2015 POLL RESULTS COUNTDOWN - ILM Metal(ish) Albums of the Year

Thanks to all who voted (61 ballots this year!) and special thanks to seandalai for tabulating (ie the hard bit). If you ask him nicely he may provide some stats after it finishes.

There's a playlist to subscribe to and you can enjoy listening to each album as they are rolled out or for your pleasure later.
https://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/6mvdcu4DLqquTIC88GvjTD
Or put this in your search bar spotify:user:pfunkboy:playlist:6mvdcu4DLqquTIC88GvjTD

Are you ready to go?

we had a top 102 last year so a top 103 this year..

http://image.blingee.com/images19/content/output/000/000/000/7bb/775664702_648710.gif

HE'S READY

http://www.hammerheartbrewing.com/img/beerimg/fullfautzrauch.jpg

HE'S DRUNK

My body is ready

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

http://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Myrkur-e1439907651393.jpg

SHE'S FALSE

103 Khemmis - Absolution 153 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/97uhCov.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5295mhJgFPB9QRpZ55Fapo
spotify:album:5295mhJgFPB9QRpZ55Fapo
https://khemmis.bandcamp.com/

20 Buck Spin has, over the course of the last ten years, worked with the best of the best in the doom genre; bands as diverse as Samothrace, Graves At Sea, Pallbearer, Yob, Mournful Congregation, Lycus, Atlantean Kodex and more. In that tradition, the label is proud to present KHEMMIS, a quartet from Denver, who, on their debut full-length Absolution brings components of many of the aforementioned label alumni and forge a venerable testament to what heavy doom rock is in 2015.

The six meticulously crafted songs on Absolution reveal a level of musicianship and writing skill seldom heard on debut albums. Often within the scope of a single song, KHEMMIS veers effortlessly between the crushing heaviness of Southern sludge and the somber melodies of traditional doom metal, cohesively weaving the disparate styles into their own immediately recognizable form. Vocally, KHEMMIS also utilizes a dual approach, sometimes harsh and guttural, but generally through a stunningly smooth classic doom/heavy rock delivery that even adamant fans of Pete Stahl and Wino will applaud. The powerfully adept rhythm section perfectly anchor the towering riff mastery and colorful dual guitar harmonies, all brought together by Dave Otero's (Cobalt, Nightbringer) pitch perfect production work.

From the album opener "Torn Asunder" to closing track "The Bereaved," the latter of which will stand as THE doom track of 2015, Absolution is among the highlight surprises of the year.
credits
released July 7, 2015

How long should this take?

we'll be done the whole thing in 20 minutes

lol

thursday is the traditional end day but we'll see

That armour has little protective value.

great cover art. Never heard of the band.

How anyone finds this kind of cover art acceptable beyond the age of 14 is beyond me… Oh look there's a sword. Oh look there's a big staff with some dildos on it. It makes me not even care that the music is good...

I was wondering what was on the staff, I'm not convinced it's dildos

it is reminiscent of Frank Frazetta, there's a wizard with some kind of drug staff, and there's skeletons. Sexist female depiction excluded, all that stuff is awesome.

i think the cover is hot but tbh one of the appeals of metal to me is that it operates on a 14yo aesthetic level much of the time

there was quite a lot of albums with 5 votes that didn't get near the top 103. Wonder if that's a record.

xp

what sort of mind thinks they are dildos?

Well, I'm sure this is the only artwork I will find contentious in this poll…

102 Corsair - One Eyed Horse 155 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/CzMGXCl.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/6DZG2yrdPoj2j1dnbQc5Al
spotify:album:6DZG2yrdPoj2j1dnbQc5Al

https://corsair.bandcamp.com/album/one-eyed-horse

"Where '70s hard rock meets early heavy metal, Corsair is King!" - Decibel Magazine

Fastnbulbous This pays off big time with the incredibly catchy “Brothers.” The vocals on the title track even manage to channel Phil Lynott’s soulful melancholy, no small achievement...highly recommended to those excited for the new Valkyrie and crave more. http://fastnbulbous.com/hard-rock-ascending/

Perhaps because there are so many albums with cartoon boobs, I kept thinking I'd heard this album, but hadn't until a few weeks ago. A mix of Sleep, Pallbearer, some NWOBHM, what's not to like.

Yawnsomely Literal Title alert! cool cover on this one though but very definitely not for me musically

Also there should be a hyphen in one-eyed and I'm finding that bothersome

maybe it means 'one horse that has an eye'

Or shorthand for one person eyeing a horse

This is okay. The second track sort of reminds me of emo band The Movielife.

idk if i'm getting burnt out on metal or there's just too much of it but like the khemmis album sounds really good and enjoyable to me but also like 30 other albums i've heard - many of them this year alone and it's hard to distinguish between albums. i don't want to say the genre is formulaic but it def feels like there are a lot of bands making [don't get me wrong very enjoyable] genre retreads. and then the corsiar i feel similarly about.

thing is Mordy but 'metal' as a genre is thoroughly meaningless like 'rock' or 'pop' or 'dance'. Its not the 1970's anymore when it was just Heavy Metal.

Metal has thousands of subgenres now.

metal isn't formulaic or a genre, but both the khemmis and corsair albums feel a bit like formulaic genre records, if you get me

prefer the corsair though - it's survived to a third track

In many genres, artists try to claim they are not influenced by anything, that they are completely original. Which is ridiculous and disingenuous. I like how most metal bands proudly wear their influences on their sleeves, sometimes literally. I like how if I get obsessed with a particular tone or style, I can find more like it. But if you do want stuff that sounds more unusual and alien it's out there too. And certainly some in this poll.

Showing my commitment to the cause by turning on this playlist instead of moving on to the next Ligeti piece. So far, the Khemmis sounds exactly like a record with that cover art should sound.

this (corsair) would make for good summertime car journey music

i am at home in winter watching football on my computer

The fact that metal is diverse and has many subgenres doesn't make the umbrella term "metal" meaningless. It's loaded with meaning.

101 Absconditus - Katabasis/Kατάβασις 156 Points, 4 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/OFCdMCm.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3VmXybBCNKkPv3JrmkL9sr
spotify:album:3VmXybBCNKkPv3JrmkL9sr

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/k

http://metalasfuck.net/zine/reviews/2015/absconditus-katabasis-i-voidhanger-records

French occult black metallers Absconditus (founded by Loxias after the dissolution of Borgia) have interesting ideas when it comes to time signatures; at first listen I found Katabasis to be a touch 'bitty' and kind of messy but then, after devoting some time to it, I began to appreciate the strange shifts in tempo and the (almost) conflicting rhythms.

Opening with the ritualistic Prologue a l'Agonie with its weird backward looping effects and lovely percussion, I immediately began to sink into the cushions - but then the blasting drums kick in as the guitars build via a string of repeated notes - haunting! The lead work of Loxias is distinctly left of field and this bizarre out of sync style is reinforced as Mystagogie des Limbes slips in. Session vocalist Aliexagore screams and croaks over some lovely dischordant tremelo picking and drummer Anderswo lays down some lovely fat beats - and this is where the off-kilter side of things comes in. Everything seems slightly off centre with these arrhythmic compositions and if you're not prepared, this may put you off - stick with it though and there's plenty to enjoy. Mystagogie dips into some mellow sections before reasserting its driving blast beats and swathes of various guitar parts and easily could overwhelm you. Brace yourself and press on.

Elegeia (Confession au Cenotaphe) starts all classical and operatic and then immediately goes completely nuts; it is, perhaps, a more traditionally structured piece of black metal but it is exceptionally violent and I suddenly found myself covered in ashes from the cremation grounds, which was nice. Exultet - L'Aurore Schismatique (even heinous black metal titles sound saucy in French) has a weird electro feel to it (despite there being no real electronics within the track) - such is the power of Loxias' guitar as it whines and buzzes like an industrial saw. I particularly *heart* this track - the mid-section is exceedingly bizarre as everything slows down and gets freakish - and this sums up the album in its entirety; freakish, bizarre and well worth getting in to (though again, I reiterate that it may require some time to penetrate).

Hm, I think I wanted Khemmis to stick with clean vocals but am listening.

Oh, this new one sounds like it could be my kind of thing.

i feel like it's almost worse that i like the khemmis. like if i disliked it maybe there'd be something about it i still hadn't figured out or some appeal i hadn't unearthed but it's so instantly engageable (i feel like what kogan would call a 'free lunch') that it ends up being really un-filling and i wonder if i would be able to remember much about what it sounded like tmmrw. this isn't necessarily a bad thing and i agree w/ u fastnb that part of the appeal is knowing what yr getting and purposely embedding yrself in a tradition (which is a conservative move but i think has value). but otoh just as a matter of priority how much time can i make in my life for sleep knockoffs?

It's okay, they don't need you. They have an audience who can embrace the element of Sleep and other bands without calling them a knockoff.

the last album seems like catnip to sund4r and louis

Yeah, I switched to Absconditus.
xp to Mordy

Absconditus are cool, I voted for this one. Nasty tech-BM or something.

Thanks for the blurbs, Cosmic Slop!

cant promise blurbs with everything as im doing it on my own but if its easily findable I'll try but mostly pulling them off bandcamp which makes it easier

100 Nameless Coyote - Blood Moon 157 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/bpmFvI6.jpg

https://namelesscoyote.bandcamp.com/

I'd recommend Nameless Coyote - Blood Moon because it's gotten pretty much ignored everywhere, though I can hear why, it's way too weird for the normal blackgaze crowd. It ain't Deafheaven that's for sure. Anyone who likes Mamaleek and/or Pyramids should give it a go though.

― ultros ultros-ghali,

tags: blackgaze dream pop rock shoegaze experimental rock guitar San Francisco

Name your price download on bandcamp.

Huh, I'm surprised that this actually placed but I'm glad it did.

I just listened to this yesterday. I like the shitty lo-fi blackgaze sound alright, but lost interest halfway through.

there's always surprises (like Disturbed got a vote this year)

Hm, I think I wanted Khemmis to stick with clean vocals but am listening.

― EveningStar (Sund4r)

For sure. Also I was expecting some doomy NWOBHM throwback stuff, but its not and what it is is kinda boring.

I didn't know Disturbed were still a thing.

it's disturbing

I don't know #100 but the description sounds interesting, so I'll grab it from bandcamp.

for free i bet

#99 has amazing artwork that will blow you all away and it reminds me of the ilxor saer

99 Black Cilice - Mysteries 158 Points, 4 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/YWblWPl.jpg

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20267-mysteries/

Black Cilice
Mysteries
Iron Bonehead; 2015
By Grayson Haver Currin; March 10, 2015

8.0

Even if a band includes specific instructions on how to listen to its music, is there ever a "correct" way to hear anything? Of course, there are better methods for listening to certain music. You’d hate to experience the majesty of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, for instance, by playing scuffed records on a Crosley Cruiser turntable, and it would be a waste to dump a fortune into an ostentatious hi-fi system if all you really want to do is blast Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. But most music and music players fall somewhere in between, so that the differences we experience are rather incremental. Maybe a good record sounds great with a certain setup, but it should still have some payoff even through a pair of tiny white earbuds.

Mysteries—the third album by the elusive, prolific Portuguese one-man black metal band Black Cilice—highlights the question of how best to hear by suggesting that there are at least two distinct and acceptable answers. Given the subgenre, you might think that it would be best to simply turn it up, and let it roar. And, yes, at high volumes, where the guitars can shriek and the agitated drums can pound, Mysteries is a monster.

But you can also turn Mysteries way down, until those barreling drums recede into a heavy patter and the guitars blur into the record’s presiding distortion and feedback. It becomes a patterned sheet of sound then, where bits and pieces protrude from a singular din. Because they were so poorly recorded, early black metal records sometimes sounded like drone music: The instruments overwhelmed the devices meant to capture them. But Black Cilice take that aesthetic a step further, deploying the technique selectively so that strident guitars, bruised drums and yowled vocals move under and above that matrix, as if they’re alternating between floating and drowning.

Black Cilice don’t reinvent quarter-century-old black metal structures; they just lash at them, playing hard, fast, loud and mean. "Ceremonial Energy" bursts forward, a rising-and-falling blast beat and back-and-forth riff suggesting vintage Darkthrone. "Into Morbid Trance" bounds between primitive thrash and menacing black metal, where every instrument seems to be attempting to force its counterparts out of the picture. The vocals suggest gale-force winds passing though a room of live microphones and amplifiers, creating feedback only to harmonize with it.

There’s finesse to this mess, as though Black Cilice were trying to tease the border between heavy metal and experimental music. Turned up, for instance, "The Truth" is a pugnacious stomp-along; turned down, it feels strangely warm and beautiful. It suggests Rhys Chatham’s music for massed guitars, where so many instruments were played at once that it became impossible to tell where one ended and another began, or a reprise of Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room, where the first-person subject is actually a roughshod recording of a black metal band.

This conceit may seem ridiculous, both for the suggestion that you should lower the volume on a black metal record in order to enjoy it more and for the implication that Black Cilice is some avant-garde wizard with grander intentions than badly recorded bedlam. But to date, each Black Cilice record has gotten more controlled and nuanced; the metal tantrums beneath the noise are more complicated and compelling, and the hiss and squall above it all are more engrossing and interesting. There is an arc of progress to trace in Black Cilice’s output, suggesting that the diametric results of putting Mysteries in the background or foreground are more than mere coincidence.

The cover of each Black Cilice full-length has been all black, save for a centered, shrouded figure wearing corpsepaint and doing something wicked. On 2011’s A Corpse, A Temple, he reached skyward, holding a volume bearing an inverted crucifix. On Mysteries, he grimaces as he again looks upward and touches his stomach. For the last three months, I’ve tried to figure out if he’s clutching a rosary to his chest or if he’s pressing against a gushing abdomen wound. The high-contrast image makes it impossible to tell, at least to me and everyone I’ve asked. However willful or accidental, such ambiguity epitomizes the aesthetic of Black Cilice, a strange transmission responsible for one of the most intriguing intersections of black metal and sound art I’ve ever heard.

my last-minute votes helped both Nameless Coyote and Black CIlice into the top 100. superb sound-worlds, both of them, left an instant impression

I can't say that I love Black Cilice so far but it has a really strange atmosphere so yeah this is good.

For the last three months, I’ve tried to figure out if he’s clutching a rosary to his chest or if he’s pressing against a gushing abdomen wound.

This time it's a dildo.

98 Lucifer - Lucifer I 161 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/nr6YW43.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/6LjXKvpAaOHCghj4AGssQn
spotify:album:6LjXKvpAaOHCghj4AGssQn

http://www.metalinjection.net/reviews/album-review-lucifer-lucifer-i

I loved The Oath’s self-titled release last year. So it was with a deep sense of shock and confusion that I heard they broke up shortly after its release. Why would a band, with so much talent on its side and great songs to play, call it quits so soon? From what I can tell from interviews, the specific reasons are deeply personal and not open to public discussion. And that’s fine. It would be nice if more post-breakup musicians could exercise some discretion.

So in the shadow of 2014, what does Johanna Sedonis’ new band, Lucifer, bring us in 2015? I’ll admit that when I first saw the logo, I was kind of terrified. There’s a lot of boring counterculture-nostalgia out there in the world of doom-metal, and I worried that Sedonis was going to lean too hard on her admiration for 70s rock, thus leaving metal to a side role. Luckily for all of us, I was wrong.

So wrong, in fact, that I found myself enjoying parts of this album more than last year’s release from The Oath. The riffs hit harder, the songwriting is better and more consistent, and there’s less of an obvious reliance on hard rock. In its place is a clear reverence for Candlemass and Ozzy-era Black Sabbath. It’s funny that I should write these words however, since Sedonis herself actually describes the opposite in a recent interview:

" I want it to be a different band and concept. The Oath had much more of a heavy metal, old school, doom, and hard rock influence with that NWOBHM influence very present. With Lucifer you won’t hear so much of the heavy metal side that The Oath had. It’s much more of a heavy rock sound than a metal sound."

Perhaps I’m missing something. There is at least a more effective sense of rise and crash with Lucifer, one that creates a different atmosphere that The Oath and that feels significantly heavier. One thing that is very consistent of course is Johanna Sedonis’ excellent voice and use of melody, engaging the listener and leading him or her through each track.

And it’s not just that her voice sounds good, that’s merely her birthright. But it has more to do with how she expresses each note, and the individual spirit she’s able to embody through her vocals. The doom vocalists in Candlemass, My Dying Bride and Electric Wizard stand out because they use their own sense of creativity to express themselves. This is what separates them from those who simply ape early-Ozzy or try to sound like some folksy “wizard/witch” or whatever. The same applies here, as Sedonis' vocal style is undeniably her own.

But some words should be reserved for the rest of the band as well. Apparently the guitarist goes by the name of “The Wizard,” which is wonderfully fitting for the current popularity of “magical” and “occult” themes- though to his credit, he uses Marshall amps instead of the Orange ones you’d expect him to use. Anyway, The Wizard certainly does work some magic with the strings and is well-supported by the rhythm section of Dino Gollnick and Andrew Prestdige,

So what we have in 2015 is a solid, satisfying heavy rock/doom metal release. There are moments where the atmosphere begins to drag on you, particularly once you get five or six songs in, but this may be up to how much you enjoy Lucifer’s nostalgic approach. Regardless, let’s hope this act is able to keep the magic flowing for more than one album this time.

Favorite Songs: “Abracadabra,” “Izrael,” “Sabbath," and "Morning Star"

9/10

despite by general allergy to black metal i kinda wanna try out that absconditus

obv i haaaate the black cilice record

my general allergy*

Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods 163 Points, 4 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/k0P859L.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/5fCkfRhzo3I70DiKrik4Q6
spotify:album:5fCkfRhzo3I70DiKrik4Q6

https://auralmusic.bandcamp.com/album/abyssal-gods

IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT has been orchestrating vanguard black metal since 2005. Citing an eclectic palette of influences that includes everything from Deathspell Omega to Polish post-serialism composer Krzysztof Penderecki, the band features members of investigational death metal contortionists, Pyrrhon as well as instrumental rock collective Secret Chiefs 3 and New York death metal legion Malignancy

Focused on urban decay and the imminent extinction of mankind, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT’s Abyssal Gods serves as the follow-up to the band’s critically applauded, 2013-released Goliath EP and contains ten punishingly traumatic odes of strategically composed black-addled mayhem bedecked in angular riff incursions, bestial vocal tirades and an overall air of disease, dread and looming disaster as well as a guest appearance by Bloody Panda’s Yoshiko Ohara and more.

Elaborates founder/main composer, Ilya Ezrin, “Although we are proud to be born in such a renown place, Abyssal Gods as a whole addresses New York City as a cancer of the world and the absolute fist of the universe. ‘Dead Heaven’ is the psalm of the end of the world. It deals with the universal deconstruction and celestial collapse. The lyrics were actually inspired by the observatory space lecture scene in Rebel Without A Cause.”
credits
released March 1, 2015

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/imperial-triumphant-abyssal-gods-review/

New York City is the new home of French black metal. No, I’m not entirely fucking with you. Hear me out… back in 2013, Madam X reviewed Goliath, Imperial Triumphant‘s two-song EP, and it impressed quite a number of us here at the offices of Angry Metal Guy. The mix of savvy technical death metal and viscous, oozy black metal was well-played and well-produced, creating a rather unsettling, but incredibly awesome, listening experience. All of that is a moot point, for as promising as Goliath was, nobody was prepared for the ingenuity, the murkiness, and the sheer WTF Factor that their sophomore full-length, Abyssal Gods, would bestow onto our jaded ears.

Wasting absolutely zero time, “From Palaces of the Hive” stampedes and blasts with the fervor of Deathspell Omega meeting up with Today is the Day for a nice stroll through the murky depths of Hell. Ripe with atonality provided by vocalist Ilya “Goddessraper” Ezrin’s guitar acrobatics, as well as bludgeoning drumming by Alex Cohen (Pyrrhon). And then, two mintues later… silence and atmosphere, horns, twangy Gorguts-esque melodies and thick Voivodian bass by Erik Malave, before it all stomps, lurches, and pukes its way out the door, leaving ichor and entrails in its wake. It’s chaotic, ugly, eerie, uncomfortable, and I loved every second of it.

“Unsettling” is easily the secret password of the day, as very rarely do you hear a passage and think to yourself, “Hey, that made sense!” And yet, when you hear these moments, they’re so jaw-droppingly bizarre and awesome that you go back to hear them again and again. Thankfully, Abyssal Gods is full of these moments. “Dead Heaven” (“Dead,” not “Deaf”) evokes more Gorguts lunacy and even a bit of a Domination-era Morbid Angel crawl before going full-on blackened tech-death. “Krokodil” sees Cohen sharing drumming duties with Kenny Grohowski (ex-Hung, Secret Chiefs 3) on the album’s longest (over eight mintes) track, with Ezrin’s guitars bending and warping, putting you in a state of complete unrest and discomfort with RK Halvørson and Yoshiko Ohara (Bloody Panda) singing and moaning over the blasts and chaos. But the award for “Did That Just Really Happen?” goes to standout track “Opposing Holiness,” for its expert use of a two-second happy, almost Cajun ragtime breakdown at the :51 mark, complete with unholy ukulele! Yes, Imperial Triumphant took a page out of Rob Scallon’s book and incorporated ukulele into black metal, and quite successfully, I may add!

Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods 02

Proving once again that something unbroken doesn’t require further tinkering, Colin Marston (Krallice, Gorguts, Behold… The Arctopus) once again helmed the production at Menegroth the Thousand Caves, and did a damn fine job of making sure the chaos was overwhelming, but not at the cost of the instruments suffering. The bass is good and thick, guitars cut and slice, and the drums pummel with reckless abandon. The artwork by Andrew Tremblay is also stellar. Really, I’m having a hell of a time trying to find a flaw with this album, as even the interludes are quite tastefully done, though the album could be a little more dynamic. Still, it’s been a damn long time since a record made me feel happily uncomfortable, pleasantly scared, and absolutely enamored by its insanity and performance.

So I’m not joking around when I say that Imperial Triumphant put out the best French black metal album of recent history. For as good as Goliath was (and it still is incredible, don’t get me wrong), it just looks dwarfed and downright adorable compared to the sheer lunacy and onslaught that Abyssal Gods delivered. The bar has been elevated. Folks, meet your new masters.

Yeah! It's a complete mess but that kind of works in it's favour

oh wow i love everybody involved in that imperial triumphant record, is this lj's doing

"Post-serialis[t]" seems like a very wrong description of Penderecki. Does sound like an interesting album, though.

I'm liking Nameless Coyote so far.

i love how short the songs are

96 Nile - What Should Not Be Unearthed 163 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/9uvKcQN.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3nAhv9fHO46dCEe7Xa0l3c
spotify:album:3nAhv9fHO46dCEe7Xa0l3c

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/nile-not-unearthed/

Angry Metal Guy hates this album. He hates it so much that he won’t even deign to put to paper how much he hates it; and thus has commanded me to do so in his stead. Given how bad At The Gate of Sethu was, I was sure it wouldn’t be difficult to do so but was nonetheless displeased. I was all for skipping What Should not be Unearthed, and going on my merry way pretending Nile broke up four years ago, but sometimes you bite ass, and sometimes your ass gets bit. After spending a few days in the crypts with this album, a few things have become clear: it’s still the Nile you know and probably have some sort of strong feeling for. The chromatic riffing, incessant double bass pounding, and ham-fistedly (or perhaps mouthedly) delivered lyrics about gods and pyramids and the afterlife and what have you all align; What Should not be Unearthed is anything but groundbreaking. But the band have cut back on the self-plagiarism and boring brutality that undermined the previous album and paid more attention to elements of their sound that set them apart from other bands.

This is the part of the review where I’d go about discussing the first few or strongest songs of the album. Sadly, I instead get to tell you that, much like the last Nile album, Unearthed is pretty barren of highs and lows. There’s really no killer single or flaming bag in the mix, just fifty minutes of guitar picks and George Kollias’ feet moving really fast, though rarely in unison.

What set Nile apart from their contemporaries (and the countless bands that somehow want to swipe their riffs) are their unmetered passages. Since Kollias can keep 64th notes coming with little punctuation for quite some time, the rest of the band, and by that I mean mostly Karl Sanders, are free to tremolo and riff abstractly for a while. At best, these are brief and work like an extended, full-band drum fill; they reels and pitch for a moment before locking back into a groove. There are a few of these full-band passages scattered across Unearthed and they’re actually pulled off pretty well, but far more frequent are moments when the guitars, drums, or most often, vocals slip past the others. The fluid feeling of this slip pairs excellently with Nile‘s style of riffing and drumming, and it’s well-capitalized on in songs like “Age of Famine” and “To Walk Forth From Flames Unscathed.”

Nile - What Should not be Unearthed 02

The problems arise when the songs aren’t spilling over themselves; the best days of Nile riffing seem to be behind us, and though there are a few good cuts in the album – like on “Evil To Cast Out Evil,” after a minute or so even that song loses its way, and even its cool bridge is too little, too late for the album. What Should Not Be Unearthed feels like a supercut of the mid-quality parts of previous Nile albums interspersed with the occasional tumbling, uncoordinated moment of intrigue. Add that to its typical production – little to no bass presence, shitty-sounding cymbals, and vocals that have never been top of the class, and you get an underwhelming piece of music.

I’d really love to hear another Nile album as good as Ithyphallic or Those Whom the Gods Detest or even a song half as good as “Lashed to the Slave Stick,” but between this and George Kollias‘ equally average release earlier this year, it looks like fans will have to sit through this uninspired, natron-stiffened version of Nile for a few more years. While I’m sure the band needed to write new material to make sure they weren’t dead, I’d have preferred this album stayed in the ground.

I had a Nile album once but got bored of it pretty quickly. Can't even remember which one, but it barely matters

did people really hate this album or just these guys?

I thought they were universally loved

I don't they're bad just a bit one-dimensional. There might be stuff out there that'd change my mind about them but probably not on this new one. I got the feeling it was a letdown for a lot of their fans.

i liked imperial triumphant but i felt like i wasn't in the right life-place to really dig it

maybe i just need some bigass speakers again

omg the twin guitar runs on "black psychedelia"

this album is perverse and wonderful

three-way-tie
93 Vastum - Hole Below 163 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/fzGRwxy.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1TUhE6KUL6DPjlGbJU5jig
spotify:album:1TUhE6KUL6DPjlGbJU5jig

https://vastum.bandcamp.com/album/hole-below
Through the verbose horror of their first two LPs “Carnal Law” and “Patricidal Lust”, San Francisco’s Vastum sadistically carved a jagged dripping wound into an increasingly reductive American Death Metal scene. Arising again for their third full length album Vastum plumb the depths of internalized agony and degradation farther than ever on “Hole Below”.

Characterized by a deeply cavernous trudge through gut churning heaviness, “Hole Below” both bluntly crushes and rigorously shreds to conceive fully formed grotesqueries of debased brutality. Guitarist Leila Abdul-Rauf (along with Shelby Lermo) wields her axe with the experienced slice of masked executioner quartering savage riffs and twisting leads. The abhorrent vocal (and lyrical) morbidity traded by imposing frontman Daniel Butler and Abdul-Rauf continues to be the most formidable combination in Death Metal. The intimidating rhythm section of Luca Indrio and Adam Perry steer the war machine through the pooled blood and skull fragments scattered amidst the debauched iniquity of this peculiar hell.

Three albums in Vastum have honed their disturbed masochism into a sound manifestly their own and true to the core of the purest darkest Death Metal.

93 Locrian - Infinite Dissolution 163 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/2ovjtBH.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7sJzVKKgyTfdhwpLLJuv0A

spotify:album:7sJzVKKgyTfdhwpLLJuv0A

https://locrian.bandcamp.com/album/infinite-dissolution

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20724-infinite-dissolution/
Locrian
Infinite Dissolution
Relapse; 2015
By Grayson Haver Currin; July 22, 2015

8.2

The more music Locrian create, the less sense the metallurgists seem to make: That is the implicit lesson of Infinite Dissolution, the most adventurous and accessible album the once-prohibitively esoteric band have ever made. During these nine tracks, they buoy black metal with kaleidoscopic guitar solos and punctuate cinematic three-piece suites with transfixing synthesizer serenades. Screamed anthems find and then finesse an unexpected threshold between post-metal and post-punk, while some of the band’s most grim vocals ever provide the friction against their most gorgeous and warm musical setting to date. With Infinite Dissolution, Locrian continue a series of impressionistic explorations devoted to apocalyptic apprehension—or "hymn[s] to the deluge," as they put it at one point here. Somehow, though, these soundtracks to oblivion come to feel redemptive and even empowering, like torches made only to work in the most extreme dark.

For half of their career, Locrian were a duo whose hard-shelled hybrids of harsh noise textures and heavy metal structures felt compelling but often stable. Terrence Hannum and André Foisy built bleak expanses of brutal sound, where considerations about technical and cultural obsolescence fought through sheets of dissonance and walls of distortion. Their recordings were aggressive and ruminative, less concerned with acute crescendos than cumulative atmosphere. But in 2010, for the album Crystal World, Locrian enlisted Steven Hess, a Chicago improviser with a long and impressive résumé of collaborative electronic abstraction. The moment was an oxbow: Locrian’s ideas crystallized around the skeleton of Hess’ drums, and their music began to take new shapes and gather sudden speed. Urgency and bravado entered their vocabulary. By the time Locrian issued their full-length Relapse debut, 2013’s Return to Annihilation, the trio were able to talk about the influence of Genesis and make music that offered up evidence.

Despite Locrian’s doomsday obsessions, Infinite Dissolution—much like the last five years of Locrian at large—depends upon a wide-eyed sense of musical wonder. Locrian’s evolution has hinged less on a refinement of their style and more on an expansion of it, so that new influences and impulses operate inside of their general roar. This spirit is obvious from the start of Infinite Dissolution, which exposes facets and folds of Locrian that never before seemed to exist. The brilliant opener "Arc of Extinction" begins like a Locrian creeper of not so long ago, with piercing noise and saturating tones shaping a broad drone. Powered by Hess, though, the song steadily escalates, moving from a slow-motion march into a sustained sprint of blast beats. Locrian have touched on black metal before, but here, they perfectly tuck it into their past. The speed animates the animosity. The tumult counters a guitar solo so bright it seems excised from a Rainbow record. The effect is both beautiful and frightening, much like the lyrics of death and rebirth that Hannum sends into the squall.

