What do you need to be a great metal band? While many would surely say it’s qualities like brutal riffs and attention-demanding hooks, more important than everything else is fearless vision and originality. And the 10 albums listed below pack that in spades. On masterpieces from Opeth’s Damnation to Myrkur’s Folkesange, top-tier metal acts have all shed their heavy skin entirely, without compromising on the quality of their output. Whether they represent an artist going pop, ambient or even electronic, these are brilliant non-metal albums released by metal bands:
