Full of Hell's album in 2017 that I couldn't count at the time but can now.

1. Arch/Matheos - Winter Ethereal 2019
2. Atlantean Kodex - The White Goddess 2013
3. Pharaoh - Bury the Light 2012
4. Slough Feg - New Organon 2019
5. Seasons of the Wolf - Last Act of Defiance 2018
6. Deceased - Ghostly White 2018
7. Sonata Arctica - Pariah’s Child 2014
8. Symphony X - Iconoclast 2011
9. Trail Of Murder - Shades Of Art 2012
10. Edguy - Age of the Joker 2011

Honorable mentions - Excalion "High Time," Ruins Of Beverast "Foulest Semen...," Horrendous "Idol" and even more really. Great decade.

1. Opium Warlords - Taste My Sword of Understanding (2014)
If you're a fan of Reverend Bizarre, this is basically the secret unreleased RB album. Sure it gets a bit experimental as many of the Opium Warlords releases are, but it's got the bombast, the riffs, everything you've missed about RB. I didn't have to think twice about making this one my number one.

2. Karma to Burn - Appalachian Incantation (2010)
There's stoner metal and there's Karma to Burn. There's a vaguely West Virginia twang in almost every one of their songs, though whatever bluegrass influences they have, it's very much on the margins. There's no overt experimentation unlike say a band like Panopticon--no banjos, no folksy interludes--just very well written stoner metal with a hillbilly edge.

3. Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä (2016)
Oranssi Pazuzu are quickly becoming the titans of psychedelic black metal, so the real challenge is figuring out which of their quality albums deserve to be on the list. It was close, but I think they really hit their strife with Värähtelijä, but I could easily have put any one of their 2010s albums here instead.

4. Cough - Ritual Abuse (2010)
When Electric Wizard started their ignominious decline, Cough was there to pick up the slack. Sure they have a different sound--slower, more drone, and they're far more depressing--but Ritual Abuse was a revelation for stoner doom metal. Just try and listen to "Crippled Wizard" and tell me that Cough aren't capturing the next incarnation of doom metal's perpetual obsession with wizards.

5. Neurosis - Live at Roadburn 2007 (2010)
Okay, this seems like cheating since the actual performance was in 2007, but, hey, the album was released in 2010 and live albums are kosher... All that said, I would easily call this the best metal live album of the decade. (Amenra's Alive was better, but there's no way anyone could construe their acoustic set as metal, even though it's technically fair game given the rules.)

6. Alaskan - The Weak and the Wounded EP (2010)
I'm sure this EP will not be voted for by anyone else, but, I don't care, Alaskan deserve to be up here. Alaskan have quietly been making among the best sludge metal in the business for a half a decade, but somehow they got overshadowed by flashier, inferior sludge bands and so they disappeared back to obscurity, but not before they made some of the catchiest pummeling sludge metal out there.

7. Stoned Jesus - Seven Thunders Roar (2012)
There's not many bands that can combine such a relaxed atmosphere in the beginning and then really build up the energy. Harkens back to the old days of prog rock and heavy metal epics, but with a modern, crisp production with laconic yet meaningful lyrics (for the most part--"Electric Mistress" is one of those brain-dead "I have a lot of sex" songs that seemed a must for every heavy or hair metal record). Still, this album really sticks with you.

8. Khôrada - Salt (2018)
When I first heard this album, I just couldn't stop listening to it. This was such a meticulously composed opus, resembling the same escapist musical journey of Hammers of Misfortune's The Bastard or Slough Feg in their prime. It just pulls you in and doesn't let you out.

9. Furia - Księżyc milczy luty (2016)
It would far too easy to have a bunch of Polish black metal bands on here. And I'm sure the more popular Polish black metal bands will be Batushka/Батюшка or Mgla, but Furia just really kicks things up a few notches. I would go so far to say that this is one of the albums to rejuvenates the BM genre. It's experimental, but so well composed that the influences are seamless. And it just sounds new, innovative without abandoning black metal completely (unlike say Thy Catafalque or Arcturus) or simply mashing mediocre black metal to some other genre (e.g. Panopticon)

10. Thy Worshiper - Klechdy (2016)
Another band that is sadly underrated. I've not heard such a seamless marriage of folk and black metal since Primordial and Moonsorrow. Whereas Primordial and Moonsorrow took Celtic and Nordic folk traditions and melded them into extreme metal, Thy Worhsiper does that with Slavic traditions. It's what I always wanted Arkona to be, but they were never too fond of black metal.