The brief poem at the center of "Arc of Extinction" highlights another crucial element of Locrian’s evolution, because you can barely hear Hannum. Instead, his words are massaged deep into the mix, so that they are part of a whole and not its obvious leading edge. Likewise, during the strangely triumphant "The Great Dying", the obvious vocal hook yields the foreground to the band, the chant becoming the de facto bass for a band without one. After a decade together, Hannum and Foisy have erased many of the boundaries between their electronics and electric guitars, their synthesizers and their manipulated shouts. During the dénouement of "KXL I", for instance, the strangled riff, static-caked vocals, and screeching circuits congeal into one righteous din, a single symphony of terror. Hess has not only learned their logic but also enhanced it. In the past, "Heavy Water" might have been a formless cloud of hazy effects and echoing glissandos, but he gives the record’s cold comedown a pulse and purpose. During Infinite Dissolution, Locrian make very involved music seem effortless, allowing the sound to support the emotion rather than overpower it. That’s what they’ve tried to do for a decade.

In their salad days, Locrian seemed to issue new music constantly. A stream of seven-inches, CD-Rs and cassettes arrived one after another, as though Hannum and Foisy had nowhere else to be for five years. But Hess joined the band, and Hannum split Chicago for Baltimore. The complicated schedule and the precipitously slower pace have been boons for Locrian. They have had time to incorporate new touchstones without letting them overrun the band, and they have had time to approach each additional layer with diligence. There is so much pressure to speed up as a band these days, to not give any bit of online notoriety an instant to disappear. But Locrian chose to slow down and create consecutive meticulous albums. They are isolated and involved worlds of sound—safe, as one song suggests, from our own "wreckage of a mighty dream."

http://thequietus.com/articles/18378-locrian-infinite-dissolution-review

Before hearing a single second of Infinite Dissolution, Locrian's incoming full-length and their second proper for Relapse, the record's striking cover art hints at the aesthetic permutations of a band that is no stranger to rigorous experimentation. The repurposed image of David Altmejd's 2008 work 'The Eye' renders the sculpture colossal, unnerving – an architecture of myriad surfaces and impossible angles that is both imposing and unnervingly alien. For a group who have, even during their most ecstatic moments, so intently peered into the subterranean void (visually evinced in the queasy landscapes of past releases like The Crystal World and Territories), it's a sign that their gaze has shifted skywards, to an emphatically more celestial one.

That's not to say Locrian have become less dour – Infinite Dissolution is, they state, a concept record about the 'inevitability of extinction', a sentiment that runs throughout the spare, hopeless lyrics – but the record's crystalline textures and dizzying sonic nuances are here dragged from smothering darkness into brilliant light. It's an excellent record, even if this shift arrives at the expense of certain aspects of their sound – the sprawling slow-builds and claustrophobic grimness – that has made them such a vital underground force for over a decade.

The Baltimore/Chicago three piece was formed by guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Andre Foisy and keyboardist/vocalist Terence Hannum in 2005 – drummer Steven Hess made his first appearance in 2010. They've always been more of a tonal noise/drone band than the black metal one they're often pinned as; that latter element manifesting itself most effectively as measured releases from the Swans-esque tension building and power electronics workouts that managed to be both harrowing and electrifying in their compositional detail. (And, unlike the head-razing BM/noise work of bands like Wold and Vegas Martyrs, frequently beautiful).

With Infinite Dissolution they build on the framework of 2013's Return To Annihilation, successfully melding those genres with prog, industrial and post-rock into a consistent and muscular whole (helped in no small part by Greg Norman's sterling production job). It's a work that, while being their most accessible to date, is still dense enough to reward patience and repeated listens.

Opener 'Arc Of Extinction' immediately lurches into a solid three minutes of noise, the guitar and synth merging as a refulgent wall of distortion undercut by Hess' spare, martial tom thuds. Hannum's eventual harrowed shrieking sounds as distant as ever (as if recorded from the opposite end of a chasmic oubliette); a brief precursor to the sudden tip into furious blasting, a simplistic descending chord structure and a harmonic lead spiralling off overhead. It's the most conventional black metal moment on the record, and one of its most thrilling.

'Dark Shales' is initially closer in sound to the 2011 cover of Popol Vuh's 'Dort Ist Der Weg' before seguing in to a melodic five minutes of Cascadian-tinted post-rock; while 'KXL I''s industrial shower and seething banks of sheet noise comprise Infinite Dissolution's most abject arc, an aesthetic emphasised by the near-poppyness of the track immediately proceeding it.

I was slightly taken aback by 'The Future Of Death' on first listens, with its mix of simplistic coldwave synths and a middle section not a million miles away from the cosmic post-hardcore of At The Drive In. Along with Erica Burgner-Hannum's jarring guest vocals in the closing passages of 'An Index Of Air', it's the album's only near misstep, a track uncomfortably close to conventional given Locrian's conceptual nous (albeit one that that I find myself warming to with each subsequent listen).

The forlorn string loop of 'KXL II' – wavering over a heady static crackle – is highly affecting for a glorified interlude, making way for the pensive fuzz of 'The Great Dying' and the eventual album peak of 'Heavy Water'. The latter builds on a glacial, oscillating wash of synth, overlaying a clean, circular guitar figure and more of Hannum's haunted shrieking. There's not much more to it – an insistent kick drum leading to a peak of modest volume before letting the track fade into itself again – but it's gorgeous, haunting stuff, further evoking a freezing astral plane in place of the sodden netherworld and urban wastelands that Locrian have inhabited until now. It's a lonely, exhilarating place to be.

93 KEN Mode - Success 163 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/rI4KFEm.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/4ASQ4v6gKIZkaNi9p4xdG1
spotify:album:4ASQ4v6gKIZkaNi9p4xdG1

https://kenmodesom.bandcamp.com/album/success

http://www.metalsucks.net/2015/06/04/ken-modes-success-a-good-record-if-not-a-good-metal-record/

f you’re looking for a good metal record, stop reading here.

There is nothing death/djent/stoner/thrash/metalcore about Success, the sixth album from the brotherly-led KEN Mode.

What Success does sound like is the strain of noisy post-punk and grunge that bubbled up in the late 80s. Loud bands with analog angst, little melody, and a bit of artistic pretension… and the kind of guys who probably fucking hated metal.

It’s an unusual but interesting turn for Mode, whose past offerings have veered more metallic hardcore than Touch & Go/AmRep. Engineered by Steve Albini (Nirvana, The Pixies, and, uh, Bush), Success is often tuneless, especially vocally. But if the warbles of David Yow or PiL-era John Lyndon entice you, you’re in for a treat.

In a way, the whole album is a series of outliers, small variations on a noisy, sarcastic dirge. “I would like to learn how to kill the nicest man in the world,” vocalist Jesse Matthewson spews in “These Tight Jeans,” getting a female callback in the album’s lone instance of melody. Violins prop up “The Owl,” while a fat bass line dominates “I Just Liked Fire.”

Then again, maybe it’s all a joke. Matthewson spews a line like “A day in southern Manitoba could not be more sublime” and you can almost hear the eye roll… except, in context, he might be serious. Hard to tell.

Kidding or not, Success uh, succeeds because it embraces its musical ambitions. It’s a lo-fi, imperfect album at odds with its metal neighbors, but one that invites more than a cursory listen. And props to the recent tide of bands, including Title Fight and Liturgy, who feel comfortable pivoting when their audience may not.

Don’t like it? Joke’s on you.

ok i think i'm gonna like all of these

All three are very good. Locrian I found overwhelming, but I enjoyed it if I took it in a couple of tracks at a time. KEN Mode's Success is the best album they've made to date.

Locrian just keep getting better in my view. Never got round to KENmode though I liked what I heard of their previous stuff.

Locrian is good, I can't really *love* this stuff but it's pretty impressive.

Ok Ken Mode sounds cool. I must check it out. Love the cover too.

Just don't read the Pitchfork review.

Not that I was going to but why not?

The writer makes a bunch of assumptions about their noise rock roots (as in he says Albini brought the roots with him) and then completely misses the humor of the record.

92 Kylesa - Exhausting Fire 164 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/RoBhUka.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0KwYRP0sZMzRqBMpnwGEPE
spotify:album:0KwYRP0sZMzRqBMpnwGEPE

https://kylesasom.bandcamp.com/album/exhausting-fire

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/09/album-review-kylesa-exhausting-fire/

Over the past decade, Kylesa has been one of the most consistent and visible bands on the stoner metal circuit. They rose from the same Georgia scene that spawned Mastodon, playing a brand of metallic hardcore punk before mellowing out in recent years. Shouted vocals, fast tempos, and angry, misanthropic lyrics have given way to melodic heavy psych and calmer vibes, and though Kylesa has jettisoned its old sound and lost favor in the crowd that once championed it, the band’s development into a stoner powerhouse always felt natural and organic. As artists, their clarity of vision took over, and with each album, the songs slowed and the structures tightened, effectively accentuating Kylesa’s finer assets: the spooky dual vocals of Laura Pleasants and Phillip Cope, the affected guitars, and the trippy atmospherics. A Kylesa album always sounds like a Kylesa album. It’s just a matter of where the band wants to take the recordings.

In this way, experimentation is encouraged. There are some bands we never want to change. We come to rely on the comfort of their consistency and the fulfillment of our expectations. But Kylesa is invincible. When they leave that comfort zone — like they did on their landmark records Static Tensions and Spiral Shadow, back when they moved away from punk — it’s still effective, if not more so. They’re on their A-game when exploring new territories.

That’s why Exhausting Fire works. On the outfit’s seventh album, Kylesa again reinvent themselves as a music box of stoner psych and alt metal dabbling. 2013’s Ultraviolet was a hesitant test run, a toe in the pool as opposed to the total submergence found here, as Kylesa surrender themselves to weirder songwriting tics, prismatic genre-blending, and spiritual concession. Opener “Crusher” does good on its name with dense blasts of sluggish feedback and a thick riff, but it’s the song’s second half that brings it home. The fuzz drops out, a polyrhythmic beat kicks in, and Pleasants’ vocals turn sensual, sounding more Mazzy Star than metal. These twists and turns work. On “Moving Day”, Cope sings in a goth croon while synths swell up and down, and it’s Cure as fuck. “Night Drive” is pure heavy pop with disarmingly earnest lyrics and passionate screams from Cope: “I don’t want to be on this night drive/ I would rather be anywhere else.”

Exhausting Fire is the band’s most experimental work to date, but that’s not to say it doesn’t riff out on occasion. “Shaping the Southern Sky”, while a little misleading toward the majority of the album’s content, is Kylesa’s most metal track since Spiral Shadow, guided by a chugging riff that would sound at home on a High on Fire album. Another highlight, “Blood Moon”, tries on a black metal aesthetic that works surprisingly well. The only weak tracks are the ones that are the most obviously Kylesa — straightforward, heavy — and the least imaginative (“Inward Debate”, “Lost and Confused”).

Kylesa doesn’t seem interested in being a big, bad Southern metal band, just like they never wanted to be a flashpoint for anger after getting over their early punk phase. Exhausting Fire has heart, both sonically and lyrically. It moves with confidence, content with its explorations, and it’s engaging because of it. Such an amorphous approach to heaviness is becoming more common in metal, an often rigidly traditional genre, and Kylesa continues to push those boundaries as forerunners of the post-metal movement.

Essential Tracks: “Crusher”, “Night Drive”, and “Blood Moon”

oh yeah the locrian record is impressive but takes so long to get where it's going

like i veer from thinking it's boring to thinking it's amazing every few minutes

7.4 from pitchfork
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21186-exhausting-fire/?

Kylesa have been experimenting with and expanding their sound for almost 15 years. They've kept moving, which is admirable, but when the Savannah, Ga., band started out, they were already unique: a crusty sludge-punk juggernaut that mixed shout-along male-female vocals into anthems that got your adrenaline going even if you weren't paying attention to what they were saying. As time went on, they added a second drummer, and replaced some of the sludge with pop. They mentioned Built to Spill as an influence, as well as early '90s alt rock and riot grrrl. Vocalist/guitarist Phillip Cope included Beach House and Sleepy Sun on a year-end list. The thing is, as much as they tweaked the metal formula, and copped to quieter listening habits, they still basically sounded the same: even on 2013’s chillier, darker, atmospherically expansive Ultraviolet, Kylesa barreled along like Kylesa, but in a slightly less interesting way.

Which is what makes their new, self-produced seventh album, Exhausting Fire, unique to the trio’s catalogue: On these 10 songs, Cope, guitarist/vocalist Laura Pleasants, and drummer Carl McGinley often sound like a different band entirely. The Cope-fronted “Moving Day” is a mid-tempo death rock song that fits nicely between Killing Joke and Christian Death on a mix tape, and stands out as one of my favorite individual songs of the year. Previously, when Kylesa weren't speeding along, they'd stall. When they got too ambitious, you'd wish they'd get back to packing basements. It's not that anything was offensive or embarrassing—it was just bland.

Here, they’ve sharpened their songwriting on tracks that don’t immediately sound like Kylesa, so you get a nice mix of the familiar fist-pumpers along with curious diversions that work. "Lost and Confused" goes from spaced-out mellow to fist-pumping shout-along, then elegantly keeps the pedal pressed to the floor until an atmospheric coda. It's a geat song, one that's inspired a lot of air drumming at my desk this week. Or the amped-up, smeary "Inward Debate", which shows them subtly working deeper psychedelia into the double-drumming. On the longest track, "Shaping the Southern Sky", the band drifts from rock 'n' roll boogie into a cavernous desert of Meat Puppets tumble weeds that builds, over 2 minutes, to a massive rock punch that's worth the wait. Importantly, on the previously mentioned “Moving Day”, you hear Kylesa crafting a legitimate hook, one that could close a John Hughes movie.

There's a lot that echoes the Pixies here, perhaps because on Exhausting, there’s more of a mix between the vocalists: Pleasants handled most of the singing on Ultraviolet, or at least Cope took a backseat, shouting choruses now and then. She has more range than Cope in a traditional sense, but her voice isn’t that compelling alone—you ultimately need his chanted intonations against her spacier tones to keep things interesting. When they both shout, it's golden; they do that a lot here. And, often when you think a song's boring (see: "Growing Roots"), the other singer joins in and saves the day.

Some can't be saved, which happens when you keep expanding. The first movement of opener "Crusher" feels like a hangover from Ultraviolet, and the nighttime psychedelia of “Falling” limps along for 4 minutes. More often than not, though, the center holds, and it makes Ultraviolet look like a scratchpad for what they ended up doing here: radically shaking up their formula—from the inside out—and coming back with compelling results.

91 Sigh - Graveward 164 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/LCwAetd.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5HB5UIP3lFhhspoa8eRLVR
spotify:album:5HB5UIP3lFhhspoa8eRLVR

https://candlelightrecordsusa.bandcamp.com/album/graveward

The tenth studio album from Japanese noise/extreme metal merchants is an ambitious endeavor. Taking over two and a half years to write/record, each song had over 100 recording tracks exceeding 100GB of audio to select from in the final mixes. Features guest perfrmances from Matthew Heafy (Trivium), Fred Leclercq (Dragonforce), Niklas Kvarforth (Shining Sweden), Sakis Tolis (Rotting Christ), and Metatron (The Meads of Asphodel).

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/sigh-graveward-review/

There’s only one word that can encompass this specific cocktail of madness: Japan. Sigh are on their tenth trip around the turntable and still spin at 45, since there isn’t a faster option. Graveward is their attempt to penetrate the monolithic shadow cast by In Somniphobia, an album so fantastically strange that it was a sidestep even by the standards of a band that defines the term “avant-garde”. Will Graveward see them pulling an Opeth and venturing even further from their black metal roots, or is this going to be more of a Cryptopsy style return?

Did you like Scenes from Hell? If not, that’s ok, there are plenty of other shitty people in the world for you to hang out with. If you did, then I suggest that you open a new tab now and exchange some of your favorite type of currency for your very own Graveward. The symphonics and aggression of Scenes From Hell make their return here, but appear in concert with the moody strangeness of In Somniphobia, bubbling up in Sigh‘s churning glass, jagged, dangerous and as always, unabashedly bizarre. Unlike its predecessor, Graveward is metal through and through, each song a cancerous vertebra in the twisting spinal column of a black metal album that’s been through hell and come out stranger.

Sigh Graveward 03“Kaedit Nos Pestis” marks Sigh‘s territory right away, gushing out a stream of fetid liquid that steams when it hits the freshly turned soil. Deeply rooted in old-school black metal and power metal, the song snaps Graveward open with incredibly fun lyrics and bizarre singing that’s so cheesy it would stick out on a [Luca Turilli’s] Rhapsody [of Fire] album. “The Forlorn” is the album’s first mid-paced song, but it’s no less intense or weird than the three that precede it – just try not to sob out the line ‘I am not dead…’ with Mirai Kawashima. You can’t.

The first half of Graveward closes with “Molesters of My Soul,” which is best simulated by compressing a brass section into a two-by-four, sticking a bunch of nails into the wood and subsequently being smacked with that board at a steady 92 bpm. As stomping and mad as it is, the song also features one of the most interesting intros on the album, a twinkling music-box-like melody that I’m about half sure was stolen from the studio as In Flames was recording A Sense of Purpose. “The Casketburner” is another standout on the last half of the album, fun enough to go toe-to-toe with some of Revocation‘s latest material. There’s really not a bad song to be had here, which is what we’ve all come to expect from Sigh.

Despite this, Graveward dose have one big problem, and it’s a surprising one. The album often feels a little, well, predictable. The songs aren’t nearly as varied as those on In Somniphobia, but that wouldn’t be such a problem if Graveward didn’t feel like it was still running on its predecessor’s chassis. The same gags and sounds pop up in the same places that they did on In Somniphobia; “Kaedit Nos Pestis” features a hand-clapping track that’s quite similar to one from “The Transfiguration Fear Lucid Nightmare;” they bring out the saxophone in the same places as the album progresses, and there’s a definite U-shaped curve in speed across the length of the LP. On top of this, the choice to put “Dwellers in a Dream” after the seven-minute epic “A Messenger from Tomorrow” – which sounds like the S&M version of “One” if it was rewritten by madmen – is pretty questionable. I don’t think Graveward is too long (49 minutes is a great length and Sigh can get away with much more), “Dwellers in a Dream” isn’t the best way to close the album.

While it’s not quite the masterpiece that was In Somniphobia, Graveward is far from a blemish on Sigh‘s discography. It’s a great album despite its flaws, but it is a little bit worrying. There’s the lingering suggestion that Sigh are running out of ideas, and while one could hardly blame them, seeing as they’ve never hesitated to shove everything possible into their art, it makes me weary for the future of Japan’s most revered extreme metal export. Only time will tell whether they can make the turnaround, but even if we have to wait another three years, there’s always the back catalog to keep us company.

there was a new sigh record this year? jesus christ i was not paying attention

Kylesa are great live, but I have trouble getting into the albums. Rooting for them, maybe they'll nail it next time.

man this vastum record is my kind of gross

yay Locrian

(yay Vastum too but I still haven't heard this one, I'm sure it rules though)

Locrian is the one I've been enjoying the most so far. I kept meaning to check out the album this year.

90 Ahab - The Boats of the Glen Carrig 168 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/4mmyNcx.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1qAXKudAta2w1BQQ3XOovA
spotify:album:1qAXKudAta2w1BQQ3XOovA

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/ahab-boats-glen-carrig-review/

Ahab has been the proud flag-bearer for funeral doom during the last ten years, with three full-length releases fleshing out a decade which has seen them achieve great popularity for such a niche genre. The AMG ranks are infested with attention-impaired sodomites who don’t understand the genre, but Steel Druhm deservedly credited their third album, The Giant, with a strong 3.5. The German whale-meisters maintain their trend towards nautical literature, this time drawing on William Hope Hodgson’s The Boats of the “Glen Carrig,” a survival-horror turned adventure tale. The creeping tension and monstrous beings provide fitting inspiration for the oppressive doom presented here, and Glen Carrig continues the musical developments made on The Giant.

As was the case with its predecessor, Glen Carrig is funeral doom but less dirgy and at a marginally less glacial pace. Indeed, “Like Red Foam (The Great Storm)” is the fastest song Ahab has written. They expand on the post-rock and progressive influences integrated into The Giant, with ambient passages and greater diversity from their core doom style. This dynamism is demonstrated as the album’s moves through phases of heaviness and subtlety uncharacteristic of an often-overpowering genre. There’s a greater mixture of instrumental and vocal textures in the Glen Carrig repertoire than ever previously, and it’s certainly an interesting listen which avoids the typical funeral doom caveat of musical homogeneity. All this is evident on the four long songs, omitting the comparatively short “ Like Red Foam.” A variety of guitar tones are used, as is the case with Christian Hector’s vocals. His growls are typically excellent but he exercises his cleaner tonsils here, accompanying the atmospheric quiet moments with somber and emotional chants.

Ahab The Boats of the Glen Carrig 02bUpholding the vocals are the riffs. Considering the relative pace of this album among its peers, the guitar work largely impresses in and of itself rather than just contributing to a wider atmosphere. They make a strong impact such as that at 3:37 of “The Thing that Made Search” and the opening lead on “Like Red Foam.” However, these riffs are strung quite thin when most tracks exceed ten minutes. There is a lack of melodic and technical development on the guitars as the songs progress, grinding promising work into banality. This isn’t a slight against the guitarists’ abilities, rather the song-writing. I enjoy a long song wherein a core lead is retained but evolves: this feels more progressive and cohesive than artificially extending a song by stitching together multiple riffs. However, only the highlight, “The Isle,” consistently demonstrates such development. “Like Red Foam” also updates an earlier riff at the 4:20 mark with an additional melody which heightens the mood.

If I’m harsh on this aspect of the song-writing it’s because Ahab has improved in another: these guys are increasingly utilizing more complex and compelling compositions. Each track has sections in which the harmonies pull together brvtality with melody, offering pleasing milestones as the listener advances through the length. The layering of guitar tracks providing rhythm, leads and shredding is great at the aforementioned moment in “Like Red Foam” and in the last four minutes of “The Weedmen,” to name two examples.

Ahab The Boats of the Glen Carrig 03

Referencing this layering of guitars, Ahab favors a large production job. Despite the huge sound intrinsic to the genre, the audio quality is quite clear, bypassing dirty or fuzzy productions preferred by others. The quiet moments almost glisten. I don’t mean this as a negative however, as the instrumentation is clear and strong in the heavy moments and delicate in the subtle ones. It may not be cvlt with such studio work but it’s powerful. My only complaint on this front is that guitar solos could be mixed better. I get that the clean shredding tone isn’t typically a part of funeral doom, but they’re almost superfluous since they’re so far back in the mix.

Overall, Glen Carrig is a strong marker of progression in Ahab‘s career. It continues from The Giant but has improved in the harmonies constructed and production utilized. The issue I take with the riffs does let it down, but this is a solid choice for doom aficionados. Journey into the unknown with these seafarers.

This is not metal at all, but Leila Abdul-Rauf of Vastum made one of my favorite late-night records of 2015:

https://leilaabdulrauf.bandcamp.com/album/insomnia

I've been meaning to check this one out (along with a billion other things)

89 Noisem - Blossoming Decay 169 Points, 4 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/rl3J8eA.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2rJnUV48MZuQ22AdfgoAYq
spotify:album:2rJnUV48MZuQ22AdfgoAYq

https://a389recordings.bandcamp.com/album/blossoming-decay

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20603-blossoming-decay/

Noisem
Blossoming Decay
A389; 2015
By Brandon Stosuy; May 15, 2015

8.0

One of the first things people mention about the Baltimore metal band, Noisem, is their youth. This seems increasingly less important in the Internet age, when a 10-year-old can download the entire Carcass discography at the click of a button, and searching out obscure, far-flung scenes isn't as hard as it once was. We're living in a time when a novice can become an "expert" in a night, even if they don’t understand what begat what or comprehend the context. And that's why Noisem impressed people with 2013 debut, Agony Defined: Here we had guys between the ages of 15 and 20 coming off like folks twice their age, adroitly resurrecting the past.

Agony Defined, which blurred nine songs into 26 minutes, was exhilarating, a mix of old-school whammy bar-rich thrash and death metal with little bits of grind and punk thrown about. People were fair when they brought up Slayer and Napalm Death's Scum. As mentioned when I called it my 10th favorite metal album of 2013, it reminds me of the more extreme music that got me into metal as a kid, when I'd moved beyond the hair metal of my older sister and MTV and discovered speed and thrash at the pay-to-play venues in southern New Jersey. Their second album, Blossoming Decay, is burlier. The playing itself sturdier, faster, and more hulking.

Some of this could be due to the lineup change: bassist Yago Ventura is now handling guitar and vocalist Tyler Carnes' older brother, Billy, who also did the cover art, is on bass. (It's probably worth noting that the group now features two sets of brothers: the Carneses along with drummer Harley Phillips and his brother, guitarist Sebastian.) More likely, though, it's about getting more comfortable as songwriters and experimenters, hence the ambient cello pieces that start the first and second sides with an eerie, heavy drone. The blazing solos are still there, but the actual riffs pull as much of your attention this time. That, and the singing is freer, gnarlier, and more rabid—it's a nonstop vocal attack that comes off more punk and personal than Agony.

On Blossoming, Noisem have worked in larger doses of grind and death and punk; there's less time to take hold of the whammy. We get nine songs in 24 minutes, and that includes those cello pieces (which come off as soft, low-tech industrial ambiance) as well as the 4-minute "Cascade of Scars", which opens on a doom note, and momentarily brings to mind Converge. For such a short album, there's plenty of variation, like the floor-punching youth crew pulse in "1132", the catchy opener "Trail of Perturbation", the blistering shout-along in "Replant and Repress". This is a record that'll appeal to punk kids—and Trash Talk fans—as much as it'll blow the minds of metalheads.

In part, this is because, for all the technical prowess, there's a lot of heart on the record. In a recent Decibel feature, the Carnes brothers talked about their mother abandoning them at a young age, and being raised by their rock'n'roll-friendly father (who stole Billy a guitar to practice on when he was a kid). Tyler's mentioned being into Robert Smith's lyrics, and the words of Converge's Jacob Bannon—poetry, more or less. This album carries that kind of weight: flowers are reincarnated as shards (and, later tossed into the sea) and there are suicidal thoughts, sinking stomachs, lacerations, hazy memories. There's a lot of blood and more than a few knives. There's a general anxiety, along with a song called "Another Night Sleeping in the Cold", that resonates deeply when you know the singer's backstory.

This human element of Noisem is appealing. These are not songs about horror films, they're songs about the personal horrors of life and living. Which may be another reason that, as brief and rabid as these songs are, they stick with you. At the end of this cacophony, it's easy to want to listen all over again. And it's just as easy to be excited about how much these guys have already progressed in such a short time, and how much more music they have left to create.

(Multiple xps) Heyyyyy Nameless Coyote & Black Cilice right on top of each other :D

I liked what I heard of that Kylesa but I didnt get a chance to listen to much of it before the deadline. They're a band I've been wanting to check out for a while now anyways; from what I did hear though, the album slams way harder than you'd expect, given the lukewarm response everywhere

i intended to listen to the noisem record all year but did not, guess now's the time

just reached the end of the vastum record and i'm totally in love. kudos everybody

88 Amestigon - Thier 169 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/fvOX9UX.jpg

https://wtcproductions.bandcamp.com/album/thier

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/amestigon-thier-review/

Near the end of Disney’s Ratatouille there’s a climactic scene during which the harsh, scrupulous restaurant critic Anton Ego (personality modelled, clearly, after AMG’s staff) savours the best ratatouille he’s ever had. Overwhelmed by the tastes and flavors that transport him back to his childhood, he’s left altogether dumbfounded with his usual negativity utterly dismantled. In a way, that’s the effect Amestigon’s Thier had on me. But before I begin explaining why exactly this record is as good as it is, two questions linger: who are these guys and where have they come from? While the band members are shrouded by a veil of trve metal mystery, what we do know is that Amestigon is a long-lived, low-key Austrian outfit born out of the minds of legends of the black metal scene (Tharen and Thurisaz from Abigor), and at certain pointsincluded other distinguished musicians such as Silenius from Summoning. More of a project than a full-time band and having published only one album in 20 years (the good but unremarkable Sun of All Suns from 2010), I wouldn’t have bet on them to produce something that could very well end up being one of the best releases of the year.

But here we are. Thier is a near-perfectly crafted record combining all the finest stuff found in melodic black metal through the ages, both old school and modern. Think Dissection’s Somberlain and Naglfar’s Vittra but with a decidedly modern approach. While these throwbacks are obvious, they come natural to the band and don’t feel derivative. The subtly introduced traces of doom, post-metal, Agallochian progressiveness, and experimentalism (title track’s middle section) alongside magnificent riffs and grooves prove to be crucial tools the band uses in their exemplary songwriting, evoking some of Enslaved’s most accomplished works.

While malevolent in its message and approach, Thier unfurls like a beautiful album since Amestigon don’t resort to cynicism, abrasiveness, nor coarseness. Like a pool of the blackest water, threatening and frightening, a dive into it’s depths can feel strangely comforting all the same. This might be due to their sound which is full, warm, and welcoming; easy to absorb and be absorbed into right from the first listen. There’s none of the snobbery or intentional hermeticism associated with contemporary metal acts, even if the relative lengthiness might indicate so. A potential downfall – an hour of music distributed among four tracks spanning from 10 to 20 minutes – that the band turns in their favour by weaving well-thought out and interesting structures with transitions from “aggressive” to “subdued” and back, executed masterfully and with a wonderful sense of flow. All of that and exactly zero seconds of boredom or repetitiveness.

Amestigon Thier 02The opening “Demiurg” is the best track here and one of the best songs I’ve heard all year. The combination of ever-changing, melodic tremolos that lay bare an atmospheric, synth-underlined mood with growls and choral chanting is deeply touching; majestic, chilling, and empowering in a strange way. Whilst a midtempo song in general, there are bursts of speed and great solos rounding out everything. Possibly the only downside to this album emerges from the fact that the following three tracks, “358,” “Thier,” and “Hochpolung,” don’t quite reach the heights of “Demiurg.” Nonetheless, they’re exceptional on their own and rely on the same formula without actually sounding formulaic.

