The 50 Best Metal Albums of the 2000s (2000-2009)

Here are the 50 best metal albums of the 2000s.

Each decade of metal is memorable for its own reasons as new scenes have continuously emerged, widening the net that is cast out to ensnare new generations of fans.

While it’s fun to compare the major releases of these decades, nobody can say definitively that any one particular decade was the absolute best. There is, however, the greatest within each span of 10 years, which is our purpose in this list below.

An exciting period of change and evolution, the 2000s began with upward momentum from nu-metal’s ’90s ascendence. Meanwhile, metalcore was coming into its own with scenes in Massachusetts and California serving as two of the biggest hotbeds. We witnessed the explosion of technical death metal courtesy of one band who only have a pair of albums to their name. Deathcore also rattled the underground toward the end of the decade (you won’t see Job For a Cowboy here as Doom was an EP, not an album) and djent was rising up at around the same time.

Progressive metal was still doing its things, experimenting with some more modern sounds and styles and symphonic and power metal enjoyed continued success after a thrilling ’90s.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Metal Songs of the Last 25 Years

We could keep listing more subgenres (funeral doom, black metal, etc.), but we won’t keep you waiting any longer.

Initially, we narrowed the contenders down to a list of about 150 albums and made the tough cuts after furious debates. Below, see the albums we named the 50 best of the 2000s!