1: In Flames - Colony
Easily one of the most singularly important albums to my taste. Along with Fear Factory, and shortly after, Opeth, this album was proof of concept that music with predominantly harsh vocals could appeal to me, since prior to this point I hadn't ventured much out beyond prog and power metal. I still remember in my first semester of college finding a Metal Maniacs magazine, and reading an article about them. For some reason I had the idea that they had this really awesome guitar tone. And wow was I right. Nearly two decades later, and the tone and overall production on this album is still virtually unequaled. From the opening pick scrape of "Embody the Invisible" to the crushing downtuned rhythm guitars of the title track to the soaring harmonized leads of "Resin", they have a searing tone that is perfection. Another favorite sound is the mildly overdriven crackle of the break in "Zombie Inc.", absolutely stellar. Not to mention the warm acoustics of "Man Made God" and "Pallar Anders Visa". One of the few flaws is that the remake of "Behind Space" omits the original acoustic outro, rerecording that would have been even more superb. I could keep going for quite some time about this album, which is why it sits on top of my list, but I must mention Svensson's drumming. Prior to this Gelotte was merely an adequate time-keeper, and with Anders even in his "prime" being unremarkable, the raison d'etre of the band was almost solely about the guitars. But with Daniel joining, this added more flair and a propulsive rhythmic component to counterbalance their sound. His toms in particular in fills and grooves are still incredible-sounding, in evidence by a tune such as the title cut.
2: Type O Negative - October Rust
I'm a little surprised that this album made it up so high on my list, but in retrospect I probably shouldn't be. It's easily the album here that has been in my life the longest. I was obsessed with the Descent video game series in my younger years, and an instrumental version of the Per remix of "Haunted" was one of the tracks on the Descent II Redbook soundtrack. Consequently, amongst all of the other industrial rock/metal, electro-industrial, and orchestral tracks on that soundtrack, before I even realized what was happening, I was being primed for doom and gothic metal. It was an interest that took some time to fully blossom, but which has arguably increasingly dominated my taste in the past decade. I could write at length about all of the cool things on this album. Steele's powerful bass delivery, particularly the plangent sustained sonorities in the middle of "Haunted". The chromatic sliding riffs in the same song, which seem like they should be more common in doom, but I almost never hear anyone else play anything like them. Hickey's rich, effects-drenched lead/solo lines in "Love You To Death" and "Be My Druidess". Peter's punchy, fuzzy bass tone such as in the latter song. Silver's icy keyboard textures throughout, such as in "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)". Val Ium's backing vocals on "In Praise of Bacchus". I don't even want to dare admit how many years it took me to realize that the drums are programmed. It's obvious in listening back to it since I discovered that a number of years ago, but for however many countless numbers of listens to this before I had that realization, they were never distracting.
3: Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse
This was the auspicious beginning of the classic Opeth quartet, adding the Martins to the fold. It's possibly their widest-ranging album, with the black metallish intro of "April Ethereal", the exquisite folkiness of "Credence", the Pink Floydy "Epilogue" with Nordstrom on organ foreshadowing the increased presence of keyboards for the band later on, and the masterful death metal trappings of "Demon of the Fall". Akerfelt's vocals on the latter track in particular are monstrous, with the layering, and that shriek after the acoustic break. But even with it being one of Opeth's more aggressive songs, it is still replete with beautiful melodies, and the lush mellower guitar work at the end. It's a chore having to leave off their other three excellent albums in the decade, and in various periods I might have selected a different one, but these days I'm resonating with it the most. Orchid is just a bit too raw, Still Life is too close to proto-Blackwater Park without being quite as good, so this album squeaks by Morningrise for now, though I do really miss de Farfalla's fretless lines.
4: Katatonia - Tonight's Decision
This album occupies such a curious headspace for me. I prefer their later material to it, and as I suspected and the poll bears out, this forum prefers their earlier albums (though only a single vote for Discouraged Ones is really uh...discouraging). But for me, this is where it all started. I've never been able to figure out the exact circumstances of how I heard about them, but I came to start gradually acquiring a few MP3s of them back in the file-sharing days, and some of the first tracks were "For My Demons" and "Right Into the Bliss". For the first year I was aware of them I kept finding myself drawn to give them another listen every few weeks, something about them really piqued my interest. Jonas' vocals here are still fairly frail and in his period of trying to sound more like Robert Smith, but the vulnerable humanity is so alluring. Anders has always been an underrated master of creating moods with relatively simple guitar lines, such as on "No Good Can Come of This". His forte is electric guitars, but his acoustic work on tracks like "A Darkness Coming" is equally poignant. Dan Swano also contributes a solid performance on drums here.
5: Ayreon - Into The Electric Castle (A Space Opera)
People here have different thresholds for how "metal" an album has to be to be included, and there are always examples on my lists that make me reevaluate my criteria. If you want to view this as a prog/hard rock album rather than metal, I can certainly see that, but it's just heavy and aggressive enough in a variety of spots that I ultimately couldn't pass it up, it has had so much significance for me. Arjen Anthony Lucassen's work with this project and Star One have been a springboard for so many other favorite artists of mine, and this is no exception. The concept and narrations of this album might stretch the tolerance of some for cheese and theatrics, and in many other contexts it would be too much for me as well, but the musical performances on this album are absolutely worth it. It's a highlight reel of incredible moments, from the stellar guitar, drum, and Hammond organ tones, Ed Warby's immaculate drum performance, Damian Wilson's resplendent vocal incandescence, the sitar harmonies of "Isis and Osiris", the breathtaking instrumental wizardry in the second half of "Amazing Flight", Anneke van Giersbergen's legendary performance on "Valley of the Queens" and others, the hypnotic synthesizer leads on "The Two Gates", Clive Nolan's Moog solos also on "Amazing Flight", Sharon den Adel's ethereal stylings also on ""Isis and Osiris" and others, and so much more. The Electric Castle Live DVD (with all-star guest substitutions of Marcela Bovio, John Jaycee Cuijpers, Marcel Singor, Simone Simons, Joost van den Broek, John de Lancie and others) and Taycott's lyric/character videos on Youtube also enhance the experience.