How Amestigon accomplish that task and how they manage to conceive so many memorable and catchy riffs, alternating between them while leading to perfectly timed buildups and spectacular releases, without ever weighting down on the listener remains a mystery. The guitarist(s) are clearly the stars here, but the vocals, drumming, and bass-playing are all of the highest calibre and are often accentuated by the compressed yet somehow very appropriate production. It’s especially the bass that feels crucial to the encompassing warmth, whether providing nuances and textures or having it’s own, meatier flesh. Finally, if it was not clear by now, there’s a severe lack of serious flaws here – and it’s not because I didn’t look for them.

The experience of discovering albums like this make the effort of sifting through piles and piles of mediocre releases feel worthwhile. Amestigon deserve exposure and heaps of praise. They even make me want to stop people on the street and yell about Thier to their faces. I hope the guys are aware what a great record they’ve created and I truly hope that there’s more from them to come.

i dug the noisem. not as immediate as their first but still rips.

exceeding 100GB of audio to select from in the final mixes

what a world

huh this ken mode record is v different for them. not sure how i feel about it but it's pretty funny

I just bought that Amestigon on bandcamp. It better be as good as that review says it is!

I just hope its not too BM for me (BradMetal) ;)

it's described as melodic black metal, so it's definitely not me. gonna check it out anyway

four songs that all break the 10 minute mark :|

not brootal enough for ya?

87 Nechochewn - Heart of Akamon 173 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/WStKs0Z.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2IdlszcBmAoyBCVr2CsQfU
spotify:album:2IdlszcBmAoyBCVr2CsQfU

http://nechochwen.com/album/heart-of-akamon

Guest vocals on Lost on the Trail of the Setting Sun performed by Tanner Anderson. Band Logo and Turtle Effigy hand-drawn by Austin Lunn. Layout photography by Nechochwen and Pohonasin. Band photography by David Holden. Cover painting used with kind permission of The Wisconsin Historical Society Nechochwen is: Nechochwen – Vocals, Electric and acoustic guitars, Native American flute, Lalawas, Floor Tom Pohonasin – Drums, Bass, Backing vocals Pandel Collaros – Electric and acoustic guitars (live lineup)Amanda McCoy – Electric and acoustic guitars (live lineup)

http://www.ghostcultmag.com/album-review-nechochwen-heart-of-akamon-bindrune-eihwaz/

Nechochwen are classified as Folk Metal, but whereas most music in that genre is inspired by Celtic or Nordic heritage, this band finds its themes in Native American heritage. Heart of Akamon (Bindrune/Eihwaz) is their third record.

‘The Serpent Tradition’, the opening song of this album, immediately showcases the folk and the metal that are combined in this band. The acoustic guitars sound magical, and while the switch from heavy to soft was abrupt, the build back into heavy is very well done. The clean vocals are beautiful, as are the acoustic guitar pieces intermingled with the metal riffs, and there is a lot of variation. However, the end is once again rather abrupt.

The more acoustic-centred songs such as ‘The Impending Winter’, ‘October 6, 1813’, and the guitar section in ‘Traversing the Shades of Death’ are really well crafted and unique, while the metal sections and songs, such as ‘Skyhook’, are good but not truly remarkable.

The musical highlight of this album, however, is the instrumental ‘Kišelamakong’. It is a beautiful composition.

One point that this band could improve upon is cohesion. There is a bit too much of a split between folk and metal, and while ‘The Serpent Tradition’ for instance has sections where they blend together perfectly, this does not happen often or fluently enough on other parts of the album. Additionally, the switches between loud and gentle are at times too abrupt, while being very organic at other points. While each individual section is very good, the changes in speed in the introduction of ‘Škimota’ aren’t great. The addition of the drums helps keep the following variations together.

Finding a balance throughout the songs or even the entire album would make a massive difference. Still, there are a lot of excellent pieces of music and it is certainly an album worth listening to.

bandcamp chose the wrong day to suck

why is bandcamp sucking?

Maybe it's just me then but the streaming has been shit all day, plenty of tracks that just won't load at all.

Like, I could only listen to the firt track of Amestigon, and same for Nameless Coyote. Based on that single track Amestigon sounded like something worth investigating.

86 Intronaut - The Direction of Last Things 175 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/Q4qZP2V.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2iGP3G8vZKRgcctwFMVLCp
spotify:album:2iGP3G8vZKRgcctwFMVLCp

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/intronaut-direction-last-things-review/

Intronaut is one of those bands that I always meant to get around to but never did. With lineups that include(d) members from bands such as Impaled, Exhumed, and Mouth of the Architect, most people know Intronaut even if they have never actually heard them. Having spent the last couple weeks with their near decade-long back-catalog, their debut (Void) stands out to me as perhaps their best release. Aggressive, progressive, and without the typical wankery found in prog metal, Void delivers a mix of impressive instrumentation, great detail, and a familiar harshness found in older Mastodon material. While the band expanded on their skills between Prehistoricisms and Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones), their focus shifted to a slower pace, cleaner vocals, and the incorporation of a post-metal tinge to their sound. Unfortunately, that’s where they lose me. Intronaut have always been good at what they do, but most of their work is right at the verge of being incredible without actually achieving it. However, 2015’s The Direction of Last Things finds the band reincorporating some of that Void aggression, while focusing on more memorable songwriting and a production that trumps all previous releases.

Opener “Fast Worms” begins in a hurry with a speedy lick that threatens to out-run most of the chuggers produced by Mastodon. After alternating between these frenzied riffs and the wide-open chorus, the song comes to a halt before returning to its former self via a smooth-talking Tool build and some reverberating The Ocean guitar melodies. The song ends with a dissonance that resists closure in order to setup The Ocean-meets-Mastodon follow-up “Digital Gerrymandering.” With a soothing chorus, some awesome bass work, and psychedelic guitar rhythms, this eight-minute ditty sets the progressive tone for the rest of the album. Direction feels more “progressive” than its predecessors and the tightness of the performances is mind-boggling (even more impressive considering it was mostly recorded live).

A majority of the album follows the same formula as “Digital Gerrymandering;” a hard-hitting riff straight out of the gates, well-placed harshes and cleans, memorable choruses, down-shifted interludes, and slow builds that eventually erupt into climatic returns to the track’s heavy riffage. “Sul Ponticello” opens with gigantic heaviness in the form of Tooling grooviness before flowering with large pedals of instrumentation and melody. Similar “massiveness” can be found on the title track and “The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing.” One of the better tracks on the album, the title track has some kickass crunch, a beautiful clean-guitar bit in its slower section, and the kind of climatic build that makes the song well worth the journey.

On the extreme ends of Direction, you will find the straightforward and crushing “The Pleasant Surprise” (which really is a pleasant surprise for those aching for some Intronaut bruising) and the long, meandering “The Unlikely Event of a Water Landing.” While the former is a great example of “short and sweet,” the latter overstays its welcome and feels a bit disjointed in execution. It has some good moments buried in its eight-minute length but I feel myself generally tuning out on repeat listens. Closer “City Hymnal” also suffers from lack of staying power even though it does a fine job of concluding Direction with a chorus of layered vocals and sweeping melodies.

Overall, The Direction of Last Things is a decent proggy platter. Though, I’m still partial to Void, this album takes the band to the next level in terms of creating memorable songs that show technicality and impressive musicianship. The heaviness employed is not exactly brutal or fast, but its presence helps give diversity to the music. Thankfully, Intronaut magnified all of this by hiring Devin Townsend on mixing duties. This decision was well worth the money as every instrument comes to life in the mix and the record is a truly dynamic listen. The direction of… well, Direction… works well for the band and with a bit of honing, I expect the next release will be something really special.

I'll go ahead and chime in for the good 'ol "Too Low" ....

85 Brothers of the Sonic Cloth - Brothers of the Sonic Cloth 180 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/4CIodIg.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5oGOeiDF9io6JM6iYCe6B3
spotify:album:5oGOeiDF9io6JM6iYCe6B3

https://brothersofthesoniccloth.bandcamp.com/album/brothers-of-the-sonic-cloth

Keeping up a long-held tradition of bringing forth some of the heaviest music from the darkness of the Pacific NW, Seattle’s legendary Tad Doyle (formerly of TAD, HOG MOLLY), delivers his strongest songwriting and playing to date with his newest band BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH. This powerful trio of musicians, with Tad on guitar/vocals, veteran bass player Peggy Doyle and drummer Dave French (the Annunaki) is set to release their long-awaited debut LP in early 2015 on Neurosis’ own NEUROT RECORDINGS. BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH bring together the collective and extensive rock histories and experience of the three members in the worlds of punk, hard rock and metal.

Recorded at Robert Lang Studios and Tad Doyle's own WITCH APE STUDIO in Seattle and mixed by Billy Anderson, BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH's self-titled full length consists of five immense songs, with two bonus tracks on the CD and digital release. The record begins with an ominous eruption of riffs forged from deep within the earth, with "Lava", and continues on this path throughout; a mammoth, relentless spirit on a timeless journey. This album is as much a persistent thudding body punch of sonic destructive force as it is a thoughtful statement of awareness and the inescapable raw condition of life.
credits
released February 17, 2015

Tad Doyle - Guitar / Vocals
Peggy Doyle - Bass
Dave French - Drums

Recorded at Robert Lang Studios and Witch Ape Studios
Mixed by Billy Anderson

looks like bandcamp has decided to let me enjoy Absconditus' nastiness

http://www.stereogum.com/1738578/brothers-of-the-sonic-cloth-unnamed/mp3s/

84 Boris - Asia 181 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/6drU3SK.jpg

Cant find any reviews worth posting here but It was a return to their earlier noisy drone sludge 3 long tracks.

Remember when the indie hipters liked them? what happened to those hipsters?

This sounds like the kind of Biris album I'd like, Idk when but I def want to check it out

They're still at the shows. Boris just releases so much stuff, maybe people are taking them for granted?

83 Lamb of God - VII: Sturm und Drang 188 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/JtadCan.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/3pQ2XxhYioiwNeKw89GdVV
spotify:album:3pQ2XxhYioiwNeKw89GdVV

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20714-vii-sturm-und-drang/

Lamb of God
VII: Sturm und Drang
Epic / Nuclear Blast; 2015
By Grayson Haver Currin; July 27, 2015
7.8

We do not live in a golden age of major-label heavy metal. Gone are the days when many of the worldwide form’s biggest innovators earned large budgets from still-larger companies or bidding wars occurred for the most brutal new prospect. Though there are exceptions, most modern metal backed by largesse aims so squarely for genre rigidity and predictability that it’s hard to believe it requires humans to make. It’s as though the stuff comes from a factory in some anonymous and once-economically depressed flyover town, conveniently produced in five-band package tours that are almost impossible to distinguish but easy to absorb. Meanwhile, the new metal records that seem destined to matter as masterpieces, like Tribulation’s recent Children of the Night, arrive largely from the indie fringes. After three decades under Rick Rubin’s aegis, even the mighty Slayer have decamped to an indie for the forthcoming Repentless.

During the past decade, Lamb of God have struggled with such a fate. Since signing to Epic Records for their third album, 2004’s Ashes of the Wake, they’ve often seemed a rather regimented metal band. Every two or three years, they would churn out another 10 or so songs, with big grooves and death metal outbursts decorated by lots and lots of guitars. Randy Blythe was a rampaging frontman, the kind who encouraged that you get loud with his tirades. But Lamb of God always teased the edges of their sound, trying to push beyond their meat-and-potatoes metal reputation with each release. It’s as if they felt guilty about their well-heeled position on Epic and tried to use it to gradually inch away from stylistic and financial safety, somehow back toward the fringes. By the time they issued 2012’s Resolution, such distractions had wantonly diluted their strengths, resulting in an abysmal record of mediocre hooks and banal studio gimmicks.

Despite the highfaluting combination of Roman numerals and German words it takes as a title, Lamb of God’s very good seventh album, VII: Sturm und Drang, is a satisfactorily settled record, arguably their first such effort in a decade. Sturm und Drang takes decidedly few chances. Instead, it sticks mostly to up-tempo numbers, countered only by a clean-singing ballad that soon enough heads for the pit and a righteous stomper that eventually sublimates into something like shoegaze with the help of Deftone Chino Moreno. All of these songs are studded with enormous refrains and driven by a sense of urgency that Lamb of God have forsaken in recent years. When Blythe’s distended scream rips across howling amplifiers at the start of "Still Echoes", or when "Delusion Pandemic" snaps right into a belligerent stomp, it’s as if they’ve finally got too much to say to fuck around with being fancy. By not trying to be overly interesting or involved, Lamb of God have made one of their most alluring albums in years.

The newfound energy and efficiency seem to stem, in part, from between-album trauma: In 2012, months after the release of Resolution, Czech police arrested Blythe in a Prague airport. He spent five weeks awaiting trial for a manslaughter charge after he pushed a teenaged fan, who subsequently died, off the stage at a concert there two years earlier. Blythe was acquitted, but the process hung like a cloud around the band. They scrapped plans for shows and talked about taking a long break. Rather than languish, however, Lamb of God reassembled in the studio and got to work on several songs that examined the frontman’s time in prison and his rather hostile feelings at large.

The obvious approach worked: "Still Echoes" explores the Nazi history of Prague’s Pankrác Prison, his anger for the subject animating the song with feeling. The guitars twist and scrape like the anxious hands of a very nervous person. It smartly points to Blythe’s prison time without exploiting it, powerfully suggesting that his stint inside allowed him to think about the rest of the world’s problems just as much as his own. And though the irrepressible "512" is named for the cell where Blythe spent some time, it’s penned from a much broader perspective. He serves not as the prisoner but as the spokesmen for them. "My hands are painted red/ My future is painted black/ I’ve become someone else," he screams in one of the band’s best choruses ever, deflecting much of the blame at a society that creates its own criminals. He lodges similar criticisms during the bracing-and-racing "Footprints", a song about environmental degradation, and the wonderfully thrashing spree "Delusion Pandemic", a madman philippic on Internet culture. As laughable as Blythe’s hook about mockingbirds being fed to wolves may be, it’s an irresistible moment.

As with the other numbers about self-immolating heroes, Nazi assassins, or media distortion, every song on Sturm und Drang feels like an outburst unmitigated by extraneous tinkering or trials. The production is dense, thin, and minimal, the guitars and drums pushed tight to give all these lyrics extra oomph. The fancy features are limited to a talkbox solo here and a Henry Rollins-like spoken-word bit there. Rather than distract from the hooks, they only reinforce them through contrast. No, Sturm und Drang isn’t a landmark of major-label heavy metal, but it is a reminder of just how very good one of its biggest bands can be when they have something to worry about other than trying so hard to be important.

Fuck, I totally forgot to vote for Brothers of the Sonic Cloth.

Cant find any reviews worth posting here but It was a return to their earlier noisy drone sludge 3 long tracks.

Remember when the indie hipters liked them? what happened to those hipsters?

I didn't even listen, I was too scared it would be more of whatever it was they did on New Album.

82 Dead To A Dying World - Litany 193 Points, 5 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/q9CqnmC.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/6RFbdaO0DHyRpR38HMHoce
spotify:album:6RFbdaO0DHyRpR38HMHoce

https://deadtoadyingworld.bandcamp.com/

All songs written and performed by Dead To A Dying World

Mike Yeager on Vocals
Heidi Moore on Vocals
Eva Vonne on Viola
Sean Mehl on Guitar and 12-String Acoustic Guitar
Gregg Prickett on Guitar
James Magruder on Bass Guitar, Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Baritone Guitar, and Piano
Cyrus Meyers on Drums, Concert Bass, and Orchestra Bells

Additional vocals by Brett Campbell, Daron Beck, Jamie Myers-Waits, and Sarah Alexander, Hammer Dulcimer performed by Sarah Ruth Alexander

Dead to a Dying World
Litany
Gilead Media; 2015
By Grayson Haver Currin; September
8.2

For a moment, you think that the onslaught is over, that after eight minutes of dramatic strings and overdriven guitars, punishing drums and punished vocals, the big Texas metal band Dead to a Dying World will at last offer a respite. After all, they’ve already detailed environmental degradation, screaming lines about nature’s revolt and grand-finale floods as rhythm and riff crack and lash against one another. But when Dead to a Dying World at last pull back during "Beneath the Loam", one of four quarter-hour marvels on their second album, Litany, it is only to regroup and instantly return with twice the speed and twice the fury. "Brittle embers flicker inside," screams Heidi Moore, pushing her voice so hard above the sudden black metal melee that she takes full stops between every word. "Where blasting suns once raged." It’s a shocking and gripping moment, a jolt applied with unapologetic force and impeccable timing amid what was already a mighty furor.

That sort of escalation is exactly what Dead to a Dying World do so well throughout Litany, a vivid hybrid of doom, black metal, and crust punk, buttressed by baroque classical flourishes. Dead to a Dying World’s 2011 debut pursued a similar mix, with doom lunges and black metal surges woven together with string sections and riffs that expanded or contracted based upon the context. The idea, though, often outstripped the execution, so that the transitions between those parts felt threadbare and rushed, the rookie mistakes of an audacious new seven-piece ensemble. Four years later, however, Dead to a Dying World show no such signs of folly. These six deliberate pieces commingle melodrama and momentum, horror and hope, pulling the listener along like some tight-wire suspense flick.

To an extent, that’s what it is: Litany deals with the state of the world and its rather grim prospects, delivered in moribund language that suggests we are, as a species, poised at the precipice of our end. The music animates that message, with sweeping arrangements and chiming guitars, washes of distortion and marches of drums shaping a battle between anxiety about our future and hope for it, between infinite pessimism and purposeful optimism. Though the tools are different, Dead to a Dying World suggest the same frisson as the Arcade Fire in their salad days and the same emotional ambiguity as Explosions in the Sky. There is no single style to Litany, just as there are no easy answers about the worries Dead to a Dying World address.

For an album that lasts for more than an hour, though, it is at least an easy, alluring listen, largely because so much effort and thought seem to have gone into building it. During 17-minute opener "The Hunt Eternal", for instance, Dead to a Dying World volley between invigorating, aggressive black metal passages and stately, alluring doom. They drift into a pensive and patient midsection, where the spectral voice of Sabbath Assembly’s Jamie Myers-Waits hangs like foreboding fog. When at last they reach the end, they funnel all of it together, with the harshness pushing against the heaviness and buoyed from below by viola. Each moment feels bigger and more powerful than the last, so that these epics never overstay their welcome and linger into tedium. The song establishes the rubric for the rest of Litany, a seesaw of dynamics built around a world of apocalyptic images and faint whispers of renewal.

Just before the album’s final minute, Dead to a Dying World collapse, exhaustedly, from Litany's blitz, the beat marching along in halftime. His voice fighting above surviving sheets of guitar, Mike Yeager fights to pose one final question: "Do we choose to follow, or can we break away?" At times, Litany may feel overwrought, too emotionally loaded and compositionally ostentatious for its own good. But here, at the end, you understand that Dead to a Dying World aren’t being maudlin just for kicks, that they’re not howling about "a bloodless pillar" and "ochre hands" and intoning lines about the end of days without cause.

No, these are real-world worries, written in the extreme patois of heavy metal and cast with the mild panic of environmentalists, climate scientists, and even civil rights activists. Litany reminds me of Paul Gilding’s The Great Disruption, in which he wonders if emergency can force humanity into grand action, or the glaciologist Jason Box, who proclaimed that we might be, as he infamously put it, "f’d." Dead to a Dying World’s roots in punk and metal afford these concerns urgency, while their sophisticated sounds lend it magnetism. When Litany ends, not only do I want to hear it again but I also want to follow its lead, to make some change for the better on behalf of the music—to, as Yeager puts it, "break away." Litany paints frightening if not altogether-unfamiliar scenes and asks pressing questions of both them and us, bound to music meant to mirror the complexity and precariousness of the world at large.

sund4r check it out

Just pulled in, and I have two points:

1. The "dildos" on the cover of the Khemmis record are vacuum tubes, I'm 90% certain.

2. Imperial Triumphant TOO LOW (my #3)

last one for tonight

81 Caïna - Setter of Unseen Snares 194 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/lmAjgwV.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/26tAqsge43PB0125773ezL
spotify:album:26tAqsge43PB0125773ezL

https://brokenlimbsrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/setter-of-unseen-snares

After a decade spent exploring almost every genre imaginable, Caïna’s upcoming LP and fifth album, Setter of Unseen Snares, is a return to the project's inception as a raw black metal act, as well as founder Andy Curtis-Brignell’s personal roots in punk rock and hardcore.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20269-setter-of-unseen-snares/

7.8

The voice you hear in the beginning of Setter of Unseen Snares—the sixth album by the long-running, lone-man British black metal band, Caïna—will probably sound familiar. "I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution," it purrs, echoed by synthesizers and guitars in the background. "We became creatures that should not exist by natural law." The warm Texas drawl belongs to none other than Matthew McConaughey, as the homicide detective Rustin Cohle in HBO’s "True Detective". "I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our program and stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal," he says, and for the next five tracks of this powerful concept record, Andrew Curtis-Brignell speculates about how McConaughey might be right.

Curtis-Brignell started Caïna when he was only 19, using the project as a sort of solo exorcism. In 2005, the opening track of his raw first demo (which he’s made available online) imagined life "without these demons." By 2011, he’d improved the production, expanded his techniques, and opened the membership to include occasional guests. But the theme of personal examination and upheaval had become the permanent thread: "Modern day Sisyphus/ Rolling a boulder uphill," he offered during the massive, mythology-rich Hands That Pluck. "Remaking tower of Babel in my own image." In heavy metal, movie samples often play their own self-reflexive game of "Name That Obscure Horror Film or Philosophical Treatise," but the McConaughey sample opening of Setter of Unseen Snares suggests that Curtis-Brignell is trying to tell a broader story this time. It's not just that he's fucked; we all are.

Over an atmospheric mixes of black metal, industrial menace, and post-rock grandeur, Curtis-Brignell lampoons the systems we love and lean on for the record’s three-song midsection. Like its title suggests, "I Am the Flail of the Lord" conjures a divine monster essentially out to imperil us all. Over a sinister riff, the ferocious title track fantasizes of divine intervention but refuses to deliver it. "Vowbound" trots out scenarios of religious subservience, where sacrifices are made in exchange for supposed protection. The narrator prays like Isaac on the altar and sells his daughter off as Old Testament property. "But my prayers go unanswered," Curtis-Brignell screams over the song’s rising action before chanting out the title like an unanswered schoolyard taunt.

Setter of Unseen Snares is a work of synthesis for Curtis-Brignell, the point where he pulls many of the disparate styles and sounds he’s investigated during the last decade into 33 efficient minutes. That introductory collage, for instance, showcases the nuance of someone who has experimented at length with drone and sound-art. The title track staples a little post-punk—see the strangled, barbed riff that ricochets through it all—to menacing hardcore built by a quaking beat and Michael Ribeiro’s hoarse, forceful bellow. This, too, is the first Caïna album since 2008 to include the assistance of an outside producer; that second set of hands and ears, Joe Clayton, enable Curtis-Brignell not only to pull a decade of interests and explorations into one small space but also to have them fortify one another. Though this record lasts for only half an hour, it feels bigger than all Caïna releases, even the two-hour Hands That Pluck.

That quality become paramount for the final two tracks, which offer the brief rising action and climax of this atypically concise concept album. During "Applicant/Supplicant", Curtis-Brignell imagines a family making good on McConaughey’s idea after all, as the Earth’s ecosystem has crumbled. They climb in a spaceship and head for the "horizon," only to realize that "we are the damned." The journey winds through blast beats and monastic chanting, death-metal precision and cinematic crescendos—tools Curtis-Brignell uses to make the tale of a few rubes in a sky-bound vessel both pitiful and poignant. "Orphan", the 15-minute finale, surveys the wreckage after the crash, sounding like Scott Walker leading Guns N' Roses through "November Rain". There’s one last sustained onslaught of black metal as the end of the world arrives, fulfilling the album’s threat. It’s gorgeous and daunting, a moment that takes the theatrics of bands like Deafheaven, Winterfylleth and Wolves in the Throne Room and shapes them toward a clear narrative purpose. Setter of Unseen Snares then simply fades into silence—a concept record beautifully and unapologetically finishing what it started.

Just asking coz I can't be bothered to check, does the Sigh album have anything even remotely as great as 'A Sunset Song'?

Vastum was super btw (and seems to have great politics too)

Helped KEN Mode make this poll too; it's all great but that opening track oh my word

Recap 103-81

103 Khemmis - Absolution 153 Points, 7 Votes
102 Corsair - One Eyed Horse 155 Points, 5 Votes
101 Absconditus - Katabasis/Kατάβασις 156 Points, 4 Votes
100 Nameless Coyote - Blood Moon 157 Points, 5 Votes
99 Black Cilice - Mysteries 158 Points, 4 Votes
98 Lucifer - Lucifer I 161 Points, 5 Votes
97 Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods 163 Points, 4 Votes
96 Nile - What Should Not Be Unearthed 163 Points, 5 Votes
93 Vastum - Hole Below 163 Points, 6 Votes
93 Locrian - Infinite Dissolution 163 Points, 6 Votes
93 KEN Mode - Success 163 Points, 6 Votes
92 Kylesa - Exhausting Fire 164 Points, 5 Votes
91 Sigh - Graveward 164 Points, 7 Votes
90 Ahab - The Boats of the Glen Carrig 168 Points, 6 Votes
89 Noisem - Blossoming Decay 169 Points, 4 Votes, One #1
88 Amestigon - Thier 169 Points, 5 Votes
87 Nechochewn - Heart of Akamon 173 Points, 5 Votes
86 Intronaut - The Direction of Last Things 175 Points, 6 Votes
85 Brothers of the Sonic Cloth - Brothers of the Sonic Cloth 180 Points, 5 Votes
84 Boris - Asia 181 Points, 6 Votes
83 Lamb of God - VII: Sturm und Drang 188 Points, 5 Votes
82 Dead To A Dying World - Litany 193 Points, 5 Votes
81 Caïna - Setter of Unseen Snares 194 Points, 6 Votes

https://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/6mvdcu4DLqquTIC88GvjTD
or
put this in your spotify search spotify:user:pfunkboy:playlist:6mvdcu4DLqquTIC88GvjTD

I'm liking Nechochwen quite a bit so far. This and Locrian are the two albums I've liked most out of the ones I've tried so far.

Hopefully some people made/will make good discoveries from todays results

Nechochwen is one I'm likely to buy.

I always find the bottom parts of the poll the most interesting as that's where I pick up good recommendations.

1:30 into Ken Mode. Wow, so this is basically a Shellac record?

Ken Mode also going on the to-buy list.

This Amestigon is very good. Nice one voters

Caina still sound very good, although I think I'd like to hear a more traditionally good singer on the melodic part in "Orphan". This still works in its own way.

"Orphan" is one of the best songs I've heard this year. The rest of the album is decent but can't hold a candle to it.

1:30 into Ken Mode. Wow, so this is basically a Shellac record?

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Sunday, December 13, 2015 11:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yah Albini's presence couldn't have been signposted any more explicitly but tbafh Shellac haven't banged that hard in ages

"Orphan" was v cool tho yeah, seems weird that I was listening to Caina in like 2006 but not really much since

but HEY what's THIS

Brothers Of The goddamn Sonic Cloth - fucking fabulous - absolutely destroying everything Neurosis have done since the 90s, which is probably why Neurosis signed them, having settled rather nicely into curatorial mode by now. 'Unnamed' is ENORMOUS

this is my favourite discovery of the day I think, although three of the others were discovered yesterday and subsequently voted for

you familiar with Tad?

nope, sounds like I should be

Good thing I saved up a bunch of eMusic credits before this rollout. So far Absconditus and Ken Mode are going on my shopping list. Still working my way through today's list.

i'm liking this vastum more than their last couple

Apparently I should check out both Absconditus and Amestigon. Literally only have heard two from the list so far, one of which made my top 10 (Nechochwen) and the other that didn't but I wish it could've (Nile, because they used to be one my reliable favs and if every song had been as perfect as "In the Name of Amun" the album would've killed).

I prefer this stretch of the poll because it's where everyone makes great new discoveries. As we move on I think it's albums more of us have heard.

Amestigon looks to be going on the list as well.

Way to go Locrian & Kylesa! I didn't vote this year but looks like my favorites are going to be ok. I'm sure Windhand and other things I've liked will show up. Good job, voters.

Albums that made my Ballot (Bolded was the highest)
93 Locrian - Infinite Dissolution
91 Sigh - Graveward
87 Nechochewn - Heart of Akamon

Albums that made my Top 101
102 Corsair - One Eyed Horse
90 Ahab - The Boats of the Glen Carrig
89 Noisem - Blossoming Decay
86 Intronaut - The Direction of Last Things
85 Brothers of the Sonic Cloth - Brothers of the Sonic Cloth

Albums I will visit (revisit in some cases)
100 Nameless Coyote - Blood Moon
93 Vastum - Hole Below
93 KEN Mode - Success
92 Kylesa - Exhausting Fire
84 Boris - Asia
81 Caïna - Setter of Unseen Snares

Album I most disliked
98 Lucifer - Lucifer I

The Lucifer album is very enjoyable.

Pretty sure my #1 won't make it :(

Glad Absconditus squeaked in (I think it was in my top 10)! I also had Vastum somewhere in my ballot.

Imperial Triumphant is insane, first time I've checked them out, already decided to buy it.

Really like that Dead to a Dying World album, pretty strong and engaging post-metal which is not something I'd expect these days.

Nechochwen and Kylesa were both enjoyable but not amazing to me.

Caina and Amestigon should on paper be right up my street, but they're both deeply unconvincing to me for different reasons. Caina tries to do everything but despite the variety it always sounds like a poorer version of something else.

Amestigon I heard earlier in the year and found it a real snoozer.

I might give the new Sigh album a try tonight, for some reason Imaginary Sonicscape is the only record of theirs I've been able to get into. The guest appearances do not fill me with much hope.

