Some other Extreme acts that I listen to.
Children of Bodom - Something Wild, Hatebreeder, Follow the Reaper (awesome musicianship but lyrics are real crap, Power metal with harsh vocals)
Opeth - Blackwater Park, Deliverance, My Arms Your Hearse (One of the first of their kind, Extreme progressive metal)
Amon Amarth - Once Sent from a Golden Hall, Avenger, The Crusher, Versus the World (One of the good bands from Sweden. Have lived upto their expectations everytime, Viking-theme Melo-death metal)
Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse, Anthems to the Welkin dusk, Prometheus-The discipline of fire and demise (One of the pioneers of Black metal)
Immortal - Pure Holocaust, Sons of Northern Darkness (Classic Black Metal)
Death - Human, Individual Thought Patterns, Symbolic (One the first Death Metal Bands after Possessed)
Atheist - Piece of Time, Unquestionable Presence (Progressive/Jazz death metal, an acquired taste)
Some of the thrash metal albums that have stood the test of time (which I ofcourse like)
Heathen-Victims of Deception (Pure Old School Thrash)
Slayer-Reign in blood (landmark slayer album, though I like "Show no Mercy" and "Hell Awaits")
Slayer-Hell Awaits
Slayer-Show No Mercy
Slayer-South of Heaven
Dark Angel-Darkness Descends (insane thrash, the riffs will kill, gene hoglan kicks ass)
Kreator-Pleasure to Kill
Flotsam and Jetsam-Doomsday for the deceiver (one of the lesser known)
Megadeth-Peace Sells...but who's buying
Megadeth-Rust in Peace
Kreator-Coma of Souls
Metallica-Ride the Lightning(Straight up thrash, Mustaine influences seen all over the place)
M(Thrash)etallica-Master of Puppets(landmark in mainstream thrash)
Excellent albums released in 2005 (which i've heard till now)
Nevermore-This Godless Endeavour (As expected, a good comeback album)
Heathen-Demo(Empty Nothingness, Dying Season, Arrows of Agony)-Mother of all thrash
Dark Tranquility-Character(One of the few Gotherburg bands that don't suck)
Communic-Conspiracy in Mind
Shadow Gallery-Room V
Kamelot-The Black Halo
Pain of Salvation - BE
Recent news... (atleast the ones that I know of)
Some news that can be the cause of some worry among progressive metal fans... Kristoffer Gildenlow has left "Pain of Salvation". It's somewhat shocking although I feel there'll be no compromise on the quality of music that these guys put out. Simply put these guys define perfection. Daniel Gildenlow (the lead singer, guitarist) is one of the best among the huge number of good musicians churned out in this generation of metal.
Moving on, Tarja Turunen has left Nightwish (kicked out rather), well, for the good or worse. Nothing much has happened since then.
"In flames" continue to suck at their music attempts. Well, I guess that's what the mainstream wants.