Band of the Decade:
Oranssi Pazuzu by a longshot. They may have not founded psychedelic black metal, but they sure as hell perfected it. Three increasingly impressive albums that clearly inspired at least a handful prominent black metal bands.

Honorable mentions
Messa - Belfry (2016)
Kickass doom that no one appears to have ever heard of. It's got the shoegaze-y vibe of Subrosa, but heavier. And though I was in love with Subrosa's No Help for the Mighty Ones, in recent years, I haven't been able to get into them, mostly cause the guitars sound too thin for doom metal. Not so, with Messa's Belfry. You've got the haunting, ethereal female vocals with some real traditional doom riffage.

Beastcraft - The Infernal Gospels of Primitive Devil Worship (2017)
Honestly, I almost put this album in my top 10 just because of the track "Deathcraft and Necromancy." If there was a top 10 metal songs of the decade, it might very well be my pick for number one. It's such a good black metal dirge with a vaguely waltz-like rhythm, just really sinks its hooks into your brain. Unfortunately, the rest of the album is pretty by-the-book black metal and I can't justify calling the album as best of the decade.

Devil Master - Satan Spits on Children of Light (2019)
This is a real headbanger of an album. Channeling the energy of Venom and the Misfits, the sloppy gallop of this album is just positively infectious. This album does what Midnight occasionally accomplished amid uninspired Venom homages. The catchiness of early Municipal Waste but with distinctive high-pitched wailing guitars. Utterly frantic, unstoppable album.

Big Business - Battlefields Forever (2013)
Melvins' lesser known cousin made some of the catchiest heavy metal in decades. There's nothing particularly new here, besides borrowing the best of sludge metal drumming and composing compulsively-obsessive obscurely-worded heavy metal songs. Still it's just such a good throwback to heavy metal, that it's hard not to play this album over and over.

Blindead - Ascension (2016)
There's so much innovative metal coming out of Poland these days. I feel like you could easily do a Top 10 Polish metal albums of the decade and still have some hard choices to make. One common theme is how seamlessly these Polish bands combine so many influences. Half the time, you can't tell exactly what you're listening to. This is what post-metal should sound like, instead of the Neurosis-clones with the warbly post-rock guitars. Only 49 minutes, but they pack so much variety in this album that you'll never be bored.

I think they're a little more popular than you might think, just maybe not here. I haven't heard that album yet, but Feast For Water was an intriguing listen. I need more time with it, but it had some promising qualities.

Yeah, I remember both Messa albums being in Bandcamp's top sellers list for weeks when they dropped. And 6 reviews on MA is actually a hell of a lot.

I stand corrected. I've just never heard anyone really talk about them. But glad to see that I'm wrong!

Great list! I will be extremely disappointed if Ghostlights doesn't make a run at the Top 10, even despite the lack of power metal in most of these polls.

Also, I love the Triosphere mention. That one will go under the radar, and honestly, I'm not sure if it will make my list, but it is an incredible record!

1. Atlantean Kodex - The White Goddess (2013)
2. Eternal Champion - The Armor of Ire (2016)
3. Visigoth - The Revenant King (2015)
4. Briton Rites - For Mircalla (2010)
5. Tales of Medusa - The Fatal Wounding Gaze (2010)
6. Hell - Human Remains (2011)
7. Atlantean Kodex - The Course of Empire (2019)
8. The Gates of Slumber - The Wretch (2011)
9. Capilla Ardiente - The Siege (2019)
10. Caladan Brood - Echoes of Battle (2013)

Some honourable mentions:
Quicksand Dream - Beheading Tyrants (2016)
Wrathblade - Into the Netherworld's Realm (2012)
Solstice - White Horse Hill (2018)
Gatekeeper - East of Sun (2018)
Pagan Altar - The Room of Shadows (2017)

Did this mostly by ordering my RYM ratings which were 4.5 or 5 by release date. Would you believe I graduated in 2015 and have had much less time to listen to new music since?

