While you're scraping the last vestiges of my contact info from your address books, allow me to point you to this fun list of Pitchfork's Top Metal albums of 2011. I do so not to invite comment or ask if you've listened and/or enjoyed any of them but because the band names, album titles, and cover art are not to be missed.

The prevalence of occult symbols and skulls were no surprise but I was a shocked at the absence of umlauts.