It’s been a pretty insane year for metal, when you think about it. Sure, there were massive crowd-pleasers like Five Finger Death Punch and Avenged Sevenfold, but every subgenre of metal from black metal to stoner rock was well-represented, and the band that founded the genre even (mostly) reunited to release the first album with their original vocalist in 35 years. And if you’ve been following our contributors’ top ten albums of the year, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that there’s a lot of diversity in our lists. It’s great that there’s been so much good music out there, but there could only be 10 records that we ranked as our favorites.

Here’s how the scoring worked: each album, ranked from 10-1 was assigned a point, with the #1 record getting 10 points down to the #10, which got 1. Honorable mentions got a half point. So without further ado, here are the top ten albums of the year, as voted by Metal Insider’s contributors and editors: Chris Colgan, Zach Shaw, Matt Brown,Chip McCabe, Kodi McKinney, Bram Teitelman Kristen Bayusik and Nathan Katsiaficis.

10) letlive., The Blackest Beautiful (Epitaph): 3, 2, 10 = 15

9) Killswitch Engage, Disarm the Descent (Roadrunner): 8, 6, 2, = 16 [NOTE: gave Skeletonwitch #8 since it appeared on six lists, while KSE was on only three]

8) Skeletonwitch – Serpents Unleashed (Prosthetic): 2, 2, 2, half, 9, half = 16

7)  Byzantine – Byzantine (self-released): 10, 8 = 18

6) Clutch – Earth Rocker (Weathermaker): 3, 1, half, 9, 7 = 20 ½

5) Carcass – Surgical Steel (Nuclear Blast): 9, 7, 4, half, half, 1 = 22

4)  Black Sabbath – 13 (Republic): half, 8, 10, half, 5 = 24 [NOTE: gave Kvelertak #3 since it appeared on six lists, while Sabbath was on only five]

3) Kvelertak – Meir (Roadrunner): 5, 3, half, half, 5, 10 = 24

2) Protest The Hero, Volition (Razor & Tie): half, 10, 5, 9 = 24 ½

1) Ghost – Infestissumam (Loma Vista/Republic): 8, 7, 4, 10, 8 = 37