Once upon a time, the battle cry championed by metal bands was "Death to False Metal.", It's a sentiment going back to the earliest beginnings of the genre when it drew lines to separate itself from the bands of the Sunset Strip who wanted the look but were making glammed-out pop music. Today, kids are thin-skinned and take offense, screaming out that this is gatekeeping rather than seeing it as quality control standards. Most of those people just need to feel like they belong wherever they want to go and call those who actually belong there elitists as a projection of their own insecurities.
I'm here to say fuck your feelings. In the interest of this blog's mission statement, pledging to always tell it like it is easy even if you can't handle the truth. After seeing albums like those represented here appearing on metal top ten lists, I think it's fair to set the record straight and have some truth in advertising to pick out the top ten offenders in this regard. Four of these entries are great albums; they just are not great metal albums. They are great rock, folk and pop albums, just not metal. There are a few that are terrible, but they are also not metal, so here we go, setting the record straight for you.
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Six albums into their career, Norway's primal folk bards are still haunted by their metal past, despite bringing an increasingly cinematic conjuring of otherworldly eons past. It is weird how they are the biggest band making this kind of music. Also, even stranger is how they can headline festivals. It is very much a wintery sound as should be expected from the region where the music is being made. It feels like they are getting ready to be hit by the worst storm in over a hundred years and are invoking the ghosts of their ancestors
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/12/wardruna-birna.html
9-Scowl- "Are We All Angels."
Sure, they were once more of a punk band, but this album finds them crossing over into the kind of grunge tinged alternative rock that was big in the '90s.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/04/scowl-are-we-all-angels.html
8-Creeper-"Creeper : "Sanguivore II: Mistress Of Death"
There are some goth moments, but overall it leans in a more cock rock direction, but cock rock that comes clsoer to Meatloaf than "Shout at the Devil" era Motley Crue.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/10/gothtober-creeper-sanguivore-ii.html
7-Dream Theater- "Parasomnia"
Once a metal band does not always make you a metal band, this might be hard to swallow for most of their fan base, which they did through more heavy riffs on this album than they have in some time, but overall it is consumed by the kinds of ballads that make them sound like a more guitar solos-focused version of Journey.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/02/dream-theater-parasomnia.html
6-Deftones-"private music"
The fact that they have not been a metal band since 'Around the Fur" is what saved their career; they have always been growing almsot to the point of becoming a shoegaze band.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/08/deftones-private-music.html
5-Turnstille- "Never Enough."
Once a hardcore band does not always make you a hardcore fan, especially when writing pop songs. Compared to "Glow On" this album was a bit of a disappointment, but there are a couple of catchy pop ditties on it, but nothing all that aggressive or explosive.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/06/turnstile-never-enough.html
4-President -"King of Terrors."
Anonymity creates quite a buzz, as they had a huge online presence despite only having one single out and a Download performance under their belt. It is the songs from that performance that are given the studio treatment, with the first single opening the EP. Sonically similar in many ways to Sleep Token, they blend djenty metal guitars with technical drumming and multiple layers of soulfully harmonized vocals. If AI were told to create a band in the vein of Sleep Token and Bad Omens, the results would be similar, though the pop hooks here make it endearing.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/09/president-king-of-terrors.html
3-Sleep Token- "Even in Arcadia."
I like pop music. This album is a slapping pop album, so . I don't feel so guilty about liking it. If he just came out, life would be so much easier, but denial has become a part of his identity. There was maybe 20 seconds of nu-metal guitar, and a scream that needed every bit of post-production effects on it in the first three songs. The beats and hooks that would make Sam Smith jealous, this is the kind of music Justin Timberlake wishes he was making. Justin Bieber, rinse off the baby oil and get these guys to write your next album.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/05/sleep-token.html
2-Baby Metal-"Metal Forth."
The novelty of this album lies in the fact that the J-Pop group features a guest artist on each track since these are metal dabbling artists or actual metal artists like Spiritbox are on it. Both artists flirt with the boundaries of what is metal and pop; just because an album has distorted guitars and some screaming on it does not make the album metal. Metal is an aggressive feeling of darkness that cannot be found on any track. In fact, I am embarrassed for anyone who appeared on this album.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/08/just-how-metal-is-babymetals-metal.html
1-Ghost - "Skeleta"
It's easy to let the make-up and marketing fool you; in fact, what it all hides is the fact that this was also our number one worst album of the year. All style no substance, unless you are really into the song"Thicker Than Water" by Andy Gibb, which is what they really sound like. I will tell you how it is: at its worst, some dreadful ballads make Styx sound heavy. So it's not worth owning, and was hard for me to make it through, but maginally better than their average album. The highlights are the riffs that sound like Dokken and Ratt, though those are far a few between. It ranked worse than anime schoolgirls because at least with that, you go into it knowing it will be terrible; this relies so heavily on a marketing image that they have idiots invested in it, adding insult to injury when you listen to it.
https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2025/04/ghost-skeleta.html
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