We had a lot of fun doing our list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, but now the fun is over… until we do our next big list which is sure to make a large percentage of you unnecessarily angry. Oh, how we cannot wait for that time!

Until then, you can relive all the magic below, where we’ve collected the entire list in one place for your convenience. Our writers did some outstanding work fellating the honorees, and there’s also lots of cool videos of these dudes shreddin’ n’ shit, so if you haven’t already, be sure to check ‘em all out, and if you have, well, check ‘em out again!!!

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Photo by Andrew Lipovsky

It will surprise no one to learn that our Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists Readers’ Poll basically came down to a race between Devin Townsend and Between the Buried and Me’s Paul Waggoner, a.k.a. “The Two Omissions About Which MS Readers Seemed the Most Distraught.” But in the end it wasn’t even close — as of this writing, Heavy Devy has an impressive 86 votes, not nearly enough to overtake Waggoner’s 116 votes.

In any case, they’re both great guitarists — as are pretty much all the candidates you folks selected — and it was a painful choice to cut them both from the list, so we’re only too pleased to see you, our beloved MetalSucks Maniacs, give them some love.

Now, to celebrate his victory, here’s a video of Waggoner tracking his solo from “Selkies”:

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

We’ve published our list. Now it’s your turn.

We’re going to do this the same way we’ve done this in the past: rather than post a regular poll with hundreds of options, we’re going to conduct this poll via the comments. Here are the instructions:

Step 1) Decide who your favorite modern metal guitarist is. Remember that only candidates who have recorded and released new material within the past five years are eligible.

Step 2) Search the comments of this post for your choice (Apple-F on a Mac, Control-F on a PC).

Step 3) If your favorite modern metal guitarist is already listed, hit the “reply” button underneath and simply post “+1″ as your comment. If your favorite modern metal guitarist is not listed yet, add him, making sure you that you’ve spelled his name correctly.

That’s it! Sometime soon, we’ll tally up the “+1″s and declare a winner. Nothing is preventing you from adding multiple +1s, but don’t be that douche. Have fun… go!

MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. We had fun fucking with you earlier today, but now we conclude (for real) our countdown with Revocation’s David Davidson…

And so we arrive at the end. Why did Mr. Davidson make the top of this list when a cadre of fantastic musicians — including Paul Masvidal, Devin Townsend, Paul Waggoner, Matt Pike, Ryan Knight, and Marc Okubo, to name but a sampling — didn’t make the cut at all?

Why, it’s simple: All heavy metal guitar playing up until now has been leading up to the existence of David Davidson.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we conclude our countdown with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett…

By now you have hopefully figured out that, no, we did not really select Metallica’s Kirk Hammett as the #1 Modern Metal Guitarist. His name was raised once, but then we all laughed for thirty or forty minutes, returned to the matter at hand, and picked an actual #1. To find out that guitar player’s identity, go here.

And so we arrive at the end. Why did Mr. Hammett make the top of this list when a cadre of fantastic musicians – including Paul Masvidal, Devin Townsend, Paul Waggoner, Matt Pike, Ryan Knight, and Marc Okubo, to name but a sampling — didn’t make the cut at all?

Why, it’s simple. Not only does Hammett represent the pinnacle of what a metal guitarist can achieve, but he has represented that pinnacle for nearly three decades, pretty much without interruption.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Animals as Leaders’ Tosin Abasi…

It’s only been two years since Abasi released his debut solo effort under the Animals as Leaders moniker, but, oh, how times have since changed. When Prosthetic Records took a risk by releasing an ambient, shreddy metal album with no vocals by a relatively obscure, young guitarist, there’s no way they could’ve known the sea change it would inspire, and that there’d be dozens, if not hundreds, of imitators the world over. To say that Abasi has been a total game-changer for metal would be an understatement, and to say that he’s an immensely talented player deserving of every single accolade he receives doesn’t even really come close to capturing just how good he really is.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Mastodon’s Brent Hinds…

Everyone knows Brent Hinds is a good guitar player; as the main writer of Mastodon and as the band’s outsize stage presence, the man’s guitar skills need no introduction. But, oddly, it wasn’t until I saw him play with rockabilly side-project Fiend Without a Face in Brooklyn last year, up close and personal in a venue that holds not more than a hundred people, that I was completely bowled over by the man’s guitar prowess.

