Too Soon? Axl’s Best Metal Albums of 2021… So Far

I haven’t listened to half as many of 2021’s metal releases as I should have; and I like less than half of those releases as well as they deserve. But here’s what’s fucked my shit up good so far this year.

The Absence – Coffinized (M-Theory Audio)
Alastor – Onwards and Downwards (RidingEasy)
At the Gates – The Nightmare of Being (Century Media)
Blue Ox – Holy Vore (self-released)
Cannibal Corpse – Violence Unimagined (Metal Blade)
John Carpenter – Lost Themes III: Alive After Death (Sacred Bones)
Cerebral Rot – Excretion of Mortality (20 Buck Spin)
Drawn and Quartered – Congregation Pestilence (Krucyator)
Four Stroke Baron – Classics (Prosthetic)
Genghis Tron – Dream Weapon (Relapse)
Gojira – Fortitude (Roadrunner)
Iotunn – Access All Worlds (Metal Blade)
Kauan – Ice Fleet (Artoffact)
Kollapse – Sult (Fysisk)
Krallice – Demonic Wealth (Gilead Media/P2)
Mouth for War – Life Cast in Glass (1126)
Orphan Donor – Unraveled (Zegema Beach)
Portal – Avow (Profound Lore)
Red Fang – Arrows (Relapse)
Sunbomb – Evil and Divine (Frontiers)
Thyrfing – Vanagandr (Despotz)
Tomahawk – Tonic Immobility (Ipecac)
Andrew W.K. – God is Partying (Napalm)
Zao – The Crimson Corridor (Observed/Observer)
Zealot R.I.P. – The Extinction of You (Three G One)