Your favorite metal label?
Taken from the Metal for the Masses subreddit. There were dozens of different options that people were voting for, and I never really thought about it until now.
After some studies through various labels and their signed artists, I made an easy decision. My personal favorite is Nuclear Blast, since they're all over the metal spectrum, which is perfect for me. Lemme go over some of their acts that I've given five-star ratings to (concerning albums)
Alcest (blackgaze), Avantasia (symphonic power), Blind Guardian (power), Carcass (melodeath), Cradle of Filth (gothic black), Cryptopsy (brutal death), Earthless (stoner and psych rock), Enslaved (prog, black and viking), Exodus (thrash), Fit for an Autopsy (deathcore, prog metalcore), In Flames (melodeath), Kreator (thrash), Machine Head (groove), Ministry (industrial), My Sying Bride (gothic doom, death doom), Nails (grindcore), Nightwish (symphonic and power), Nile (brutal and tech death), Overkill (thrash), Sepultura (thrash), Suffocation (brutal death), Symphony X (neoclassical and prog), Testament (thrash), Therion (symphonic), Voivod (thrash)
Sorry for the long list, buy hey, this is only counting the CURRENTLY signed bands. Many of my favorite bands were at one point signed to them, like the late Emperor.
I don't religiously follow a lot lot of labels, but I'd say the one that always makes my ears perk up nowadays is 20 Buck Spin. Even though they're kind of falling into the trap of signing too many bands that sound too similar to one another, they definitely have their brand and stuff from them always turns out to be an interesting listen. It's a lot of underground Death, Tech Death, Death Doom, and Tech Thrash bands, but they branch out every now and again like Obsequiae.
Other signed bands that people might recognize: Tomb Mold, Worm, Void Ceremony, Dream Unending, Mournful Congregation, Witch Vomit, Predatory Light, Ulthar, and so on.
Nuclear Blast is my second favorite record label, and the one label surpassing that for me is... Roadrunner! This one has the two milestone bands in my metal journey, DragonForce and Trivium, and other bands I enjoy or I'm at least familiar with including...
36 Crazyfists (metalcore/alt-metal), Annihilator (thrash/heavy metal), Believer (tech-thrash/progressive metal), Code Orange (metalcore/industrial/alt-metal), The Devil Wears Prada (melodic metalcore), Fear Factory (industrial/groove metal), Gojira (progressive/tech-death), Hatebreed (metalcore/hardcore), In This Moment (alt-/industrial metal), Killswitch Engage (melodic metalcore), Lamb of God (groove/thrash metal), Motionless in White (metalcore/industrial/alt-metal), Nightwish (symphonic/power metal), Opeth (deathly progressive metal/rock), Pestilence (death/progressive metal), Queensryche (heavy/progressive metal/hard rock), Type O Negative (gothic/doom metal), Vision of Disorder (metalcore/groove/alt-metal), Within Temptation (symphonic/alt-metal)
And the most ambitious collaborative metal project of all time, Roadrunner United: https://metal.academy/releases/8088
I'm not sure that I have a favourite label, as I don't think I've paid attention to labels much since streaming took over.
That said, this discussion did remind me that I started Label Lists on the site a few years ago.
I had fun doing that, and it was a good way to add underground bands that possibly never would have hit the site otherwise.
New Standard Elite puts out some badass stuff... newest Internal Suffering was put out by NSE last year. As well as the newest Despondency this year. Delusional Parasitosis Baalsebub, Cerebral Effusion, Dissevered, Anal Stabwound (one man band, guy was 16 during his first record iirc which is crazy), Gorgasm, Ecchymosis, Iniquitous Deeds, Excoration... list goes on. Essential stuff for any fan of brutal death metal. Very particular example, though.
There's probably two that I would call out. In terms of regular purchases it would be Debemur Morti. With Akhlys, BAN, Selbst, Slidhr and the mighty Ulcerate, it is pretty much a candy shop and I am a fucking child!
Otherwise it would be Maggot Stomp for their roster of largely filthy and purile death metal.
Shout outs to 20 Buck Spin, Osmose and Profund Lore also.
After some further studies, I found that Nuclear Blast acxtually has a really bad habit of bringing great bands in AFTER their heyday. Most of the bands I listed were brought in that way. But it's been difficult looking through metal catalogs and finding one full of my favorite bands and that has a wide array of genres at their helm. I found one that's most certainly the latter, and full of artists that I've either given five-stars to an album of theirs or more, or I plan on exploring: Metal Blade. Let's go over some of their properties I've given five stars to. The bolded ones are ones I would quickly go back to.
Bolt Thrower: Those Once Loyal (Death)
Falconer: Among Beggars and Thieves (Power)
Fates Warning: Awaken the Guardian (USPM, Heavy, Prog)
Helstar: A Distant Thunder (USPM, Heavy)
Immolation: Close to a World Below, Here in After (Death)
Labyrinth: Return to Heaven Denied (Power)
The Ocean: Pelagial, Precambiran (Atmo-Sludge), Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic (Prog, Atmo-Sludge)
Primordial: To the Nameless Dead, The Gathering Wilderness (Folk, Pagan Black)
Trouble: Psalm 9, The Skull (Traditional Doom, Christian)
Non-Metal
Neal Morse: ? (Symphonic Prog)
And there are other bands I want to thoroughly explore like Transatlantic, Dvne, Disillusion, Whitechaple, Gwar, Downfall of Gaia, so I'm likely going to explore more Metal Blade in the coming weeks, especially where clan challenges are concerned. I might as well go back on Fates Warning tonight after I'm done with Caravanserai.
Like Ben, I haven't really focused on metal labels since the 1990's. Back then I used to religiously follow labels like Earache Records & premier Aussie extreme metal label Warhead Records but these days that's limited to ones that are a little closer to home like Sphere of Apparition (Oni, Neuropath, Unholy Redeemer, etc.). It's far easier to find good music in the internet age than it was when all we had to go on were magazines & word of mouth. Labels served a stronger purpose as a reliable provider of music that fit their particular niche. You can simply Google that stuff these days.