You know when a couple of dudes are battle-rapping and every time one flings an especially impressive or cleverly worded diss at the other, all the spectators standing around watching erupt in delighted cries of, “Ohhhhh! Ohhh shit!!!”? That’s what it was like watching Brent Hinds slay the living shit out of rockabilly riff after rockabilly lead after rockabilly riff after snaky, wiry, buttery rockabilly lead, except that the delighted onlookers were just one person (me) and instead of saying “Ohhhh shit!” I did so inside my own head. But yeah, that. The dude was on fire. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing not ten feet in front of my eyes, fingers moving like masterfully guided buttons on a player piano, dancing and darting across the fretboard in ways I’d never before imagined. And with so much feeling, this man not impressing with metronome-breaking speed or nut-crushing brutality, but pure guile. He could do no wrong.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal…

We could have easily chosen Meshuggah’s rhythm guitarist, Martin Hagström, for this list. As the primary music writer on about half of Meshuggah’s songs from Chaosphere onwards, Hagstrom is equally responsible for Meshuggah’s deliriously complex rhythm schemes, which have largely defined the band’s music for nearly twenty years and more or less inspired the entire djent movement. In 2004, Guitar World threw up its hands trying to decide who was better, and inducted both guitarists to the #35 spot on the magazine’s list of 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists of All Time. Let’s not forget that Thordendal and Hagström also made seven and eight-string guitars cool again, after the scourge of nu-metal tainted the reputation of the extended range axe.

But there are a couple things that give Thordendal the upper hand.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Nile’s Karl Sanders…

No one is saying Nile’s Egyptian themes are obscure or necessarily revolutionary: it’s a particularly brutal part of history taking place in an unforgiving environment, so it’s pretty easy to make something metal out of it (see also: vikings). But in a field as broad-yet-limited as death metal, even the smallest of tweaks or gimmicks can make you a visionary. When all your contemporaries are squabbling over whose dick is bigger, people will be more inclined to pay attention to an argument that your dick is more unique and interesting (note: not a great ice-breaker with women).

Of course, words like “gimmick” exist to demean what Karl Sanders does with Nile, and by no means is Nile worthy of being shrugged off. Playing ten-fingered riffs blisteringly fast? Karl Sanders is on that shit. Menacing, memorable slow parts that sound oppressively evil and evocative? Karl Sanders has that shit leased with an option to own. If he did none of that well, he and his band would be remembered as That Band That Wrote Songs About Mummies and Stuff. But Amongst The Catacombs Of Nephren-Ka, Annihilation of the Wicked, Those Whom the Gods Detest, and the rest of Nile’s discography are masterful, epic, and brilliant death metal albums with interesting thematic elements. But while there are guys who can play faster and slam harder, none can do it with the soul Nile does. Karl Sanders is that soul, and his playing is much more than a focus on modal riffs in lieu of atonal chromatics. It’s crafting a world of brutal heat, oppressed millions slaving for the benefit of a chosen few, and a complex system of gods, religion, and politics so ancient that it’s completely foreign to us now, all before dropping a pen to a legal pad for lyrics. His dexterity makes him a solid death metal guitarist; his penchant for atmosphere in addition to brutality is what makes him great.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed…

Scott Hull might be the genre’s most verisimilitudinous exmaple of metal, for, surely, there is no one more metal than he. He has a job, so he isn’t dependent on music to make his living, so he has never had to commit that sin which most offends metal fans  – the compromise of artistic ideals. And that job just happens to be doing IT stuff for the government, which might not sound interesting, until you hear Hull use the phrase “The classified nature of my work,” at which point you realize that Holy shit Scott Hull knows where you live and what porn you download and the codes for the bombs and you had better not fuck with him.