I'm not usually one to say this either but Imperial Triumphant: TOO FUCKING LOW

if there's people around I shall start the rollout in 10 mins then. Just need a cup of darjeeling first

http://i.imgur.com/E8m6eZT.gif

80 Prurient - Frozen Niagara Falls 195 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/Qv3LP3S.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5Pm2WvqxlDttK4hTx1vKe3
spotify:album:5Pm2WvqxlDttK4hTx1vKe3

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20463-prurient-frozen-niagara-falls/
8.5 BNM

Prurient, the main guise of Dominick Fernow, peels back the grislier aspects of the human condition within the boundaries of noise music. He doesn't just talk about desire and hate and pushing oneself in his music, he soaks those very feelings into his works. Within his massive discography, littered with limited-release tapes that can be frustrating to any would-be collector, are his "statement" records, which often introduce new elements that advance his artistic growth. Among these are 2006's Pleasure Ground, where his talents for rhythm really started to bloom, 2011's Bermuda Drain, his blackened new wave masterpiece, and 2013's Through The Window, where he nearly ditched noise for unknown-hours techno. Frozen Niagara Falls, Fernow's latest double album, is definitely one of his "statement records," and it brings back much of the harsh noise that faded away from his more recent works, but it's neither a "return to form" nor a retreat into his early career. With Niagara, he's taken strengths from his entire oeuvre to reach deeper into himself and produce what may be his best record yet, one that brings all the fulfillment of noise and transcends them all the same.

Fernow's moved back to New York from L.A., where he was briefly a member of Cold Cave, and Niagara cements that return. There's none of the techno of Window or any traces of his European adventures following his side project Vatican Shadow's frequent touring there, and only some of Bermuda's bizzaro synth-pop. There are no remaining traces of Fernow the underground playboy posting swanky selfies on OkCupid; on Niagara, he is once again the man standing shirtless outside in the New York winter. The closest to anything resembling Bermuda is "Every Relationship Earthrise", which would make for excellent darkwave if the hiccuping beat would hold still.

Fernow takes the tools most noise artists use as ends themselves and uses them to further narratives and enrich the compositions. Take "Traditional Snowfall", which starts off as a murder-romance fantasy—"I want to rip out your lower back/ And suck the air out of your lungs/ And wrap my hands around your neck/ And collapse your throat/ And squish your thorax/ And kiss you"—but turns into a rumination on the ambiguity so prevalent in modern love: "Friends are everywhere but I'm always leaving/ Dismantling us with rumors." (Maybe some of the club weariness of Window stuck around after all.) Fernow takes that confusion and buries it in the hisses and frantic electronics, so that it bleeds through every element of the track. Huge blasts of static and contact mic chaos come back into the fore, a passionate and turbulent dance between beauty and ugliness. To work with contrasts like that, on that deep a composition, is a rarity in noise.

It may seem weird that Prurient would have "hits" or "fan favorites," but they do exist. Fernow designed Niagara to be sprawling and cohesive, and there are multiple competing candidates for new ones here, across the spectrum. The first would probably be "Dragonflies to Sew You Up", with percussion that resemble Godflesh's drum machine becoming sentient and suffering a panic attack. Beneath the barrage, blue synthesizers and pianos chime, barely surviving the mortar-fire of the percussion. In the lyrics, Fernow flips the script on how lust is portrayed in noise—it's far from the simplistic objectification that comes too often with big, burly loud music. There's a conflicted pain when he screams, "IN AUGUST/ YOU'RE OVERDRESSED/ PLYWOOD BROKEN/ UP ON IMPACT." A line like "I promise I will only fuck prostitutes" may seem comical on paper, but add in the context of Fernow's vocal performance, and it's clear he takes no pleasure from yelling such a thing.

Fernow's synths sound both lusher and icier than they did on Drain, thanks to producer Arthur Rizk, known for his work on Power Trip's Manifest Decimation, Inquisition's Obscure Verses for the Multiverse, and other notable recent metal and hardcore records. Fernow has pushed the limits of what lo-fi can do—Pleasure in particular is a testament to the beauty of buried synths—but with his grander ambitions, he needed a bigger sound, and Rizk's contributions are so invaluable he may as well be Prurient's second member. Niagara is Prurient's most developed record, not just for its length, but the attention to detail that Rizk provides.

Fernow's original intent for Niagara was to source all of the material acoustically, with no electronics at all. That would have been radical, even for him. Still, upon first listen, it is jarring to hear acoustic guitars, provided by Rizk and Fernow, in the beginning of "Greenpoint", Niagara's peak New York song. From there, it descends into throbs of darkness, but that's only part of the point of the song. While "Greenpoint" is about someone Fernow knew, when I read the lyrics my mind went to Oliver Sacks' New Yorker essay on monologist Spalding Gray's descent into irreversible depression that led to his suicide in 2004. Gray's thoughts of suicide always centered around drowning and his mother, whose own suicide figured heavily into his work, and it's eerie that "The East River isn't romantic anymore you know/ That's where the suicides go/ Or maybe that's what you want in the end/ To be mixed together and reunited with your mother" are almost as if they were about him. It's specific yet flexible, adding another layer of complexity as only Fernow can.

Like "Greenpoint", closer "Christ Among the Broken Glass" shows a side of Prurient that is sometimes overlooked: poignancy. It's also the closest thing to Fernow's original vision for Niagara, which makes it an even more appropriate ending. The sound of fire combines with the guitars, evoking a séance more than a campfire. Like "I Understand You", the closing track from JK Flesh and Prurient's Worship Is the Cleansing of the Imagination where fragile glimmers of serenity are eaten without mercy by squalling feedback, "Christ" reveals itself slowly. Niagara was recorded "in the spirit of homelessness," and Fernow's lyrics in "Christ" capture how winter brutalizes the homeless and how self-sacrifice can make one appear messianic, especially when that figure is among the afflicted themselves. The man, "Jesus of cities," becomes both more noble and more destitute with every verse—"Cobbling together syllables/ Over a frostbitten tongue/ Trying to remember the prayers"—though this isn't about pity, but about reality. Fernow's hushed vocals don't even come in until close to the end of the song, and they make his silent stalker tone on Window sound pronounced in comparison. Who knew that one of the least noisy Prurient songs would strike the deepest?

A double noise album is a lot to take in, and Prurient's never been about accessibility. He's also not about acceptable signifiers; he's bigger than noise. He offers an endless, probing self-exploration that simply isn't found in noise, metal, hardcore, power electronics, whatever harsh music you can think of. In that regard, Niagara is a landmark not just in Prurient's discography, but within extreme music. His few utterances in "Falling Mask" sum up the experience of the album, and of his body of work: "What we do/ We invite pain/ It's ok to be hungry/ Hunger is normal/ I'll meet you there." He knows Prurient isn't for everybody, and that's part of the appeal, but if you're not going to invite growth and reveal yourself, why bother?

haha I love how you all disappear now

we're all waiting for an actual metal album to comment

thread is missing emil.y this year

79 Arcturus - Arcturian 196 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/Zti743M.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/5yJ9F1Md1I14N0r1LcIF58
spotify:album:5yJ9F1Md1I14N0r1LcIF58

https://arcturus-no.bandcamp.com/album/arcturian

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/arcturus-arcturian-review/

It’s really no secret; I fucking love Arcturus. There is nothing that can be done about this fanboyism of mine and I don’t care to fix it. Since the first time I heard The Sham Mirrors in 2002, I have not only loved them, but find Mirrors to be one of my favorite albums ever. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me and, again, I’m not going to fix it. Sadly, bad things started to happen for the band after that release. Garm (or whatever the hell his name is) was replaced by I.C.S. Vortex in 2005. The same year the band dropped the disappointing Sideshow Symphonies. They broke up (and broke my heart) in 2007, and there hasn’t been any sort of release from them in ten long years. But now these lovable Norwegians are finally back. After a songwriting and recording process that lasted nearly four years (cut them some slack or we won’t be getting anymore Borknagar and Mayhem albums), 2015 brings us their new opus, Arcturian. Does this mean Arcturus will reclaim their rightful place at the head of the avante-garde table? Is this the comeback album of the year? Are there more ridiculous band photos this time around? Did Hellhammer actually eat Dead’s brains? All legitimate questions but let’s just focus on the first two.

Before we begin, let me be clear about something. My issue with Sideshow Symphonies is not the addition of I.C.S. Vortex. I absolutely love I.C.S. Vortex and own every stinkin’ album he ever appeared on. My issue is the lack of that indescribable beauty that makes Arcturus who they are. Without the passion and splendor in their sound, it becomes run-of-the-mill ambiance. Thankfully all is forgiven (mostly) and I can sleep easy again (seriously, this is why I haven’t slept in ten years). While not as grand as The Sham Mirrors, Arcturian does well to guide Arcturus on the right path after the aforementioned misstep. The weirdness of old Arcturus is present once again and Vortex’s confidence is through the roof as he finally gets the chance to be himself in boots once sported by Garm. And it’s oh so good. Vortex is on top of his game and in command of everything from his malicious rasps on “Demon,” his mid-range Peavy Wagner-isms on “Angst” and his ball-busting shrieks on “Pale.” There’s even some “yodeling” in “Crashland” and falsettos in “Warp.” No more comparisons to Garm need be made; Vortex fucking owns Arcturian.

Arcturus - Arcturian 02Another player that – not surprising – leaves his mark on this release is Hellhammer. I don’t even need to look it up to know that this relentless beating is the result of the thunder feet of this BM god. The way he manipulates his four (?) limbs does just as much for the signature sound of Arcturus as the creepy carny shit that finds its way into every release since La Masquerade Infernale (I direct your attention to Arcturian closer “Bane”). Vocals and drums accounted for, the orchestrations and keys soak this outing in an atmosphere so thick, no amount of sunshine would ever break through. Be it the soundtrack-like qualities of the outro in “Crashland,” the ridiculously catchy X-File-esque melodies of “Warp,” or the industrial machinations of “Demon” and “The Journey,” the mind-fuckery of Arcturus has survived and now wreaks havoc on Arcturian with full support from the other instrumentation.

However, the brain warping has mellowed out since the days of Masquerade and Mirrors. Arcturian (much like its predecessor) is more accessible than releases of old. However, the biggest difference between Arturian and Sideshow Symphonies is that the band brought along that old spark to ignite this new record. Spontaneity and flow is abundant as Arcturus tosses clean-guitar licks into “Game Over,” acoustic pluckings in the semi-instrumental “The Journey,” and some ethereal violins for “The Journey” and “Bane.” And if that wasn’t enough, you’ll also get an end-product dressed with a respectable DR7 rating and a solid balance in the instrumentation. The drums are crisp, the vocals are out front, and the guitars get to choose when to be muddled in the atmosphere or make their way to the surface as the electric axes are substituted for the acoustic ones.

Overall, we have a winner here that most disgruntled Arcturus fans can enjoy. Not to the levels of La Masquerade Infernale or The Sham Mirrors, but we can’t always get what we want. If this were to be Arcturus’ swansong, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.

Is that metal enough?

Need to listen to that. They're usually good fun

78 Huntress - Static 196 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/dCAgZrU.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7F3H6bcFfaj4DE51MsJE54
spotify:album:7F3H6bcFfaj4DE51MsJE54

http://burningambulance.com/2015/09/25/huntress/

Huntress is a relatively young band, having been around for just over five years. Vocalist Jill Janus, then going by the name Penelope Tuesdae, hired the Los Angeles-based band Professor to perform at a weekly club night she was hosting in Hollywood, and they joined forces. (This interview fills in more of Janus’ background; she’s also been a DJ and had a covers project with guitarist Dave Navarro.) In 2011, the group, renamed Huntress, signed to Napalm Records, releasing their debut album, Spell Eater, the following year and their second, Starbound Beast, in 2013.

The band’s music started out as a mix of thrash and old-school trad/power metal. Janus is a theatrical vocalist with a wide range, capable of almost operatic singing in the vein of Judas Priest‘s Rob Halford, Iron Maiden‘s Bruce Dickinson, or Ronnie James Dio, but she didn’t fully exploit it on the band’s early recordings. On Spell Eater, she frequently employed a hoarse, witchy screech strongly reminiscent of Nicole Lee, frontwoman of cult ’80s thrashers Znöwhite; it was a style some listeners found off-putting. It meshed relatively well with the thrash/death riffing the band was pumping out at the time, though. Huntress toured hard in search of an audience; I saw them open for DragonForce, and Janus was a stiff, awkward presence, strutting back and forth and frequently ducking behind the amps during guitar solos.

Starbound Beast was a more confident and musically ambitious effort. It included an instrumental intro and songs that had real, memorable melodies and choruses; ended with a capable cover of Judas Priest‘s “Running Wild”; and Motörhead‘s Lemmy contributed lyrics to “I Want to Fuck You to Death.” Janus was synthesizing the various elements of her style into a multifaceted but unified voice, emphasizing her singing over her shrieks, and becoming a better live performer, too. I saw them again, this time opening for Killswitch Engage, and she engaged the crowd much more capably, striking fewer gawky poses and delivering the songs with authority. Lyrically, she moved beyond the fantasy-metal tropes of the debut, seeming to hint at realism, if not autobiography.

Static, out this week (get it from Amazon), is the biggest step forward yet for Huntress. In every respect, it’s a more accomplished and focused album than its two predecessors. The band have stripped down their style, largely abandoning the thrash/death metal of the debut and going classicist/’80s instead. The intro to the first single, “Flesh,” nods to Slash‘s playing with Guns N’ Roses, while “Mania” could easily have fit on a pre-British Steel Judas Priest album; actually, its main riff sounds ripped from Black Sabbath circa Sabotage. Lead guitarist and founding member Blake Meahl‘s solos are showy without being absurd or overtaking the song, and rhythm guitarist Eli Santana and drummer Tyler Meahl (new additions to the group) are fluent in a variety of styles, from doom to the almost punky hard rock of “I Want to Wanna Wake Up,” while avoiding a trying-on-hats feel. All these songs sound like Huntress songs, not like covers or style-pastiches.

Lyrically, Janus has shifted gears in a big way, too. On Spell Eater and Starbound Beast, as their titles likely indicate, she mostly kept things in the realm of fantasy, singing about witches and spells and monsters, and dealing with life through metaphor (a tactic with a long history in metal, going back at least as far as Ronnie James Dio). The first five songs on Static—”Sorrow,” “Flesh,” “Brian,” “I Want to Wanna Wake Up,” and “Mania”—make up a kind of suite, in which the lyrics reflect very real, autobiographical pain. (This interview with Revolver offers more detail.) Janus sings about suicidal thoughts, about drinking and drugging oneself into oblivion, and on the album’s most surprising song, about mania as a force exerting a lycanthropic transformation on her. “Mania” features extraordinarily vivid lyrics, supported by Huntress‘s most steamrolleringly heavy music ever. At nearly nine minutes, the song serves as a bridge between Static‘s two halves, while also showcasing the band’s ever-increasing instrumental power.

The album’s second half is a little more escapist, returning to the occult, science fiction and fantasy lyrical tropes of previous releases. “Harsh Times On Planet Stoked” sounds like a lost Rob Zombie title, and “Static” is social commentary disguised as a monster story. But the feeling that all these songs are deeply personal for Janus is inescapable. That’s not the direction many would have predicted for Huntress after hearing either of their first two albums, but it’s a welcome and impressive evolution. They’ve always been good, but with Static, they’ve become really good.

—Phil Freeman

dont even know if phil voted

77 Killing Joke - Pylon 196 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/HoFvWF5.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1OzRwm3c09pJCFFnEu27R2
spotify:album:1OzRwm3c09pJCFFnEu27R2

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/killing-joke-pylon-review/

Many older bands, once established, will eventually coast by just on their name alone. Sure, they’ll cut a new album every few years, but it never lives up to their influential works of yesteryear. It’s often an excuse to go out on the road, play nothing but the classics, and bring home the money while also hocking wares that have nothing to do with the band’s original intent. England’s Killing Joke, however, are a unique beast. Almost 40 years into their storied career, they’ve influenced groups as disparate as LCD Soundsystem, My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, and Metallica just by utilizing any and all genres suitable to deliver their brand of poetic vitriol. Now, completing the triptych that started with 2010’s Absolute Dissent and continued with 2012’s MMXII, we have Pylon to analyze and mull over. I will say right now that you would be forgiven if you thought the band would finally sound like they are running out of steam and would finally be outed as bitter, cranky old men baring unnecessary resentment. You would also be proven absolutely dead-wrong within a matter of seconds.

You probably scrolled to the bottom of the page, saw the score, and are wondering if it’s really that good. If you enjoyed the anger brought forth in Absolute Dissent but felt a little let down by MMXII, then Pylon will wipe the floor with you. “Autonomous Zone” continues the long tradition of relentlessly angry openers, recalling 1990’s Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions in terms of sheer urgency and a bit of danceability, thanks to the solid, driving drumming of Paul Ferguson, Geordie Walker’s recognizable distorted open-chord mayhem, and Jaz Coleman’s prophesying. Speaking of Coleman, his voice continues to hold up quite well, and he sounds just as focused and commanding as he did in his earlier days, mixing both honey and venom in potent amounts. Quite the ear-catching opener.

Speaking of venom, there is absolutely no shortage of it to be found on Pylon. This album is thankfully free of anything that could be considered a ballad. Instead the purpose is to engage, inform, and enrage. While there isn’t a bad song on here, some are going to rise higher than others, but all are potent ragers. “Euphoria” comes closest to the band’s gothic period, sounding both dance-worthy and fist-clenching. “Delete” reaches back to the second (and grossly underrated) self-titled album from 2003, with Pig Youth’s bass sounding particularly grimy and thick. “New Jerusalem” tricks you with a happy drum beat while Coleman calls out a pet peeve of mine: corporate media poisoning our airwaves with useless bullshit while serious and heinous crimes go unabated and ignored (“Charmed, no attention span/No empathy for the common man”). Hi, Facebook!

Produced by the band and Tom Dalgety, Pylon may be lacking in dynamics, but it still sounds great. Youth’s bass is chunky and driving, Walker’s signature tone remains powerfully intact, and the drums sound especially beastly (seriously, that breakdown just after the first chorus in “New Jerusalem” is thundering and rage-inducing). But what makes this album such an incredible success is just how fluid Killing Joke are when it comes to jumping styles to convey particular messages instead of trapping themselves in one mode. It’s this exact reason why Killing Joke are still so vibrant, so seething, and so utterly convincing in their delivery. You can’t fake sincerity.

Here I was, just hoping that Killing Joke would bring us all an album of decent songs, as they’ve been on an absolute tear since the original line-up regrouped in 2008. Instead, they released an emphatic statement of intent, proclaiming that complacency, ignorance, and lack of empathy will not be tolerated on their watch. Pylon is one for the ages, and I hope and pray that when I’m in my fifties, I’m just as focused, driven, and passionately scathing in my views of the world. Timely, yet timeless.

thread needs alex

Arcturian is a fun album, they were always oddball enough that the fact that they seem to have ignored everything that's happened in metal in the last decade isn't really a drawback. It has everything you want in an Arcturus album ('cept for Garm maybe) including strange production choices

I love the sound of the Killing Joke album, but the lyrics are very OTN (nose, not money).

76 Kult of the Wizard - The White Wizard 197 Points, 5 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/HpFqesa.jpg

https://kultofthewizard.bandcamp.com/album/the-white-wizard

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/67349/Kult-Of-The-Wizard-The-White-Wizard/

Review Summary: Solid stoner-doom with an excellent female singer.

Kult Of The Wizard are band coming from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They have released three EPs, all showcasing the band’s style of doom and stoner metal. The third of these releases, entitled The White Wizard, marks a major progression for the group. While the band’s first two EPs had been entirely instrumental, and been generally lauded as excellent collections of raw and sludgy stoner jams, with The White Wizard the group had chosen to incorporate vocals into their sound. As it turns out, the old adage about not fixing something which isn’t broken did not apply in this instance. With the addition of a singer, Kult Of The Wizard has taken a significant step forward, and the resulting release can be recommended for all fans of this type of music.

The White Wizard consists of five songs. The first, “Tusk Of Mammoth”, is an excellent introduction to the band’s new sound, being a bit more polished than previous releases. Over turgid riffs, the female vocalist Mahle Roth sings in a soulful manner. This works quite well, and in a distinctive manner, setting a solid tone for the entire EP. “Olde Fashioned Black Magik”, meanwhile, is a brief and straightforward track more in tune with retro-metal. The White Wizard’s centerpiece, “Plasma Pool”, is likely to divide the opinions of listeners. An ambient track consisting of vocal samples and background noise, some might dislike it, considering it takes up nearly four minutes of a relatively-short release. However, it does produce an eerie vibe which is accentuated in other parts of the EP. “Black Moon” is the release’s longest song, and arguably the best. The lyrical subject matter dealing with Satan and impending death might be a bit generic, but it sounds fantastic with Roth’s ethereal vocals and the reliably strong riffs. Finally, the EP’s closer might well be surprising: a cover of Heart’s “Devil Delight”. The result is certainly a highlight though; Kult Of The Wizard does the original justice while adding their own doomy aesthetic to the tune quite successfully.

The White Wizard is certainly a positive step for Kult Of The Wizard. The band seems to have found a workable and solid sound, that of spacey and somewhat menacing doom combined with heavy blues elements epitomized by their great new singer’s vocal style. Hopefully, the group will soon create their first full-length album and manage to capture more widespread exposure. For now, though, The White Wizard is a rock-solid release which should be worth several listens for fans of these genres.

Woohoo! I made the metal poll. :)

ilm's very own

liked the opening track and the exotic noises

The exotic noise is all I had anything to do with, but the rest of the album is my cup of tea. I love her voice.

Of the more song-y tracks, I found the opener to be a clear standout, but it really was something

I like how they are explicitly a tribute band as well, shows honesty

Tribute band?

Aw, clue's in the nane and the font, surely

They take EW's musuc in some cool directions just as EW did to Sabbath, it is a fine lineage to claim

Sorry if I'm barking up the wrong tree here

75 Dispirit - Separation 198 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/znoU9Sj.jpg

https://dispirit.bandcamp.com/album/separation

John Gossard Guitars, Vocals (2000-present)
See also: ex-Asunder, ex-The Gault, ex-Weakling,

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/68595/Dispirit-Separation/

Review Summary: Dispirit's latest demo serves as a reminder not only of what the band is, but what they could rightly become in time.

Dispirit is the current outlet for legendary US metal figure John Gossard, most known for his work in the black metal band Weakling about fifteen years ago. While his most famous project has been defunct for years, Gossard and crew, in a way, continue Weakling’s legacy with their own brand of doom-and-reverb-laden darkness. But outside of sharing one key songwriter the two bands have virtually little in common; where Weakling’s music was fairly clean and clear (for black metal), Dispirit’s is as raw as black metal gets, using plenty of reverb (natural and synthetic, by my estimation) and low-quality recording techniques to create a suffocating, blurring cacophony of blackened doom metal.

And the sound on Disirit’s third demo is pretty bad. It sounds like the band recorded a jam session in a basement with a tape recorder placed clear on the other end of the room. Given that all of their demos include this same lo-fi recording style (and were recorded live, probably all at Oboroten), I’m pretty sure by now that this has absolutely been their intention from the start. But, while listening to their newest demo, Separation, one might begin to feel a slight pang of aggravation because, while the the two lengthy tracks here are excellent examples of the super raw, suffocating blackened mayhem that all “kvlt” fans should adore, it begins to become fairly obvious that these types of tracks could sound absolutely wonderful if recorded more properly in with less purposefully crude setup.

At this point, I think it’s mostly this insistence on the super crude sound that holds Dispirit back; while cultivating a reverb-filled, suffocating, and absolutely evil atmosphere on everything they’ve done so far, Dispirit’s potential feels never fully realized because of the crudeness of their recordings. Sure, the “reverb bouncing off the walls that almost makes me feel claustrophobic” effect their music has makes it seem powerful, mysterious, and a little bit off-putting, but the shroud of fog their music always comes wrapped in also has the effect of covering up some of the finer parts of their writing. While both Dispirit and Weakling make/made heavy use of melodic guitar leads overtop blackened riffs, Dispirit’s seem to often end up either blurred into or on top of the rhythm sections during their more cacophonous moments, either taking away a potential melodic edge to the music or robbing the rhythm section of some of its intended fury. And that really goes for the rest of the music as well--whether it be during the eleven-minute post-rock-esque doom build-up in “Funeral Frost” or the all-out blasting of “Odylic Void,” every element of the band’s sound tends to get blurred together to the point where particular details end up lost or barely audible. For fans of super lo-fi raw “kvlt” black metal this may very well serve as a selling point rather than a turnoff, but for fans of Gossard’s previous work the lack of clarity marks a clear flaw in the band’s presentation.

And that’s what makes demos like this so aggravating to listen to; you can feel how good this would be if it were actually part of a “proper” full-length and not just another demo tape--if the atmosphere and clarity between instruments were touched up and perfected just that little extra bit through less crude recording setups--whatever those might be. Dispirit may never have intended their material to compete with Dead As Dreams, but demos like Separation make the listener feel like maybe, just maybe, the band could give Gossard’s previous work a run for its money if they were ever to get something proper down on tape.

Despite the quality of the recording, though, Separation is still a fairly enjoyable raw atmospheric black metal/doom demo that fans of the lo-fi style should definitely find more than a little enthralling; it’s suffocating, it’s evil, and Gossard’s echo-y screech-howl vocals are some of the most interestingly atmospheric (and terrifying) I’ve heard in the genre in quite some time. The raw atmosphere captured here is so palpable it almost automatically conjures images of a band almost completely obscured by fog as they play in some barely-lit cave deep in the bowels of the earth.

I suppose Dispirit’s rawness creates an interesting divide in their potential appeal; on the one hand, those looking for raw cacophonies of swirling darkness should end up more than a little satisfied, while on the other those looking for the true successor to Dead As Dreams may be a little peeved by the band’s perceived wasting of their potential greatness. Whatever your poison, though, Separation is still serves as an excellent example of raw atmospheric black metal, whether or not it lives up to one's expectations of a “true” Weakling successor. And, given the band’s repeated joking of a proper full-length seeing release in the next 5-10 years, I suppose “Weakling-lite” will for now just have to suffice for all of us.

sadly I never got the tape of this presumably sold out but i got the d/l from bandcamp some months back. I do have the 1st demo tape tho

well, my number one placed

and ffs louis no it's not a tribute band

What was Henry's #1?

jingle cats, which is why i didnt allow him to submit a ballot

74 Melechesh - Enki 198 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/gocgmi6.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2pzxL1Bg8cAnpl5ckwjgA5
spotify:album:2pzxL1Bg8cAnpl5ckwjgA5

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/melechesh-enki-review-2/

am absolutely aware that many of you readers have been waiting with overflowing anticipation for a review of Melechesh‘s sixth opus, Enki. And who can blame you? 2010’s The Epigenesis was a solid, heavy, and above all enjoyable slab of Sumerian blackened thrash goodness that not only impressed The Big Boss himself, but also got yours truly to go searching through their back catalog to investigate their music further, discovering a treasure trove of incredible music from these Israeli wizards. So when Angry Metal Guy himself handed Enki off to me last week for review, I was frothing at the bit to deliver the goods to you. So what sonic magick have Ashmedi and cohorts delivered this fine eve for the readers of All Guys (and Madams) Metal and Angry?

When “Tempest Temper Enlil Enraged” truly kicks in at the :47 mark, you’re thrown into a sandstorm of brutality and melodic riffery. Ashmedi and fellow guitarist Moloch just shred and flail you alive with melody after crazed melody, with Lord Curse blasting his way like his very life depends on it. As the song progresses, it slows down just enough to keep from completely going off the rails but still keeps the intensity intact. Make no mistakes, you will windmill the ever-loving hell out of your neck and head to this, I promise you.

And while the first couple of tracks are just solid, perfect slabs of blackened thrash, you get some rather unpleasant sand kicked in your face once “Lost Tribes” plays, and this nagging problem is what keeps me from loving Enki more. Featuring one hell of a vocal duet with Max Cavalera (Soulfly), it’s a heavy, unforgiving scorcher of a track. Max hasn’t sounded this pissed off in ages, and Ashmedi plays off him very well, and when the duo hits their screams at 3:54, it’s such a perfect capstone to a great tune… but it continues on for another two minutes, and those two minutes aren’t nearly as captivating or intense as the previous almost-four. And it’s such a persistent problem throughout the majority of Enki: when a song has met its nadir and satisfied all hunger, it keeps feeding you with unnecessary calories. “Enki Divine Nature Awoken” features another duet, this time with Rotting Christ‘s Sakis Tolis, and would have been better shaved down to half its nearly-nine-minute runtime. The acoustic instrumental “Doorways to Irkala,” although incredibly peaceful, could have been left off the album entirely with no ill repercussions. The 12-plus-minute finale, “The Outsiders,” while picking things up a hair, still goes on for too long.

Another beef I have with the album is how squashed it is sonically. While George Bokos (ex-Rotting Christ) did a good job in capturing the richness of the guitars and the pummeling of Lord Curse’s drumming, Jonas Kjellgren’s mix compressed things way too much, with bassist Scorpios taking a major hit. This wouldn’t be too big a deal if their sound wasn’t so heavily based on their tuning their instruments to 432 MHz instead of the standard A440, which is perceived to leave deeper sonic vibrations within your psyche and make the listener more attuned with the universe. Of course, when you brickwall the music so much that Nergal is shaking his head at you, it becomes moot, and it’s such a bummer as there’s a ton of rich instrumentation to be had. Also, some edits have to be made. There’s about 40 minutes worth of captivating material on here, and this is an hour-and-two-minute long album. There’s obviously need for restraint there.

So while I’m happy that our Sumerian emissaries have returned from a five-year absence, I just wish Enki was condensed a bit more. There’s no denying that Melechesh deliver the goods quite well, but there’s also no denying that you can say a lot more with a bit less. It’s good, but it could have been a whole lot better.

mordy?