1. Fukpig - Belief is the Death of Intelligence (2010)
2. Autopsy - Macabre Eternal (2011)
3. Chapel - Satan's Rock n Roll (2012)
4. Napalm Death - Utilitarian (2012)
5. Atlantean Kodex - The White Goddess (2013)
6. Deathhammer - Evil Power (2015)
7. Darkthrone - Circle the Wagons (2010)
8. Visigoth - The Revenant King (2015)
9. Bastard Priest - Under the Hammer of Destruction (2010)
10. Manilla Road - Mysterium (2013)

What a list. Awesome.

I'm very thankful for the lists posted already. For some reason I totally forgot about Hammer of the Witches, which was one of my most played album for years after its release. Not sure if it can make the top 10. I'm also struggling to justify keeping Belus there.

Hell YEAH! Nice to see Autopsy making someone else’s list! That album shreds!

Cool list! Glad to see Opium Warlords on there, I love the album but putting it as your #1 is a bit much for me haha. It's definitely in my top 50 of the decade. Glad to see Khoroda's sole album too, sad that they're already done.

Mammoth's list is excellent, for sure. I kinda forgot about The Wretch being a 2011 album!

Here's mine:

1) Magic Circle - Magic Circle (2013)
2) Demon Bitch - Hellfriends (2016)
3) Cultes des Ghoules - Henbane (2013)
4) Leeches of Lore - Frenzy, Ecstasy (2012)
5) In Solitude - Sister (2013)
6) Darkthrone - Arctic Thunder (2016)
7) Power Trip - Nightmare Logic (2017)
8) Khemmis - Hunted (2016)
9) Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand (2011)
10) Nails - Abandon All Life (2013)

Band of the decade: Magic Circle

Ordering is a bit random after the top 3 to be honest.

Man, I didn't expect this to be so difficult. Even my number one pick is a struggle between Virvum's "Illuminance" and Exivious' "Liminal", mostly because their enjoyability is very mood-dependent for me. I think I'll go for Virvum though, by far the best tech-death album of the decade (though I could see why other's might lend that title to Relentless Mutation). As far as band of the decade, Ne Obliviscaris. 3 phenomenal albums, all of which I can listen to over and over again.

It was quite tough to judge, only #1 was clear to me.

1. Burzum - Belus (2010)
2. Horna - Hengen tulet (2015)
3. Blut aus Nord - 777 - Sect(s) (2011)
4. Shining - VII - Född förlorare (2011)
5. Sargeist - Feeding the Crawling Shadows (2014)
6. Primordial - Exile Amongst the Ruins (2018)
7. Triptykon - Melana Chasmata (2014)
8. Barathrum - Fanatiko (2017)
9. Bølzer - Hero (2016)
10. Rhinocervs - RH-07 (2011)

Band of the decade - Blut Aus Nord. And this was easy. BAN combined quality with quantity better than anybody.

I'm glad it made at least one list. It was in my top 20, but didn't make my top 10. It deserves recognition.

I didn't rethink my list at all, did it earlier for another site.

1. A Forest of Stars - A Shadowplay for Yesterdays 2012
2. The Wounded Kings - The Shadow Over Atlantis 2010
3. Funereal Presence - The Archer Takes Aim 2014
4. Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand 2011
5. Vulture Industries - The Malefactor's Bloody Register 2010
6. The Ruins of Beverast - Exuvia 2017
7. Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega 2015
8. StarGazer - A Great Work of Ages 2010
9. Aosoth - IV: An Arrow in Heart 2013
10. The Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom - Seven Bloodied Ramparts 2010

Band of the decade: A Forest of Stars

Got to give it to them, one 5/5 all time fave, two sublime and another stellar album made in the 2010s.