Of course, while these two facts certainly add to Hull’s metalness, they are far too superficial to be the actual source of his metalocity. For no one would give a hoot about Scott Hull the Government IT Guy who Makes Music on the Side if not for the fact that his guitar playing has the ability to endanger entire species.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Jeff Loomis, until recently of Nevermore…

When metal fans look back at the doldrums that were the ’90s, one American band sticks out as carrying the torch of “true” metal, whatever that term means: Pantera. Nevermore deserve just as much credit. Where Pantera had mainstream jock appeal and tough-guy bravado, Nevermore had the opposite; over-the-top technicality, a flare for the theatrical and the nerdiest of nerd-face fans when all of those things were considered as far from cool as you could possibly get. Nevermore never achieved nearly the popularity of Pantera, but as the band’s guitarist and chief songwriter, Jeff Loomis was responsible for bringing technicality back to metal a good 10 years before it was cool again.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with The Human Abstract’s A.J. Minette…

Listening to The Human Abstract is like listening to a full classical symphony arranged for metal band instrumentation — it’s musical poetry where every note is a metaphor, every phrase an eloquent sentence, every song a story without the need for any lyrics at all. Sure, A.J. Minette can shred circles around plenty of players, and he can do so in a manner that’s instantly more tasteful, artful, and, most importantly, more purposeful than your garden variety shredder. But that’s not what makes Minette stand out; if you see The Human Abstract live, or even listen to them on record, you probably won’t be that impressed with his technical skills as a guitarist (though, to be sure, they do exist). Rather, what makes Minette our #8 Top Modern Metal Guitarist is his ear for composition and arrangement, his knack for making The Human Abstract’s songs into expertly constructed embodiments of melody and feeling that don’t rely on technicality to impress. He’s a master architect, a skilled carpenter, the subtle behind-the-scenes engineer of all that is The Human Abstract.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with John Petrucci from Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment…

Whether it’s the emotional David Gilmour-inspired bends, Hetfield-esque machine gun riffing or flat out blistering speed-sweeping, John Petrucci has always been not just a guitarist’s guitar player but a dynamic and engaging musician and composer with a wide array of styles. Whether it is within the confines of Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment, or his solo material, Petrucci’s chops have consistently varied greatly across the prog-metal spectrum, while also standing out amongst his shredding peers on multiple G3 Tours alongside the likes of fellow guitar gods Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, and Eric Johnson.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Suffocation’s Terrance Hobbs…

When I first saw Suffocation live, I pretty much just stood there and stared at Terrance Hobbs the whole time. He’s almost delicate in the way he handles the guitar, and yet the sound that comes out of his instrument is anything but. At the time, I didn’t even know the names for half the stuff he was doing, so I was more than a little bit in awe. Luckily (or not, depending on your definition of “lucky”), I hang around pretentious music types a lot and now I can actually talk about it without sounding like a complete tool. Ish.

Suffocation is known for seamlessly blending the technical with the brutal; creating a sound that’s both heavy and sophisticated. The complex time changes and rapid-fire picking places them in a realm beyond just death metal, and Hobbs’ influence is what separates them from the herd. He integrates the rhythms of speed metal and even introduces an aspect of hardcore that marks their distinct structural sound.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Opeth’s Mikael  Åkerfeldt…

Everyone knows Mikael Åkerfeldt as the leader of Opeth, as well as the vocalist and contributor to countless other widely regarded musical projects, like Bloodbath and Katatonia. But really, Akerfeldt isn’t just a superior songwriter and all-around musician — first and foremost, he’s a ridiculous talented, incredibly versatile guitarist, and is far and away one of my favorite modern players.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with The Faceless’ Michael Keene…

If Michael Keene ends up being the defining metal guitarist of his generation, no one should be surprised. His work is certainly far beyond a label as simple as “Sumeriancore,” even if The Faceless are are at the top of the Sumerian heap. Fact is, Keene is a metal dork’s wet dream — he’s a ridiculously good guitar player, a ridiculously good producer, and a ridiculously good songwriter, and his output is always proggy and challenging but fun, heavy as an orgy whose participants are all suffering from gigantism, and shreddy in just right the measure.

In other words: if Michael Keene’s only goal in life is induce envy and orgasms in metal fans and musicians everywhere, well, he has thus far succeeded and then some.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman…

When I was a kid, one of the reasons I loved metal, hard rock, and punk was because it felt legitimately dangerous. By and large, I do not get that feeling very much anymore. Maybe that was just youthful naivety, but somehow, I don’t think so, and the reason I don’t think so is this: The Dillinger Escape Plan still sound like an incredibly dangerous band to me, both as a performance act and as a creative force. Every time I hear a new DEP album, I think, “Boy, people are going to be pissed.” And every time I go see the band live, I think, “Holy shit, one of these dudes is going to die right here in front of this audience.” And I know it sounds weird, but those are both invigorating feelings to experience. They make me feel like I’m ten years old again.

