THE SHORT LIST (OR: VINCE’S PICKS FOR THE TOP 21 ALBUMS OF 2008, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

2008 has been a fucking great year for metal, and in due time — Monday, Dec. 15, to be exact — Axl, myself and the rest of the writers of MetalSucks will all release our Top 10 year-end lists so you can incessantly argue over which great album was left off or tell us we’re assholes for ranking a certain album higher than it should’ve been.

But for now, ya’ll can argue about something else: here’s my personal short/working list for said year-end list containing all of my favorite metal releases from this year as well as a few that aren’t likely to make my own list but will surely be appearing on others’. Feel free to pipe in with your thoughts or to notify us of any egregious omissions before we put together our final, ordered lists. Regardless, it is going to be really fucking hard to pick just 10 of these and put them in order of awesomeness.

And, my favorite metal records of 2008 in no particular order are…

Made Out of Babies – The Ruiner

Torche – Meanderthal

Arsis – We Are the Nightmare

Protest the Hero – Fortress

Byzantine – Oblivion Beckons

Textures – Silhouettes

Scar Symmetry – Holographic Universe

After the Burial – Rareform

Gojira – The Way of All Flesh

Metallica – Death Magnetic

Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy

Shinedown – The Sound of Madness

Meshuggah – Obzen

Trivium – Shogun

Enslaved – Vertebrae

Nachtmystium – Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1

The Faceless – Planetary Duality

Opeth – Watershed

Eluveitie – Slania

Genghis Tron – Board Up the House

Cynic – Traced In Air

Psycroptic – Ob(servant)

[LATE ADDS: OK, I left off the new Intronaut and All Shall Perish records, so I’m posthumously adding those in. You guys can shut up now. -Ed.]