The ILM Extreme Metal Poll Voting, Discussion and Campaigning Thread

Yay, it's finally here, your chance to vote for what you think are the best extreme metal albums of all time!
I am going to let this poll run for 2 weeks, so you have till November 2nd to get your ballots in!

I am going with a 50 album maximum and a 5 album minimum - try and vote for as many albums as you can as it makes the resulting rankings more robust and credible.

I highly recommend you choose your items from the nominations list, but you can vote for things not on it, just be aware that probably no one other than you will vote for it. Please do not vote for an album more than once, I will throw away ballots that are just 50 lines of the same album.

Nominations spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WKuG4E8u5i4xOPvs6wq9ZPgGxkAmv1w8YEXVG9HANfI/edit?usp=sharing

Ballot entry form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1UXk29Q7FIyZ9smY_AanpCnh9c5g2Yw7cEZG-FCKldG4/viewform?usp=send_form

Have fun, and please discuss albums, campaign for the one's you love, "banter" all you want but PLEASE DO NOT PASTE YOUR BALLOTS ON THIS THREAD.
Links to spotify, soundcloud, bandcamp & youtube are definitely appreciated but please don't embed anything as it makes the thread load slowly.

I'll be around a bunch to answer questions and deal with any problems that might come up. Also, if anyone out there wants to help me do the tabulating I would love it. I'm pretty sure I can figure it out on my own but I would love any extra help!

\m/

I thought you said 100 ? Not sure cutting down to 50 will be easy. It is an of all time poll.

Yeah, good point, I forget that the crowd that has nominated nearly 600 albums would want 100-album ballots. So hear ye all

Ballots now have a 100-album maximum!

I will edit the entry form to reflect that.

These two entries:

Peste Noire - La sanie des siècles
Peste Noire - Panégyrique de la dégénérescence

are actually just one album named 'La sanie des siècles - Panégyrique de la dégénérescence'

so my ballot is reflecting that

wooo time to work on a 100 ballot!

anyone voted yet?

Just noticed one of my sets of nominations is missing from the doc...

Annihilator - Alice in Hell
Blut aus Nord - 777 - The Desanctification
Dark Angel - Darkness Descends
The Great Old Ones - TEKELI-LI
Neurosis - Times of Grace

(Portal - Vexovoid was also on the same list but someone else nominated that anyway)

Any chance they could be added on? If not I'll just write-in the ones I want to vote for.

wow didn't even notice Dark Angel not on there

really looking forward to this poll, will start organizing my ballot this week

It's already interesting to spot some discrepancies with RYM's charts - one band that's conspicuously absent in this nominations list is Moonsorrow for example.

I didn't nominate anything because I don't really know that many classic extreme metal albums, I just figured I'd wait and see which nominees looked interesting and make a playlist out of those. Right now I'm listening to Satyricon, which must be the most underrated classic black metal band. I think this album has been recommended to me more than once, but I have yet to give it much attention. It's excellent, the relatively clear production makes the odd meters a little more disorienting than the wall-of-noise approach of the first couple Emperor albums, for example.

Really wish I nom'd more/watched noms more carefully, 'cause 'Seasons In The Abyss' isn't in there, and it really should be - easily my fave Slayer.

im sure frobisher can add it

Dinsdale: I will fix the list to reflect that,
Gavin: somehow I missed those I will get them on the list!

ok, those problems are fixed

I'll put on the Slayer too, but no more late noms! Y'all had lots of time!

It always happens.

time to get started

I'll start the campaigning: probably doesn't need to be said, but I hope everyone remembers Celtic Frost and Hellhammer in the voting. For me, even more than Venom, they're responsible for the sound of extreme metal.

Agreed!

I was going to wait for the rollout to school myself on the important stuff. With 100 albums max my ballot will still be full of post-00 oddities of personal significance.

An update FYI - I've already received 3 ballots!

I know it can be a struggle, especially when bands you love have all their albums nominated.

This is just a suggestion, you don't have to follow it at all, but if you want to and can - please vote for stuff from a variety of subgenres. IMO it will make the results and the roll-out more fun because of the variety. But if all you know about is one type, and that's all you want to vote for -- that's fine, I'd much rather have you vote than sit it out cause you don't think you know enough.

Keep 'em coming!

Thanks for adding the missing stuff Frobisher.

My ballot looks like it'll be 60-odd albums - I could stretch to more, maybe even the full 100 but I'd be voting for stuff I just 'quite like' by that point. Hoping to check out a few things from the list though.

What are people going to campaign for?

