Ok before I ask somebody to come up with a topic and some albums, here is a quick battle by me (just 4 albums)
The Best Album That Metallica Never Released
As the title suggests, here are four albums that were done by bands who very much had their own style, but for an album or two adopted a James Hetfield style bark to their sound, added Metallica style riffs into the mix, or just had a Metallica type feel to their sound, usually for commercial reasons. These albums though imo, are still great metal releases and great homages to classic era Metallica.
Iced Earth The Dark Saga 1996
Versus
Corrosion of Conformity Blind 1991