50 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2017

If you went up to an Average Joe on the street and asked them what their favourite black/death metal band is, a lot of them would probably say “Get away from me or I’ll call the police.” But those of them that don’t say that would most likely name Behemoth, the Polish titans who redefined extreme metal in 2014 with their magnum opus The Satanist, which is already being hailed as one of the best heavy albums of this century.

However, this year the supple art of fusing black and death metal skipped a couple hundred miles south from Poland through to Austria, where Belphegor picked up the pieces with Totenritual. The band’s eleventh album overall, it is safe to say that it is one of the most unhallowed discs to see the light of day this year, crafting a hellish landscape in which dissonant guitars and the most terrifying of growls reign supreme.

Compositions like “Baphomet” and “The Devil’s Son” are pummelling and unsettling enough by themselves, but when entries like “Apophis – Black Dragon” and “Totenbeschwörer” add in church bells, organs and choirs, you are entrenched knee-deep in some of the most subversive insanity that 2017 could offer up.

And while Totenritual may not have the diversity of something like The Satanist, what it lacks in versatility it makes up for in glorious moments such as that, which demonstrate sheer, blinding focus on undiluted aggression.