One of my nomination posts got either overlooked or misinterpreted, I think. It had:

Deeds of Flesh - Reduced to Ashes
Nile - Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka
Nile - Black Seeds of Vengeance
Nile - In Their Darkened Shrines
Nile - Annihilation of the Wicked

I was just sitting here listening to Deeds' Portals to Canaan and realizing I should've nominated it, saying to myself, well at least I got Reduced to Ashes in there -- then I checked to make sure and voila, no Deeds. Nor Nile.

And I won't use this as an opportunity to petition for Portals to Canaan. Promise.

As for campaigning, I don't even know where to start. My brain's kinda fried at the mo so god only knows when I'll get around to tackling this voting round.

yeah i'll campaign once i figure out my longlist

So far I have tried and liked Kreator's Pleasure to Kill, Satyricon's Nemesis Divina, and Death's Individual Thought Patterns. I think I had at some point heard all the classic Death albums but I didn't remember them in the slightest. I bought the Death and the Satyricon at the local shop the other day, too.

I also listened to half of Thorns s/t and it didn't really connect with me, although I appreciate it as an early use of weird noise in black metal I guess? Enslaved's Eld started out not like how I was expecting but got better halfway through the opening track. Drudkh I was surprised not to enjoy as much as I probably would have seven years ago when I was in my DSBM phase, but I may go listen to it again if I have time before voting closes.

I've been listening to more metal the past two years or so but I'm still pretty much a neophyte. I'd be happy to give a listen to anything that someone feels passionately enough about to campaign for.

Oh, I also bought Marduk's World Funeral, which wasn't nominated, but four other Marduk albums were. Was that my mistake, or is it just not one of their stronger efforts? Should I return it and track down that copy of Opus Nocturne I saw last year in the creepy cash-only shop downtown?

Marduk sort of has three eras, and World Funeral is from the middle and least good one, with Legion as vocalist. On top of that WF is probably the worst effort with Legion. His nursery rhyme delivery annoys me to no end. (I do like Panzer Division Marduk, though; it's like a black metal version of Pierced from Within, just a big bulldozing wall of sound.)

My personal fav Marduk era is the newest with Arioch/Mortuus (same person) on vox. Everything is way more gritty and intense. Rom 5:12 is my go-to album but I'm sure an argument could be made for any of the 5 Mortuus albums. The slow songs, esp "Imago Mortis" and "Accuser/Opposer," are things to behold.

Opus Nocturne is probably the best of the "early era" of Marduk so if you do have a chance to get it, go for it. Definitely has an older school sped up Bathory feel. Those of the Unlight is really good too. Both albums have a strong sense of melody and atmosphere and almost compare to some of Dissection's stuff (minus the Iron Maiden influences).

I always forget about their very first album, Dark Endless. It's ... maybe not a part of those other three eras, more death metal, and clumsy at that.

I should have said "Opus Nocturne is the 'better' of the early era" as it and Those of the Unlight are the only two there.

only one i ever bothered with was panzer division marduk but It never really struck me

My personal fav Marduk era is the newest with Arioch/Mortuus (same person) on vox. Everything is way more gritty and intense.

Totally agree with this. I reviewed Serpent Sermon back in 2012, and liked it a lot. (I also wrote a more general Marduk overview back in 2007 which somehow remains online.)

I should try them again

I listened to two tracks off of World Funeral and I thought they were pretty decent, so I'll probably keep it (I haven't taken it out of the shrinkwrap yet, just in case). I wasn't bothered by the singing, but I think I could hear what you meant? And the record store that had the vinyl copy of Opus Nocturne I saw last year shuttered in January. I'll check out Rom 5:12 for poll purposes this weekend.

My landlord told me last night that he was in the room when Nuclear Assault was recording "Hang the Pope." They also recorded their 2005 album Third World Genocide in my basement, using my snare drum.

Nobody should send in a ballot until frobisher has done his, he should be leading the way!

hah, well... I'm working on it. My ballot is leaning pretty heavy towards SDBM, funeral doom & grind. Its hard to not just go ahead and vote for every Carcass album, I think I'm gonna try and limit my favorite bands to two albums (ya know if they have a bunch nominated).

I'd like to campaign for Gris - À l'âme enflammée, l'âme constellée..., its a great album from a woefully underrated band (I think they're underrated, maybe they are a lot more popular than I think).

xxp I'll get those nominations onto the list, Devilock, even though I think Nile is shite. ;P

I'd be interested to see more campaigning because I've only got about 40 of these albums at maximum (I'm not voting, I haven't heard nearly enough) and I'd like to know what sets the bands (and albums) apart.

thats more than enough to vote! you gotta vote , if everyone does the same there will only be about 10 ballots!

you only need to vote for 5 and you can do 40 at least you said!

as a backwards record didnt say do it do it do it

I'd like to campaign for Gris - À l'âme enflammée, l'âme constellée..., its a great album from a woefully underrated band (I think they're underrated, maybe they are a lot more popular than I think).

