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Metalunderground.com's Best Of 2011 Awards Announced

Much like last year, we are officially quite late on getting our “Best of 2011” metal awards out there, but the time has finally come to share our favorite staff picks. As with each year before, we polled our entire list of diverse staff members, whose collective tastes cover every conceivable genre and sub-genre within metal.

2011 was a year in which the underground truly shined, and most of the bands voted on by our staff were on the more extreme side. These albums are definitely not for the faint of heart. So for all the fans of true metal and artistry in music out there, let’s get down to the very best of the best and cover the albums every heavy metal fan should own from last year.

Best Metal Album of 2011

Unlike with previous years when our voting has been quite fractured and it’s been hard to reach a consensus, this year the top album was reach by an almost unanimous vote:

Metallica’s finest opus and Lou Reed collaboration “Lulu”

While some reviewers have panned the genius and avant-garde blending of styles in this epic collaboration, one only has to watch the video below to become a “Lulu” convert. The intensely energetic crowd throughout the entire set and the intense excitement of the band members says it all:

While the top 5 albums of the year had a fairly diverse selection of bands during our voting, there was quite a bit more uniformity in the overall votes this year, mostly due to the high quality of extreme and underground acts that put out new releases in 2011. The overall runner-ups with the most votes went to:

Morbid Angel - “Illud Divinum Insanus”
Emmure – “Speaker For the Dead”
Vampires Everywhere – “Kiss the Sun Goodbye”
Limp Bizkit – “Gold Cobra”
Black Veil Brides – “The Legacy”

We’re still tallying votes for the remaining categories such as “Best DVD,” “Best Newcomer Band,” and “Best Live Show,” and will be back with those figures in the coming days. In the mean time, what did you think of our staff picks, and what were your best albums of 2011?

Read the full article at this location.