And Ben Weinman, as the most consistent and driving creative force behind the band throughout their entire career, obviously has a lot to do with the band’s seemingly limitless ability to induce these feelings.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Colin Marston from Krallice and Behold… The Arctopus…

Colin Marston is one of the youngest guitarists on our list, and his primary creative outlets (Krallice, Dysrhythmia, Behold…the Arctopus) haven’t yet reached the legendary status of so many of the other bands graced by the other 24 inductees. But in terms of his stylistic breadth and the scope of his abilities, Marston is in a league of his own.

There isn’t a signature Colin Marston guitar sound or style. Instead, Marston expertly adapts his talents to fit the project in question. On one end of the spectrum is Byla, the ambient guitar duo that Marston shares with Kevin Hufnagel; the project is all about abstraction and texture. On the other end is Behold…the Arctopus, a band that thrives on over-the-top virtuosity, deployed in the wackiest of ways – and let’s not forget that Marston executes all of Behold…’s atonal tone rows on a 12-string Warr guitar, which means he’s essentially shredding on two instruments at once. Somewhere in between those two poles is Krallice, in which Marston’s guitar lines intertwine with Mick Barr’s, creating ever-shifting harmonic patterns that tickle the ears like few black metal bands do. No matter what the guitar idiom, Marston has mastered it. No wonder that Luc Lemay asked him to join Gorguts as bassist. By the looks of the live footage from Gorguts’ 2010 mini-tour, it would seem like Marston’s fitting in just fine.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell…

I held off on listening to Alice in Chains for a really long time. Mainly because all the ‘90s grungy metal I’d heard previously made me go meh, and that’s the genre with which I associated AiC. But when countless people told me I was stupid for thinking so and all but bullied me into listening to them, I thought maybe I should stop making assumptions. Hey, I can admit when I’m wrong.

Jerry Cantrell played a big part in changing my mind. His style is what distinguishes Alice in Chains from just another grunge band. In his words, “We’re a lot of different things… I don’t quite know what the mixture is, but there’s definitely metal, blues, rock and roll, maybe a touch of punk. The metal part will never leave, and I never want it to,” and it’s those extra elements that make Alice in Chains such a, I hesitate to say this but really there’s no better word, unique band. His riffs are often punishing, loud, and harsh but expand into slower moodier grinds that blend so well with the dual harmonizing vocals. The dark, almost nihilistic themes are always present even in the seemingly simple acoustic numbers.

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Buckethead…

“He was born in a coop, raised in a cage,
Children fear him, critics rage.
He’s half alive, he’s half-dead
Folks just call him ‘Buckethead.’”
–”The Ballad of Buckethead,” Buckethead featuring Les Claypool

Buckethead (his mommy just calls him “Brian Patrick Carroll”), the one-time Primus and Guns N’ Roses axe slinger, hasn’t released a single album in 2011, which I guess is excusable, SINCE HE RELEASED FOUR IN 2010 and ANOTHER FOUR IN 2009. In fact, his most recent release, 2010′s Untitled, was his thirtieth studio album — and that only counts solo albums, not stuff he’s recorded with bands/other artists. And even then, only solo albums released under the moniker “Buckethead,” not solo albums released as “Death Cube K” (which, in case you don’t see it, is the letters that spell “Buckethead” re-arranged).

Of course, the fact that he’s pretty much the most prolific person in the history of ever would make no difference if he wasn’t also an incredible, mind-bogglingly mind-blowing musician. Fact of the matter is, when you look at all those albums he’s released, not only are they all good, and not only do they all display top-notch musicianship and songwriting abilities, but they cover a wide range of styles, including not just metal and hard rock, but electronica, country, funk, blues, flamenco, and lots and lots of experimental shit that I don’t even know what the fucking fuck you’d call it.

For example, here’s a quick overview (and a shit ton of videos) of the genres covered in just those eight most recent solo releases:

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