Yes yes yes. It's a real beauty.

Okay, I've never done this type of ballot voting, do the ballots go to Frobisher's email via the profile?

There's a link to the ballot form in the first post

Also, I'm not sure if it's going to make my ballot/be too high up but I only just 'got' Nespithe while listening through a few things. The repulsion I feel when I hear the demonic belching is exactly what they were going for probably.

Made a first pass through artists A-L on the spreadsheet to start making a master list, going just for the obvious stuff, and surprised myself by coming up with only a little over 30 albums. Kind of a relief: I much more look forward to judiciously "adding to" rather than tearfully "removing from" (since I'm going for 100).

My dread at making this ballot may have been ill founded after all. Hurrah.

Of course what's obvious to me may not be obvious to all. I skipped right past Burzum, Bathory, Entombed, and early Cannibal Corpse, because while I get the historical importance, and god knows I love a buttload of bands that wouldn't exist without them, the music itself doesn't click. The case of Bathory esp perplexes me -- early/mid 90s Scandinavian black metal is by far my fav subgenre yet there Bathory is at ground zero, chasing me away. It may have something to do with the order I got into this stuff, death before black, then way later black via Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, which sort of makes Bathory sound ridiculous (though I do like the raw stuff now, obv, just ... not Bathory).

A mystery for the ages. But mainly for me.

Also yes everyone who's even considering it, please vote. I nominated so many albums and I don't want the poll results to look so slanted in favor of my fascination with late 90s/early 00s stuff. Think of the children.

I think what this thread needs is more outloud thinking and campaigning.
And I am baffled by the not liking of Bathory in the above post!

Is this poll gonna favour music of the 90s basically?

Also, I'm not sure if it's going to make my ballot/be too high up but I only just 'got' Nespithe while listening through a few things. The repulsion I feel when I hear the demonic belching is exactly what they were going for probably.

But like you said, maybe that discomfort is supposed to be happening.

Bathory is a weird case, but I will most likely end up voting for at least two records. The production on them, even more than 2nd wave black metal stuff, is the biggest barrier for me as far as regular listening -- so what I did was make a custom EQ that basically brings out more of the mids so the tracks sound closer to the black thrash that they really were. Bathory's music was very much in line with, say, the first Sodom EP, but even simpler, and more vicious, especially his vocals. The first 4 albums are rooted in fairly old fashioned speed metal and Venom-atmosphere, but it's his vocals and production that push them into black metal territory, as we know it today. Under the Sign of the Black Mark and Blood Fire Death in particular still crush....if you can hang with the harshness.

I will also be voting for Entombed. They are a lot more straightforward than most death metal today, but man, the songs themselves still pack plenty of punch. And my real campaign is for NIHILIST. Demo-quality Entombed before Entombed was a band, with the added bonus of hardcore/crust intensity, and an utter no fucks given to any kind of "melodic" or "death and roll" sensibility that you might associate with the early Swedish scene. Seriously, Nihilist and the first Carnage album might very well represent the best of the original Swedish death metal bands.

xxx crap, bad time for an xpost! I'll go back and read these two big posts I missed xxx

I've been listening to more metal the past two years or so but I'm still pretty much a neophyte. I'd be happy to give a listen to anything that someone feels passionately enough about to campaign for.

Are you familiar with The Chasm? They're one of those bands loved by all who know them but known by too few. Started in Mexico, moved to Chicago; mainly helmed by Daniel Corchado, one of the most distinctive and inventive riff writer/arrangers in metal and who I'd probably point to as the embodiment of all great things about this musical genre. You said you liked Nemesis Divina, and while The Chasm is definitely death metal, they have a similar approach of lengthy atmospheric songs with riffs of shifting moods and speeds. Really epic storytelling stuff. There's a weird combination of mournful and triumphant in the riffing, in theory similar to Mgla but sounding much different and leaving you much less hopeless. Some of their albums do run long -- and the last one was 50% instrumental! -- yet I could listen to them all day. Procession to the Infraworld is probably their most compact work, and my favorite. The songs have that classic quality of at once sounding familiar and totally fresh. I guess if I were to compare them to any other band I'd say Dissection -- but now that's 3 black (or blackish) metal bands I've listed and The Chasm is anything but black metal. They're their own entity, on their own island.

https://youtu.be/5iVwcZ9_Lno

(Corchado also did the vox on Incantation's Diabolical Conquest, which is always in the running for my fav Incantation album. I can never decide between it and the debut.)

If you've already heard The Chasm then pretend everything after my initial question is a big thumbs up going "right on, dude."

Haha, Dwell Records put all their stuff on YT so there's no shortage of terrible tribute albums there now!

xpost I love the atmosphere on Left Hand Path, I love that it transports you straight into the world of that album cover. I just wish there was more memorability in the songs themselves. It's not a good sign when the most remarkable part of an album is an instrumental outro that's a cover of a film score theme. I mean I still listen to it all the time but I always feel like I'm looking for something that never turns up.

I should add that old Swedeath is my least fav metal subgenre. Dismember never did anything for me either. Nor any of the more melodic stuff like In Flames or Dark Tranquillity. I like Edge of Sanity but sometimes they veer too far in the opposite direction of becoming rock/pop played with distortion.

I end up listening to Soulside Journey when I get into the mood for old Scandinavian death metal. That album's just weird in a good way.

early Swedish DM definitely has a more unified sound in general than a lot of other death metal scenes (at least the Sunlight studio records), so it makes sense that if you weren't super into that, the scene as a whole wouldn't necessarily be your thing. But I still urge you (or anyone w similar aversions)to consider Nihilist, due to it not really sounding like what you might consider typical Swedish death metal.

haha and I'm voting for Demilich too, so I guess it's warfare between us for the rest of the poll Devilock! ;)

what death metal are you for this poll (other than Soulside Journey, which I also like, for how it doesn't fit in w the early Swedish bands)?

XPost to Devilock: I'll keep an eye out for that Chasm album; the only one on Spotify is The Spell of Retribution, which I'll try out sometime.

I generally like the first two waves of black metal but the Venom (Welcome To Hell, Black Metal) and Darkthrone (Blaze In The Northern Sky, Transylvanian Hunger) albums I got didn't do much for me, apart from two or three tracks. I'd like to try At War With Satan.
Got the first six Burzum albums and the only one I really liked as a whole was Daudi Baldrs and half of each the second and third albums.

I really like Anata's Conductor's Departure but I can't vote for it because I think the plain death metal vocals let it down a bit.

I fell in love with Summoning a while ago from Old Morning's Dawn. I know they've been around a while and I wouldn't know if they're pioneers but it sounded incredibly original to me how they mixed the gnarly and sinister with a brighter more wholesome romanticism that evokes sweeping views of sunny fields and mountains, yet it all sounds so right. I love how wistful he sounds when he sings about "shining beaches".

Really wish I could vote for the Aghast album because it's a beautiful piece of black Norway but it's not metal.

Wait wait-- people actually like Dauði Baldrs? I couldn't get into the synth strings, and that's more or less the album.

Sometimes it sounds like Nobuo Uematsu.

EPs were allowed weren't they?

early Swedish DM definitely has a more unified sound in general than a lot of other death metal scenes (at least the Sunlight studio records), so it makes sense that if you weren't super into that, the scene as a whole wouldn't necessarily be your thing. But I still urge you (or anyone w similar aversions)to consider Nihilist, due to it not really sounding like what you might consider typical Swedish death metal.

haha and I'm voting for Demilich too, so I guess it's warfare between us for the rest of the poll Devilock! ;)

what death metal are you for this poll (other than Soulside Journey, which I also like, for how it doesn't fit in w the early Swedish bands)?

Oh I do like Nespithe; the Svart reissue collection from last year is already one of my prized possessions. I just get distracted by those vocals. Maybe they were mic'd too close? I dunno. You can hear Antti's epiglottis banging around in phlegm. Makes me shudder. The music's outstanding though.

Also, on Swedeath, so it doesn't sound like I'm dismissing an entire geomusical phenomenon on the basis of like three bands, I've tried many of the lesser knowns too, in part thanks to reissue campaigns by labels like Dark Descent: Uncanny, Toxaemia, Authorize, Epitaph; the succeeding waves of bands like Kaamos, Bloodbath, Entrails (though I think they were around at the beginning), Nominon -- they all just blur together. Really don't know why that sound never connected with me. God knows I love a lot of the derivative music following in the footsteps of Incantation, Suffocation, Immolation, or Morbid Angel. Maybe I'm a subconscious death metal nationalist.

The more current dm bands that move me are Domains, Dead Congregation, Anata, and uh ... there must be more. I don't know how the hell to classify Emptiness but they're up there. Gorguts' Colored Sands was, for me, the album of their career (so far) -- it was like a Shostkovich symphony done the extreme metal way. Love Nile's first four, will continue to buy their stuff til either I or Karl dies. Pestilence's Consuming Impulse is probably the classic dm album that should be mentioned a lot more. I do like the brutal and/or techy stuff like Deeds of Flesh or Flesh Consumed. Cryptopsy obviously. Cryptobviously.

I seem to like everything BUT Swedeath. Ha. It might be the hardcore influence grating against me. I'm not too much into the grindy stuff like Repulsion or Terrorizer either.

XPost to Devilock: I'll keep an eye out for that Chasm album; the only one on Spotify is The Spell of Retribution, which I'll try out sometime.

That album's just as good as Infraworld! I rec'd Infraworld because it's not as exhausting a listen.

I really like Anata's Conductor's Departure but I can't vote for it because I think the plain death metal vocals let it down a bit.

I actually like when dm vox don't distract too much from the music, esp in the case of something like Anata. I remember there was a writer for Metal Manaics, S Craig Zahler, whose reviews are responsible for turning me on to a bunch of death metal like Lost Soul, Lykathea Aflame, Broken Hope (only the Grotesque Blessings album) Anata actually, some others I can't recall atm, and he had a similar ongoing complaint about dm vox not being interesting enough. So since I couldn't ask him, what are some examples of the death vocals you do like? Or do you mean you're a fan of them generally?

*not a fan of them generally, I meant to ask

Oh! Also! I meant to mention, for fellow fans of Anata, Pestifer from Belgium has the occasional song that really reminds me of our beloved and missing Swede techies. Nowhere near the level of brilliant idiosyncrasy as Anata but there's definitely something there. Try the second track for starters, "Exiled to the Abyss."

https://pestifer-band.bandcamp.com/album/reaching-the-void

It feels weird putting Rust In Peace at #1 in an extreme metal poll, as with Metallica. I might reserve the first twenty slots for "everything left of Venom - Slayer".

I skipped right past Burzum, Bathory, Entombed, and early Cannibal Corpse

If there's anything I feel needs campaigning for it's Nokturnal Mortum The Voice Of Steel, as far as modern extreme metal goes it has everything that's awesome rolled into one outsized epic package. Slavic folk, prog, blues rock solos, hooks everywhere, riffs for days, huge sound.

and nazi politics!

Which is totally irrelevant to this record.

I'm in a weird position re: a lot of older records, because though I was alive when they came out, I didn't hear them until the last few years. My knowledge of extreme metal is really only mid 80s to late 90s, and then skipping all the way to the last few years -- I just haven't had time to expand into the 2000s much yet-- which is going to make my ballot super old-school skewed. So, I can't write off Bathory just yet -- and can vouch for the fact that as someone who did start at Darkthrone and work backwards, Bathory is plenty "extreme", even if Quorthon is nowhere near as versatile or accomplished a musician as most of the bands he inspired. (As for Seven Churches, I actually had to work my way into that one, as it was TOO chaotic when I first heard it -- now I love it, and will def be voting for it.)

along those lines, I support any votes for Sodom's In the Sign of Evil EP. 1984 punky, clunky black thrash, and nowhere near as lo-fi as Bathory.

I've got my ballot just about sorted - 75 albums in total, about two-thirds of which are black metal of some description but there's some doom and thrash in there too. I haven't really looked at how it breaks down era-wise though, I imagine there will be some gaps (not a lot from the late '90s, for example).

My only sadness with these polls are that certain posters like smithy, scott etc wont take part and their knowledge is valuable. Wish They would all post even if they refuse to vote.

I submitted an unweighted, alphabetical ballot of about 80-90 albums. As I put it together, there were a bunch of records I wish I'd nominated, like Decapitated's Nihility and The Negation, and more recent Monarch stuff (the debut is there, and I voted for it, but they've really improved over the years). Oh, well.

I actually like when dm vox don't distract too much from the music, esp in the case of something like Anata. I remember there was a writer for Metal Manaics, S Craig Zahler, whose reviews are responsible for turning me on to a bunch of death metal like Lost Soul, Lykathea Aflame, Broken Hope (only the Grotesque Blessings album) Anata actually, some others I can't recall atm, and he had a similar ongoing complaint about dm vox not being interesting enough. So since I couldn't ask him, what are some examples of the death vocals you do like? Or do you mean you're a fan of them generally?

― Devilock, Monday, 26 October 2015 00:58 (12 hours ago)

*not a fan of them generally, I meant to ask

― Devilock, Monday, 26 October 2015 01:02 (12 hours ago)

(keep in mind that I've only got like 30 albums that use proper extreme vocals but I've heard bits and pieces of lots of other stuff)

I'm sure this debate happens over and over so I doubt anything I say will be very fresh.

I like corpsey rotten throat, thin demon and shrill fiend vokills but when it gets to larger beasts and ogres it's a bigger risk, they tend to be less flexible, consequently have less personality and more likely to sound daft. It usually sounds like they're just fulfilling a generic template, trying to live up to genre expectations. It's offputting when I'm looking through samples. I like vocals that help create pictures and I get the feeling guttural vocals are often chosen because it's an obvious choice for extremity and sounding like you're really putting the work in.

I've heard bands using them as ominous slow distant sound effects and I like that. Certainly works better than most bands quickly shouting out their lyrics, which probably increases the chances of it sounding daft.

I think Anata would sound better without vocals. The vocals don't kill it for me but they're such a good band that it's a shame every element is not amazing.

Morbid Angel vocals generally work for me but they're an early band who sound like they are using the vocals imaginatively. Opeth (that nearly spell corrected as Oprah!) occasionally do something with ogre vocals that I like.

I got into My Dying Bride's Turn Loose The Swans recently and I was surprised how varied the fan opinions were. I think that's possibly because people are coming from different death, doom and goth angles with those different expectations. Their guttural vocals rarely worked for me, I thought it stuck out too much but from hearing clips of later stuff it sounds like he modified his extreme vocals to fit the style better.

I've got Bathory - Under The Sign Of The Black Mark and I love it. Unlike a lot of other metal bands that people complain about being too raw and lo-fi, I never thought their atmosphere suffered for it or that they were too insistent about being lo-fi at the expense of anything else much.

I think lo-fi is great in black metal! I would only ever complain about it if it made the music unlistenable. Isn't it an old joke that "(any given BM album) was recorded in a bathtub"?

I'm so happy there's a bunch of conversation going on here... Gotta mention tho: if you have a ballot of at least 5 entries but you're struggling to make it longer, just send it in! Vote for what you know!

Obv. I think it would be good to listen to some stuff that mentioned in this thread that seems like you'd probably like, but I'd much rather have a short list of your favs rather than one with a bunch of meh added on to make it longer.

Hail Satan!

My only sadness with these polls are that certain posters like smithy, scott etc wont take part and their knowledge is valuable. Wish They would all post even if they refuse to vote.

You can lead a fan to polls, but you can't make 'em vote. At least its due to a general disdain for polls and not 'cause they personally don't like me.
That said, I don't think your feelings about a poll-runner should affect whether you take part or not (as long as the poll is above board and they're not going to throw your ballot out over beef in some other thread).

how the fuck did Ulver - Blood Inside sneak in the noms? That should not be there.

Take a wild guess who nominated it (not me). I love that album but I can't vote for it in good conscience.

I'd like to campaign for Gris - À l'âme enflammée, l'âme constellée..., its a great album from a woefully underrated band (I think they're underrated, maybe they are a lot more popular than I think).

Going through the nominations I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of DSBM (Totalselfhatred! Coldworld! Walknut!), although I'm not going to vote for a dozen soundalike Striborg albums, and picking one seems arbitrary.

Oh I can guess fine who nominated it. The cheek after all his moaning about metal should be extreme

Voted!

Fun fact: I apparently like any band with the word "bong" in their name (Bong, Bongripper, and now Bongzilla).

Voted! I feel like this will be an interesting poll, because I have no idea what the consensus here is for best extreme metal record, or even what ILM's overall shortlist would look like

Just voted. Was in a weird position where I had to vote my all-time favourite album at #2 cos my #1 is better at being an actual undiluted extreme metal album. I think after the first 15 or so the order's kind of arbitrary but I've done it now.

my money is on carcass or slayer but who knows

Voted!

going to try to throw a ballot together this week...

Yeah the context of "extreme metal" definitely skewed my ballot - it made me cut Metallica completely, put Megadeth lower and much as I like Psalm 69, it doesn't fit here at all. And don't get me started on all the post-hardcore on the nominations. I mean, I'd be really disappointed if Master Of Puppets, of fuckin' Converge or Neurosis wins an extreme metal poll.

i seem to have deleted my spreadsheet with my shortlist. I am not happy

<blockquote>Yeah the context of "extreme metal" definitely skewed my ballot - it made me cut Metallica completely, put Megadeth lower and much as I like Psalm 69, it doesn't fit here at all. And don't get me started on all the post-hardcore on the nominations. I mean, I'd be really disappointed if Master Of Puppets, of fuckin' Converge or Neurosis wins an extreme metal poll.</blockquote>

I hear ya, but that said, they were in my ballot b/c a) they made the noms list, and b) at some point in my life, they were extreme metal for me - i.e. fresh and new and extreme to my ears at the time they came out ...

Anyone who's yet to vote and digs technical stuff should definitely give !T.O.O.H.! a go if they haven't already. Eccentric and weirdly melodic death metal with ranting vocals in Czech. Rad a Trest is my pick but AVOID the last album with extreme prejudice.

