Underground album discoveries of the year gone by

Oh wow, this thread direction is hard for me to contribute to anymore because I spend most of my time trying to keep up with new releases, and hardly look back at older ones. When I do look back at older releases, it is because I am looking into well-received albums that I felt I needed to get into my library or at least have a sample. A few years ago, I used to be all about discovering older hidden gems, and discovered many, especially within the old school death metal area.

But while this is far from an album that gets little recognition, I still would like to share just because it's awesome. This year I discovered Borknagar's previous two albums, which I had never heard before. Most notably, True North I spent a lot of time with before moving onto Winter Thrice. Although I had a pretty high level top 20 albums of the year list, I would easily put True North and Winter Thrice in my top 10 this year had those been released this year. What amazing records! I remember getting True North in February due to seeing how well received it was and not having checked out Borknagar for several years. I loved the album so much that I listened through the album every day for two whole months! It's funny how the track I least cared for initially (the closing track, "Voices") turned out to be one of the catchiest and powerful songs I heard all year by the 30th time hearing it.

Again, Borknagar are not hidden gem masters, as they are quite established, even if they are not as familiar to the metal masses as many other bands within their wheelhouse (Enslaved's popularity seems triple that of Borknagar, despite my current observation that perhaps Borknagar are the better songwriters in my opinion).

Found this recently.  Slam Death Metal (basically uber-Brutal Death Metal with slamming riffs) that uses a banjo for its leads.  Kind of cool, actually.