The 60 best metal albums of 2020 include (clockwise from top left): The Black Dahlia Murder, Elder, Sumac, Botanist, Vile Creature, Today is the Day, Cult of Fire, Mare Cognitum & Spectral Lore, End and Reverorum ib Malacht. Welcome to the second beatdown in a six-part beatdown series counting…

Don’t even try to talk about heavy psychedelia in the 21st century without mentioning Elder. Rising from the stoner doom underground, the Boston quartet used progressive arrangements and trippy textures to produce some of the past decade’s best albums. While fans pit 2015’s Lore against 2017’s Reflections of a…