I cant bring myself to only vote for 1 album per band.
Think I've got my (new) list down to 100 now to order it.
I will try put the 'less' extreme further down but if its on the noms list and its one of my faves then its going high

I didn't even try to do just one album per band, and only submitted 50 albums total. However, in a few cases, I did remove lower placing albums by bands I already had higher up, replacing them with iconic stuff that I like, even if not necessarily as much as the 2nd or 3rd fave albums by other bands.

I think I will do mine in 2 parts - the important to me albums - ie the albums that got me into each subgenre of extreme music and ,yes, the canonical albums first then it will be personal faves. Young Gods are on the list so im voting even if noone else does. They are one of my gateway bands and hugely important to me.

got them in order but not fully satisfied.. Think I'll work on it later today or tomorrow

I still want to see if I can make an all-hipster ballot.

I have faith in your ability as a hipster

still cant make my mind up , think I need a break from it and to look again at it tomorrow.
It's impossible really to number a list saying this album is better than that one by this much (yes I know some poll haters are like that for this reason) but it doesn't seem right to vote higher up for albums that are more likely to make it.
Usually I will do part weighted ballot part unweighted that solves this but its not an option this time.

Maybe I should delete it and do an all hipster ballot like sund4r

I just voted Sunbather 5 times tbh.

Lol. I thought of ranking it #1 out of spite.

Voted, I only picked out 25 albums but they're all good. I didn't want to award points to stuff I don't know well and then find out I don't really like it.

Voted.

Anyone who's yet to vote and digs technical stuff should definitely give !T.O.O.H.! a go if they haven't already. Eccentric and weirdly melodic death metal with ranting vocals in Czech. Rad a Trest is my pick but AVOID the last album with extreme prejudice.

Wow, this is really good so far.

Forgot how much I love that Obliveon album. Played it so much summer of 1997.

Putting these in order probably doesn't need to be as nerve wracking as I'm making this. Eesh.

So we leave the actual numbers 1-100 out of our lists, correct? Just band names and album titles all the way down?

yup

I do not envy Frobisher for having to collate all this madness. Somehow my list of 100 became a list of 99 between penultimate and ultimate drafts so I had to spend some time huffing and puffing going back and forth til I figured out which one I left out. It was Ulver. They have haunted this poll. (Though it was Bergtatt and not Blood Inside.)

This being my first list of 100 albums, I can now say I'm not cut out for this. Didn't realize til after submitting that Deeds of Flesh weren't on there, yet I'm sure I listen to them more than I do to a lot of my 100. I doubt I used any kind of consistent criteria and god knows my fluctuating caffeine levels influenced things.

Still keen to see results.

And no it did not take those 4 1/2 hours between my last two posts to make my list, ha. I'd be insane.

Did a quick "don't know this well enough or I don't like it (enough)" purge and am down to 146.

Old Man List says to first rank the albums in groups of "1: these are my absolute favorites, one of these is my most fave of all", "2: these aren't quite as good, but I still love them", "3: these are great, but I can't in good conscience think they're the best ever" etc, and then go through each group and rank those albums (which may be more difficult). I did that on my list and had the basic draft in about 20 mins.

Another one I'd like to rep for (if people aren't already done) is Setherial - Nord. Up there with (and possibly beyond) In The Nightside Eclipse.

I submitted an unranked dilettantish list of 16 (about half of which weren't even nominated) - I thought it would be better to just vote for stuff I know well and like rather than try to vote on things I'm hearing for the first time on the nominations list.

Rad. I somehow forgot Celtic Frost's Monotheist and Morbid Angel's Covenant, and never even nominated Arcturus' Aspera Hiems Symfonia and La Masquerade Infernale.

I suspect I'll notice a lot of this sort of thing in the coming days.

Listening to Hubardo. Tbh, I've never heard much of Kayo Dot's actual metal stuff before. I've only really listened to them since they became a full-on prog band. It's good stuff (although I don't know that I prefer it to the more melodic material). I'll probably still mostly vote for things I already know well but it's fun to listen to more. After this is done, I expect that I'll be listening to a lot of classical and ambient music for a while.

Oh ha, this is actually from five years later than Blue Lambency Downward! Apparently, I don't know their chronology very well.

Voted

anyone left to vote? I assume it closes tonight

My response has been recorded.

The Liturgy album is called 'Aesthethica' with a second h btw, not that this makes any difference really. I'M STILL VOTING FOR IT, STAY FALSE

Also, that Belketre record I nominated isn't here :(

Right, voted.

My #1 is from this year.

