A couple bands linger for me. As far as solid death metal goes, I'm all for Cryptopsy any time any where. Especially the notorious None So Vile. Opeth is also one of my favorites particularly for how much is put into each song and how well it's pieced together. For similar reasons Therion has become among my favorites. Mainly because one man composes music for a good 170+ different musicians and singers. That's a lot to work out. If we're speaking solely in metal then that'll shorten the list a tad. Necrophagist has been earning respect and I appreciate whomever it was that recommended them to me. Very good stuff. As far as black metal goes, Immortal and Emperor are definitely up there. Power metal, Stratovarius, Iced Earth and Blind Guardian all rank highest. But I'm really usually not too particular. Of course the above names are always welcome in my CD wallet. Fun fact though, out of every death metal band I have heard, I can count the ones I don't like on one hand and I don't need all 5 fingers... and I've heard a lot of death metal bands mind you.