Top 10 Heaviest Metal Albums

You want riffs that feel like getting hit by a wrecking ball? Drums that sound like they're being played with sledgehammers? Vocals that could wake the dead? You're in the right place.

This list is a battleground for the heaviest of the heavy. Not just loud. Not just fast. These are albums that punch you in the chest and don't stop grinding until your spine's realigned. This isn't about popularity or album sales. It's about sonic brutality. It's about how far the music pushes the envelope before it tears it to shreds and sets it on fire.

Vote for the albums that rip the hardest. The ones that made you pause, rewind, and go, "What the hell did I just hear?" The ones that test your speakers and your sanity. The ones that still feel dangerous no matter how many times you've listened.

Other maniacs have already dropped their votes. Now it's your turn.

The Top Ten

None So Vile - Cryptopsy

I'm really not sure why I should choose any album other than this. It's CRYPTOPSY. Come ON. Listen to these songs! Each track, from Crown Of Horns to Orgiastic Disembowelment, goes so hard. Talk about a mosh-inducing fleshfest. And they aren't just fast. They're all really heavy and groovy. Top-notch album, probably the heaviest I've ever heard.

This is like the Reign in Blood of death metal. Every track is insane and full of energy. The growls are also very unique and sound extremely different compared to other old-school death metal bands. This is an amazing masterpiece of an album.
Molesting the Decapitated - Devourment

This album makes thrash and nu-metal albums sound like children's songs.
Iowa - Slipknot

Many people are like, "What? How is Slipknot over Metallica?!" Well, this album is why. This album is very brutal, but not as brutal as Slayer's Reign in Blood. I love all the songs on this album. It straight up attacks you with brutal songs such as "Disasterpiece" and "People = S***." But this album also attacks your nerves and calmness. With songs like "(515)" and "Iowa," you will get so creeped out and scared. Also, here's some advice: don't listen to "Iowa" and "(515)" backwards. If you do, then you have found the sound of Hell.

Seriously, the best sophomore album I have ever heard. I mean, damn. Normally, a band's second release goes more commercial and all that, but Slipknot decided to go even darker and heavier than ever before.
With songs that will creep you out like (515), Skin Ticket, and, of course, the 15-minute closing track Iowa, this album stands out. Then there are the 80-ton-heavy songs that give the album its significance, even above some extreme metal bands, like People = S*t, Disasterpiece, Heretic Anthem, The Shape, I Am Hated, and, of course, Metabolic.
They also didn't forget to add some melodic tracks like Left Behind, My Plague, and Gently. Definitely one of the best metal albums of all time.
Tomb of the Mutilated - Cannibal Corpse

Heavy, but later albums of this band are heavier.

Sure, Reign in Blood is a landmark album (and it's amazing), and Master of Puppets is a masterpiece (lol), but you really can't get much heavier than Corpse. 'Nuff said.
Reign in Blood - Slayer

This came out in 1986 and was faster, heavier, and more brutal than anything else ever recorded. Nothing could match it, and people still struggle to beat it out. Sure, there are songs that are heavier than all of these songs, but a full album? Nope.
I also personally find the Slayer vocal style to be heavier than Cannibal Corpse's style. Maybe it's just my high voice (yes, your vocal pitch can actually scientifically affect your music tastes), but I find the higher-pitched vocals to have more of a dominating power to them. I think Slayer and Ozzy/Black Sabbath have the heaviest vocals out there. It also makes it easier to hear the words, which adds to the heaviness.
Maybe I'm biased because of my love of thrash metal, but I personally find the standard tuning to D standard range to be the perfect heaviness factor, and the vocals are great. Growls aren't that heavy, in my opinion.
All of these things together make this the heaviest album in my book.
Redesekration: The Gospel of Hatred and Apotheosis of Genocide - Infernal War

THIS is heavy - brutal black metal from Poland. Try the song "Spill the Dirty Blood of Jesus."
City - Strapping Young Lad
Annihilation of the Wicked - Nile

If you listen to this album and then immediately listen to nearly any other album that you thought was heavy, this album will reveal that the latter was not nearly as heavy as you had thought. A true death metal masterpiece from start to finish. One of the best extreme metal albums, period!

Definitely one of the most extreme albums of all time! It was even voted heaviest album of the year. That's how awesome it is.
The Elysian Grandeval Galeriarch - Infant Annihilator

Cryptopsy is baby work compared to this. Listen to The Kingdom of the Wretched Undying. This is the heaviest, and none is heavier.

This is THE craziest album ever, tied with Infant's other albums.
You Will Never Be One of Us - Nails

The Newcomers

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Bleed the Future - Archspire

Okay, now THIS is a top 10, maybe top 5 if Satan's willing. This is ground zero for people who love Infant Annihilator's "The EGG", and to keep it real, this is one of the best modern tech death albums of 2024. There's a reason it got a Juno, and it didn't get it for nothing.
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Destroy the Opposition - Dying Fetus

The Contenders

Scream Bloody Gore - Death
Reek of Putrefaction - Carcass
Reign Supreme - Dying Fetus
The Codex Necro - Anaal Nathrakh

How was this not on the list? It should be number 1 because it has the heaviest metal song on it (Pandemonic Hyperblast).

Underrated on this list, should be higher.
Vulgar Display of Power - Pantera

First album I ever bought when I was 12. My parents loved it. Just kidding, my mom almost threw it out.

Breakdown at the end of Domination. 'Nuff said.

Not fast, not loud, just straight-up heavy.
Dopethrone - Electric Wizard

This album is the definition of heavy. It sounds as dense as a black hole. Playing these songs could very well open a portal to hell.

Anyone not voting for this hasn't heard it.

A seed of hate from the day I was born.
Ashes of the Wake - Lamb of God
ObZen - Meshuggah

Need I say more? It's one of the first known examples of 8-string guitars in metal, and if I'm wrong, may God himself smite me down.
I will die on the hill saying that djent is a genre, and it's a damn good one.

This album is so heavy. Just listen to Bleed, Obzen, Lethargica, Combustion, and Dancers To A Discordant System. This album's complicated instrumentation is why this should be in the top 2. It's between this and From Mars to Sirius.
Altars of Madness - Morbid Angel

The heaviest album of the first 20 years (1970-1989).
Butcher the Weak - Devourment

Listen to Babykiller. Legit, this band has the most brutal, disgusting, and just flat-out heaviest album EVER.
The Apostasy - Behemoth
Monolith of Inhumanity - Cattle Decapitation

Alright. This is one of the bands that has stayed consistently balls-to-the-wall. It's ground zero for deathgrind and one of the reasons why we have acts such as Aborted.
It is THE deathgrind album, and the fact that it's a genuinely GOOD deathgrind album makes it even more of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And it's coupled with provocative titles and lyrics that have more profanity than a drunken stepdad.
And the music videos? Dude, "Forced Gender Reassignment" is literally the definition of "transgressive."
Effigy of the Forgotten - Suffocation

Okay, this one should be at least in the top 5. Ground zero for brutal death metal right here, and it's still one of the heaviest. Yeah, even over Slayer and Cannibal Corpse.
Agony - Fleshgod Apocalypse
Chaosphere - Meshuggah

The band's heaviest album.