Metal

Did a quick scroll and didn't see:

Smash - The Offspring

I'm not going to claim that it was ground breaking music or anything, but it just dropped at a time when it was able to hit maximum nostalgia for me.

Some faves off the dome:

Unearth - The Oncoming Storm

Unleash The Archers - Apex

Strapping Young Lad - City

Misery Signals - Mirrors

Entheos - Time Will Take Us All

Striker - Ultrapower

Astronoid - Air

Meshuggah - Chaosphere

Shai Hulud - Misanthropy Pure

Recent favourites, in no particular order:

Prog or adjacent : The ocean - Pelagial

Kglw - petrodragonic apocalypse (was my album of the year last year and one of the most fun albums I've heard in a long time. Felt like listening to painkiller or master of puppets for the first time. Legit top 10 all time album for me, I think)

Katatonia - the fall of hearts

Haken - affinity

Pain of salvation - in the passing light of day (or remedy lane or perfect element)

Soen - Lotus

Opeth - Ghost reveries (or any of the preceding albums, really)

Leprous - the congregation

Mastodon - crack the skye (or leviathan or emperor of sand)

Doom and adjacent: Warning - watching from a distance

Yob - our raw heart

My dying bride - feel the misery

Anathema - judgement

High on fire - death is this communion

Bongripper - Satan worshipping doom

Black and adjacent: Agalloch - the mountain

Negură bunget - virstele pamintilui (or OM)

Blackbraid - Blackbraid I or II

Bucovina - Sub stele (folk metal, really)

Power metal and such:

Dragony - viribus unitis

Blind Guardian - nightfall in middle earth (altho most of their stuff is awesome)

Adamantis - Far flung realm

Sellsword - unto the breach

Ominous Glory - the elven dream

And maaaaany more that would take me ages to list. If anyone vibes with any of the lists and wants more, hit me up, would be happy to talk more.

Alright, Top 13 for me, because 13 and this is what I could figure well enough and be satisfied with right now. Ordering subject to roughly change somewhere around fifth slot depending on what mood I'm in on any given day, but these are solid mainstays in my rotation (most of them for decades at this point). Doesn't reflect how broad my interests go, but you can see that I gravitate a lot toward black metal, and I favor stuff that isn't afraid to be its own thing. Weird is good. Non-metal albums removed though there are a couple in my top 10 if I weren't being genre specific.

1. Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega
2. Ved Buens Ende - Written in Waters
3. Murmuüre - Murmuüre
4. Emptiness - Not For Music
5. The Skaden - You Will Hope I Had Died
6. Solefald - The Linear Scaffold
7. Samael - Eternal
8. At the Gates - The Red in the Sky is Ours
9. Ulver - Bergtatt - Et Eeventyr i 5 Capitler
10. Cryptopsy - None So Vile
11. Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn
12. Rotting Christ - Khronos
13. Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

1/2 both Acid Bath albums

3 Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer

4/5 Khanate - Khanate/Things Viral

6-9 Black Sabbath - first 4 albums

10 Gorguts - Obscura