Since Hellbound.ca is a Canadian-owned and operated metal publication, we do things a little bit different than most. While 2011 was coming to a close we asked all of our contributors to pick their Top Canadian metal albums of the year. We then tabulated up their responses and have created our third annual Top 10 Canadian Metal Albums writers poll.

Please check out what our writers feel to be the best Canadian metal albums released in 2011.

In her latest Blasphemy Blog entry, Ola Mazzuca discusses her last month spent in Urbino, Italy and its metal scene.

With their latest signing in Aenaon, Code666 continues to cement its name as the vanguard of forward-thinking blackmetal. Stellar release after stellar release, the label has proven its cutting-edge mettle time and again, and Cendres Et Sang is only further proof of the label’s impeccable taste.

Despite my quibbles with the lyrical content, this album is a great piece of throwback metal, Andy Sneap harnessing the classic 80′s Accept sound and bringing it into the 21st century. Their last Udo-less effort may not have aged well, but Blood of the Nations is timeless.

Helped by the fantastic production of Andy Sneap, you have the perfect combination of old school Accept with a modern touch. All their trademarks are here. Excellent riffs that are undeniably Accept in feel/tone, with those huge gang vocals and twin guitar attack will have you grinning from ear to ear.

Kvelertak hold nothing sacred, aren’t afraid to whip out their six schlongs to piss on the walls of convention and are getting the appropriate attention – both positive and negative – because of it, whether you like it or not. It all starts with their sound: a furious, kinetic and coruscating blend of 85 octane burnin’ garage rock, greasy punk, blues, hardcore, Motorhead, black and death metal. They manage to sound like all of the above without exactly sounding like any of ‘em,

Sure, I listened to all the metal gods growing up: Maiden, Priest, Sabbath, etc; but there was another band I had an obsessive appreciation for, one that didn’t belong on so lofty a pedestal–yet I put them right up there.
That band was Teutonic metal pioneers Accept.

Now, with all that praise for Judas Priest’s Setlist on the proverbial books, it doesn’t need to be questioned why – with six live albums already in circulation, does a compilation need to exist? In Judas Priest’s case, their entry into the Setlist series marks a fantastic proof of the band’s faculties as a love act. The band proves that they have never dramatically changed or experienced a decline in the thirty-year span of time that this record offers glimpses into. That, in a word, is unbelievable.