73 Thou & The Body - Released From Love / You, Whom I Have Always Hated 202 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/zNIpUdc.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/3F2bnlXxAVLznBQYkYwYyW
spotify:album:3F2bnlXxAVLznBQYkYwYyW

https://thebody.bandcamp.com/album/released-from-love-you-whom-i-have-always-hated

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19970-you-whom-i-have-always-hated/

7.6

The Body and Thou must get bored easily. During the last decade, both of these delirious doom metal squads have issued records at startling clips, the pace sometimes so speedy it’s as if they’re desperate to outrun the doomsdays of which they so often yell. Apart from a brief pause two years ago, New Orleans’ Thou have offered a few titles a year, many of them splits or EPs that rerouted their sludge through small new capillaries. Despite several dozen releases, they’ve managed but four (intriguing, at worst, and inescapable, at best) full-lengths.

Much the same holds for Providence-to-Portland duo the Body. To date, they too have favored splits or collaborations with pals old and new, instead of records entirely dependent upon their spartan if seismic guitar-and-drums configuration. Since their 2010 breakthrough All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood, itself a close hybrid with a hometown choir, they’ve released a few good splits, a terrific EP and only one album, the strangely self-satisfied Christs, Redeemers. Instead, some of their best work has arrived through a full-length collaboration with noise sculptor the Haxan Cloak and now their second of two collaborations with Thou, You, Whom I Have Always Hated. It is a match made of mania and menace.

The six-song set is available as a limited-edition record through Thrill Jockey, the Body’s most recent and stable home. The 10-track CD and digital editions, however, warrant the most attention, especially if you missed last year’s Released from Love. That four-song EP captured the two bands holed away in a Louisiana studio at the beginning of 2013. The results are included here not as a prequel but as a necessary companion to the recent arrivals. Those Southern sessions made it clear that this is a painful and powerful fit for complementary brutes. Perhaps because of their economical configuration, the Body often affixes parts that aren’t noise, drums, guitars, or screams to the ends and beginnings of songs. The more versatile Thou, however, allow for more engrained subtlety. During opener "The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills", Thou’s Bryan Funck delivers imprecations in his deep, full scream. Behind him, the Body’s Chip King squeals like a wounded animal, his high pitch offering a sliver of contrast to the mid-range, mid-tempo melee. A later cover of Vic Chesnutt’s "Coward" seems as terrifying for the singers as it does for the listener. In his raspy falsetto, King yells the opening lines like a death cry. The band builds behind Funck as he bellows the chorus—"I, I, I, I, I, I am a coward"—until they collapse in exhaustion around the sound of that last word. A counter-riff adds drama to the stentorian march of "In Meetings Hearts Beat Closer", while mutated bridges afford misdirection to the aptly named "Manifest Alchemy". Thou and the Body could be wider and wilder together than separately.

The new material springboards from that same synthesis. Recorded in Providence during the middle of a shared July 2014 tour, the second batch hits hardest when these two bands land as one. There’s perhaps no better example than their reverent but explosive take on Nine Inch Nails’ "Terrible Lie". The crews reanimate the industrial architecture of the original, with guitars and bass turning the melody into a mess of forceful chords and corrosive feedback. And the beat gets massive, punched down as if both drummers were born wielding sledgehammers. The sound is as colossal as the Body’s but as sharp and severe as Thou’s—a combination that makes the 1989 template feel, by comparison, like little more than a stripped skeleton. Though "The Devils of Trust Steal the Souls of the Free" begins like the Body with more guitars or Thou with more drums, it captivates when King and Funck again split vocals. The song’s commandments, like "Reach out and find nothing," only get shocking when it seems as though the whole world were yelling them at once. The pair slips when the results are expected, as if you’re listening to two bands play the same song at once rather than finesse the parts as one unit. "Her Strongholds Unvanquishable" and "Lurking Free" both stumble toward that mire, if not in it altogether. Tricks that make the Body and Thou’s own records interesting can start to feel like unnecessary crutches when they overcrowd the same shared space.

But those are aberrations for this collusion. Taken as a full-length by two groups that treat the format with some suspicion, You, Whom I Have Always Hated is a remarkably cohesive and singular album. Though it shows signs of both responsible parties, it also proves their inherent restlessness, as they’re both willing to bend toward one another to create something richer than they might have rendered themselves. It’s important that You, Whom I Have Always Hated marks the shortest effective span between successive LPs from either the Body or Thou. Perhaps together, they can continue to avoid boredom.

http://thequietus.com/articles/16999-the-body-and-thou-you-whom-i-have-always-hated-review

"Other people write about the bling and the booty. I write about the pus and the gnats. To me, that's beautiful." – Vic Chesnutt

Taking the sentiment behind the above quote from singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt into account, it's easy to see why his powerful track 'Coward' (from his 2009 album At The Cut, released prior to his overdose on Christmas Day of the same year) is a complete fit for collaborators-in-sludge, The Body and Thou, who covered it for their 2014 vinyl-only EP Released From Love. As far as cover songs go, their performance of 'Coward' makes conceptual sense considering the kind of emotionally raw music both bands have released to date. It also heightens the pain implicit in the original: that recognisably stark guitar line piercing amplified chords like a knife through an exposed heart; screams of "I'm a coward!" lingering long after the song has finished.

In addition to the aforementioned EP, which arrived unexpectedly, The Body and Thou shook the collective psyche of underground metal fans the world over with their respective 2014 full-length releases, I Shall Die Here and Heathen. Both albums were met favorably by fans and highly regarded by critics, and arguments could be made that The Body and Thou released their best work last year. While touring together in support of their individual albums, the chemistry between The Body and Thou was explored further, and the result of their creative kinship is heard on their full-length debut, titled You, Whom I Have Always Hated.

Both bands and their label are keen to stress that this is not a split release. Instead, it's a meeting of the twisted minds of two sludge acts currently at the top of their game. The release of You, Whom I Have Always Hated also comes with the first release of their EP in those formats, which spans the first four songs, culminating in the above-mentioned 'Coward' as track four. The preceding three songs are exactly what you would expect of a face-to-face meeting of The Body and Thou: The tongue-tying 'The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills', the slow, dense and noisy 'Manifest Alchemy', and the Burning Witch-isms of 'In Meetings Hearts Beat Closer' are borne of the same deep, wretched chords played through the unmistakably polluted tones we've come to love from these two acts. Thou take more of a lead role for those four songs, however, as their signature low-slung guitars scrape against the ground and release deafening feedback while singer Bryan Funck's acrid scream collides with The Body's Chip King's desperate howl (King constantly sounds like a man engulfed by flames, begging to have his misery quenched).

The previously unreleased songs on You, Whom I Have Always Hated take a slightly more industrial slant; possibly a result of The Body's recent relationship with British dark ambient/drone artist Haxan Cloak for I Shall Die Here. 'Her Strongholds Unvanquishable' marches to the same nihilistic beat as Godflesh; it's tangibly oppressive and shows both bands' strength as co-composers. 'The Devils Of Trust Steal The Soul Of The Free' may be over by the time you read its title aloud, but its violent forward thrust is a welcome addition – unlike the misstep inclusion of the bands' cover of the Nine Inch Nails classic 'Terrible Lie', which by all accounts went down a storm when they performed it together live at Gilead Festival in 2014. On record, though, the song is nothing more than a curiosity, and it makes an interesting yet already fragmented release that more uneven – the effect of its inclusion being in complete contrast with the successful integration of their version of 'Coward'.

While split releases and side projects have always been a part of metal (a showcase of talent – or a lack there of – if nothing else), collaborations have been less prevalent. It seems though that the internet has opened up this as an increasingly viable creative alternative for likeminded musicians, and the results have generally been positive. For instance, two of 2014's best heavy albums came from collaborations – Sunn O))) providing the dark space for Scott Walker's genius, and Full Of Hell's white-hot grind grating up against Merzbow's peerless command of noise. The Body and Thou's collaboration, though at times coalescing into a perfect rumble (See: 'Lurking Free'), with its reverberations capable of rattling chest cavities (See: the pretentiously titled 'Beyond The Realms Of Dreams, That Fleeting Shade Under The Corpus Of Vanity'), lacks the desired cohesion from beginning to end to impart the feeling of a complete album. However, this is understandable, given the fact that some of the songs were recorded at different times and how the songs from the EP have been subsumed here.

At its best, this release highlights the bleak force that these bands can channel and how impactful it is when united as one. While other times, the music sways more into either The Body's artsy, feedback-frazzled creepy-crawl or Thou's more traditional sludge; which is no bad thing, it's just not as interesting as when they form a hive mind intent on making your eardrums explode. Hopefully this will not be the last we hear from the prolific pairing of Thou and The Body, because there's definitely plenty of space in sound to explore this project further.

clearly all these albums are boring and not worth commenting on!!! :D

Don't look at me. None of my votes have placed so far today. The trve heads need to get typing!

Same here, I havent had one place since I think Black Cilice

72 Akhlys - The Dreaming I 203 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/xUQK8TQ.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1w79KGZRlN89OFwtQcu9b3
spotify:album:1w79KGZRlN89OFwtQcu9b3

https://dmp666.bandcamp.com/album/the-dreaming-i

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/akhlys-dreaming-review/

I’ve been known to have some very vivid, fucked up dreams. One involved my closest friends and I at a pirate-themed amusement park. A gunshot rang out, and my best friend hit the ground, bullet between the eyes, and people scattered to avoid getting pinged off by a crazed gunman with a sniper rifle. One by one, my friends were felled by this mysterious masked man, and as I was cornered by the rum barrels of the pirate ship, both scared shitless and seasick, the masked man inched towards me, stuffed parrot squawking on his shoulder, and he slowly began to remove his ski-mask, revealing himself as American talk-show host/eternal paternity test-giver Maury Povich, letting me know, once and for all, that I was not the father before he pulled the trigger and I woke up. And with that, Akhlys! Conceived by Nightbringer and Bestia Arcana mainman Naas Alcameth, his newest excursion into esoteric blackened realms focuses on the power of dreams and their connection to spirituality, with only one 37-minute song, “Supplication,” released beforehand. Does their full-length debut, The Dreaming I, carry you to the darker spirit realms, or are you better off just taking some melatonin and valerian root and hoping for the best?

Keeping with the ethereal vibe of dreams and spiritual awakenings, “Breath and Levitation” crawls in with creepy whooshes, what sounds like wood knocking, and some simple chugs of guitar and bass with a snare hit every now and then. And when I say “crawls in,” I mean “for the first two and a half minutes.” After that, it’s full-on blasting, blaring, blackened fury. Alcameth’s screams are witch-like and furious, yet somewhat discernible, which for black metal is no mean feat. Also witch-like and furious are his multi-layered guitars, with incredible tremolo melodies draped over each other, melding together like a symbiotic skin over drummer Ain’s vice-grip drums. And just before the 8:00 mark, a moment of silence comes out of nowhere before a breakdown hits that would make Blut Aus Nord give a serious glance or two. Quite incredible.

And it’s this amalgamation of Hierophany of the Open Grave-era Nightbringer and heady ambience that helps The Dreaming I punctuate your cranium long after the 45-minute runtime ends. Despite the 16-minute length (with four of those minutes being ambient sound effects), “Consummation” is the best Memoria Vetusta song Blut Aus Nord neglected to write, with yet another silence-and-then-BOOM! moment at 9:22, leaving one hell of a demonic grin on my face. However, if there’s a case for Alcameth’s standing among the American black metal pantheon, it’s the second track, “Tides of Oneiric Darkness.” This is just sheer ferocity, with some of the best tremolo melodies I’ve heard this year, elevating things to cold, atmospheric heights. And at only five minutes and thirty-three seconds, it does the job quite well without overstaying its welcome.

There are nits to pick, however. For as punishing as this album is, the production is even more so. Everything is cranked to 11, and although you can hear the drums just fine, the guitars can become a muddled mess. And bass? PFFFFFFFT!!! Also, even though it’s five songs at 45 minutes, it can be a bit of a difficult listen at times (with final song “Into the Indigo Abyss” being just ambient noise), and patience, as well as your attention, is demanded here.

Still, this is just behind Imperial Triumphant as my favorite black metal album this year. This is some pretty impressive stuff, and if you enjoy Alcameth’s work with Nightbringer, than The Dreaming I is a no-brainer. So consume, slip away, and remember that you are NOT the father.

tr00 heads are t00 c00l to p0st

its funny how there's so much death and black metal in the poll this year but the voters aren't commenting. Next year we should ban the extreme stuff ;)

Liked what I heard of this. Believe that mysterious user tangenttangent voted for it so I might check it out in more detail later

I tried to persuade Brad to do an emo/hardcore/mallrock/alt-rock poll this year but he said next year instead.

ahhh so tangenttangent is erm known to you imago?

it will have been speculated

anyone else want to sell me akhlys too?

Akhlys!

obviously too low

71 Sulphur Aeon - Gateway to the Antisphere 210 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/IYmyTby.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2KAUwiIyXLV8nrQtZJ9gk8
spotify:album:2KAUwiIyXLV8nrQtZJ9gk8

https://sulphuraeon-vanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gateway-to-the-antisphere

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/sulphur-aeon-gateway-antisphere-review/

MG’s Law of Diminishing Recordings is a cruel mistress. She delivers a cold left hook to the smiling face of over-optimism, reminding us time and time again that in no way does a great record necessitate a great follow-up. Through this we learn the value of cautious optimism, reasonable expectations, and keeping a cool head when looking forward to an upcoming release. In most cases, that’s how I approach new music from a band I’m already excited about. Sulphur Aeon releasing a new record is decidedly not “most cases,” and I was beyond excited when Gateway to the Antisphere was announced. After many spins of this 51 minute beast, my excitement disappeared.

…Only to be replaced with absolute fucking exhilaration. The band’s 2013 full-length debut Swallowed by the Ocean’s Tide stood head-and-shoulders above the vast majority of metal released that year with a crushing sound that brought together the best qualities of Behemoth, early Hypocrisy, Immolation, and orthodox black metal (Watain, Ascension) for good measure. They haven’t changed their sound in 2015, and still bring melodies on par with Hypocrisy’s best and punishing riffs that crush with brute force, writhe with sinister slithering tremolo patterns, and combine to form a sound incorporating the best material of those three bands above. If Demigod-onward Behemoth was better at death metal yet still incorporated quality black metal, their rhythm guitars would sound a good bit like Sulphur Aeon.

It’s tough to pick one or two songs from Gateway to the Antisphere as standouts, as each of the eleven songs is nigh-on masterful. “He Is the Gate” is monstrous throughout, but the three minute mark is just ridiculous, and I’m almost inclined to call T.’s guitar interplay here beautiful. My only reservation is the decidedly un-metal connotations of that word, as I’d be selling Sulphur Aeon short if I said these melodies aren’t pummeling in addition to being affective. “Into the Courts of Azathoth” has all of the crushing majesty one would expect from a song about the highest god in the Cthulu mythos, and a recurring reverb-drenched melody is bolstered by varied and consistently great rhythm guitar parts being played underneath it. It’s a simple touch, but a classic case of little things making big differences.

Sulphur Aeon - Gateway to the Antisphere 02

For a band releasing their sophomore record, Sulphur Aeon are incredibly advanced and mature songwriters and performers. D.’s drums are simply phenomenal, and they make the already great riffs from T. truly shine, with the dense churning in unison of drums and guitar at the end of “Devotion to the Cosmic Chaos” being a prime example among a myriad others. The vocals of M. are a huge asset and his powerful straight-from-the-diaphragm growling and shrieking is a touch more varied than on the excellent debut, adding more points of interest to the already captivating music. His vocals are so convincing that the screams of “Yog-Sothoth!” in “He Is the Gate” come across awesome instead of silly, and I’d wager that’s an accomplishment. I’ve mentioned T.’s guitars already, but these riffs and melodies are top-tier stuff that death metal bands should aspire to, and the consistent excellence on display here is staggering. I rip on intro and outro tracks all the time here, but Sulphur Aeon managed to craft one of each that are both beneficial to the overall experience and enjoyable a la carte.

I had high expectations for Gateway to the Antisphere, but Sulphur Aeon managed to exceed them in an effort even stronger than their outstanding debut. The master is a bit squashed, but as much as I cherish high DR scores, the production here suits Sulphur Aeon’s music to a tee, approximating what being crushed under the weighty pressure of the deepest chasms of the ocean would sound like run through a death metal filter. Gateway to the Antisphere is a brilliant record that has set the already high bar for 2015 a little bit higher. Any record that can be as simultaneously emotional, melodic, punishing, and memorable as this deserves everyone’s attention, and it will take something truly monumental to knock this out of the top spot of 2015.

probably should have voted for this

a little Behemoth definitely comes to mind

Harking back to Imperial Triumph...why the fuck is the main guy called Goddessraper? Put my gf and right off giving it a proper go, and it seemed so promising otherwise

*and I

pretty shit as far as tough guy metal pseudonyms go

OOH I'M CONTROVERSIAL!!

Albini had the sense to drop that schtick 30 years ago

70 False - Untitled 212 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/rePfNlM.jpg

https://gileadmedia.bandcamp.com/album/untitled-2015

At long last, we have the new album from the Minneapolis black metal project, False. After an Untitled EP in 2011, and a split LP with Barghest in 2012, they now return with their first proper full-length album, once again an untitled release.

Throughout the sixty-minute run time of the album, False dive deeper into the realm of visceral and relentless black metal for which they’ve become well-known. Their live sound and ferocity is finally captured here, revealing a whole new depth and darkness that has only been hinted at on previous recordings. This album is far from a simple exercise in listening, and more akin to a journey to be experienced. The works contained therein are incredibly bleak and emotionally powerful, with a long lasting impact.

This Untitled album was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Adam Tucker at Signaturetone Recording, with artwork by Nicole Sara Simpkins. It will be presented as a gatefold CD and gatefold 2LP, each pressed in a quantity of 1000. It will be available in stores on June 16, 2015, with direct pre-orders available Thursday, April 9th.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20699-untitled/

8.0

The Minnesota sextet False have gained an impressive amount of attention from a deceptively sparse catalog. They only have two prior releases, an EP from 2012 and a 2013 split with Gilead Media labelmates Barghest, but they've impressed extreme music fans and critics alike, meaning their full-length debut Untitled arrives to uncommon anticipation. That full-length resembles other bands that fall into the category of "USBM"—there is a sense of magnitude to False's music, which is enriched with atmospheric orchestration. But they don't fall into a "more is less" problem, bogging down and overextending their tracks with unmemorable passages. With Untitled, False expand on their sound without diluting it, proving they are worthy of their promise and making good on the tantalizing glimpses of their earlier works.

The secret to the album's power is in large part to their understated approach to melody. Juxtaposing harmony and dissonance is old hat in extreme music, and especially so with the more recent successes of bands like Deafheaven or Alcest, but False presents that same contrast as a kind of musical photo negative, where melody and harmony lead naturally into entropy. Opener "Saturnalia" builds with a slow burning ferocity before exploding into a storm of discordant wails and growls, while both "The Deluge" and closer "Hedgecraft" venture close to what would undoubtedly be an easily accessible melodic hook, if they followed the impulse all the way. As it turns out, that subdued and suggestive approach to a payoff gives the record another one of its most formidable strengths.

For all the winding orchestration of Untitled (remember: there are six members in this band), moments of needless filler are rare-to-nonexistent. Considering the fact that only one of the album's five tracks falls shy of the 10-minute mark, that is a remarkable achievement. Black metal, as a subgenre, is both steeped in musical complexity and devoted to the simplicity of its form. That is, regardless of how far the music itself may spiral outside the self-imposed bounds of black metal, its fulcrum remains the straightforward blast-beat, the tremolo-driven guitars, and the interpretation of its thrash and death metal forbearers. With Untitled, False have not reinvented any forms or introduced some unchartered territory for black metal. There is plenty of wanton ugliness here, both in the scrape of the vocals and the murk of the production. But the songs also find intriguing divergent paths before returning every track to its chaotic source.

One of extreme music's most divisive and yet at once magnetic subgenres, black metal is as musically steeped in complexity as it is in the simplicity of its form. False reckon brilliantly with both halves of this equation. They have simply offered a new perspective on the shadow and light, the ugliness and beauty, that define their genre. For that reason, every outstanding minute of Untitled shines with brilliant darkness.

I bought this on bandcamp the other day because of this poll

They were amazing live.

everyone seems too busy on the other ilm poll nomination thread.

Will have to run this poll earlier next year

pitchfork's tracklist was sans metal, which has enraged everyone too much to post here obv

wouldn't expect any metal in a tracklist tbh

I'm trying to not be negative this year so only posting when I have something nice to say.

do Decibel even do one? I think Kerrang did (but obviously that was sans metal too)

lol ez i wondered why you were so quiet ;)

Also I haven't heard a lot of what's come up. Should have posted my "Hurrah for Dead to a Dying World" but I missed it at the time. But I'm glad to see my friends get some love.

missed nothing. anyone can comment on anything in the poll at any time they like.

tom usually catches up with 100-80 hen everyones on the top 20 and he still comments

plus large #s 100-81 catch-up type posts are an ilx tradition

69 Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud 214 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/k5OhMJB.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/483FjIrPjCZ7UFJ8Ey2MaV
spotify:album:483FjIrPjCZ7UFJ8Ey2MaV

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/amorphis-under-the-red-cloud-review/

Under the Red Cloud marks the 12th studio album from Finland’s grandfathers of extreme metal, the band’s sixth LP with Tomi Joutsen as vocalist and his 10th year in the band. The string of Tomi’s six records started with 2006’s Eclipse and had an absolutely epic beginning. Eclipse, Silent Waters and Skyforger showed the band’s new found drive and energy, reclaiming some of their death metal heritage, while veering further into what Nuclear Blast has fittingly labeled ‘melancholy rock.’ Unfortunately, Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™ is a fickle mistress, and The Beginning of Times and Circle were both records that were good, but lacked the urgency of that initial trilogy. These records saw the band pushing into newer territory—heavy Jethro Tull influences bled through on the former, while Circle developed some of the band’s folky elements in cool ways. Neither album gripped me. But when Amorphis releases an album, it’s hard for me not to get excited, and upon seeing the cover art for Under the Red Cloud, all that warm anticipation came back. And fortunately, they didn’t disappoint.

Under the Red Cloud is a return to form for Amorphis, and the most cohesive album the band has released since 2009’s Skyforger. Clocking in at 50 minutes, it’s made of ten thematically cohesive tracks. The album isn’t a story though. Instead, the lyrics (written, as always, by Pekka Kainulainen) are conceptually foreboding; about living under a red cloud in troubled times. The music matches this feel, and while I wouldn’t say the album is necessarily so much heavier than previous records, it may have been influenced by the 20th Anniversary of Tales from the Thousand Lakes, because the band has certainly produced the most growl-heavy material of the Joutsen-era.

You wouldn’t notice that on the opening title track, however. “Under the Red Cloud” starts with an atmospheric piano bolstered by throbbing bass and a clean guitar in harmonic minor before merging into prime Amorphis territory: a chunky, groovy riff with Tomi’s cleans augmenting the sound perfectly. This format—the classic hard rock song-writing—is the stamp with which the band’s newer material has largely been pressed. “Sacrifice” is similar, breaking in with a “House of Sleep” intro, and a heavy, syncopated verse before giving way to a hooky chorus and a slick guitar melody. “Bad Blood” features Tomi’s growl in the verse, but it’s heavy on the groove and light on the melody before giving way to an epic chorus and beautiful bridge.

Amorphis isn’t afraid of their death metal side here. Between “The Four Wise Ones” and “Death of a King,” every single track starts with growls, and the former doesn’t feature any clean vocals from Joutsen at all—instead there’s a short bridge with a haunting, effected vocal line that evokes Elegy. “The Four Wise Ones” and “The Dark Path” both feature crescendos with a ’90s black metal feel—wet with keys and a trem-picked melodies—only undermined by Rechberger’s refusal to use blast beats and Tomi’s growls. The death-laden material works well, though moments like the verse in “Bad Blood” or “Death of a King,” which is one of the singles from Under the Red Cloud, are places where I would have chosen clean vocals rather than growls.

There is a danger, however, in Amorphis‘s modern sound, in that it’s pretty easy to fall into a rut. A fairly close listen to Under the Red Cloud reveals that the songs pretty much all follow the same structure, which when the band isn’t producing their sharpest writing can become repetitive. When the album hits its stride, though, it’s an extremely well-crafted record. From “Sacrifice” to “White Night” is a stretch of pure enjoyment—each song flowing into the next, while peaking on the final two tracks. “Tree of Ages” features a folky Celtic theme that has been stuck in my head since the first time I heard it, and “White Night” is a moody track that closes the album out with a surge.

Under the Red Cloud is a very good album and a return to form. The record simply sounds like Amorphis; the band has developed a sound that bridges the gap between their old material and the new—with plenty of moments on here that remind me of Elegy and Tuonela with sitar (“Death of a King”) or bong water keyboard solos (“Enemy at the Gates”). And it’s incredible how the band’s riffing can still be so idiosyncratic. “The Skull” and “Enemy at the Gate” have riffs you only hear in Amorphis and Barren Earth; and after 12 records they still pull them off without feeling like they’re ripping themselves off. Consistency is a virtue for big bands if they’re any good, but I think there are hints on UtRC that Amorphis could get more adventurous going forward, and I hope they do. Until that time, though, I’ll be sitting here enjoying these tunes under the red clouds.

there seem a disproportionately high number of semi-interesting BM rackets this year

not necc this

they are one of the bigger extreme metal bands, imago

not obscure enough for you to try?

68 Shining - International Blackjazz Society 214 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/XyOqSSn.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5rvlfsiQskxsiRmct4xZ9H
spotify:album:5rvlfsiQskxsiRmct4xZ9H

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21106-international-blackjazz-society/

By Brad Nelson; October 22, 2015
7.0

On their 2010 album Blackjazz, the Norwegian jazz/prog collective Shining absorbed metal into their aesthetic, and it seemed to focus them. On earlier records the band, organized around multi-instrumentalist Jørgen Munkeby, were more elusive, but Blackjazz was an album made entirely of jagged shapes, like the irregular, violent architecture of a cliffside. It feels aggressively assembled, as if its ideas of metal and jazz were less harmonized than magnetized together. The follow-up, 2013’s One One One, reduced them into an atomically unstable industrial rock band. While thrilling, the album could have the remoteness of a formal exercise.

International Blackjazz Society sounds like a compression of these two approaches, but it evolves into something distinct as you listen. Unlike One One One, the songs here don’t simply accelerate until they expire. There’s more space in the arrangements, and the songs expand into the room they’re afforded. Some of this shift can be credited to new drummer Tobias Ørnes Andersen, who plays industrial music with more patience and tension than previous drummer and founding Shining member Torstein Lofthus. "Thousand Eyes" feels like stoner metal, of all things; the riff is a little more drunk than the band usually allows. "House of Warship" is free jazz, which is actually new territory for Shining; even their freest moments on previous records seemed premeditated, a kind of organized collapse. Whenever Munkeby plays saxophone on International Blackjazz Society the songs sound as if they’re sprouting fractals.

Still, even as the band relaxes into new atmospheres there’s an extreme, ascetic discipline on display. The architecture of their music is modernist, a series of inelastic and inorganic shapes colliding with the velocity of a distant level of "Tetris". On International Blackjazz Society’s final track, "Need", you can feel this refined performance begin to rupture. It’s as unhinged as it is straightforward; as it acquires mass in the choruses it seems to list off the ground into some new, uncertain gravity. For all the blur and motion of their music, this hint of deeper chaos might be the album's most exciting moment.

this record is good but i wanted more from it. miss old shining

also not to pretend i know anything about drumming but i like their new drummer way less than their old drummer

that sulphur aeon record is the shit though

I too miss old Shining

I remember when Shining placing used to get you lot excited

67 Tyranny - Aeons in Tectonic Interment 220 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/6NiVfTi.jpg

https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/aeons-in-tectonic-interment
TYRANNY -- featuring within its ranks current and former members of Corpsessed and Wormphlegm among others -- will unleash their first new studio offering in a decade this Fall via Dark Descent Records. Titled Aeons In Tectonic Interment, the record offers up five diseased psalms of slow, tortured, epically bowel-rupturing grimness. Composed, performed and tracked by members Matti Mäkelä and Lauri Lindqvist with additional percussion by Jussi-Pekka Manner and mastered by D. Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio (Absu, Pallbearer, Profetus, Sigh, Wodensthrone etc.), Aeons In Tectonic Interment is at once spiritual and ill-omened; a fifty-one-minute soul-searing sound apocalypse where misanthropy, suffering and imminent ruin become one achieving purification through sonic decay.

http://www.metalinjection.net/reviews/album-review-tyranny-aeons-in-tectonic-interment

I once heard funeral doom as a genre that can be measured in beats per hour. I don't disagree, for the most part. The down trodden, doomy slowdown the last few years have seen has been something of a breath of fresh air. But one that also crowds the lungs and verges on breaking the rib cage. Tyranny, however, come from a time when doom wasn't all the slow pitched, stoned out rage it is today.

With track record of playing about as fast as they release albums, Tyranny don't have much to answer to in terms of a discography (specifically, an EP and an LP). It's been ten years since the Lahti, Finland duo broke ashore with Tides of Awakening. And their crushing, slow-as-hell approach hasn't changed much as they've moved, albeit slowly, into Aeons in Tectonic Interment.

Aeons in Tectonic Interment as a title certainly represents the album well. For one, it has been, again, ten years. And ten years ago I was twenty and in college. That does seem like at least fucking aeon ago. Concerning tectonics, Tyranny are heavy, crushing bastards when they play. And not dispensing with the Lovecrafian feel that the band has carried, this is a release that solidifies what Tides of Awakening set up. Though the production has been significantly cleaned up, much of everything else remains the same.

If you're new or a bit unfamiliar with funeral doom here's a tidbit: the genre is far more focused around mood and slow tempos. And if a band can't nail mood then there's likely little the album has to offer. Tyranny are, luckily, the kind of band that can hold a mood most of the time. Aeons in Tectonic Interment isn't just a heavy record, it's something that broods and bleeds as it puts one heavy foot in front of the other. When “Sunless Deluge” starts you'll notice Tyranny getting down to business a lot faster than they had last time. The song gets noisey, then gets heavy and drones. The vocals are still dig straight down to the pits of Hell, or the shores of Rh'leyah. Take your pick.

