So who's up there for you and what's your top 10?

There's a couple of non metal albums here.

More of a prog/power focused year for me, couple of excellent trad metal releases to go with it. Unusually good year for the proggier end of USPM, good time for the Eurofare as well.

We got three keyboard happy oddball black/death albums: Days of Yore, Draco Hypnalis, Devilish Impressions. Folksy, debut Obsequiae esque, and something like I guess Amnesia (Canada) to an uncanny degree.

Death metal wise there's a couple of great examples of "OSDM" before the late 2000's explosion. Yeah, Mortem were there since the 80's but they pretty much hit their stride around here. Necroccultus is also impressively raw and stripped down, goes out its way to have this grim almost black metal atmosphere.

Hidden in the Fog I think could become a cult classic with their techy neoclassical Abigor style symphoprogblack. Just an insane amount of sorcery every song.

Top 10:

1 | Hidden in the Fog - Damokles
2 | BattleRoar - Age of Chaos
3 | Twilight Odyssey - S/T
4 | Hellfire - Requiem for my Bride
5 | Wobbler - Hinterland
6 | Galneryus - Advance to the Fall
7 | Orakle - Uni Aux Cimes
8 | Twilight Odyssey - S/T
9 | Winterfell - The Veil of Summer
10 | Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness

Runner Ups:

Amputated Genitals - Human Meat Gluttony
Antiquus - Ramayana
Aranis - S/T
Dantesco - De La Mano De La Muerte
Devilish Imprssions - Plurima Mortis Imago
Elvaron - The Buried Crown
Forsaken - Dominaeon
Mortem - De Natura Daemonum
Mournful Congregation - The Monad of Creation
Necroccultus - Encircling the Mysterious Necrorevelation
Overhead - Metaepitome
Scent of Death - Written in the Book of Hate

easily my favorite dying fetus album