10 Greatest Metal Albums Of The '00s

Up until this point in the list, there's no disputing that these are metal albums from skin to core. From the minute that you hit play on these records, these are the kind of tracks that are meant to rip your face off from the moment they start playing. Though there's no disputing Opeth as a metal band, Ghost Reveries is clearly going for a much different mood that the likes of Korn.

From the album cover alone, this album is definitely a turn towards the more gothic sounds of metal music, with some bits and pieces of baroque styles even finding their way into the mix. By bringing different atmospheric sounds to the forefront, the whole thing gives off a spooky aura before you even know what the songs are about. When they do eventually kick in though, you can tell Mikael Akerfeldt is a lot more informed by thrash than something like the Cure, and brings the pain on tracks like The Baying of the Hounds.

In fact, the album title certainly seems to fit this record pretty well. This feels less like the kind of music that you would listen to headbang to and more like a metal nightmare that they happened to capture on tape. With little bits of prog and ambience to taste, this is the kind of album that Metallica would have made if they were more influenced by Tchaikovsky just as much as they were Black Sabbath.