There's a lot of bands that shoot for the H.P. Lovecraft theme these days (e.g.: Electric Wizard, Portal, Coffinfish, Temple of Dagon, etc.) but Tyranny feel like they're really pulling off a summoning ritual. Like some Eldritch horror is about to come crawling out of the speakers and break your mind. The thing is, Tyranny have a tendency to fall out of the loop, and in turn fall too harshly on drone. Don't get me wrong, the album can be plenty moody, and when it pulls it off, the band is a force of otherworldly nature. But there's points where the piece simply over-cook their moods and burn out too quickly.

Aeons in Tectonic Interment is a good album. It has some killer vibes and manages to bring a real bleak feel to some of their songs. Is it the kind of album a funeral doom fence sitter would wanna walk in to? Not so much. Tyranny has a good thing going on but casual listeners might find themselves wondering if the album is ever going to pick up steam. The answer is here and there, but not enough that it's going to drag a lot of new fans into its watery, crushing clutches. Funeral doom fans, well, you're probably already on this (as you should be). Aeons in Tectonic Interment is a good representation of how the genre can crush stones underneath its hopeless, heavy, grim sound.

been a great year for some of the original funeral doom bands

probably the least known and lowest selling subgenre in metal , yet somehow more popular than it ever was yet stil the least known etc

Too brutal for those who only want fast guitars

oh hey i definitely want to hear this tyranny record

hmmm, do I detect sarcasm young brad?

nah i love funeral doom

66 Midnight Odyssey - Shards Of Silver Fade 236 Points, 7 One #1
http://i.imgur.com/K4R10Ov.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3rTyM1AkQ1ymEyP3DxhiqL
spotify:album:4ujXxE5P4c49hUOhAfoU3R

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/shards-of-silver-fade

If MIDNIGHT ODYSSYE's previous work, 2011's "Funerals From The Astral Sphere" has become a cult release and today is cherished as one of the finest examples of atmospheric black metal, 'Shards Of Silver Fade' is certainly going to break new grounds and to impose the Australian act on a wider audience, independently from metal sub-genres and styles.

The funeral doom grandeur of Tempestuous Fall and the dark-wave vibe of The Crevices Below - sole member Dis Pater's past projects - have been successfully injected into Midnight Odyssey's cosmic black metal body, redoubling the emotional intensity and dark majesty of its melodies.
The result is nothing short of an epic masterpiece, a visionary night voyage of approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes connecting our ancient pagan past with the apocalyptic feelings of a cosmic death.

But as much as death chants, these are also songs of rebirth, hymns to a new life and awareness for Humanity, under brighter stellar lights. "It is exactly like finding a place in the universe, being given a spiritual connection with everything around you, making you feel alive and very much part of the existence around you," Dis Pater explains. "But making you feel somewhat important too, and not just another speck of dust."

The Australian musician thinks of 'Shards Of Silver Fade' as the crowning achievement of MIDNIGHT ODYSSEY's brilliant career. "I can say that each song has taken an immense amount of time and energy, so much that I have been left with little to no desire to even listen to music over the last 12 months or so. It combines elements of all my previous releases, from all my previous projects, a true convergence of styles and musicality. If this was the last Midnight Odyssey release, I would be very proud for it to be so."
credits
released June 8, 2015

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/midnight-odyssey-shards-silver-fade-review/

Ok, be honest. If I told you today’s review was for a double album that clocked in at nearly 160 minutes and consisted of atmospheric blackened doom metal, what would you say? Well, if you’ve heard of Midnight Odyssey, my guess is that you would either say, “No shit, it’s out?” or “Fuck, not them again…” If you don’t know of the band you might say, “Oh wow, I gots to hear me some of that” or “fuck that dribble.” Honesty from Honest Abe Grier, my initial thought veered to the latterest of the latters. The idea of sitting through slow-building atmospheres, auditory representations of depressive landscapes stitched together with heavy synths, wannabe Quorthon-meets-David Gold clean vocals, and some tunnel shrieking seemed overwhelming and exhausting. Not to mention that I could drive halfway across the State during the runtime. But after releasing a very respectable one-hour demo in Firmament and having already tackled a two-hour epic with Funerals from the Astral Sphere (hehe, I said “sphere”), there are definitely things in their sound that work. But can they do it again with Shards of Silver Fade? Will I get lost in this new release like I did Funerals? Should there be a government-controlled cap on album length? Stop with the questions!

Because you have to put up with over two hours of music, I’ll just give you the short answers, sorta. Like many of the one-man bands reviewed this year, Midnight Odyssey’s Dis Pater clearly dumped every damn ounce of his soul into Funerals. Nearly four years after that, Pater crafts you another 2+ hour slab of sadness, darkness, and ambiance that comes close to topping its predecessor, but I still feel that Pater’s ultimate achievement remains Funerals (even though Funerals… has its share of filler and could have been a great 1-1.25 hour album). Regardless of length, Pater’s sound requires intense steeping and only after your bones are finally saturated with the doom and gloom, will you find your inner Dr. Downer.

Unfortunately, Shards of Silver Fade feels long and lacks some of the originality and the somber efficacy found throughout Funerals. Like that opus, this still has some semblance of a midway point in its eight tracks for a quick breather, but these two discs feel like, well… one really long album. Some of this lengthy feeling may also have to do with its eight tracks versus the sixteen found on its precursor. Having more actual song and directions changes throughout its length somehow made Funerals more digestable and memorable.

Midnight Odyssey Shards of Silver Fade 02The first four tracks of this album (technically, the first disc of this two-discer) are actually quite good. “From a Frozen Wasteland,” “Hunter of the Celestial Sea,” “Son of Phoebus,” and “A Ghost in Gleaming Stars” build from a slow moving train of Viking-era Quorthon vox and a doomy pace before growing into a powerful momentum that’s killed off and resurrected in the form of Wintersun-esque keys in “Son of Phoebus.” This enveloping sadness is then transformed into beautiful, piano-driven depression in “A Ghost in Gleaming Stars” before the song slips off into oblivion.

The second half, on the other hand, opens with some crushing, melodic black metal (rasps included) that swaps aggression for peace in the intro to “Starlight Oblivion,” and then resumes its wispy, blackened atmospheres. After mingling with moody atmospheres, it strips down to simplistic acoustic-guitar work as mournful Woods of Ypres character builds it back up into the blackened, gloomy tower that most songs on the album strive to be. After some massive drum work, a final transition occurs in the title track as Pater’s morose Moonspell vocal approach finally puts this giant to sleep.

Shards of Silver Fade is a journey. There is no other way to describe it and it must be taken as a whole to absorb its mood and atmosphere. With that, it’s difficult at times to remember the beginning once you’ve reached the end. Even after listening to this release nearly a dozen times, the only way to pass its substance onto the reader is by following it as I write. Shards… has moments of beauty, moments of captivation, and moments of splendor; however, it’s so long it becomes a chore to come back to and combining the first half with “Starlight Oblivion” and maybe the title track would have been sufficient to make this a strong album. Thankfully, the DR9 rating gives it great listenability but this redundancy brings makes it less enjoyable than the regular variations and majesty found on Funerals from the Astral Sphere.

http://www.themonolith.com/music/review-midnight-odyssey-shards-silver-fade/

http://yourlastrites.com/reviews/8645/midnight-odyssey-shards-of-silver-fade

I really liked that Dispirit tape, I didn't hear it until last week or so but it still managed to claw its way to my #11.

I kind of liked the Absconditus record, too. I might go back to it and try it again later when the rollout is but a distant memory.

I love that Melechesh. Make my DM exotic please.

cant say I'd heard of Midnight Odyssey until this poll.

Which one of you had it at #1?

not me.

^ and the Midnight Odyssey sounds like something I'd enjoy, or possibly something that would bore the hell out of me. I have in the past liked black metal with alien planetscapes on the cover (Petrychor, Spectral Lore).

65 Bosse-de-Nage - All Fours 237 Points, 7 Votes

http://www.invisibleoranges.com/bosse-de-nage-all-fours/

The 2012 Deafheaven​/​Bosse​-​de​-​Nage split 12″ was a 20 minute meetup of two precocious experimental black metal bands from the San Francisco Bay Area. Deafheaven had debuted their Roads to Judah full-length the preceding year, and Bosse-de-Nage had a trilogy of self-titled albums prior to the split 12” (referred to as Bosse-de-nage, II, and III, respectively). A year later, Deafheaven unleashed Sunbather. With that album, Deafheaven took musical cues from non-metal acts like Mogwai (they covered their track “Cody” on the 2012 split) and Slowdive. The public’s response was gargantuanly worshipful, and Sunbather was the most favorably-reviewed album of 2013.

Bosse-de-Nage are now releasing All Fours, a spellbinding follow-up to their split with Deafheaven. Unlike Sunbather, All Fours doesn’t occupy a gigantic amount of sonic space; the record’s sound is tight and unadorned, similar to Steve Albini’s classic production style. “Washerwoman” takes direct influence from Slint, a group who were produced by Albini. The guitars are slow and tip-toey, yet slightly on edge. Frontman Bryan Manning has a jaded spoken-word delivery towards the beginning of the track, very similar to Brian McMahan on Slint’s legendary album Spiderland.

Also, lyrics have an especial emphasis. The promo copy came with an attached PDF lyric sheet, unlike other promos I’ve downloaded. Manning’s vocal poetry is grotesque and frightening, but masterfully constructed. For example, the villainous female subject of “Washerwoman” has wicked, sexual intentions: “The light grows dim, and with her mouth full of lather she announces, ‘I come from the City of Hair beyond the Wrinkled Mountain and I will not rest until I’ve washed every penis in this room.’”

“At Night” is suffused with earthquaking drums and disturbing, tremolo-picked progressions, along with a zest of Swans’ monumental tumult. Manning growls about Marie, a recurring figure in Bosse​-​de​-​Nage’s repertoire. On past tracks like “Marie Pisses Upon The Count” (Bosse-de-Nage) and “Marie In a Cage” (II), she is painted as a foul and lustful display-piece. In “At Night,” Marie serves as a ghastly, erotic outlet for Manning’s speaker: “The ashes cling to the urine on her torn clothes forming new, amusing patterns each time. / At night she reenacts scenes from her passion. / She kicks and screams on all fours – her violent dressage thrills me.” Darkly sexual descriptions like this ring similar to the lyrics of Pig Destroyer’s JR Hayes, who pens about similar subject matter.

Bosse-de-Nage and Deafheaven are zealous about artistic, evocative lyrics and compelling melodies; relentless black metal energy helps accentuate their attributes. However, out of the two, Bosse-de-Nage is closer to the ethos of black metal. All Fours’ music is fucking grim, while Sunbather is frequently major-keyed and blissful-sounding, and All Fours’ tight production style was intrinsic to black metal ancestors like Darkthrone and Burzum.

On top of this, Bryan Manning’s stanzas turn the album into a hellish beauty. His lyrics, an integral aspect of Bosse-de-Nage, warrant an extensive literary theory essay. Y’know, we’re actually learning about poetry in English this semester – maybe I’ll analyze All Fours for my final paper.

puke

says the Liturgy fan :D

fine line, my friend

a good album!

did not need to know those lyrics tho

I haven't heard this album I dont think but it doesnt seem offputting

is it because deafheaven got mentioned in the review?

the lyrics and the entire concept are extremely offputting

i dunno their last few were good but they're starting to sound like a boring postrock band

the lyrics and the entire concept are extremely offputting

― La Lechuza (La Lechera), Monday, December 14, 2015 9:04 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I prefer III but it's still a good album

also that album cover, dear god, it's a like a misogynist kayo dot vomiting at you

it's disgusting
i can't think of a boring postrock band who would write an album with this concept or lyrical content

the cover is very bad indeed

The next album is coming to you via a large mug of this
https://www.fortnumandmason.com/products/rose-pouchong-20-large-leaf-tea-bags

We need more tea friendly metal

love the Midnight Odyssey album, it's basically sleep metal

Midnight Odyssey was the only new metal album I heard this year. Adore the style, like the album very much, but yeah, some tracks are too long and needed more complexity.

64 Mastery - Valis 241 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/V02fjSP.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7aewpt4khNEBJQ4sSlFJBM
spotify:album:7aewpt4khNEBJQ4sSlFJBM

https://theflenser.bandcamp.com/album/valis

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20272-valis/
8.0

Among many other projects, Bay Area vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ephemeral Domignostika puts out solo material as Mastery, including splits with Skullflower and Palace of Worms as well as a 2011 demo compilation Barbaric Usurpation of the Hypereonic Black Metal Throne. These early releases suggested a budding technical brilliance and a desire to take black metal as far as it could go, but none were adequate preparation for Mastery’s first full-length. Valis is an exercise in hyperactive neuron overload, one of the more challenging black metal albums in recent memory.

This is the first time Ephemeral Domignostika’s vision has been so clear; the memorable riffs are here, but he pushes them all to their breaking point. He plays with the velocity of Orthrelm's Mick Barr and the inventiveness of Gridlink’s Takafumi Matsubara. To call this music "dense" would be an understatement, as he piles on the skronky twists and synapse-melting tapping, pausing only for a couple of ambient interludes ("A.S.H.V.E.S.S.E.L." and "I.L.K.S.E.E.K.E.R.") and moments where the electrified spasms give way to acoustic strumming ("V.A.L.I.S.V.E.S.S.E.L.") while frantic drums and scowls continue. Mastery is polarizing, but unlike Ephemeral Domignostika’s one-man-band project Pandiscordian Necrogenesis, the music is much more than a cheap spectacle.

Because for all of Valis' chaotic energy, Ephemeral Domignostika remains a keen tactician, with each improvised freakout compressed, cut up into dizzying pieces, and put in place. It sounds like it was created in one take, with no edits, which would be impossible. But the knowledge that he composed the album from jams, integrating the best of improvisational spontaneity and metal’s tradition of rigid composition, and in the process making sense of his own madness, is just as staggering.

There are sections where a righteous black thrash riff will come in, something that demands only your most vigorous headbanging and your fists raised as high as you can raise them—the opening pummel of "V.A.L.I.S.V.E.S.S.E.L.", which he also revisits in "S.T.A.R.S.E.E.K.E.R."—but just as soon as these come to fruition, Ephemeral Domignostika will break it down and switch to another sequence equally as turbulent but even less comprehensible. While Mastery never abandons black metal, his ability to nod to catchy riffs while also surgically dismembering them is what elevates him above would-be avant-metallists.

Valis appears just as one-time Bay Area compatriot Leviathan is gaining attention—and in some eyes, redeeming himself—for his latest, and most accomplished, record, Scar Sighted. Both are triumphs of singular visions, the ethos of one-man black metal fully realized. While Scar Sighted is an examination of a troubled self, Valis is a warning to let you know just what Ephemeral Domignostika is capable of and how far he’s willing to scramble his mind for his music. It’s not an album for the stubborn traditionalists, nor is it for the newcomers who preach open-mindedness but are too timid to really engage with the art.

holy shit what the fuck is this

BM of the kind brad likes
BradMetal

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i mean this isn't even necessarily up my alley, it's just extremely confusing and awesome

I just bought it for $5 from bandcamp

it's like the riff manifestation of an irrational number, nonrepeating decimal shred metal

This was my #6, it's awesomely chaotic. I kind of thought it would do better, but I am more surprised by Imperial Triumphant not making it into the 40s at least.

yeah I'd a voted for that if I'd known about it. what's already cool on the first listen is that you can hear classic thrash riffs amongst all the chaos, many gold stars

ive told you before that if you want people to listen to albums you really like you have to campaign hard for them then people will get to hear them

My #4.

Fucking astonishing.

Discovering this alongside my gf (whose #4 or #3 it was too) in the final week before this poll was just the most intense experience, like it just kept getting better and better. The opening track is some hall of fame shit. It feels like a sort of inscrutable demonic intelligence come to taunt us

63 Mare Infinitum - Alien Monolith God 244 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/FFVlZgL.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/3n2Il5fcLmHspCn0nZbhyo
spotify:album:3n2Il5fcLmHspCn0nZbhyo

https://mareinfinitum.bandcamp.com/album/alien-monolith-god

http://www.metalsucks.net/2015/04/24/mare-infinitum-the-best-new-band-you-will-hear-today/

The best bands are the ones that completely defy classification. Sure, you can point to specific elements of their sound that might loosely fit into a predefined genre box, but taken as a whole there’s no simple, reductive way you can describe the band’s sound.

Mare Infinitum are one such band, and I’ve been completely hooked ever MS Mansion indentured servant Kelsey introduced them to me earlier this week. There are elements of death metal, doom, prog, sludge, trad metal, shred and goth present in their music, but at no moment does the finished product sound like any one of those. It also doesn’t sound like a jumbled mish-mash of genre tropes: everything works within the context of each song, and it all flows together seamlessly. Earth-shaking death growls right into soaring, Dio-esque highs? No problem. A sludgy doom riff with an epic guitar solo on top of it? Psssh, got it. In short, the whole is much, much greater than the sum of its parts, so much so that Mare Infinitum may have created a genre all their own.

Stream their new album Alien Monolith God below. It just came out this week, and can be purchased on Bandcamp for less than five bucks.

Metal Archives tells me that Mare Infinitum released another full-length in 2011. If any MS readers are hip to that one, holler below in the comments and tell us how this one compares.

HELL YEAH

62 Drudkh - A Furrow Cut Short 244 Points, 8 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/FVICRbO.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1LxyiZgZRpa6pnB1LR6zXL
spotify:album:1LxyiZgZRpa6pnB1LR6zXL

https://drudkh.bandcamp.com/album/a-furrow-cut-short

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/drudkh-furrow-cut-short-review/

Ah, Drudkh. Not too long ago (early-to-mid 2000s) in a country quite far away (the Ukraine), these pagan sons released a string of solid albums back to back, and were at one point heralded by critics to be the new kings of black metal. Then Handful of Stars happened, and while the sudden shift injected some much-needed variety into the groups’ sound, it did rub fans and critics the wrong way with its slowed drumming and shoegazing elements. Since then, the band has been playing catch-up stylistically, bringing back some faith in their diehard fans with 2012’s Eternal Turn of the Wheel. So is their newest, A Furrow Cut Short, a further extension of the olive branch?

It’s both a yes and a no, honestly. One thing you won’t find on A Furrow Cut Short is an atmospheric intro, as the band wastes no time going forth with the blast beats and tremolo picking in “Cursed Sons I.” Vlad has some incredible control over his kit and has plenty of attention-grabbing cymbal flourishes, and Roman Sayenko once again knows how to write commanding, icy-cold black metal melodies, especially at the :51-1:49 section. The riffing does get very monotonous after a while, clinging on to a proven theme for a little too long, only slowing things down around the 5:21 mark to add much-needed variance, but even then it’s well-written and catchy, with Krechet’s bass sounding loud and thunderous. At over nine minutes, it’s a bit long in the tooth, even with this style of black metal, but it’s a good, if repetitive, introduction.

Things do become a bit more varied later into A Furrow Cut Short. “Embers” starts off with a beautiful guitar melody that reminds me a bit of their earlier albums before going into a powerful mid-paced march, with more soft arpeggios lurking in the background, adding shades of much-needed color. “Dishonour I” has some interesting bass melodies under a turbulent sea of tremolo riffing, with an interesting break coming in at 5:49. Album standout “To The Epoch of Unbowed Poets” has some incredible melodic interplay between Roman’s guitar lines, interweaving like a battle-tattered flag, while Thurios’s keyboards provide a nice atmospheric backdrop, reminding me of a sunset on a bloodied battlefield, while his screeches are as shrill as ever.

So what’s the hold-up? In small doses, Drudkh hits that blackened sweet-spot quite well. For extended listening sessions, however, it does get a bit fatiguing and blurry, with several riffs repeating themselves, or being too long and drawn out (“Dishonoured II,” “Cursed Sons I”). In fact, there have been many times that I’ve had to check out before the last two songs (“Dishonoured II” and the awesomely-titled “Till Foreign Ground Shall Cover Eyes”) started playing, as that’s a lot to digest in one sitting, especially at almost an hour. Thankfully, the production is quite warm, especially with the bass being so audible and the cymbals bright, yet not painfully so.

Drudkh seems to be taking extra care in crafting quality black metal, and with A Furrow Cut Short, they are definitely heading in the right direction. While not exactly as mind-blowing as their earlier efforts, it’s a solid outing worthy of at least a listen. Here’s to them regaining their footing through the blood-stained snow on their path to the blackened throne.

Drudkh trying too hard to please their old black metal fans?

Last one for the night coming up

are you waiting for someone to opine about drudkh first

their name is fun to say, that's all i got

I hate talking (irl) about Drudkh because I have no idea how to pronounce it, lol

But that can be said for a lot of metal bands. Akhlys?

61 Sannhet - Revisionist 247 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/ORW3kwG.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5Dv7QLsBC4axWiYzJvJL8A
spotify:album:5Dv7QLsBC4axWiYzJvJL8A

https://theflenser.bandcamp.com/album/revisionist

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20098-revisionist/
8.1

Revisionist feels grander than it is, and bigger than the band that made it. The second album from the metallic Brooklyn instrumental trio Sannhet lasts only nine tracks, or 38 minutes. But its overall density—of emotions and dynamics, of textures and melodies, of strengths and surprises—makes each moment so compelling that the record seems at least twice that length. The album’s brilliant centerpiece, "Empty Harbor", rises from a slow, electrified fusion that suggests ECM in the '80s to a blast beat-backed surge powerful enough to match the best codas of Temporary Residence Ltd. Driven by masterful drummer Christopher Todd, it sounds like a little symphony, both in execution and effect; looking at the clock, however, it’s shocking to find that the song lasts for less than five minutes.

Sannhet have always defied quick taxonomy. They are a byproduct of Brooklyn’s emergent metal scene; Saint Vitus, one of the city’s heavy hubs, issued their 2013 debut LP, Known Flood, which featured a tirade of screams from bar booker David Castillo. Although their new home, The Flenser, is an aggressively eclectic imprint, the core of its catalog remains metal, however soft or mercurial. From the pummeling black-metal drums during the exhilarating climax of "Lost Crown" to the tense rhythmic lock of death metal near the middle of "False Pass", traces of that pedigree populate Revisionist. But AJ Annunziata’s bass distortion during songs like "Enemy Victorian" implies the astral ascendance of space-rock. The same goes for John Refano, a guitarist who likes to widen the band’s sound with layers of background noise perhaps more than he prefers to lead with coiled riffs. There are astutely applied electronics that suggest the abstraction of Touch Music masters like Philip Jeck, and careful but brief drone passages that conjure Kranky. If metal made for the most convenient tag for Known Flood, it is at best an awkward fit for Revisionist, a record that revels and delights in a trove of outsider influences.

American post-rock and post-metal have often offered the scores of wide-open spaces, be they the football fields and Texas hills of Explosions in the Sky’s Friday Night Lights accompaniment or the rivers and valleys of their fellow Lone Star residents Balmorhea. Labradford, Red Sparowes and ISIS suggested settings more vast and hospitable than the cities they called home. But Sannhet take many of those same sweeping, cinematic impulses and apply them to cramped urban landscapes and lifestyles. They begin "Mint Divine" with a sample of voices, which blur into the mind-numbing chatter endemic to busy city streets. The band works to overcome the pervasive din, or to at least carve out a sheltered space within it. Refano and Annunziata deliver a delicate duet, their gentle guitar notes and pulsing bass competing with the hubbub. The voices waft into the next track, "False Pass", but Todd battles them back with his heavy hands and deep, floor-tom thuds. Together, Sannhet finally overpower their environment, finding solace in the solidarity of volume.

This metropolitan sense of setting also explains Sannhet’s concision. Only "Enemy Victorian", the album’s one listless point, breaks the six-minute mark. Otherwise, Sannhet push the parts together, moving at a rate that suggests they’re worried the city will swallow them if they don’t press ahead. "You Thy_" collapses feelings of romance, terror and longing into four breathless minutes, maximizing emotional impact and efficiency all at once. By oscillating between lumbering, loping patterns and sustained blast beats, Todd turns the three-minute "Lost Crown" into a frantic, crazed quest in an unsympathetic environment, where no one else cares if you ever recover your holy grail. Sannhet make music for subway stations and unlit street corners, not winding hikes and idyllic vistas.

If Explosions in the Sky and similar bands create accompaniment for Hollywood productions, Sannhet offer a vivid, real-life counterpoint. There’s no lighting, no scripting, no catering—just the exigencies and anxieties of existence, delivered by a band battling pedestrian frustrations with uncommon focus. Revisionist, turns out, is bigger than its 38 minutes or the trio that made it; these nine songs are as big as whatever life it is they soundtrack.

I like to imagine Drudkh rhyming with Ruettiger as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_%28film%29

I had Sannhet and Liturgy right next to each other somewhere in the middle of my ballot. I couldn't decide which I liked better and they seemed somewhat of a piece.

ILM Metal Albums of 2015 Poll
Recap

103 Khemmis - Absolution 153 Points, 7 Votes
102 Corsair - One Eyed Horse 155 Points, 5 Votes
101 Absconditus - Katabasis/Kατάβασις 156 Points, 4 Votes
100 Nameless Coyote - Blood Moon 157 Points, 5 Votes
99 Black Cilice - Mysteries 158 Points, 4 Votes
98 Lucifer - Lucifer I 161 Points, 5 Votes
97 Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods 163 Points, 4 Votes
96 Nile - What Should Not Be Unearthed 163 Points, 5 Votes
93 Vastum - Hole Below 163 Points, 6 Votes
93 Locrian - Infinite Dissolution 163 Points, 6 Votes
93 KEN Mode - Success 163 Points, 6 Votes
92 Kylesa - Exhausting Fire 164 Points, 5 Votes
91 Sigh - Graveward 164 Points, 7 Votes
90 Ahab - The Boats of the Glen Carrig 168 Points, 6 Votes
89 Noisem - Blossoming Decay 169 Points, 4 Votes, One #1
88 Amestigon - Thier 169 Points, 5 Votes
87 Nechochewn - Heart of Akamon 173 Points, 5 Votes
86 Intronaut - The Direction of Last Things 175 Points, 6 Votes
85 Brothers of the Sonic Cloth - Brothers of the Sonic Cloth 180 Points, 5 Votes
84 Boris - Asia 181 Points, 6 Votes
83 Lamb of God - VII: Sturm und Drang 188 Points, 5 Votes
82 Dead To A Dying World - Litany 193 Points, 5 Votes
81 Caïna - Setter of Unseen Snares 194 Points, 6 Votes

80 Prurient - Frozen Niagara Falls 195 Points, 6 Votes
79 Arcturus - Arcturian 196 Points, 6 Votes
78 Huntress - Static 196 Points, 7 Votes
77 Killing Joke - Pylon 196 Points, 9 Votes
76 Kult of the Wizard - The White Wizard 197 Points, 5 Votes, One #1
75 Dispirit - Separation 198 Points, 6 Votes
74 Melechesh - Enki 198 Points, 7 Votes
73 Thou & The Body - Released From Love / You, Whom I Have Always Hated 202 Points, 6 Votes
72 Akhlys - The Dreaming I 203 Points, 6 Votes
71 Sulphur Aeon - Gateway to the Antisphere 210 Points, 6 Votes
70 False - Untitled 212 Points, 6 Votes
69 Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud 214 Points, 6 Votes
68 Shining - International Blackjazz Society 214 Points, 7 Votes
67 Tyranny - Aeons in Tectonic Interment 220 Points, 7 Votes
66 Midnight Odyssey - Shards Of Silver Fade 236 Points, 7 One #1
65 Bosse-de-Nage - All Fours 237 Points, 7 Votes
64 Mastery - Valis 241 Points, 6 Votes
63 Mare Infinitum - Alien Monolith God 244 Points, 7 Votes
62 Drudkh - A Furrow Cut Short 244 Points, 8 Votes
61 Sannhet - Revisionist 247 Points, 7 Votes

Hope some of you have made some good discoveries yesterday and today.
Feel free to post about any albums so far you have listened to or even liked.

Enjoying the Sannhet so far! Will plunge deeper back into today's albums in due course...I've not heard many of them!

thought that band was called GANNNET for a moment

no because it didn't have me going 'MY NUMBER ONE FOR ALL TIME' after it, which is what would have happened had it been called that

it would be a great name it's true

they're arguably britain's most metal bird in fact

- they live entirely pelagic lives

- they only come to land on remote islands they have completely colonised

- and covered completely in their own shit

- they have bills that act as giant sea-knives to spear fish

- they mate for life

- they produce one of the most majestic and terrifying natural spectacles one might imagine

- they fucking dive into the sea at 60 mph in order to survive

- they only come to land on remote islands they have completely colonised

- and covered completely in their own shit

- they produce one of the most majestic and terrifying natural spectacles one might imagine (the Republican nomination race)

dontcha just love the Americans!

the 3rd day of the poll is always where people have realised that the rest of their ballots wont place so lose interest.

but there's always that one person who hangs on forlornly hoping that Nightwish will be top 10

nah p sure everyone's got some horses they're backing still - i mean i know my entire top 5 will place and we've only had one so far

Albums I will visit (revisit in some cases)
100 Nameless Coyote - Blood Moon
93 Vastum - Hole Below
93 KEN Mode - Success
92 Kylesa - Exhausting Fire
84 Boris - Asia
81 Caïna - Setter of Unseen Snares

hahaha i feel like every time you say that regarding a poll it ends in hilarity lj xpost

imago is confident his top 5 will be in the top 10.

I dunno what is in his ballot but seandalai sent me a link to them so i will go have a looksie once ive finished my cup of tea

oh wow, lj's #1 was five finger death punch. Wasn't expecting that.

Albums that made my Ballot (Bolded was the highest)
77 Killing Joke - Pylon
74 Melechesh - Enki
73 Thou & The Body - Released From Love / You, Whom I Have Always Hated
68 Shining - International Blackjazz Society
67 Tyranny - Aeons in Tectonic Interment

Albums that made my Top 101
80 Prurient - Frozen Niagara Falls
65 Bosse-de-Nage - All Fours
62 Drudkh - A Furrow Cut Short

Albums I will visit (revisit in some cases)
78 Huntress - Static
76 Kult of the Wizard - The White Wizard
72 Akhlys - The Dreaming I
66 Midnight Odyssey - Shards Of Silver Fade
63 Mare Infinitum - Alien Monolith God

Album I most disliked
69 Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

Some very good albums in that set! Four of them are in my Top 21 for the year!
And I still can't shake the feeling I am underrating the Bosse-de-Nage...

imago disagrees

I'll get over it.

