THE 50 BEST ALBUMS OF 2021
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50 DREAM THEATER
A View From The Top Of The World
INSIDEOUT
After returning to classic form on 2019’s Distance Over Time, Dream Theater were in a buoyant mood on their 15th full-length. As intricate and technically dazzling as ever, songs like the grandiose The Alien and the brooding Invisible Monster delivered the virtuoso goods with giant melodies attached. Meanwhile, the title track offered 20 minutes of wildly imaginative, cross-genre showboating and was easily identifiable as one of the greatest Dream Theater epics yet.
49 WHITECHAPEL
Kin
METAL BLADE
On their eighth studio venture, the Tennessee deathcore progenitors would blaze yet another evolutionary trail, picking up where 2019 confessional The Valley left off. Bludgeoning yet beautiful, Phil Bozeman vacillated between guttural barks and soaring cleans as folk-infused acoustics intertwined with hulking DM grooves. Tracks like A Bloodsoaked Symphony and Lost Boy managed to punch you in both the face and the feels. A flawless companion piece to its predecessor, Kin was one of 2021’s most intense listening experiences.
48 OPHIDIAN I
Desolate
SEASON OF MIST
A fine line separates those able to make a million notes played in confined sonic spaces listenable from those who sound like a music store upchucking into a bin. Desolate, the second album by these Icelandic prog/tech-death maestros, fell on the good guys’ side of that divide as it tempered ridiculous skill, technique, and musical and physical gymnastics with impressive songwriting sensibilities. Listeners were humming along at a million miles an hour, loudly, proudly and repeatedly.
47 THE BODY AND BIG | BRAVE
Leaving None But Small Birds
THRILL JOCKEY
Who’d have thought this pairing between sludge metal’s most misanthropic duo The Body and avant Canadian post-rock trio Big | Brave would sound this unabashedly gorgeous? Eschewing the deafening volume that both usually reside within, Leaving None But Small Birds harked back to Big | Brave’s folkier roots but imbued them with a rich, almost classic rock vibe, featuring Robin Wattie’s most expressive vocals to date. A collaboration in the truest sense, this emotive record was much more than the sum of its parts.
46 CRADLE OF FILTH
Existence Is Futile
NUCLEAR BLAST
A debut for new keyboardist/vocalist Anabelle Iratni and a conceptual approach laced with unwrapping the existential crisis affecting us all as the world plunges further into madness, Existence Is Futile was another fine showing from a band who have been on imperious form for more than a decade. Catchy, evil and buckets of fun, the album produced an all-time-great Cradle Of Filth single in the driving Crawling King Chaos, and even brought back longtime Cradle fave Doug Bradley. What wasn’t to love?
45 DORDEDUH
Har
PROPHECY PRODUCTIONS
Considering Dordeduh were former members of Negură˘a Bunget, that their second album, , was enthralling shouldn’t come as much of a surprise – was a masterclass in how to take a black metal core and use it as the lynchpin for an expansive, melodic and destructive journey through extreme music and beyond. The Transylvanians might have taken nine years to give us a second album, but it was certainly worth the wait.
