Vote winners were fairly predictable as ever, but a nice surprise in Mental Cruelty beating out Carnifex. Also good to see strong albums from Cattle Decap/Sulphur Aeon and Hellripper beating out Obituary and Overkill. Interesting that Soen managed to triumph over Tool's long-awaited comeback in 2019, only to lose to middlingly-received albums from Gojira and Katatonia with their next two efforts when their own albums received mixed responses; goes to show that album quality can play a part when 2 popular bands go head to head with one another. I'll also take a respectable 4th place for Chullachaqui

Cheers to everyone who voted, good to see the MSAs still going strong after all this time

Wild how much Thy Catafalque and Dodheimsgard dominated avant-garde; there were some really great albums in that category from Kostnateni, Entropia, Altari, Venomous Echoes and Anareta that got absolutely bodied by those two

Im disappointed by some but happy about others ... Though Exmortus should've won Thrash (Also shoutout to Terminalist who finished way too low for my taste, this album slayed) and Mutoid Man should've won Alternative (or honestly most others but not Katatonia, just my opinion). You don't agree? Screw you!

Pretty close to what I thought would win, but still really glad to see Tesseract, Blackbraid, and DHG win their categories because they all put out excellent albums this year

I voted for half of the winners, rather sad that Shylmagoghnar didn't win and too bad Valdrin didn't even make the top 11 melodic black metal albums.

Pretty bummed about the melodeath results, but the band that I wanted to win didn't really belong in that category anyway.

Blackbraid with the double whammy! Well deserved.

Hellripper and Cattle Decap taking thrash and death is also good, but as always, most categories disappoint. Damn, Gridlink got robbed.

Oh well, time to check out the runner-ups!

Written by Guib on 01.03.2024 at 00:47

Im disappointed by some but happy about others ... Though Exmortus should've won Thrash (Also shoutout to Terminalist who finished way too low for my taste, this album slayed) and Mutoid Man should've won Alternative (or honestly most others but not Katatonia, just my opinion). You don't agree? Screw you!

I agree, Terminalist was my first choice for Thrash

It’s a shame any write-in vote has zero chance of being successful.

I think all the winners are decent in one way or another, though I thought Riverside was one of the weakest of the prog nominations. Then again, just about everything in that category was great, so it's not a big complain.

Written by Guib on 01.03.2024 at 00:47

Though Exmortus should've won Thrash (Also shoutout to Terminalist who finished way too low for my taste, this album slayed) and Mutoid Man should've won Alternative (or honestly most others but not Katatonia, just my opinion).

In no way I was expecting Hellripper to take away it as easily as it looks like considering it was very fucking tight to nominate out of some great releases - I voted for Enforced as it looks strongest in my humble gentle opinion, man. To see Hell over there had made me to take the leave from my office and blast Enforced and Exmortus all over again to leverage my grumpy mood.

In Alt, Mutoid fwiw looks superior. Once again, big band magnets votes unconditionally.

Folks was incredibly disappointing - once again big band....unconditionally. Fredlös was far superior in songwriting and production than Primordial(it wasn't mindblowing) and holy balls, what people were drinking voting in Stoner and Sludge. Both superior and promising albums incredulously robbed - Chuch of Misery and Warcrab respectively.

How on this beautiful marble ball Gridlink lose the Grind category?!

Written by musclassia on 01.03.2024 at 00:22

Interesting that Soen managed to triumph over Tool's long-awaited comeback in 2019, only to lose to middlingly-received albums from Gojira and Katatonia with their next two efforts when their own albums received mixed responses; goes to show that album quality can play a part when 2 popular bands go head to head with one another. I'll also take a respectable 4th place for Chullachaqui

Eh, Katatonia's and Soen's ratings are the same on this website and on RYM Katatonia's score is actually higher (it's Soen's lowest rated album there, while Katatonia's just slightly above City Burials) so I wouldn't really say that Katatonia received mixed response and Soen didn't. (I really enjoyed that Soen album though, even if after one listen)

Thx staff for the awards and (some lol) good nominations, will see you in a few months in MSA 20th Anniversary.
Or else.

Written by Guib on 01.03.2024 at 00:47

Im disappointed by some but happy about others ... Though Exmortus should've won Thrash (Also shoutout to Terminalist who finished way too low for my taste, this album slayed) and Mutoid Man should've won Alternative (or honestly most others but not Katatonia, just my opinion). You don't agree? Screw you!

It's a shame Mutoid Man didn't get the recognition they deserved in the end, I still spin that album on a regular basis it was one of the most enjoyable releases (for me anyway) from last year imo, but then I'm not surprised Katatonia won the category, purely down to the fact they're a big household name. Insomnium winning by the margin they did came as a surprise to me, I know I shouldn't be shocked by them winning it but when you see what they were up against I expected a closer competition. As for thrash I'm happy with the result, Hellripper was a real beast of an album, and I only grew to like it more over the course of the year, but I'm not knocking the other releases in that category Exmortus and Terminalist also put out great releases, I just didn't connect with them as much as I did Hellripper.

So a band classified as stoner-doom in the band profile won hard rock.

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.03.2024 at 11:20

So a band classified as stoner-doom in the band profile won hard rock.