Only two of mine have placed thus far: KEN Mode and Dead to a Dying World. Strangely enough I'm going to see Dead to a Dying World play in a couple of hours. Should be fun.

not voting for the one you're on seems unnecessarily honourable tbh

need to listen to DTADW, shall do when I wake probably, hope the gig is great

Oh, man, that Mastery album was great, and I totally forgot about it and almost certainly didn't vote for it here. Glad to be reminded.

Hooray for VALIS, which was my #5. Yay fir Sannhet which was on my ballot. Think tgats prob all we're going to see from the Flenser here though

98 Lucifer - Lucifer I 161 Points, 5 Votes
81 Caïna - Setter of Unseen Snares 194 Points, 6 Votes
78 Huntress - Static 196 Points, 7 Votes

I voted for these, good albums although none were in my top 10.

I played the shit out of "S.T.A.R.S.E.E.K.E.R." this year but I don't think I ever listened to the entire Mastery album. Work to do!

Albums that made my ballot so far:

100 Nameless Coyote - Blood Moon 157 Points, 5 Votes
99 Black Cilice - Mysteries 158 Points, 4 Votes
97 Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods 163 Points, 4 Votes
72 Akhlys - The Dreaming I 203 Points, 6 Votes
70 False - Untitled 212 Points, 6 Votes
65 Bosse-de-Nage - All Fours 237 Points, 7 Votes
64 Mastery - Valis 241 Points, 6 Votes

Of these, I had Black Cilice and Akhlys ranked the highest.

^a list to pay attention to

the 3rd day of the poll is always where people have realised that the rest of their ballots wont place so lose interest.

At this point I'm torn between 'my top 3 will make the top 50', which would be great and unexpected, and 'if they haven't made the list by now it's over', which would be a fucking OUTRAGE.

(although I haven't saved my ballot so maybe Akhlys was top 3, I don't remember)

I'm surprised to see Sannhet here, I don't think it's been discussed at all in the metal thread? Maybe I missed it.

was new to me until i bought it from bandcamp yesterday due to this poll

I think I totally forgot to include Akhlys in my ballot, top 10 for sure. Lots of great records in this last run, I even really like the Amorphis. Sulphur Aeon, Mare Infinitum. I really can't bring myself to enjoy Drudkh anymore though, they're just going through the motions it seems. Also I'm afraid the other (Swedish) Shining won't place which is a shame.

Akhlys was your #4 dinsdale

thank you pollmaster

feel free to talk about more obscure things you hope will place because we're probably mostly past that stage of them sneaking in but the rest of us can then go check em out anyway.

ps #60 is a very big name

so Iron Maiden then

I'm oblivious to what is and what is not obscure these days. I haven't seen Abyssal on any major pub list so either they're completely under the radar or no one likes the album (in which case: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU). Deserves at least top 30. I've seen a bit of love for Glaciation on the board so maybe it will place too, but they're rather obscure in the grand scheme of things, and not signed to a hip label like The Flenser, Gilead Media or Profound Lore, so maybe I'm 100% crazy about them having even a slight chance of making it.

Misthyrming and Sarpanitum seem more likely to place. Or maybe not.

There's some false as hell stuff yet to place and I for one am excited

Gnaw Their Tongues, I guess, is the one on my ballot I'm most unsure about at this point - by now I'm sure most of my ballot will make it, but that both Basarabian Hills and Lustre won't, because metal isn't keyboards really now is it, guys? :D

(but it is! :'( poor neglected keyboard warriors)

I love it when really good obscure stuff places not due to elitism but purely because I've usually not heard of it and I get to check it out. Hopefully it's the same for others even if lots of people do just like to see where their fave albums place in the top 20 (which is fine)

Im a bit disappointed in a few folk on the rolling metal thread who didn't vote this year. Presumably as I am running the poll.

never heard of Basarabian Hills, Imago

They're one of Siegbran's ambient synth loners - this one making music exclusively about the forests of Moldova. His previous album caught my attention on Siegbran's ballot last year as it was called 'Groping In A Misty Spread' and lol etc but upon listening I found it to be actually vv pretty and this year's album is no different. Also I googled him and one of the first results was a metal archives forum thread about 'banned acts' and it featured him cursing the metal archives dudes for not allowing his work to be classified as metal, poor dude, so I am ON HIS SIDE.

I've seen a bit of love for Glaciation on the board so maybe it will place too,

I actually ordered the lp due to the positive mention by someone on the thread.

we post the full list of albums at the end btw so you can see where albums that people did vote for that missed out.

seandalai how many nominated albums got zero votes?

imago - people are still scarred by the burzum keyboard albums and Mortiis albums.

dont think even Siegbran loved those

Thing is, there are some occasional fuzzy guitars and screaming on those Basarabian Hills albums but it's reverbed to hell and back and mixed in so low that most of the time I'm not sure if the guitars have just kicked in or if my neighbour has started vacuuming.

When it comes to my ballot: I think my #1 will make it, sure my #2 will, sure my #3 won't

how mysterious

Kylesa album is really great pop-metal songwriting btw, lovely stuff

they used to do very well in metal poll but it seems that ilm prefers their earlier less pop stuff

did you vote for the new one? I think it's really lovely although at times closer to hard-rock than metal really. also it sounds like The Cure

I did

I own it too

on vinyl that is

so you've bought every album on the list or what?

lol, no

Of my top 50 I think I bought 28 on lp or cd. a couple on bandcamp then a couple of lps due to the poll and a few downloads on bandcamp.

how about you or anyone else?

(xxxp)I need to give it more of a listen; I've been wanting to get into Kylesa for a while now, ever since their appearance on this

http://i.imgur.com/crcf24Rl.jpg

^voted for 2 bands on this btw

Hey I'm a Kylesa!

I bought my top 4 on CD and put some of the others on my xmas wishlist.

xp I'm a Boris apparently, that's fine with me

I'm a Torche

Feels good man

the boris album seems impossible to find

there's always a way

i do not recognise that zodiac as i point-blank refuse to be a mastodon

i am empowered by the mastodon groove.

this pleases me.

Akhlys album is really nice btw

I'm pretty stoked to be a Melvins tbh

I fall under the sign of Mastodon too

if you are all around and posting shall i start the rollout?

I'm around and ready to remain silent as Iron Maiden shows up

Upgrade Akhlys album to 'awesome' - it's that The Dreaming Eye song that did it - amazing

but what if it isnt iron maiden?

Would people be upset if Iron Maiden was too low or missed the poll completely?

ROLLOUT PLEASE

Listening to Sulphur Aeon. Not sure it's entirely my sort of thing but it is clearly very good.

60 Faith No More - Sol Invictus 249 Posts, 10 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/sw9nZLp.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0pmOoQ16XaMwNeSxXAN7q1
spotify:album:0pmOoQ16XaMwNeSxXAN7q1

http://www.spin.com/2015/05/review-faith-no-more-sol-invictus/

SPIN Rating: 4 of 10
Release Date: May 21, 2015
Label: Ipecac / Reclamation
Dan Weiss // May 21, 2015

Mike Patton retains his cult for making a 25-year career of Doing Whatever He Wants, less in the Tom Waits model than a more slovenly one: He’s like a hometown school friend whom you can’t believe is still pressing CD-Rs. The crucial difference is obviously that the garage band who used to play at parties didn’t have a 1990 MTV megahit as Faith No More did with “Epic”; the guy whose parents went out of town didn’t commission a 30-piece orchestra to record an all-covers album of Italian pop songs. The breadth of his (lack of) taste is impressive — in Mr. Bungle he’d tackle lounge jazz, carnival calliope, and Zappa-style fusion-metal all in the span of one song. And even before he joined Faith No More in 1989, they were early adopters of hip-hop — 1985’s bizarro fusion “We Care a Lot” wasn’t just ahead of rap-metal’s time, it even beat regular-metal landmarks Master of Puppets and Reign in Blood to existing. And Patton was able and willing to snare Norah Jones for his 2006 one-off album as Peeping Tom. Admired by many, canonized by few, Patton’s usually good for a title or two: take “Jizzlobber” (that one’s from his best album, circa 1992) or “Cone of Shame” (from 2015’s Sol Invictus, keep reading) for two amusements of the English language you’re far more likely to remember than the songs attached to them.

There’s the rub: Faith No More’s first album in 18 years doesn’t especially provoke, offend, entrance, seduce, annoy. No skull-searing riffs, no particularly snaring turns of phrase, certainly no hooks — who do you think they are, Jane’s Addiction? Good musicianship is required for the hairpin turns of genre-into-genre, but there isn’t even good whiplash here. You’re better off with Patton’s four-song EP fronting the Dillinger Escape Plan, a fellow band of art-horror volume terrorists who at least helped push his extreme-circus-metal tendencies off a cliff.

Worse, it may send you on a trip down memory lane to recall what these guys did in the first place: slapping lots of bass and pounding lots of garish synth pads and whining lots of Patton’s bizarre whine on The Real Thing, over a funky crunch that we would come to recognize as the signature of clomping nü-metal down the road, fine-tuned into a zigzagging delight on 1992’s Angel Dust, the band’s token good album that has since been mythologized into a cult classic. Released in 1995, the more aerodynamic King for a Day…Fool for a Lifetime added a few post-punk riffs (“Get Out,” “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”) to a more streamlined version of the sound that Incubus would soon take to the headlining stadium slot that Faith No More only encircled, but 1997’s rote Album of the Year was released after Bottum had already begun a much more artistically rewarding tenure in Imperial Teen (whose first four albums are all minor masterpieces of LGBTQ-themed chewing-gum pop), and thus began a hiatus that seemingly let the quintet all pursue the music they truly wanted to make without colliding into each other.

And here we are, two decades on with Sol Invictus (“unconquered sun” in Latin) continuing a sound that had no real beginning or end in the first place; Mr. Bungle sampled from David Lynch movies, and were thusly compared to the musical equivalent of those films. Mostly everything Patton touches turns out that way, utilizing a device that one sorely missed Goosebumps blog unfavorably referred to (in reference to R.L. Stine books, of course) as “Let’s just line up crazy things in a row from the beginning to the end.”

But Patton’s already trodden down his every edge to the point of blunt smoothness. Having already excised most of his weirdest impulses in Fantômas, Tomahawk, and dozens of side ventures and collaborations (notably with his fitful jazz counterpart John Zorn), without any interest in returning to the harmonically rich nuances and applicable jokes of Angel Dust, Patton now occupies the worst kind of middle ground. The funniest “hook” here is the threatening command to “Get the motherfucker on the phone,” (from “Motherfucker,” of course, an illustration of their creative downgrade from “Jizzlobber”) and it’s quickly relegated to a backing vocal that Patton lays a much dumber, mock-operatic chorus over. Other bits that stick out of the sludge — the inconsequential intro “I’ll be your leprechaun,” the continued exhortation “Leader of men / Get back in your cage” — struggle for a compelling reason to be.

“It’s it / What is it?” FNM once demanded on their best-known song. We’re supposed to admire the fact that 30 years after their debut album, they haven’t moved an inch closer to definability. But with weirder, funnier, more skillful, even pleasurable bands bearing Faith No More’s influence having cropped up since, the question of “What is it?” comes with a sadder follow-up: “Who is it for?”

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/faith-no-more-sol-invictus-20150519

Weird-metal guys show they're still nutty after all these years

When alt-metal pranksters Faith No More called it quits in the late Nineties, they were too weird for the headbangers and too heavy for Alternative Nation. Now, with indie rock and harder music crossing paths more frequently, the times have finally caught up with them. Sol Invictus, the band's first record since 1997's underrated Album of the Year, offers newer, better versions of Faith No More's formula: spaghetti-Western guitars ("Cone of Shame"), proggy keyboard drama ("Matador") and tons of vocal contortions from lead singer Mike Patton ("Rise of the Fall"). With the exception of one tune seemingly about Patton's breakfast ("Sunny Side Up"), it's as much a triumphant victory lap as it's a comeback record.

Points that should say obviously

Kinda wish it was Iron Maiden in retrospect.

I just hate pretty much everything involving Mike Patton, sorry.

I'm enjoying the roll-out so far, lots of stuff to explore, particularly given how little metal I have listened to this year (Goatsnake, Windhand, Myrkur, Chelsea Wolfe, FNM umm...)

don't think I have any interest in this but hatred of all things Patton makes me sad

comment on the spin review

Franco • 7 months ago

by reading this, even if you haven´t heard the album, you would think Patton fucked the reviewer´s girlfriend or something like that.

xp give me one album that will change my mind

torn between Suspended Animation and Disco Volante tbh

I have some interest in the FNM, but I'm more interested to see how it places in the RockaRolla EOY list

I'll go with the shorter one then

if you want 'the shorter one' then you'll probably want California tbh...but ok, Suspended Animation it is, enjoy lol

Angel Dust is some sort of masterpiece IMO

it is very good too but i reckon dinsdale might prefer the more out-there stuff

as long as out-there doesn't mean 'Patton does lots of weird noises with his mouth'

time to listen I guess...

uh oh lol

I just hate pretty much everything involving Mike Patton, sorry.

You're not alone.

Relistening to the Shining album. It's just such a shame. They used to be SO good. They'll never make anything as melodically complex and beautiful as 'In The Kingdom Of Kitsch...' (the song) again, will they? They just sound like, uh, Faith No More (with saxes) now lol

jesus christ this is insufferable

59 Fluisteraars - Luwte 250 Points, 8 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/uykPIEZ.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/6OnvbiyStRMxTwhk0amO0q
spotify:album:6OnvbiyStRMxTwhk0amO0q

Bandcamp http://records.eisenton.de/album/luwte

Even though much has been written and recorded when it comes to extreme metal, Fluisteraars are quite extraordinary in their way of arranging and presenting music. With vast influences concerning the ambience and atmospheric aspects of their craft the dutch trinity is not to be easily stuck in just one plain direction. The early on forged term "Windswept Black Metal" recalling imagery of rain, decay, bleakness and intoxication still to date embodies their own amalgamation of intriguing, atmospheric music.

The band's last year debut album titled "Dromers", was firmly rooted in the fertile soil cultivated by Drudkh, Primordial or even Agalloch, nevertheless built its own aura. Excellent reviews at the press, whilst also garnering end of year list entries and other critical accolades along the way, hailed Fluisteraars as one of the new potent stalwarts of dutch black metal.

Blending the welcoming, epic affair of their debut with more harsh and biting effort's more reminiscent of 90s black metal, Luwte captures the band from a slightly different, yet none less qualitative angle. While the band had already shown their effective vigor with time stretching melodic and edgy grandeur, this second album is very much the more ferocious finished extension to it. An unpolished yet elaborate production with final mastering duties taken over by Patrick W. Engel at TEMPLE OF DISHARMONY perfectly suits the dynamic, intelligent nature of the music.

Sealing the deal the band adds: Fluisteraars takes you on a journey through the mind. A journey where they build the roads, to create the landscapes through which they travel and where they call the seasons. Their strength is drawn from the compelling nature of their music, which captivates you to the point of hypnosis. Leading you unnoticed to the inevitable end of the road, emptiness…

released September 25, 2015

(I gave up)

(I figured)

(Disco Volante now!)

(kidding)

no comments on Fluisteraars ? another album ive not heard

siegbran metal?

I do know that track "de doornen" from fluisteraars which is savage

I like them, not sure if I voted for this one though, maybe in the lower spots as I found it good but not *that* good

Listening to Tyranny now and enjoying them a good deal. Shame I have to leave the house really soon. Wish I didn't.

you did vote for it at #15

seems about right

Fluisteraars is awesome. Previous album was a mix of Moonsorrow/Agalloch, this one is a bit edgier and reminds me most of Trelldom (Gaahls old band). "Windswept Black Metal" is pretty spot-on yeah. Endless songs with excellent drumming, and a great up-close, jam-like sound.

Not that far from Wolves In The Throne Room conceptually, but their sound is a lot less washed out.

58 AEVANGELIST - Enthrall to the Void of Bliss 255 Points, 8 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/VTN7FV7.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1NKhSrQIRDRF4sVJ4H26Bq
spotify:album:1NKhSrQIRDRF4sVJ4H26Bq

http://listen.20buckspin.com/album/enthrall-to-the-void-of-bliss

The 4th gate of the Aevangelist has opened within the physical dimension. Witness cataclysmic Black Death Metal force in which slithering arcane horrors conjoined with bizarre mysticism spawn a suffocating cacophonous sprawl. Having unleashed previous (and future) documentation via the French Debemur Morti label, ‘Enthrall To The Void Of Bliss’ represents the initial Aevangelist transmutation for 20 Buck Spin; the American based band’s first scripture to fully release domestically in the United States.

Cycling through recent years Aevangelist have mercilessly assaulted listeners via audial deformation and twisting sepulchral composition. 2013’s Omen Ex Simulacra brutalized with punishingly dense yet accessible riffs in the Murk, and this specter looms large on ‘Enthrall…’, whilst layer upon layer of ghoulish keys and madness-stricken vocals act as flesh bricks to shape a hellish tower of the damned. Smeared with a warm, wet production, the inherent chaos of ‘Enthrall…’ becomes omnipresent.

The curtain has been pulled back to reveal the grotesquery summoned by the Aevangelist synod and once stirred cannot easily be shut again. 20 Buck Spin is pleased to bequeath this vulgar contortion of occult rancor upon the human race. Virulently presented on CD, LP and Digital torments.
credits
released October 9, 2015

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/10/album-review-aevangelist-enthrall-to-the-void-of-bliss/

Black metal outfit Aevangelist actively defies comprehension. Their creations exist on a plane of sonic nihilism and dark dada. Every note, every instrument, every gurgling growl and hideous shriek, is texturally equal, creating a vacuum of depraved noise that’s truly unprecedented, defying all expectations of recorded vibration. On its fourth full-length, Enthrall to the Void of Bliss, it’s as if Aevangelist sought to defy its own humanity by creating an album so demented, so dissonant, and so brutal that it couldn’t have been made by humans, but rather trans-dimensional soundscapists set on breaking the very idea of what a song can be.

Rarely does music so instantly and totally affront the listener. Even by the standards of black metal, a genre unafraid to dabble in the weird and weirder, Enthrall lives in a harsh and unearthly world all its own. “Arcanæ Manifestia” opens the album with an entangled arrangement of standard instrumentation (blast beats, sludgy speed guitar) and a variety of other, unorthodox tonalities not easily identifiable. Emanating from the right channel comes a demented harp; played haphazardly, it stops, starts, and stutters, sometimes (but not always) falling in with the chord progression, an independent force separate from the other instruments. It is the most discernable and memorable aspect of Enthrall because the harp never leaves, instead haunting the right speaker for the duration of the record.

Meanwhile, vocalist Ascaris uses his throat in unhealthy ways. At the end of the first track, he holds a single guttural note for a minute straight in an impressive feat of circular breathing. On “Emanation”, he channels a man whose esophagus is being ripped out. You hear the gasping for air, the hacks and hurls, and the wet slosh of his vocal cords straining to maintain this sickening putridity. It’s slightly comical, but mostly terrifying. Ascaris even sings on occasion, his distant croon sounding like a cross between Martin Gore and the whispering wind on a strange winter night. The outlier here, “Alchemy”, with its deep electro pulse and airy atmosphere, helps to stagger the record’s repetition. “Souls like water, souls like water,” Ascaris sings. For a moment, Aevangelist offer a reprieve. Then it’s back to the brutality.

Melodies and typical song structures are introduced throughout the album before being quickly buried under chaos. The songs beg to be discerned: Once you acclimate to the layers of noise and overdubs (the percussion is stacked to cacophonous levels), peculiar details peer out. At their root level, “Cloister of the Temple of Death” and “Gatekeepers Scroll” are chord-based guitar songs with verses and solos. However, the dense recordings are full of intricacies in the guitarwork and vocals that are otherwise disguised in the fray. Multi-instrumentalist Matron Thorn is the master behind this orchestrated madness. His tasteful harmonic guitar licks, notably on “Cloister” and lengthy closer “Meditation of Transcendental Evil”, can only be picked up by a keen ear.

Enthrall to the Void of Bliss is perhaps best approached like a noise record. It doesn’t offer hooks, its riffs are lost in murk, and the morbid non sequitur lyrics are rarely discernible. The experience is in the totality of the sonic chaos and the act of making sense of it. In this way, Aevangelist are black metal impressionists. This is not a pleasant album to listen to in the traditional sense; yet, it remains endlessly affecting.

Essential Tracks: “Arcanæ Manifestia”, “Meditation of Transcendental Evil”

xpost (I mean, WITTR is more washed out than Fluisteraars)

another album ive not heard

57 Lightning Bolt - Fantasy Empire 265 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/YgPS33u.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1HN2Y71apfstJXoWxDPTJO
spotify:album:1HN2Y71apfstJXoWxDPTJO

https://thrilljockeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fantasy-empire

Over the course of its two-decade existence, Lightning Bolt has revolutionized underground rock in immeasurable ways. The duo broke the barrier between stage and audience by setting themselves up on the floor in the midst of the crowd. Their momentous live performances and the mania they inspired paved the way for similar tactics used by Dan Deacon and literally hundreds of others. Similarly, the band’s recordings have always been chaotic, roaring, blown out documents that sound like they could destroy even the toughest set of speakers. Fantasy Empire, Lightning Bolt’s sixth album and first in five years, is a fresh take from a band intent on pushing themselves musically and sonically while maintaining the aesthetic that has defined not only them, but an entire generation of noisemakers. It marks many firsts, most notably their first recordings made using hi-fi recording equipment at the famed Machines With Magnets, and their first album for Thrill Jockey. More than any previous album, Fantasy Empire sounds like drummer Brian Chippendale and bassist Brian Gibson are playing just a few feet away, using the clarity afforded by the studio to amplify the intensity they project. Every frantic drum hit, every fuzzed-out riff, sounds more present and tangible than ever before.

Fantasy Empire is ferocious, consuming, and is a more accurate translation of their live experience. It also shows Lightning Bolt embracing new ways to make their music even stranger. More than any previous record, Chippendale and Gibson make use of live loops and complete separation of the instruments during recording to maximize the sonic pandemonium and power. Gibson worked with Machines very carefully to get a clear yet still distorted and intense bass sound, allowing listeners to truly absorb the detail and dynamic range he displays, from the heaviest thud to the subtle melodic embellishments. Some of these songs have been in the band’s live repertoire since as early as 2010, and have been refined in front of audiences for maximum impact. This is heavy, turbulent music, but it is executed with the precision of musicians that have spent years learning how to create impactful noise through the use of dynamics, melody, and rhythm.

Fantasy Empire has been in gestation for four years, with some songs having been recorded on lo-fi equipment before ultimately being scrapped. Since Earthly Delights was released, the band has collaborated with The Flaming Lips multiple times, and continued to tour relentlessly. 2013 saw the release of All My Relations by Black Pus, Chippendale’s solo outlet, which was followed by a split LP with Oozing Wound. Chippendale, an accomplished comic artist and illustrator, created the Fantasy Empire’s subtly ominous album art, and will release an upcoming book of his comics through respected imprint Drawn and Quarterly. Brian Gibson has been developing the new video game Thumper, with his own company, Drool, which will be released next year. And, of course, Lightning Bolt will be touring the US in 2015.
credits
released March 24, 2015

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20174-fantasy-empire/
8.0

Lightning Bolt have been around for close to two decades. In that time, they haven't really changed their basic formula: Brian Chippendale still bashes his drums with chaotic precision and bassist Brian Gibson manages to make four strings sound like many more. From the beginning, their mix of mayhem and heaviness brought to mind Harry Pussy and Black Sabbath playing at the same time. But they somehow showed up in big features in magazines that didn't normally care about noise, and in the record collections of people who felt pretty much the same.

The musical landscape around Lightning Bolt has shifted more than a few times during this period, but the duo continue full-throttle with the kind of triumphant blitz they served up when they first emerged from Providence, R.I. When Lightning Bolt started in 1994, future Black Dice member Hisham Bharoocha handled vocals and guitars for the band, and the difference between the two groups is instructive. Black Dice came out of the same punk/art-school world as Lightning Bolt but they chose a more winding path—from violent punks to noise mongrels to psychedelic noisemakers to gleeful DFA electronic tweakers. LB have remained tunnel-vision focused. The respect for the initial approach suggests an endless possibility in a few gestures, a sensibility that runs counter to the over-stuffed, ADD, and of-the-moment world we live in.

Fantasy Empire is their first LP in five years; it's also the first recorded in a proper studio—Pawtucket's Machines with Magnets—and you can tell. The sound is bigger and more defined; they haven't cleaned things up, exactly, it's just easier to figure out what's leveling you. You can make out deeper textures and striations, and the greater detail lends variety without shifting away from the blown-out repetition. There's also a larger dynamic range—just when you think a song's gotten as big as it possibly can, they pile on more sounds like live loops, synthesizers, tape constructions, and bass overdubs. Rather than serving as a compromise, the shifts that come with higher production values are positive.

Some of Lightning Bolt's mid-period albums grew dull after repeat listens, or made you think about how you'd rather see the music performed live. Wonderful Rainbow from 2003 had an almost pop catchiness to it, and you get that here, too. With a few listens, there's a feeling of anticipation for certain breaks or shifts or, as at the end of "Over the River and Through the Woods", head-bangs. And more than any of their records, if you play it loud, and close your eyes, it's very easy to imagine being in the same room as the Brians. (They've been doing some of the songs at their shows since 2010, and the album has a very broken-in feel to it.)

Unexpectedly, Chippendale's vocals have gotten stronger, as he's moved from the early chirps and howls to legit contact-mic crooning. His voice has typically been another strand of noise; here he feels like more of a proper singer, one who can compete with everything going on around him. At the start of "Over the River and Through the Woods" he clears his throat like Celtic Frost's Tom G. Warrior, and later in the song, he's a strangulated Ozzy. On "Horsepower", he approximates a swaggering demigod on the riff party, while "Runaway Train" sees him turn into a metal circus barker. The band's last full-length record, 2009's Earthly Delights, had a metal edge to it, and as the comparisons above suggest, Lightning Bolt go further in that direction on Fantasy. This is noise doom, more or less, the crystalline tone and soloing on "Dream Genie" is the stuff of Steve Vai heaven, and "Horsepower" brings to mind Geddy Lee howling into a maelstrom kicked up by Sleep. This is also their most flat-out rock'n'roll album to date, and their best since Wonderful Rainbow.

Most of the tracks have an anthemic forward march—these songs are built for speed. That's especially true of the massive 12-minute closer, "Snow White (& The 7 Dwarves Fans)", whose tongue-in-cheek title nails the essential Lightning Bolt aesthetic: part punk rock, part adult fairytale. They're still doing what they've always done, but Fantasy Empire is the best they've done it in a long time, and the new sheen makes everything seem magic again.

I don't think I had Ævangelist on my ballot but it's a great record.

Lightning Bolt have been around for close to two decades. In that time, they haven't really changed their basic formula

this was the only problem with this record

you didnt like it?

This poll is turning some infinite cataloguing at work into a pleasantly foresty endurance test.

My highlights so far (though I've still about ten left to try) are:
Black Cilice
Kylesa - Lovely shoegaze! The run from Falling to Growing Roots is especially effective.
Caïna - that one 'Orphan' track
Sannhet/Gannnet

Placed so far:
Nameless Coyote
KEN Mode
Thou & The Body
Akhlys
Mastery
Lightning Bolt

56 Envy - Atheist's Cornea 269 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/uJNyyvN.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0LHxJ82ikbDre4IJfdsnM6
spotify:album:0LHxJ82ikbDre4IJfdsnM6

https://envy.bandcamp.com/album/atheist-s-cornea

Despite its relative brevity (at 43 minuntes it is Envy's shortest album since their early 90s thrash days), Atheist's Cornea is easily the band's most progressive work. Beginning with a punishing pummel, holes of light are gradually punched open to reveal an uncanny series of dynamic, emotionally charged epics. Not only does Atheistʼs Cornea showcase some wholly unexpected new turns for Envy, it also often reaches transcendent heights that could overwhelm a major blockbuster film — all while vocalist Tetsuya Fukagawa sings, screams, and speaks like his life depended on it. Atheist's Cornea is the purest, most distilled example of Envy's brand of brilliance. It is also their bravest album, taking new risks with a much welcomed, broader vocal palette and an instrumental experimentation that navigates blistering shifts from impenetrable noise to poetic, pin-drop introspection with astounding grace. Envy have finally mastered the art of being effective and efficient without sacrificing an ounce of either – a truly inspired evolution from a band whose mastery of both remains unparalleled.
credits
released May 15, 2015

http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/07/album-review-envy-atheists-cornea/

When Envy began to veer from thrash-punk into less rigid forms of post-rock, post-hardcore, post-punk, post-whatever, it wasn’t an easy pill for fans to swallow. Some thought that Envy’s days as a forward-thinking rock band were gone, that they were satisfied to do a victory lap by guesting on a Mogwai track or releasing a split with Thursday rather than try new things. Time will prove those listeners wrong; after all, both collaborations were new things for a Japanese group that started out chugging power chords at a breakneck pace.

Atheist’s Cornea, Envy’s first album in five years, brings the experimentation and the heaviness that longtime fans have clamored for. Tetsuya Fukagawa’s vocals sound pained, shouted with an urgency that leaks blood and calls for fist-raising. The guitars are tremolo-picked like every moment is their last; the drums sneak their way to different melodic fills in each verse.

Stripped down to sheet music, “Ignorant Rain at the End of the World” and “Your Heart and My Hand” would parallel Bach chorales. But, placed in Envy’s blender, they sound more concretely hardcore, pushing the genre’s limits by flipping it on its head with complex progressions rather than tweaking a single aspect into a gimmick. Even at quieter parts, the album glows. “Shining Finger” has a breakdown worth crying to, the tension high and the delivery impeccable, and “Two Isolated Souls” borders on a pop chord progression while still painting the sky with the twinkle of post-rock. It evokes Pianos Become the Teeth and La Dispute as much as it does This Will Destroy You and Explosions in the Sky.

