20 Best Metal Albums Of Summer 2017

Finalising the sequencing of this list's top five entries was beyond inordinately difficult. At alternating points, every single entry from hereon in was briefly the holder of the coveted number one spot, with the order constantly shifting and shuffling like Scrabble tiles in a tornado.

And despite Marty Friedman's thirteenth solo outing Wall of Sound ultimately drawing the short straw by being the first step of the next five, do not let that sell the record short in any manner; it's an undeniable instrumental masterpiece.

As an all-encompassing metal experience, nothing has come close to Wall of Sound this year. Genre-wise, it's all over the map, owing itself to thrash, symphonic metal, djent, progressive rock/metal, neoclassical, acoustic ballads and classic rock. With its complexities and style, it clearly takes just as much inspiration from classical composers as it does from modern music, with the violin-fuelled "Sorrow and Madness" possessing all the intricacies of a Beethoven symphony.

In conclusion, then, probably the best summation of the constantly amazing Wall of Sound is this: if musical geniuses such as Beethoven or Mozart or Wagner or Handel were alive today, with our instruments at their disposal, it is more than safe to assume that this is the kind of varied, historically knowledgable, perfectly composed brilliance that they would come up with.