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Metalunderground.com's Best of 2006 Awards

Band Photo: Lamb of God (?)

Having wrapped up a truly landmark year in metal, we are going to reflect on what made it such a good year by announcing the Metalunderground.com staff picks from 2006. As in previous years, I’ve polled the entire staff here at metalunderground.com about their favorite albums of last year. This year we've also added a new category for “Best DVD of 2006”

Here are the Metalunderground.com staff picks for the following categories: Best Metal Album of 2006, Best Metal DVD of 2006, Best Metal Newcomer of 2006, Best Live Act of 2006, and Most Anticipated Release for 2007.

Best Metal Album of 2006

There were some great metal albums released in 2006 from every genre. But 2006 marked an exceptionally strong year for the New Wave of American Heavy Metal with releases from nearly all of the movement’s leaders - Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall. After taking “Best Metal Album of 2004,” this band are back at the top with two #1 picks from our staff and a total of four nominations for their latest album:

Lamb of God’s “Sacrament”

Runners up included Isis for “In the Absence of Truth,” which got two #1 picks from our staff members, and Amon Amarth for “With Oden On Our Side,” which got three nods as well. Slayer, Unearth, Strapping Young Lad, Black Label Society, Mastodon, and Cannibal Corpse also had strong showings and multiple nominations. That’s not to say they were the only strong albums, of course.

Best Metal DVD of 2006

In its first year, the category of Best Metal DVD was harder to vote on – not everyone on staff had votes for their favorite DVDs because we don’t all have the time or desire to watch them nearly as much as listening to music, which can be done while doing other things or even working. Still, we had enough votes to make it a contest and one clear winner emerged:

Pantera’s “3 Vulgar Videos From Hell”

A close second was scored by Therion’s "Celebrators of Becoming.” Multiple nominations were also made for the heavy metal documentary “Metal: A Headbanger's Journey,” which also tied with Kamelot’s "One Cold Winter's Night." Lamb of God’s “Making of Sacrament” bonus DVD and Arch Enemy’s “Live Apocalypse" were also popular choices.

Best Metal Newcomer of 2006

Bands eligible for "Best Metal Newcomer of 2006" included bands who have released their first full length album or released their first album on a somewhat major metal label, or even have no formal release at all. This is a tough category to get consensus on, since we all have different tastes in metal and will hear of only relatively few new bands each year. The band that rose to the top, however was:

Burn In Silence

Newcomers Threat Signal also got a couple nominations. Many more bands were mentioned, and therefore worth checking out, so I’ll list them all at the end of this article.

Best Live Act of 2006

Best Live Act is typically a fairly competitive category since it is not restricted to releases from this year, only performances. Touring behind a strong new album can certainly help, as seems to be the case for this year’s winner:

Amon Amarth

Amon Amarth managed to beat out the likes of runners up Slayer, Gwar, Fear Factory and In Flames who also had multiple nominations each for this category.

Most Anticipated Release of 2007

Like the Best Newcomer category, the Most Anticipated release category generates a wide variety of responses due to differing tastes and not actually knowing all of the releases coming out next year. Still, there was quite a bit of consensus on a few forerunners in this category and the winner turned out to be:

Dimmu Borgir’s “In Sorte Diaboli”

I’m quite surprised to see a black metal band take an award like this honestly, but Dimmu Borgir seem to have broadened their appeal and fan base over the years without watering down their music much. And although I did not cast a vote for them myself, I look forward to their new release as well.

Dimmu Borgir barely edged out Machine Head’s “The Blackening” for Most Anticipated Release of 2007. Chimaira’s “Resurrection” was quite popular in this category as well with Guns N Roses' "Chinese Democracy" and Opeth’s next release garnering a decent number of votes too.

In Conclusion...

Looking back, 2006 was a great year for landmark releases in metal. Metalcore has been gravitating away from “trendcore” and “mallcore” for the past couple of years and the style has been permeating the sound of legitamately heavy bands across many metal genres, especially newer bands.

It may be hard to duplicate such a landmark year in metal in 2007, but the release schedule for early 2007 looks fairly strong and the touring schedule even stronger!

Finally, here is the entire list of nominations for the “Best Newcomer” category in 2006, provided simply because these nominations should make good leads for you, our readers, to discover some new bands:

Burn In Silence
7th Son
Crown The Lost
I
Mutiny
Ninetail
Dead Mens Dreams
Deliver Us From Evil
Suspyre
Triosphere
Threat Signal
Gojira
Gutworm
Moment Of Violence (formerly Lofat)
Sahg
Sanitarius
Dark Empire
Heavenly Trip To Hell
Hostility
Norman Bates
Centralia
Fall To Grace
Iliad
Job For A Cowboy
One Man Army and the Undead quartet
Throne of Katarasis

No doubt there are others worth checking out, but these were our staff picks and were limited to 5 bands per person.

Here's to a very metal 2007! \m/