It's pretty clear from listening to the album that Green Lung, who already had a retro rock slant to their sound that distinguished themselves from stoner/doom, further pursued that direction; This Heathen Land has a lot more to do with retro psychedelic rock than it does desert rock. The genre tags were applied when the band profile was created, at which point they'd released Woodland Rites, an album clearly closer to stoner rock. If you want to see why an album might have gone into a category, it's probably more helpful to listen to the album rather than see what (potentially outdated) genre tags the band has on its profile, it might become less of a mystery.

Written by musclassia on 01.03.2024 at 13:53

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.03.2024 at 11:20

So a band classified as stoner-doom in the band profile won hard rock.

It's pretty clear from listening to the album that Green Lung, who already had a retro rock slant to their sound that distinguished themselves from stoner/doom, further pursued that direction; This Heathen Land has a lot more to do with retro psychedelic rock than it does desert rock. The genre tags were applied when the band profile was created, at which point they'd released Woodland Rites, an album clearly closer to stoner rock. If you want to see why an album might have gone into a category, it's probably more helpful to listen to the album rather than see what (potentially outdated) genre tags the band has on its profile, it might become less of a mystery.

Update the band profile then.
I'm not sure how much the hard rock genre tag is proper for this band, but then it's just my opinion.

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.03.2024 at 13:59

Update the band profile then.

There's over 12000 band profiles in the database, and about 10 users with permissions to keep profiles up-to-date for band lineup, release, style and other miscellaneous information; please consider the fact that it may not be our highest priority to update the style every time one of said 12k bands crosses over from one style to a firmly adjacent style. Green Lung's styles have now been updated.

Written by musclassia on 01.03.2024 at 14:10

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.03.2024 at 13:59

Update the band profile then.

There's over 12000 band profiles in the database, and about 10 users with permissions to keep profiles up-to-date for band lineup, release, style and other miscellaneous information; please consider the fact that it may not be our highest priority to update the style every time one of said 12k bands crosses over from one style to a firmly adjacent style. Green Lung's styles have now been updated.

Genre tags are generally well done on MS.

I guess I was just surprised by the winner. Not even the best out of those albums listed.
If we're talking genres and subgenres, Flight's album should have been under "heavy metal". And yet I voted for it. I don't practice what I preach.

Written by AndyMetalFreak on 01.03.2024 at 11:02

It's a shame Mutoid Man didn't get the recognition they deserved in the end, I still spin that album on a regular basis it was one of the most enjoyable releases (for me anyway) from last year imo, but then I'm not surprised Katatonia won the category, purely down to the fact they're a big household name. Insomnium winning by the margin they did came as a surprise to me, I know I shouldn't be shocked by them winning it but when you see what they were up against I expected a closer competition. As for thrash I'm happy with the result, Hellripper was a real beast of an album, and I only grew to like it more over the course of the year, but I'm not knocking the other releases in that category Exmortus and Terminalist also put out great releases, I just didn't connect with them as much as I did Hellripper.

I think the reason Insomnium won was more due to name recognition and larger fanbase/popularity. Several of the releases in that category were miles better. It is what it is. These things are always mostly popularity contests anyway, so not much weight should be put in the results. Just be glad to enjoy what you enjoyed. Otherwise there's always multiple categories on here each year where it's more or less a Jethro Tull over Metallica type result. Blackbraid II for example, I gave several chances but it was pretty boring to me. Felt like a bunch of mediocre thrash riffs with a black metal facade.

Written by musclassia on 01.03.2024 at 14:10

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.03.2024 at 13:59

Update the band profile then.

There's over 12000 band profiles in the database, and about 10 users with permissions to keep profiles up-to-date for band lineup, release, style and other miscellaneous information; please consider the fact that it may not be our highest priority to update the style every time one of said 12k bands crosses over from one style to a firmly adjacent style. Green Lung's styles have now been updated.

Also, updating a band's profile/genre tag is still a rare necessity, it's not like there is a abundance of bands that change their music style.

Nice to see BAN get black metal. Not necessarily my favorite BM from last year, but I certainly don’t mind them taking the cat

I'm happy Nospūn won best debut album. They should've won progressive too but with Riverside especially in the same category, but also Haken and Sermon I guess a respectable 4th place is really good.

I'm just amazed how Moonlight Sorcery didn't win in any category. I thought that album was easily one of the best metal releases last year.

I am sad that Shylmagoghnar and Sworn did not win in their categories even though more than half of votes hit the right ones.

Only managed to listen to enough albums to reasonably vote in 8 categories, but that just means I've still got a load of great music to get through. Sulphur Aeon, Asphodelus, Sermon and Vulture Industries standing out as my top new acquaintances so far.

I'm really glad Xandria won the symphonic metal slot.

Blackbraid II over American gothic, man that's disappointing.

Only 3 matches to me

I want to thank the Metalstorm staff once again for putting this together and introducing me to a ton of new bands in the process. Always a time of year to look very forward to!

Written by Metal Rasputin on 01.03.2024 at 18:21

I'm just amazed how Moonlight Sorcery didn't win in any category. I thought that album was easily one of the best metal releases last year.

It didn't help that several voters wrote-in for other categories rather than vote in the category it was nominated for. i.e. extreme power.

I guess this is a general issue for bands which genre hop, making it harder for you guys to put them in one over another.