By Dan Epstein

While rock music may be disappearing outright from the Billboard charts, the last few years have been a pretty rewarding period for metal fans, and 2010 was no exception. So much excellent stuff came out this year in just about every hard rock and heavy metal sub-genre — from the major labels on down to the DIY underground — that it was, frankly, kinda hard to keep up with it all, much less fit all of it into one year-end Top 10 list. So while it’s entirely possible that we’re leaving out your favorite slab of this past year, here are 10 crucial metal and hard rock albums from 2010 that unquestionably kicked our asses — and will thoroughly kick yours, as well.

1. Enslaved — Axioma Ethica Odini

Did Norway’s kings of progressive black metal make the finest album of their two-decade career, or is it just another amazing outing from an incredibly consistent band? That’s more or less the debate that has raged in metal circles since Axioma Ethica Odini was released in September, with some folks hailing this as even more of a masterpiece than 2008’s Vertebrae. Our jury’s still out on that, but no other album this year fused black metal and psychedelia in such a brutally alluring and addictive fashion — which must be why we can’t stop listening to this album.

2. The Sword — Warp Riders 

It would have been easy enough for the Sword to turn into Austin’s answer to Fu Manchu, contentedly cranking out the same sludgy riffs and weed-roasted lyrical concerns with each album, but the ambitious Warp Riders made it clear that JD Cronise and Co. had no intention of resting on their laurels. A sci-fi concept album produced by Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Isis), the Sword’s third album managed to be both the heaviest thing they’d ever recorded, but also their most straight-up hard rock effort to date. Whether you’re rolling in your Camaro or your Millennium Falcon, you’ll definitely want Warp Riders riding shotgun.

3. Kylesa — Spiral Shadow

Five albums in, and Kylesa just keep getting better. Nobody does richly-textured psychedelic heaviosity like this Savannah, Georgia quintet, who clearly see no reason why the visceral crunch of vintage Black Sabbath shouldn’t be paired with the haunting melodic washes of My Bloody Valentine. (Then again, this is also a band that sees no reason why they shouldn’t have two drummers.) Their trippiest and most accessible — i.e., less sludgy and more melodic — outing to date, Spiral Shadow still kicks like a mule even when it lurches into druggier, artier territory.

4. Dimmu Borgir — ABRAHADABRA

Having parted acrimoniously with their longtime bassist and keyboardist in 2009, the three remaining members of Dimmu Borgir had plenty to prove with their follow-up to 2007’s epic In Sorte Diaboli. ABRAHADABRA was not only a resounding reaffirmation of the Norwegian black metal band’s abilities, but it showed them venturing further into the orchestral and cinematic leanings of the previous album. Ethereal, creepy and (at times, at least) more Danny Elfman than Darkthrone, ABRAHADABRA felt like the beginning of an intriguing new chapter for Dimmu Borgir.

5. High On Fire — Snakes for the Divine

Released during the second week of 2010, the fifth album from Bay Area stoners High On Fire could conceivably get lost in the year-end “Best of” shuffle, but that would be a damn shame indeed. Ornery, unrelenting, and heavy as fuck, the lean n’ mean Snakes for the Divine is the best thing Matt Pike and the boys have unleashed to date. Producer Greg Fidelman (who previously twiddled the knobs on Slayer’s World Painted Blood) helps the band create a more multi-hued sonic palette than they’ve ever previously enjoyed, and the comparatively widescreen approach just makes Pike’s roaring guitar and glass-and-gravel growl seem more feral than ever.

6. Priestess — Prior to the Fire

“All labels beyond Rock are useless to me,” Priestess frontman Mikey Heppner has said, an attitude borne partly of frustration with having his band’s fiery brand of ‘70s-damaged hard rock constantly dissected and re-categorized by fans and critics alike. So let’s just say that the Montreal quartet’s worth-the-wait sophomore album contains a veritable shitload of wailing twin guitars, rampaging drums, and excursions into prog territory that always manage to keep one foot (or hand) in the rock n’ roll gutter.

7. Black Tusk — Taste The Sin

More amazing metal from straight outta Savannah — though this bad-ass Georgia power trio’s sophomore effort was less oriented towards the psychedelic explorations of their brothers and sisters in Kylesa, and more focused on meaty, sweaty, sludgy, swampy, bad-trip Southern biker metal. Think Mastodon on a Jim Beam bender, or Baroness with a belly full of greasy barbecue. Or better yet, don’t think at all — just pick this fucker up and crank it as loud as it will go.

8. Deftones — Diamond Eyes

A triumphant return from tragedy — albeit sadly without bassist Chi Cheng, who remains in a coma-like state after a tragic car crash — Diamond Eyes is another dense and weighty Deftones missive where art and metal collide head-on. While many of us still pine for a chance to hear Eros, the original follow-up to 2006’s Saturday Night Wrist that was scrapped following Cheng’s accident, it’s hard to imagine them coming up with another record that more perfectly balances the pain of existence with the thrill of being alive to create for yet another day.

9. Black Anvil — Triumvirate

If you’re gonna pick up just one blackened death metal record from 2010, make it Triumvirate. On their second album, this brutal New York trio (who sprang from the ashes of NYC hardcore band Kill Your Idols) conjure up a crushing, deeply venomous sound that owes as much to Carcass as it does to early Celtic Frost — evil atmosphere comes a distant second here to the aggressive power of the almighty riff, and these guys certainly have plenty of riffage to spare.

10. Iron Maiden — The Final Frontier

And let’s hear it for the old guys, eh? By rights, Iron Maiden should now be residing at the intersection of obscurity and irrelevance; and yet, three decades into their tumultuous career, they’re still making vibrant, committed, and thoroughly tasty contributions to modern metal. More Somewhere In Time than Number of the Beast — half the album’s ten tracks clock in at over eight minutes — The Final Frontier is an epic and densely-layered conceptual work that seems to actively cock a middle finger at the ADD Mp3 generation. But while it may take multiple spins to really sink in, those who stick it out will be amply rewarded with yet another late-period Maiden classic.