6: Alice In Chains - Dirt
This was really quite a surprise for me. They're one of those bands that I sometimes forget is on the archives. And even when I put it in my initial consideration list, while I knew I love this release, I wasn't thinking it would be in my top 10. But it's just one of those albums that when you sit back down with it, it bowls you over with how spectacular it is, and I feel dumb for not even including it on my initial top 10. AIC is at that perfect nexus of elements, where they are heavy enough for metalheads, but not too heavy for rock fans, accomplished enough technically to appeal to musicians, but not intimidating to scare off those who aren't, melodic enough to hook in pop fans, but inventive and singular enough to interest those who prefer less conventional music. Layne kind of has that grunge/post-grunge yarl, but somehow pulls it off in a much more appealing way. Cantrell's guitar tone and writing is magnificent, I especially like how he lets notes ring out. Kinney and Starr make for a formidable rhythm section. Everyone knows the hits, but "Junkhead" and "Sickman" have been especially salient lately.
7: Dark Tranquillity - Projector
Certainly one of the more difficult selections, with The Mind's I, Skydancer, and The Gallery also being exemplary releases from them this decade. Ultimately this just has more of the atmosphere I want from them. Stanne's best clean vocals in the uniqueness of his style, those spacey clean guitars, occasional acoustic guitars, the detailed flourishes of Jivarp's drumming, and the guest vocals from Johanna Andersson. This feels like a very autumnal album to me for some reason, along with some of the folkier tracks from earlier albums. The piano intro to "FreeCard" is gorgeous. "On Your Time" is a killer selection with the thunderous tom intro, the powerful buildup to a little under halfway into the song, exploding into the "I'll never know if there was no time" section. It's so majestic, I've rewound and replayed those sections countless times.
8: Dan Swano - Moontower
Dan was so tremendously productive in this decade, but this still stands to me as one of his finest achievements. Over two decades later it remains a remarkably unparalleled album, sounding somewhat like if Rush tried their hand at death metal. What is truly mindblowing is that this entire album is written, played, recorded, produced, engineered, and mixed by Dan himself. It seems unnecessary that he even left the mastering to someone else. Perhaps he finally ran out of gas briefly. This album ties in his beastly growls from Edge of Sanity with his more progressive rock flavorings of Unicorn and Nightingale. Songs like "Sun of the Night", "Uncreation", "The Big Sleep", and "Encounterparts" have some of the coolest synthesizer lead lines in all of metal. "Add Reality" is an incomparable piece, with a grand and epic feeling, especially in the last couple minutes starting with the delicate piano passage.
9: Nevermore - Dreaming Neon Black
At times I feel bad for this album and The Politics of Ecstasy. Their run of albums after this is some of the best music ever recorded, and has dominated my listening much more so historically. But this album continues to age gracefully for me, accomplishing some things that even the later albums don't. In particular, Loomis' clean tone here is so atmospheric and chilling, exemplified by the intro of "Deconstruction". With the guitars being a tad more midrange-driven pre-7-string, Sheppard's bass playing stands out a bit more, particularly with the bass-focused "The Lotus Eaters". Christine Rhoades' guest performance on the title track helps propel it as easily the highlight track of the album. Thank goodness she and Jeff teamed up again for four tracks on his second solo album, they had musical chemistry. But ultimately the core of why Nevermore was so consistently great lie in the Loomis/Dane duo. Jeff's jagged, slashing riffs and fiery solos catapult everything to a height few can reach, and Warrel, while much imitated since this time, has never been equaled, much less surpassed in individuality and passion. I also feel like Williams' drumming too often gets left out of discussions, since it rarely steals the show, but it is consistently excellent.
10: The Gathering - Mandylion
This is really quite a groundbreaking album, and tremendously important for what a lot of what my taste has evolved into in more recent years. Women in metal at this point were much more of a novelty, with the occasional trad band like Warlock, extreme metal like Nuclear Death, and a few scattered others. Even in the nascent gothic/doom scene, female vocals were generally an accent saved for an occasional track, or as a counterpoint in a beauty/beast gruff/clean dynamic. The 3rd and the Mortal demonstrated that an album could focus just on the "beauty" facet, but Anneke's debut with The Gathering showed a far richer panoply of shades of vocal color in a single vocal performance, par excellence. At this point I've read quite a ream of discussion about what the ever-elusive term "gothic metal" means, and I think this album quite perfectly encapsulates what the divide in understanding of it is. Narrowly speaking, some argue that it's only about music that sounds like a riffier, more metallic version of the essential late 70s/early 80s British gothic rock bands. But what this expanded branch instead focuses on is the dark, hazy, melancholic atmospheres of gothic rock offshoots such as ethereal wave/darkwave/neoclassical darkwave. The influence of artists such as Dead Can Dance and the Cocteau Twins is evident on various tracks, for example, in the lavish and shimmering keyboard and guitar textures. I first heard this album close to two decades ago, but it's been a slow roll out, and while I spent much more time listening to bands who in some way derived their sound from this album, I've increasingly come to appreciate the original more and more.