20 Best Metal Albums of 2017

Few years in recent memory have needed righteous, screaming rage like 2017, and metal answered the call, whether it’s Body Count’s starkly political screeds, Pyrrhon’s controlled confusion or Power Trip’s nostalgic, axe-swinging trip back to the Reagan Eighties. Bands like Unsane and Obituary stayed the course while Code Orange, Oxbow and Circle exploded genre entirely. Here’s the year’s best.