Best of... 2004: metal albums I was really digging a decade ago

I've been putting together metal year-end lists for many years. For almost as long – ten years perhaps? – I've also been using the turning over of the year as an excuse to look back to the previous decade, revisiting the albums that most captured my attention at the time and tracking down a few I had missed out on. Now that we've put 2014 to rest, it's time to revisit 2004 and recall what I was listening to then and maybe what I should have been...

My favourite metal albums of the year in 2004: 

1. Lacrimas Profundere - Ave End (Napalm/Fusion 3)






2. Lilitu - The Delores Lesion (The End)




3. Morgion - Cloaked by Ages, Crowned in Earth (Dark Symphonies)





4. Anathema - A Natural Disaster (Music For Nations/KOCH)




5. My Dying Bride - Songs of Darkness, Words of Light (Peaceville)




6. Wolverine - Cold Light of Monday (Elitist/Earache)




7. Woods of Ypres - Pursuit of the Sun & Allure of the Earth (Krankenhaus/Independent)




8. Riverside - Out of Myself (Laser's Edge/Fusion 3)




9. Atrocity - Atlantis (Napalm/Fusion 3)




10. Dead Soul Tribe - The January Tree (Inside Out/Fusion 3)




11. Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine (Relapse)




12. Raunchy - Confusion Bay (Nuclear Blast/PHD)




13. Neurosis - The Eye of Every Storm (Neurot)




14. Hypocrisy - The Arrival (Nuclear Blast/PHD)




15. In Flames – Soundtrack to Your Escape (Nuclear Blast/PHD)




16. Cradle of Filth - Nymphetamine (Roadrunner)

Other good records of 2004: 

• Nightingale - Invisible
• Orphaned Land - Mabool
• Mastodon - Leviathan
• Into Ethernity - Buried In Oblivion
• God Forbid - Gone Forever
• Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Of Natural History
• Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh
• Dark Tranquillity - Lost to Apathy
• Yob - The Illusion of Motion
• Evergrey - The Inner Circle
• Draconian - Where Lovers Mourn
• Quo Vadis - Defiant Imagination
• Enslaved - Esa
• Insomnium - Since the Day It All Came Down
• Behemoth - Demigod
• Clutch - Blast Tyrant
• Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake
• Necrophagist - Epitaph...