10 Greatest Debut Albums In Metal

10. Opus Eponymous - Ghost

As the years have gone on, many of the old guard of metalheads can get snobbish about the dark genre they love. Even though acts like Avenged Sevenfold and Bring Me the Horizon were setting the bar for what metal would sound like later on down the line, there always seemed to be that missing link that people just couldn't get down with. Every so often though, an act like Ghost comes along with a sound that we can all universally agree kick ass.

Then again, it feels weird even putting Opus Eponymous in the category of a straight-ahead metal affair. Make no mistake, the look and feel of Papa Emeritus is the stuff of metal legends, with the anti-religious garb and the assemble of ghouls that adorn the stage. On the other hand, this record has a lot more going on that's closer to the stone age of metal, with songs that feel like they have more than a passing similarity to something like Deep Purple, albeit through the chamber music lens that only Ghost can pull off.

Compared to the other metalcore acts coming down the pipeline at the end of the '00s, this was the first of its kind to feel both rooted in the past while also offering something entirely. Little did we know that we had just scratched the surface of Ghost's dark magic.