An absolute genius album of progressive folk rock. Both wildly complex and immediately catchy both lyrically and musically, this is easily an all time great album for me.
While there’s nothing too adventurous or new that this album brings, it’s one of the most cohesive and tonally perfect modern rock albums out there. A fantastic sense of poeticism in the lyrics elevates it even further.
Blackout Problems have long been a band I’ve watched and enjoyed, seemingly on the cusp of putting together something incredible. Dark finally delivers on that promise with a synth-drenched metropolitan take on contemporary punk. It’s a true delight, and somehow never wears out its welcome over an extensive run time.
After getting over the initial disappointment of the relative brevity of their long awaited followup to 2016’s Album, the brilliance of this record deserves huge recognition. Much more fun and less restrained, this release still finds the band performing the most musically complex and gorgeous metal out there.
Few metal albums contain as much power and emotion as this one. The fact it experiments to such an extent on the band (and its members’) established genre makes it likely to be remembered long past 2021.
I never really loved Eidola prior to this album outside a few songs. Somehow they made a more accessible and catchy album that’s just as artful as their earlier, more traditionally progressive, releases. Seeing them execute it perfectly live this year was the icing on the cake.
An excellent throwback to mid-2000s post-hardcore, Yours For Mine mix in just enough new ideas to stay relevant, while still delivering top notch lyricism.
Few bands have as high variance between releases as Cloud Nothings. That’s part of their appeal, and The Shadow I Remember is a high point. It returns to their wonderful airy garage/indie punk of 2017’s Life Without Sound but more laidback and “fun”.
Not much more needs to be said about Spiritbox at this point. Eternal Blue is a wonderful metalcore album that will define the direction of the genre for years to come. Don’t be surprised if this ends up being the most influential -core album since BMTH’s Sempeternal.
A Scent Like Wolves is another band I’ve listened to for many years, their brand of ethereal (but immediate) modern post-hardcore somewhat unqiue in the scene. Mystic Auras mixes in a bit of swancore to create their most creative and catchiest album yet. It ends up sounding like a poppier and slightly softer Erra. Great stuff.
This is a great pop album overlaid with a healthy amount of rock and even a bit of post-hardcore at times. There’s been quite an explosion of bands doing similar takes on pop/modern rock hybrids recently, but no one has done it better since early Pvris.
Everytime I return to this album, I’m shocked once again just how perfect a blend of extreme metal it is. Start with death metal, throw in some blackened elements, and finally introduce just a hint of doom. Coupled with excellent lyricism, this is one of the most powerful metal albums of the year.
Still probably the most listenable album of the year. If Rivals is a perfect example of how to add rock elements into a fundamentally pop album, The Home Team shows how to blend pop with modern rock into something that resembles neither. I’ll never tire of this sound.
Time for some weirdness! Noise Trail Immersion have long been one of the most intriguing avant-garde black metal bands, but this release truly sits alone at the pinnacle of the genre. There’s plenty of dissonance and darkness, but the crispness of the production and the nuance hinting at some post-metal ideas gives the French band a true masterpiece.
Peculate is the musical outlet for alt-left journalist Ben Norton, and you never know quite what you’re going to get with it. Each (frequent, often short) release has a slightly different spin on mathy electronic post-hardcore. Shifting a bit away from the unrelenting chaos of other releases, Elect Your Executioner is a shockingly light and fun take on metalcore and political anarchy.
Overall I didn’t love FTWWTE quite as much as Architects’ last few releases, but there’s no denying how massive a release this is in every sense. While it’s hard to match the sheer passion of All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us or Holy Hell, 2021’s album removes any doubt from who is the king and originator of one of the most frequently copied approaches to modern metal. It doesn’t hurt that “Animals” and “Discourse Is Dead” are two of the band’s best songs ever.
Probably the most overlooked album of the year on this list, The Silver have created a fascinating blend of post- and death metal. There’s a beautiful melancholy throughout the entire release that’s among the most underexplored emotions in the genre. There’s nothing terribly shocking on this debut, but the quiet virtuosity hints that the band is likely to make some true masterpieces throughout their career. Get in early!
You should never expect ANYTHING, really, in particular with DON BROCO, but this one even took me by surprise. The singles were all a delightful progression from what they’d done on Technology, but the rest of the album went in some surprisingly weird and restrained directions. It’s good, but it takes a bit of getting used to. Retrospectively, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this shoot up this list in the future.
A late discovery for me, I wrote up about the significance of this album in my atmospheric/post-black round up, and for all those reasons I just can’t leave it off this list. Oh, it’s also really really good.
I struggled whether I should include such a short EP on my top albums list, but outside Spiritbox, no one made an imprint on the scene in 2021 like Lorna Shore. No one else has done more for deathcore in recent years, and it’s absolutely incredible how they’ve managed to blend borderline cheesy moments of heaviness with truly beautiful art.
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