(Honorable Mention) Arsis - A Celebration of Guilt    Willowtip Records

    Let's hear it for Virginia duo Arsis on not only capturing the essence of the European "melodic death" sound, but making it rock American style.  It's fast and frantic, the production is punchy, the vocals have the proper amount of sinisterness (sinisterity?) while remaining semi-intelligible and there's just riff after fantastic riff in every song.  With all this heady praise, you might be wondering why it doesn't rate higher on my list.  Well, it's because...it's like when you sit down to a fine, fine meal, and you eat a few courses and you're satisfied, even though there's more awesome food coming at you.  That's this album.  After a few tracks, I'm pretty much rocked out, especially when they start you off with the neck-snapping "Face of My Innocence" and go straight into the fist-pounding "Maddening Disdain."  It gets to be a bit too much after a while, but in the properly measured doses, it's awesome.

5. Caliban - The Opposite from Within   Abacus Recordings

    Apparently, Caliban's been rocking Europe (Germany specifically) for lots of years, a fact I didn't know until I heard the single "The Beloved and the Hatred."  For all the fans of Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall, Caliban is your new favourite band.  The songs are structured in the same manner, the production was given a suitable gloss by In Flames frontman Anders Friden, and they basically just rock your frickin' socks off.  Sadly, this album only shifted about 900 units in its first week of availability here in the States, which is a shame considering both KSE and SF's new albums have both gone over 100,000.  Really and truly this is the *same* music...and that's more or less why it falls into the 5 slot.  These Germans do the "harsh verse, melodic chorus" thing just a bit too much to be rated higher than this.

4. Within Temptation - The Silent Force   BMG International

   I am SO glad that this album wound up on this list.  I've been a fan of Within Temptation for a while now, having bought both The Dance and Mother Earth.  However, the first single from The Silent Force, "Stand My Ground," which I didn't hear until I watched the video for it, smacked SO INCREDIBLY MUCH of Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life" that I was terrified they'd bastardized their trademarked "orchestral metal" sound to get some money.  Fortunately, "Stand..." is the only over-produced, dumbed-down song on the album (and even it has a nice chug to it), leaving the rest to soar with the majesty of Sharon den Adel's voice while hanging around with the heaviest of the metallurgists in Denmark.  This is a fanTAStic album, and any of you Evanescence "Amy Lee is teh BEST OMGG!!!!!111!!" fanfreaks need to listen to this and check out what real singers can do.

3. All That Remains - This Darkened Heart   Prosthetic Records

    Hands down the best metalcore album that came out this year.  Yes, I liked the new Lamb of God, KSE, Shadows Fall, Unearth, etc. etc., but All That Remains blow them all out of the water.  Every single song finds me looking for a pit in which I can tangle with some skinny scenester in a hoodie who thinks he can spinkick his way out of a beating.  While ATR have started to blend some melodic vocals with their mostly hardcore approach, very little of the anger and energy is sacrificed in the process, leading to an album that just begs to be played at full volume.  Breakdowns come at you one after another, the pace never seems forced and even the moody beginning of "Regret Not" eventually gives way to an onslaught of metalllllll!!! that kicks some serious ass.  My big question is, why were these guys opening up for GWAR when they came to Seattle this year?  What's up with that?

2. Nightwish - Once   Roadrunner Records

    Just as there were two Solid State recordings in the first installment of this column, so are there two female-fronted goth-metal bands in this.  Nightwish totally caught me off-guard one day and stormed straight into my musical heart with their hit "Nemo" (my #1 song of the year) after a couple of trials and errors.  If you've read my review, you already know my opinion of this album.  It's fantastic, heavy, well-constructed, but with enough theatrical cheeze to keep me amused.  Band notes state that Tarja Turunen is a classically-trained vocalist who aspires to be a gospel singer, keyboardist (and chief songsmith) Tuomas Holopainen's favourite TV show is freakin' MacGyver and bassist Marco Hietala wants to be abducted by aliens.  You really can't come up with a better formula than that for creating a musical masterpiece, which Once certainly is.  It flows from song to song, and you can really *tell* that the songs were meant to be placed on the same album.  Unfortunately, their first States-side video ("I Wish I Had An Angel") made Hietala look like a complete idiot, showed exactly two poses from guitarist Erno Vuorinen and was from one of the worst songs on the album, thus giving potential new fans a false impression.  Shame, shame.

1. Thornley - Come Again   Roadrunner Records

    Funny that in year of great metal, a rock band would take top spot on my list.  After a long dry spell, Roadrunner finally got back on track, and Ian Thornley's self-titled new project headlines that.  Thornley was the main songwriter for the defunct Canadian quintet Big Wreck, who managed to become enamored to me with their songs "That Song" and "Blown Wide Open" from their album ...In Loving Memory Of, which aired endlessly on also-defunct MTV-X.  Thornley knows a good rock song when he sees it, and that's absolutely apparent on this disc.  I tend to judge records on how many tracks need to be removed to make a completely radio-ready assassin, and Come Again clocks in with all but two songs.  It's a phenomenal record from start to finish, not unlike Pearl Jam's ageless Ten which continues to get spins well after its expected end of life.  When all is said and done, this is a seminal rock album, with chunky riffs, sparkling vocals and clever stories told through the lyrics.  There was a brief debate with Once as to who was the king of the hill for this year, but the fact of the matter is that this album got the most spins in my CD player.  It's awesome and most people are just dismissing it as some sort of Nickelback rip-off, which couldn't be further from the truth.  If you want some bluesy, crunchy rock to fill up your ears, you don't have to go any further than Thornley's Come Again.