Fan Poll: 5 Best Albums of 2022 | Revolver

Fan Poll: 5 Best Albums of 2022

See who beat out Ghost and Lamb of God for the top spot
Dave Mustaine megadeth getty live 2022 1600x900, Medios y Media/Getty Images
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine
photograph by Medios y Media/Getty Images

As history has proven, no matter what's happening in the world around us — but especially when times are tough — the quality of heavy-metal music remains high. This year was no different, with thrash pioneers, nu-metal provocateurs and deathcore kingpins stacking an imposing list of what Revolver HQ considers the best albums of 2022.

But we wanted to know what the fans think, so we asked our readers to pick the single best album in a year of countless great ones. The top five vote-getters are ranked accordingly below.

5. Slipknot - THE END, SO FAR

Some of Slipknot's own members aren't so hot on THE END, SO FAR, but the fans clearly dig it. The Nine's seventh LP, and last for longtime label home Roadrunner Records, does contain some of their boldest swings yet (opener "Adderall" barely sounds like a metal song, for one) but beneath the modern keyboard flourishes and Corey Taylor's experimental vocal deliveries are songs that bleed 'Knot — pulverizing, anthemic and uncompromising as ever.

4. Lorna Shore - Pain Remains

In 2022, Lorna Shore became deathcore's leading marquee act. On Pain Remains, the New Jersey crew fronted by the beastly Will Ramos peeled back the genre's stubbornly wrathful layers to tackle a wider, more nuanced range of emotions — specifically, the type of profound sadness that you'd usually only hear a black-metal isolationist confront with such intense anguish. Every song on Pain Remains goes places no deathcore band has dared to venture — its knee-buckling trio of closing tracks, most of all. Abject misery you can mosh to.

3. Lamb of God - Omens

On Omens, Lamb of God didn't try to reinvent the wheel they created years ago; they just spin that shit and marvel at its sheer awesomeness. The Virginia groove-metal titans' ninth LP provides every thrilling, crushing, throat-shredding high that fans desire from the seasoned vets, who remain masters at punching ferocious riffs and yell-back chants through walls of extreme-metal brutality. It's the best record they've released in years, and clearly the fans agree.

2. Ghost - Impera

What more can be said? Impera will go down as the album that launched Ghost into stratospheric heights — the type of success that no metalhead could've imagined the Swedish occult-rock band would achieve back in the mysterious doom days of Opus Eponymous. Tobias Forge's songwriting is snappier and more tuneful than ever, the arrangements have swelled to arena-sized proportions, but these songs still have all the band's ghastly quirks and charms. It's Ghost, but bigger.

1. Megadeth - The Sick, the Dying... And the Dead!

He fucking did it again. Dave Mustaine, a 61-year-old cancer survivor with 16 Megadeth albums under his belt, can still shred with the dexterity and passion of a 20-year-old prodigy at a NAMM showcase. The Sick, the Dying... And the Dead! comes nearly 40 years after the thrash institution's fiery debut, but it drips with the same amount of passion, cunning and riff-alicious splendor that Mustaine possessed when he started this crazy ride. Sure, metal fans are loyal, but the hype around this album wouldn't be quite this electric unless it was actually a legitimate ass-kicker. Let the large margin with which it claimed No. 1 in this vote list tell you all you need to know.