What size ballot?

haven't voted yet but planning on it

you only have a few hours!

D:

My ballot had 50 albums on it

We have until midnight on Nov 2 in Frobisher's time zone, right? Which would mean we have something like 34h left?

Also, surprising how I could have forgotten how much ass Reign in Blood kicks.

It occurs to me now that "till November 2" could have meant "until Nov 1 becomes Nov 2".

voted, unweighted and packed full of falsehood

yes sund4r 11.59pm penguin time

11:59 Nov 1 or 11:59 Nov 2?

the former. If a poll gets extended then those who put things off to the last moment will do that and then someone will ask for more time and we go through it again.
Johns gonna need time to work out the results if hes gonna roll out tomorrow

damn, just realized none of my nominations made it onto the spreadsheet :-/

Assück - Anticapital
Cathedral - Forest of Equilibrium
Demolition Hammer - Tortured Existence
Indian - From All Purity
Kriegsmaschine - Enemy Of Man
Mgla - Exercises in Futility
Skepticism - Aes

so, if you haven't voted yet, I encourage you to place assück weighted at #1 to make up for this injustice

yeah sorry I've already voted, as above

my ballot is so extreme. really just amazed by how extreme one ballot can be

Just voted for 40 records.

Oh, crap: could you please add a write-in vote for Petrychor - Makrokosmos to the bottom of my list, Frobisher?

hey I liked that one too, but don't add it to my ballot please

extremely bad, imago? ;)

Voted

gonna be a shame if most funeral doom will be ignored and 3rd rate death and black metal will beat it

skepticism and esoteric both safely on my ballot, pal

actually i never mentioned that i started listening to skepticism. that first album is so great! thanks for talking about it or w/e got me to check them out

hah im glad you voted for them but this is gonna be a poll that has dozens of death and black metal on a single ballot and at best a couple of funeral doom. Still, its not like that wasnt gonna happen. So many people have never heard any of it.
If Corrupted make it too then i'll be happy enough.
You should check out Thergothon , imago. They were the first.

I wonder if Thrash will lose out as its not very extreme to modern ears?

voted B-)

Frobisher how many ballots have you received?

I voted for Corrupted, but not Esoteric, as their best albums (the first two) weren't nominated.

I voted for Corrupted, but funeral doom generally doesn't do much for me (blasphemy, I know-- and not the good, metal kind).

The closest I've come to enjoying funeral doom was via Disembowelment's Transcendence into the Peripheral, and even then I've never made it through the album in one go. Plus I only have the remaster and I don't know if the audio brickwalling was an issue on the original but yikes is it a painful listen.

Honestly I'm not even into the UK doom trinity. I tend to like slow doomy passages only when they're contrasted with something else. Plus black and death just seem to offer more, stylistically, even among single bands: cf. Deathcrush, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Grand Declaration of War, and Ordo ad Chao; or Erosion of Sanity, Obscura, and Colored Sands.

I did vote for Khanate, somewhere near the end of my list, but they're an entity unto themselves.

so did everyone vote or do they need an extension?

I could throw together a ballot today. I didn't see the deadline until just now.

frobisher if you should consider extending the voting period and ask a mod to edit the thread title with the date.

BLEEP BLOOOP

Yeah, I'm extending the voting till November 5th, 12:00 GMT! So finish up those ballots!
deadlines are just like, guidelines, mannnn...

After that I will start the rollout on Friday if I can get everything tabulated by then!
Thanks to everyone who's voted and take this as a notice as you still have time to vote!!!

So far I've received 26 ballots!! More would be incredible!

As someone who pushed a ballot in early to make the deadline even though I had a few albums I wanted to revisit, I'm a little bummed.

Not enough to make a stink out of it and redo my ballot, however.

well, I'm sorry for that. Anyway, I've got some more tabulating to do and then comes the big rollout thread!

Thank you for everyone who voted, and nominated before that! You are all awesome!!

when is the rollout coming?

Am I too late to vote?

lol

TBF he didn't say which Friday!

BLACK FRIDAY obviously

still pissed David Bowie ended up winning this

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/312/563/05d.jpg

ILX EOY Metal Poll 2015 Nominations & Discussion Thread. ALL welcome to participate whether you are into metal or not!

Even trying to check out mere samples of all the bands with cool names and cool album titles is a nightmare. No wonder extreme metal gets so specific with the subgenres. Trying to narrow it down to the stuff you like is so difficult.

the emperor penguin has got the tabulating done and the roll out has commenced

Thread for coordinating the order and timing of ILM ballot polls

ok it would help if i posted the correct link to frobisher's countdown
Finally... The Top 200 Extreme Metal Albums of ALL TIME!