20 Best Metal Albums Of Summer 2017

It's been roughly four months since we last listed 2017's best heavy releases and, since then, the metal landscape of this year has only been on the up and up.

Without question, this summer's rock has truly taken the ball that winter and spring had started rolling, running with it as fast as possible to make the period between May and August even more versatile, progressive and, most importantly, loud!

There have been chart-smashing hits, out-of-nowhere surprises, veterans rediscovering their past glories - even underground bands making massive statements. Truly, it's been a gargantuan summer.

However, due to how packed the past weeks have been, it would be impossible to fit every metal release into this top twenty, so here are some honourable mentions:

Night Flight Orchestra's Amber Galactic, Motionless in White's Graveyard Shift, Rings of Saturn's Ultu Ulla, In This Moment's Ritual, Less Art's Strangled Light, Dead Cross's self-titled debut, Suffocation's ...Of the Dark Light, Unbowed's Through Endless Tides, Kobra and the Lotus's Prevail I, Municipal Waste's Slime and Punishment, Dying Fetus's Wrong One to F*ck With, CKY's The Phoenix, Adagio's Life, Rex Brown's Smoke on This..., Malevolence's Self Supremacy, Oceans Ate Alaska's Hikari and far, far more are all ace albums, but couldn't make the cut.

Sorry.

Also, if there are any more releases that you think are missing, you might be able to find them in my "20 Best Metal Albums of Winter/Spring 2017" and "10 Best EP's of 2017 (So Far)" articles.

The eleventh album by alternative/progressive rock darlings Anathema earns a low slot on this list, despite its sheer, inalienable brilliance, due to the simple fact that it's not really a metal record. However, given Anathema's doom metal roots and their intense popularity among metalheads, as well as the fact that The Optimist is the heaviest Anathema release in quite some time, it deserves to wriggle its way into the number twenty slot.

Instead of being a full-on metal attack, The Optimist is a diverse experience that encompasses all the connotations of the term "rock": at alternating points, it's melodic, it's fast, it's heartfelt, it's sombre, it's gloomy, it's ambient, but, most importantly of all, it's always undeniably Anathema.

Stylistically, The Optimist is the perfect bridge between the band's early, Gothic metal offerings, like the immaculate Judgement (1999), and their more modern, tranquil canon, which includes the serene Weather Systems (2012) among a great many other masterpieces. It continues the band's recent fascination with downbeat, beautiful compositions, yet it also features a greater emphasis on guitar-based antics than any other Anathema record of this decade.

For long-time fans of this continually amazing British six-piece, The Optimist is truly the best of both worlds.