The 25 Best Rock + Metal Albums of the 2020s (So Far)

Here’s the 25 best rock and metal albums of the 2020s… so far!

We’ve completed six full years of the decade already, so it’s time for a status report on the absolute best releases among a pile of thousands, which only grows taller by the week.

It’s been a best-of-both-worlds situation. Plenty of newcomers have quickly establishing themselves as potential heirs to the throne while a wealth of veteran artists have legitimately put out not only their strongest work in years (decades, even), but records that we can confidently say we’ll still be playing alongside the classics much later in our own lives once the recency bias fades.

Rock + Metal Having a GREAT Decade

For a scene that is continuously asking where the “next Metallica” or “next Led Zeppelin” are, the answers are right in front of us — it just may not look exactly like we were expecting.

The signs are all around us:

Knocked Loose and Poppy bringing feral hardcore extremity to late night TV audiences?

Check.

A collab between Spiritbox and rapper Megan Thee Stallion on a remix track?

Check.

Gojira pumping fire out of a castle decorated with severed heads at the Olympics opening ceremony in their home country of France? And playing a breakdown while doing it?

Check and check.

Turnstile soundtracking a Taco Bell commercial, getting a shoutout from Charlie XCX at Coachella and having a song in the 2026 Winter Olympics commercial by Google?

Check, check, checkmate.

Seriously, how much more mainstream attention does anyone need to see before they are fully convinced that rock and metal is more popular than it’s been in, what, 20 years? That’s since the collapse of CD sales.

And let’s not forget, we’ve still got metal’s biggest band — Metallica — raising the ceiling for everyone else after instantly selling out 24 shows at the Las Vegas Sphere.

What we’re trying to say is that, for rock and metal, it’s been a ridiculously great decade. The future is much clearer. It’s promising. It’s exciting. It’s here. It’s now. We’re all living in it and these 25 albums below make the claims irrefutable.

Check them out below.