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Maybe heavy metal music and Christmas don’t go hand in hand, but that hasn’t stopped some of the most prolific artists in the genre from creating some interesting tunes. Here are the 10 top metal Christmas songs we think best represent this 2019 holiday season.

LISTEN TO THE EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE OF THE MENDENHALL EXPERIMENT’S “NOTHING GOOD CAME EASY” ON OUTBURN.COM “Nothing Good Came Easy” is The Mendenhall Experiment’s anthem behind the band’s cause of raising disability awareness. It simply states that you can achieve anything you put your mind to, but “Nothing Good Came Easy’s” writing cred and honorable mention goes to the band’s former guitarist Mike Lira.

WATCH THE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE OF SUBTLETIES’ “CONTROL” ON OUTBURN.COM New York alternative rockers Subtleties has just dropped their sophomore EP, Barely You from which “Control” is taken. Honing influence from across the rock spectrum, Subtleties’ new record balances driving guitars, urgent, heart-on-sleeve lyricism and resonating heavy injections.

There are many influential releases celebrating three decades of existence in 2019. Before the year wraps up, we here at Outburn would like to spotlight the most notable metal outings that were released in 1989. The criteria for making this list is mostly based on the album’s intensity, sound, riffs, songs, cover art, and album title, and not on sales numbers.

For the first time on the road together since 2011, Touché Amoré and La Dispute brought their final tour of 2019 to The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts. Competing with another show occurring just upstairs, the bands were still able to pack out the venue with dedicated fans eager to see these post-hardcore acts.

In August, Outburn ran a feature on the Top 5 Underground Metal Record Labels, which was met with favorable praise (unless your label didn’t make the list). This time around, instead of a ranking system, we decided to focus more on the diversity of the different labels to spotlight our appreciation and give recognition to them. Because that’s really what the whole point of this is about, to get metal fans to check out the labels’ Bandcamp pages and their excellent rosters.

WATCH THE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE OF VIKRAM’S “THE MORTAL DANCE OF KALI” ON OUTBURN.COM Brazilian progressive metallers VIKRAM have unleashed the new video taken from the band’s debut album BEHIND THE MASK I released on October 25, 2019 via Rockshots Records.

After four years, King Diamond has embarked on his first US tour since 2015. Tonight, we find the King appearing at the historic Worcester Palladium in Massachusetts to a packed crowd and full balcony of screaming fans. While he had some health issues in the past, with triple bypass heart surgery, it’s clear it has not slowed King Diamond down, nor has he skipped a beat.

Love them or hate them, there’s no question Ghost has quickly become a massive force to be reckoned with. The question, however, on both sides of the Ghost fence is, “Are they big enough and ready for arenas?” Last year Ghost tested the waters, jumping up from a theater show to an arena show for three dates of their tour at Barclays Center in New York, The Forum in California, and Place Bell in Montreal. The results were undeniable.

WATCH THE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE OF LEAH’S “LIGHT OF THE WORLD” ON OUTBURN.COM “Light of the World,” off of LEAH’s upcoming winter themed album, Ancient Winter, which will be released on November 15th. LEAH—described affectionately by her fans as “the metal Enya”—hails from the coast of British Columbia, Canada, and is inspired by Celtic and world music influences such as Clannad and Enya to European symphonic and progressive metal influences.