Top 10 Heaviest Albums of the 2010s
The 2010s didn't just push the boundaries of heavy music. They took those boundaries, tore them up, and fed them through a distortion pedal set to "collapse your ribcage." This was the decade where chaos became an art form. Where bands stopped asking "how heavy is too heavy" and started asking "how many eardrums can we rupture in 30 minutes or less?" The result? A glorious mess of blast beats, dissonant riffs, vocal cords shredded to dust, and breakdowns so punishing they might register on the Richter scale.Hardcore didn't just evolve. It mutated. Metal didn't just diversify. It exploded into dozens of flavors of sonic destruction. Some albums here sound like the soundtrack to the end of civilization. Others feel like a descent into madness with no exit ramp. You won't find stadium anthems or radio-friendly choruses. What you will find is pure, unfiltered intensity. The kind that tests your threshold for musical violence and spits you back out changed.
Remember the ones that blew out your speakers or left you staring at the wall afterward, unsure if you were still okay. And vote. Not for what's technically the best, but for the records that hit like a freight train and never let up.
I've been raving about this album ever since I got into it. This is one of the most intense and hellish albums out there. Listen to the opening title track and see what I mean. The rest of the album does not let up either.
What's best about this album is that the songwriting is actually brilliant, and there are plenty of memorable moments too, making it an all-too-perfect number one for me.
At 17 minutes, this album manages to become one of the scariest heavy albums of the decade. The guitar tone is mountainous, and the production makes everything sound so huge. A monolith of destruction. Listen to the whole ending of Suum Cuique and how viciously brooding it all is.
What used to be my number one for a while. Take Meshuggah and Dillinger Escape Plan and mix them with Tony Danza and LSD, and you get some of the sickest and loudest music ever. Believe me, this will give you headaches, but good headaches.
Much like Sectioned, the songwriting is great, and the musical ideas are memorable. Just check out the track Bleak and try not to mosh to that intro a bit.
Another thing to add is that both bands share the same guitarist. He must be one heavy dude.
The album truly made me feel it was apocalyptic. Everything is on fire, the world is crashing, and I'm standing right in the middle of it all. This We Celebrate is like a perfect example of this feeling.
This album is downright frightening. A cataclysmic collapse of sanity. Be warned, this album can be very unpleasant if you're not prepared for it. If you can withstand it, you'll find yourself engrossed in some of the most sick, vile, heavy music ever.
The heavy focus on noise and almost car engine-like guitars makes this one of the more unique entries for this list. Plus, the vocals are sure to raise a couple of eyebrows as they are not what you typically expect from this level of intensity. Either way, this is an extremely fun album that may or may not provide you with some headaches.
Probably one of the most defining Deathgrind acts of today who are still going strong. This is probably their biggest album from the 2010s with Forced Gender Reassignment being the biggest hit.
Heaviest album of all time, no question.
War Metal is exactly what it sounds like: war. Teitanblood's latest album is a great example of it. The dark ambient elements give this album a more demonic edge. Production holds it back from hitting the top as I do find the guitar tone to be a bit tinny and lacking that sheer girth that some of the above albums have.
Technical Death Metal is a genre I find to not be as intense or passionate as some of the other albums on this list, but it sure can be heavy. However, a lot of it is a bit ruined by the fact that nothing will ever beat None So Vile in terms of heaviness and insanity for me. Reign Supreme is still a brutal album, even if it's a bit played out at points.
The Newcomers
A band that mixes the low-tuned grooves of djent with the eruptive chaos of mathcore. It forms a pretty compelling, heavy, and fun release.