So much of Atheist’s Cornea mixes opposites — not just different genres, but slow and fast, pain and happiness, quiet and loud, concrete and abstract. The album proves to be worth the five-year wait, doubling as an obvious entry point to the band’s catalog. By forming a smooth mix rather than a bumpy exchange of influences, Envy prove they can paint with any color.

Essential Tracks: “Two Isolated Souls”, “Ignorant Rain at the End of the World”, and “Your Heart and My Hand”

Brilliant band. I voted for it (and own it on LP)

xpost

I didn't hate it, but my only real reaction to it was "yep, this is Lightning Bolt".

my #2 (I think), great album, I've listened to this one countless times

That was my reaction too, but persuasive efforts will have been made xp

55 Pyramids - A Northern Meadow 274 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/iSsSJ6a.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/44wi9U9zoN1D1VaEj4GzgV
spotify:album:44wi9U9zoN1D1VaEj4GzgV

https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-northern-meadow

The Texas-based musical contingent known as PYRAMIDS have become quite the musical entity since emerging, almost from out of nowhere, in 2008 with their debut self-titled LP which was released by Hydra Head Records. A record that generated a lot of buzz and acclaim within experimental and extreme metal, with its references to such genres as shoegaze, black metal, ambient/drone, avant-garde, and industrial music respectively.

Following said debut album, PYRAMIDS would suddenly see themselves collaborating with and receiving contributions from a myriad of musicians (also note that the debut album also featured a bonus disc of re-mixes of said tracks from it, re-mixes done by artists such as Blut Aus Nord, James Plotkin, Colin Marston, and Jesu just to name a few), notable artists such as Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins), Albin Julius (Der Blutharsch), and Colin Marston (who PYRAMIDS would work on a regular basis with), along with making collaborative albums with Nadja, Horseback, and Mamiffer respectively.

“A Northern Meadow”, the new full-length PYRAMIDS album, is the band’s direct follow-up (that is not a collaboration or split with any other band) to their 2008 debut. For “A Northern Meadow”, joining the PYRAMIDS lineup (already consisting of R. Loren, M. Dean, M. Craig, and D. Willaim) is Colin Marston (Gorguts/Krallice/Dysrhythmia), Vindsval (Blut Aus Nord), and William Fowler Collins. The result being an encompassing album that stretches the PYRAMIDS sound even further into something even more grand and epic; the band’s most stunning offering yet, through an overwhelming sound picture heavy in atmosphere and ambience. One that is dark, dreamy, and lush, yet claustrophobic, mechanically crawling, and surgically cold at the same time.
credits
released March 17, 2015

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20261-a-northern-meadow/
8.0

Denton, Texas’ Pyramids jettison in and out of the fringes of metal. Their self-titled debut from 2008, released on Hydra Head, was a beautiful mess, filled with lush tones that traced jagged musical directions. Sometimes, they were Emperor reconfigured as a dream pop group, other times, they sounded like someone left a drum machine running on a Lovesliescrushing track. Even though black metal and shoegaze were obvious reference points, Pyramids felt alien to both. They were like explorers making up the map as they go. After a series of collaborations with Horseback, Nadja, and Wraiths, Pyramids finally return with their sophomore album, A Northern Meadow. Here, they’ve developed a front-to-back sound that pushes their metal leanings to the forefront, while also upping the enigmatic glow of their debut. This consistency leads to their strongest effort yet.

A lot has transpired in the Pyramids camp between the two records: namely, Hydra Head shut down and Pyramids moved to Profound Lore, Hydra Head’s successor of sorts as a leader in groundbreaking metal. Vocalist and founding member R. Loren concentrated on his label, Handmade Birds, as well as his side projects White Moth and Sailors With Wax Wings, in that period too. Pyramids never really went away, but they hadn’t made a proper album in some time, so it’s no surprise that they’ve changed quite a bit. Meadow commits to layers upon layers of black metal swirls, cascading riffs never ceasing except to leap to another song. They’ve got a better grip on their ambient influences by infusing them into the guitars rather than leaning on electronics. Even their most obviously black metal song, "The Earth Melts Into Red Gashes Like the Mouths of Whales", is smoothed into gleaming waves by how the riffs float and the alternating sonorous voices of Loren and M. Craig. "I Have Four Sons, All Named for Men We Lost to War" is one of their most aggressive tracks, but sifted through their vision, it’s stripped of chest-beating primitivism. It reinforces that beauty and heaviness are not mutually exclusive.

In "I Am So Sorry, Goodbye", some of the self-titled's jagged beauty reappears. It leads off with a chopped riff dripping with melancholy, and towards the end, the melodies break apart and disintegrate like space debris in slow motion. Closer "Consilience" also explores this seductive decay, but in a smoother, more gradual fashion. Guitars spiral ever so gracefully into a black hole, dying slowly but not without one last kiss to the audience. This album benefits from one idea being taken to its limits, as opposed to the free-wheeling of their debut.

For Meadow, Pyramids recruited some crucial names in experimental music and underground metal to augment the core lineup. French black metal genius Vindsval, leader of the shape-shifting but always idiosyncratic Blut Aus Nord, takes over drum programming from D. William, who focuses on electronics. Vindsval drives a black metal pulse beneath the guitars' veil, making him a shadowy figure more in control than it seems. (Funnily enough, Loren does a spot-on impression of Vindsval’s vocals on "The Substance of Grief Is Not Imaginary".) Colin Marston, an esteemed metal producer who also abstracts metal in Krallice and Gorguts, contributes guitar, and his touches are all over the record. He, with original guitarist M. Dean, steer the bands towards death metal in the main riffs of "Grief" and "Sons", and processed through Pyramids, it sounds like Portal with prettier vocals. Vindsval and Marston both contributed to remixes that came as a separate disc on the self-titled record, and their familiarity with Pyramids' vision makes them natural allies.

William Fowler Collins rounds out the guest lineup by providing an ambient undercurrent that runs in and out of the record. This heavy roster of powerful names might send expectations soaring, but where Meadow succeeds is that no personality, from the core group or the guests, dominates. They all fall into and become one with the Pyramids aesthetic. This is in contrast to their Nadja collaboration, which, while excellent, had clear lines where both bands came in. Vindsval’s appearance drew a lot of hype from metal fans anticipating this record, but this isn’t a Blut Aus Nord record outsourced to dudes living in a Texas college town. Pyramids are their own unit, and in owning up to their oddities and making them coalesce, not clash, Meadow becomes their most confident statement.

A Northern Meadow is kind of exhaustive to listen to but it's good stuff

exhausting

Recent listens of note:

Midnight Odyssey - kind of great and aptly embodying of the alluded to silveriness, but at almost two and a half hours across just eight tracks, I’m realistically never going to listen to this.

Faith No More - Opening track is nice. Each song starts to get somewhere and then the weird shouty bravado takes over and I just want to be sick (maybe that’s the point). Made it about halfway through.

Fluisteraars - Very elegant. The washed-out atmospherics remind me a little bit of Botanist. Nice as it is though, there’s not quite enough here to hold my attention. Music to write to.

AEVANGELIST - Churning metallic rhythms. Christmas bells/children’s toys. Has the right kind of horrible discordance to be interesting, but somehow fails to take off into something properly distinctive. It has little chimes.

54 Gnaw Their Tongues - Abyss of Longing Throats 277 Points, 8 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/NlWlGsY.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/4U0ukN16XOO6tdMGjUWHtv
spotify:album:4U0ukN16XOO6tdMGjUWHtv

https://gnawtheirtongues.bandcamp.com/album/abyss-of-longing-throats

http://thequietus.com/articles/18893-gnaw-their-tongues-abyss-of-longing-throats-review

The latest missive from the pit where Gnaw Their Tongues lurks gets at once medieval and modernist on every square centimetre of the willing supplicant's disease-ridden flesh. Taking up the challenge so successfully laid by the likes of Khanate to make listening to music as actually unsettling and terrifying an experience as being immersed in a brutally realistic horror film can be, GTT's torturer-in-chief (and indeed sole member) Mories lays out his latest master plan for the subjugation of humankind.

While there's plenty of metal squatting and thrusting at the heart of Abyss Of Longing Throats, from frenetic blast beats to the occasional grind of what might be sampled guitars, Mories also draws on an unholy and unheimlich alliance between the full-spectrum crushing breathlessness of doom and the mechanised clang of industrial beatings, but of the purer Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle strain rather than anything involving Nine Inch Nails' pop metal with 'roid-rage approach. Leavened with harsh martial percussion and brooding orchestral swarms, the sound is thick with menace and heavy on the misery quotient. When one nihilist assault ends another flensing of the ears awaits; the pressure is both relentless and structured so as to maintaining the listener's attention, like a ball gag and spike-lined gimp suit and with about as much room to breathe.

This suffocating mood of bleak malevolence is of course already familiar from a thousand black metal opuses, and anyone who regularly finds themselves with Bathory's 'Equimanthorn' as a welcome earworm should feel, if not at home, then in uncomfortably familiar surroundings at least. Mories has been refining his particular ingredients through a long apprenticeship in the disquiet arts, and with a host of alternate, often surprisingly beautiful alter-egos such as Seirom to assuage his happier side, can be grimly satisfied with the rich seam of mire and murk that Abyss Of Longing Throats proffers so convincingly.

As with the deeply harsh films of Jörg Buttgereit or Nagisa Oshima, it's necessary to step into Mories' world of biblical brutality and let go so completely that disbelief is dropped like a dead weight, never mind merely suspended, in order to take in more than just the battering schlock effects that Gnaw Their Tongues could be presumed to deliver while actually delivering so much more beneath the skin of the hardcore horror show. Just as Buttgereit's anti-hero(ine)s' activities in the Nekromantik movies are depicted with such convicting realism as to make for utterly uncomfortable almost-snuff viewing, or Oshima's similarly transgressive yet tender brutalities in Ai No Corrida (In The Realm Of The Senses) are inflicted with a politicised nihilism that stretches well outside the film's boundaries, so Abyss Of Longing Throats seizes the listener's gaze and demand either full and rapt attention, or to be left in the darkness to its own nefarious devices.

It's this uncompromising attitude which makes Mories' oeuvre so disquietingly satisfying. While being cast into the inferno for all eternity would be insufferable torment in the extreme, at least if the devil may have all the best tunes, then Gnaw Their Tongues has devised the most suitable soundtrack to a season – or more – in hell.

lol i think i forgot to vote for envy. love that record except for the post-rock deluge it kinda sinks into in the middle

Lightning Bolt! I voted for that! I always found Envy to be boring tbh

I wanted to like Pyramids but not my thing straight up.

imago alert: not sure if you voted for Aevangelist or not, or how aware you are of the project, but a source (which will remain nameless for now) mentioned how often it gets compared to a certain Mr Kalmbach's works (also how offtm such comparisons ultimately are, though the description of the album should still allow for some intrigue to be generated)

(Though I suppose tangenttangent's verdict prob bears weight here too)

Envy - oh wow, this is amazing! Very twisty and intricate.

Yay, Gnaw Their Tongues was very high on my ballot. Hideously bleak and heavy, but still plenty melodic.

I should have voted for Pyramids but I forgot.

There's not a lot wrong with Gnaw Their Tongues objectively but with the relentless deluge of material over the past ten years that's all bleak, all evil, all the time I've more or less stopped paying attention.

Gnaw Their Tongues was in my top ten. Initially reluctant, its charms became apparent to me very quickly. It really does stand apart from a lot of DIY BM by dint of its sheer horror, its impressive and maniacal embrace of the lower musics. Brilliant work.

Maybe the new collabo with Dragged Into Sunlight is a bit of a change. Anyone heard that yet?

53 Ad Nauseum - Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est 278 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/GOOWrnQ.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/2a8ytXWW5ikvh9BI9IyeXQ
spotify:album:2a8ytXWW5ikvh9BI9IyeXQ

https://lavadome.bandcamp.com/album/nihil-quam-vacuitas-ordinatum-est

Ad Nauseam have put an enormous effort into creating a record without compromises. The material itself has been in the making for at least 5 years and mirrors all the hardship for complex artistic growth and perfection in an impressive, lively collage of 8 songs. The final outcome can be easily labeled as extreme art of highest calibre possible, unchallenged.

With that being said, Lavadome is more than proud to become the medium which will submit, unearth and physically channel the artistic elegance and dinkum extremity of this record into the chaos of our fleshly plane.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/66890/Ad-Nauseam-Nihil-Quam-Vacuitas-Ordinatum-Est/

Review Summary: A musical conundrum of the highest calibre.

Although it was usually a call for admiration some two decades ago, a metal band boasting extreme technical skill on their debut album is rather common these days. Understandably, the listeners’ enthusiasm for frequent tempo changes, odd time signatures and ostentatious arpeggios played at inhuman speeds has waned, and many bands hoping to distinguish themselves from the crowd are pushing the fold of innovation to the extreme. However, avoiding the perennial comparisons to Gorguts and/or Deathspell Omega seems to be a challenge for just about any band that opts for a complex and dissonant take on either death or black metal. Ad Nauseam aren’t immune, either. From the opening measures of “My Buried Dream”, it’s clear that the aforementioned acts have had a profound influence on the Italian four-piece, but Ad Nauseam manage to mould their influences into something that is faithful yet idiosyncratic, with an intensity that few can match.

The level of proficiency displayed on Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est comfortably usurps my ability to dissect and analyse the theory behind it in any great detail. Unorthodox chord progressions and chromatic leads constitute a good portion of the guitar work, bearing resemblances to that of acts such as Ulcerate, Artificial Brain and even Portal, but sounding imitative of none of them. Ad Nauseam combine the visceral, bludgeoning and oppressive nature of their contemporaries with an academic panache. This is enriched by the inclusion of atonal backing strings reminiscent of composers like Alfred Schnittke, exhibited most vividly in the closing minutes of “Key to Timeless Laws”. Now, lacing your compositions with string sections that flirt with serialism can very easily come across as contrived and pseudo-intellectual, but the manner in which the band integrates them is both tasteful and mercifully sporadic. With the bells and whistles confined to climaxes and interludes, the core instrumentation still drives the majority of the album, skirting the line between accessibility and total bedlam but never drifting too close to either end of the spectrum.

Underneath the disorienting presentation are arrangements that have been methodically composed, revised and fine-tuned. Each song is rapidly evolving into something different, and though refrains and hooks are present, they can be rather difficult to decipher on account of the eccentric material and seamless transitions. Thus, it probably comes as no surprise that Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est requires several astute listens before everything begins to unravel in a way that makes sense. Yes, it can still feel a little disorderly at times, but any such moments are few and far between. Aural respite comes in the form of melodic ceases, in which notes and chords often ring freely to create a palpable air of suspense, before the band shifts into gear and repeatedly catches you off-guard. The inclusion of these musical ceasefires also brings to light how beautifully produced the album is - each instrument has an equitable place in the mix, as well as crisp and clear yet organic timbres across the board. Combine the acute balance and rich textures with spacious mastering and you have what is arguably the best death metal album of 2015, so far.

With the amount of time and dedication that Ad Nauseam have clearly expended here, it would be a shame for this opus to be dismissed as just another Obscuracore product, because it is so much more than that. Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est is a labyrinth of an album that takes time and patience to absorb, and should you afford it just that, your efforts will surely be reconciled.

This was also in my top ten! Right next to GTT I think. Amazing dissonance and great songwriting (and delectable Latin)

xp

Not yet, but it's been duly queued.

I would never have expected something so cutely emo from an album named 'Atheist's cornea'. The track 'Footsteps in the Distance' is beautiful!

Ad Nauseum (spelled incorrectly, or so I'm told) - another very high placement in my ballot.

yeah the Latin could have been even more delectable tbh

cant be often that a posh public school education can come in handy when listening to black metal

52 Monolord - Vænir 283 Points, 10 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/ZJo6GCY.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3CftcAuSynOsQq1PgNV2eW
spotify:album:3CftcAuSynOsQq1PgNV2eW

https://monolord.bandcamp.com/

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/monolord-vaenir-review/

The first long length from Gothenburg doomsters Monolord, last year’s Empress Rising, enjoyed a surprising level of success and acclaim, the likes of which is usually the result of a combination of solid, but not great music and circumstances which fall under the banner of “hype.” Releasing a second album just a year later and following such a highly esteemed record made more likely the possibility of the enthusiasm bubble bursting. Vænir (named after Sweden’s largest lake) could have easily turned out a dud.

Good news, everyone! Vænir is good! And it’s almost the same as Empress Rising. Nothing else could have been realistically expected. No, sir. Monolord are a rather straightforward entity, mixing doom, sludge, and stoner metal with riffs dating back to Black Sabbath, then adding a touch of psychedelia and fuzzed out, distorted vocals. Does this sound like the description of several other band? Electric Wizard, you say? Indeed, I don’t think there’s a better and more succinct way of describing Monolord’s sound than comparing them to the English doom giants from a parallel universe close to our own. Slightly phased out, not exactly the same, yet clearly recognizable. Sure, sure, there are also traces of YOB and Sleep here, but is that a detrimental notion? As one of our commenters pointed out recently, doom/sludge/stoner is often based on reusing the same elements and riffs over and over again, repackaging them, and spicing them up just a bit. It’s how it goes and Monolord are pretty proficient at it.

The band has the necessary chops for writing relatively memorable songs and a knack for growling, groveling riffs. Case in point: there are six songs on the album and only one that isn’t up to scratch – the short, intermezzo-like “The Cosmic Silence,” which tries to pull a Sabbathian hippie tune à la “Solitude” or “Planet Caravan” and fails at it. But when the band sticks to what they do best, stoning, dooming, and cursing, they are quite good. The opening “Cursing the One” doesn’t mess around and opens with some nice, sweeping riffs, continues leaning on the same nice riffs for nine minutes, and finishes with the same nice riffs. Yeah, like I’ve mentioned before, it’s stoner-doom, it’s repetitive. “Nuclear Death,” “Died a Million Times,“ and the titanic, seventeen minutes long title track are all satisfying, traditional doom songs with some interesting and some less interesting sections (when they go all, like, meditative, like), but it’s “We Will Burn” that steals the spotlight. One of the best, ear-wormiest riffs I’ve heard in a while and a great break and groove hitting somewhere around the fifth minute of the track make it the standout, and not just on this record.

Looked and digested as a whole then, this is a pleasant if somewhat bland album. It’s the definition of “solid” and it will be liked by many insatiable doom fans, but skipped by passersby of the genre. Looking at the musicianship – Mika Häkki on a pulsing, propelling bass, Esben Willems on hard-hitting drums, and Thomas V. Jäger on buzzing guitars and spaced out, “whoa, dude!” vocals are all seasoned musicians and they don’t miss a beat. Shouldered by just the right type of fuzzy, meaty, yet clear production, they make a convincing case by underlining all the strong points of doom’s appeal. Not the gigantic monster of a sound that, say, Ufomammut have, but it’s still poised to rock your eardrums. If after years and years of consuming doom metal you still have any left, that is.

Are you a fan of Monolord’s first record? Do you wish Electric Wizard released at least three albums a year? Well, then you’re in luck. Monolord will please all but the most nitpicky of doom fans. The equivalent of homemade food, comforting and familiar, Vænir is worth a listen even if it doesn’t bring anything new to the doom table. Or maybe exactly because of that.

And yeah DAM of course, I'll listen to everything that doesn't have the ill sense to piss me off before I've heard a note of it (Bosse De Nage)

Oh look, another one a certain person voted for

Regretting that I missed Monolord's show when they came through town.

Three for three on this run - today is a great day!

In the meantime, Pyramids (never heard of) is proving to be stunning. Like a blearier Jesu.

Well, then you’re in luck. Monolord will please all but the most nitpicky of doom fans.

All doom fans are nitpicky. Just look at the reception some gave the Electric Wizard albums then loved the 'With The Dead' album (2 original members of Electric Wizard with Lee Dorrian) and vice versa

what side did you take imago?

I'm really not the doom expert in my household

Funeral doom, more so. The Tyranny was so good

I meant on electric wizard vs with the dead

I thought you would be all over that album

not that ive looked at your ballot you mightve voted for it for all i know

Oh! Uh nah not heard sozzles. Cathedral are a big gap in my knowledge

With The Dead is life draining, but I guess I can't fault it for that as it must be intentional!

With The Dead > last Electric Wizard. Not better than E. Wiz as a whole, but man did I hate that record.

I like the Monolord record but not as much as their debut.

51 Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful 286 Points, 8 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/JQNV6qt.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/46NbjsFFRfMiNGO3UuqubP
spotify:album:46NbjsFFRfMiNGO3UuqubP

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/apr/02/nightwish-endless-forms-most-beautiful-review
by Dom Lawson

It may be the uninhibited preposterousness of symphonic metal that has kept Nightwish from major mainstream triumph, but they’re headlining Wembley Arena in December, so they are clearly on the right track. Bravely, Endless Forms Most Beautiful eschews the Finns’ usual fairytale comfort zone in favour of a sustained paean to evolutionary science, featuring the surprising but effective presence of Richard Dawkins as a narrator. It’s a change of tack that adds intrigue and substance to the band’s typical bombast and melodrama, resulting in their most ambitious and assured record yet. Newly recruited singer Floor Jansen strikes a fine balance between operatic acrobatics and straightforward, soulful restraint, most notably on twinkling earworm Élan. But it is chief songwriter Tuomas Holopainen’s ear for epic refrains and lavish arrangements that makes Endless Forms such a stirring and defiantly uncool delight.

Did anyone else read Richard Dawson instead of Dawkins in that review?

twenty minutes of lols pls

'poor old horse' + nightwish

I rarely listen to that symphonic stuff, but would totally go see Blind Guardian with Nightwish at the Chicago Civic Opera House or something. Would there be costumes, props and glitter or is my imagination off base?

imago liveblog this album now please

who wants lj to liveblog it?

If I wasn't standing on a station platform in the rain in the middle of nowhere I might

we are past the halfway point now too btw

What we really need is Brad to come and explain himself ;)

Headlining Wembley Arena? Isn't that like 80.000 people?

no, that would be Wembley Stadium

50 Misþyrming - Söngvar elds og óreiðu 298 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/lB24vu1.jpg

https://misthyrming.bandcamp.com/album/s-ngvar-elds-og-rei-u

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/things-might-missed-2015-misthyrming-songvar-elds-og-oreidu/

There aren’t many contexts wherein ‘Icelandic’ forms part of a natural phrase to an outsider such as myself. If I think ‘American…’ I complete the phrase with ‘Horror Story,’ ‘Hustle’ or ‘Heartbeat,’ among numerous other affiliated terms. There are but two completions which spring to mind after ‘Icelandic’ for me: ‘beer’ and ‘metal.’ I therefore understandably privilege the overachieving country and am here to impart on you the knowledge of yet more exemplary cultural output. Arising from the igneous, krieg crust permeating the bedrock of all things Icelandic, Misþyrming is largely the work of enigmatic multi-instrumentalist, composer and frontman, D. G. It truly captures the essence of everything I perceive as Icelandic: brutal, cold and harsh, but earthly, beautiful and adventurous too. Söngvar elds og óreiðu is among the best black metal you will hear this year.

It makes for an unusual first listen, gripping you with its frosty, blackened, but ultimately orthodox fingers, before gradually relinquishing its subtler, atmospheric mysticism. It’s a rare album which is immediately striking with its shrieking, chaotic black metal core, but also rewards repeated listens as its avant-garde, melodic and atmospheric qualities stir in its depths. This isn’t just reserved for a few exclusively-ambient tracks scattered throughout (though there is one), but is subtly integrated into Söngvar‘s progression. Opener “Songür heiftar” features unnerving guitar twangs demarcating avant-garde touches used by such bands as Taarenes Vaar, and the tempestuous passages more commonly heard in black metal gradually divulge a dark and mysterious atmosphere.

Transitioning from this first song, Söngvar tracks a wholly satisfying course through its 44-minute length, clasping your attention close to its bosom throughout. The bar is raised by second track “…af þjáningu og þrá,” an even more satisfying slice of atmospheric black metal, before truly introducing the weirdness which elevates the material on “Endalokasálmar.” Despite retaining its brutality, the drums have a definite groove here, and the vocals take on a deeper, more unsettling, tone. It breaks after a suitably explosive climax into an atonal piano melody with a carnival-esque swing. The next track is the dissonant, ambient interlude which while unremarkable in and of itself, fits perfectly the album’s structure. This is juxtaposed by “Er haustið ber að garði,” which I can only describe as if serious black metal met upbeat grind, featuring an awesome buzz-sawing melody. Without devolving into a frowned-upon track-by-track review, things heighten over the second half as all previously utilized styles are drawn together into a couple of lengthier tracks and the album reaches its own climax. It goes such a long way to have a well-paced and digestible runtime as Söngvar does.

Misþyrming_2015

This will inevitably sound pretentious as fuck, but Misþyrming‘s début feels like it flows and breathes, and is almost sentient in its free-form yet precise depiction of Icelandic frostiness. The savage intensity some desire in their black metal is there, but its moody grace and clarity is what consolidates this into an excellent release. When this thing is available for the very reasonable price of nothing at all, there is literally no good reason why you should not be circulating wintry winds through your preferred listening space.

Tracks to check: “Er haustið ber að garði,” “Friðþæging blýþungra hjartna,” “Söngur uppljómunar”

The Nightwish album is great. It's not quite my favorite gothic symphonic metal album of the year, but I think that's mostly because Nightwish are so firmly established in my mind that it's hard to feel surprised by them anymore. Whereas I had lower, and far exceeded, expectations for Imperia, Amberian Dawn and Graveshadow.

Surprisingly low considering the crossover success this record had this year.

never heard of Misþyrming either

Misþyrming is a name your price download on bandcamp btw so no excuses for any of us not to hear it now

well that's much more to my liking than nightwish

nigþwiþ

I found Nightwish's stage show surprisingly un-stagy when I saw them, and they were supporting a concept album, so if ever there was an opportunity for backing films, interpretive dancers, etc., that would have been it. But no, they just got up there (in their frilly costumes, granted) and rocked out. (It was one of their last two or three shows with their previous singer, too, though, so maybe they were feeling down 'cause they secretly knew she was out the door.)

I didn't vote in the poll, but I'm glad to see stuff like Nightwish (which I wouldn't have voted for) and Huntress (which I totally would have) popping up amid all the blacker-than-thou yawnfests.

blacker-þan-þou

think i voted for the nightwish but i don't really remember. it's good anyway.

phil im sorry you didnt vote. especially after you nominated stuff but j3ff and adrien didnt vote either. I think ive been blacklisted by rolling metal thread regulars.
if you all had voted it maybe wouldnt have been all death and black metal

I missed the Nightwish album, maybe because it doesn't seem to be on Spotify.

It is nice to see some corrective cheese-metal given the skew of the list so far.

The bombast of Nightwish makes it sound a little like Eurovision metal. If that was the context I would probably be blown away, but for the office...I can't.

Former winners of an ilm metal poll coming up

49 Torche - Restarter 303 Points, 10 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/3z6SMV8.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2MWe16b9rSKI49jBsqyO4F
spotify:album:2MWe16b9rSKI49jBsqyO4F

https://torche.bandcamp.com/album/restarter

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20046-restarter/
7.9

Torche leave very little room for misinterpretation as Restarter, their fourth album, begins. On vicious opener "Annihilation Affair", the quartet wallops a short, simple theme, in unison, at mid-tempo and very high volume. Frontman Steve Brooks barks his words, delivering them like marching orders as an enemy approaches: "Know it, build it, grow it, blow it," he shouts, the band surging behind him. The action eventually grinds to a dissonant halt, the guitars feeding back and screaming against the beat like a long train trying to brake before slipping into hell. After seeming so eager to capitalize on their pop underpinnings in recent years, Torche arrive on Restarter, their Relapse debut, as harsh, heavy and mean as they have been in nearly a decade.

Since the release of the head-turning 2008 shout-along Meanderthal, and the subsequent dismissal of guitarist Juan Montoya, Torche have not been shy about their melodic enthusiasm. Recorded as a trio, the eight-track Songs for Singles aimed to cram captivating hooks into rock tunes that ran anywhere from 52 seconds to more than six minutes. After adding guitarist Andrew Elstner, they cut Harmonicraft, a record whose cover of furry beasts holding chocolate-chip cookies and puking rainbows portended their most brisk and ebullient batch of songs yet. Torche were still plenty demanding, but the harmonies were brighter and the guitars both quicker and slicker. The metal at their core had started to melt; the big refrains and the bigger sound began to collapse into one another, producing diminishing tension. Harmonicraft felt transitional, putting Torche perhaps one album away from a package tour with retro-rock hawkers like Free Energy or Wolfmother.

But Restarter push Torche back toward the more punishing pole of its sound. The brief "Undone", for instance, counts as one of the heaviest pieces in Torche's catalog. Brooks leads multiple marching sections, but when he pauses, they slip into the sort of down-tuned, instrumental slogs that consumed multi-minute chunks of their early records. This allows Torche to be brutal while still moving, a trick they've rarely mastered. This doesn't mean they've suddenly slid into doom or sludge metal. These 10 songs are actually no less memorable than those on Harmonicraft; "Minions", "Blasted", and "Undone" rank as new shoo-ins for any hypothetical best-of-Torche collection.

This time, though, Torche achieve magnetism as a band that lumbers and roars in unison, instead of manic, flashy guitars or songs that seem in a hurry to reach an end. Bassist Jonathan Nuñez and drummer Rick Smith are essential like never before. They trace Brooks and Elstner closely, fortifying every melody and movement with powerful, unselfish playing. Brooks' seesaw singing during "Annihilation Affair", for instance, sticks because of how the bass and drums reinforce every note. Like the best songs from Meanderthal, "Loose Men" is agile but strong, lovable but aggressive. Its rhythm section is a juggernaut, but it moves gracefully around a guitar solo, like an elephant tap-dancing in a small room. During "Minions", incisive guitar lines and Brooks' monotone singing crisscross like a game of cat's cradle; Nuñez and Smith pulse behind the action, offering the equivalent of a house beat, pushing you along with the song. "Blasted" is one of Restarter's quickest songs, its racing tempo and vocals recalling Harmonicraft. But the rhythm section remains the bulwark beneath it, not making room for the band's pop-rock maneuvers so much as forcing them to fight for space and attention. Brooks sings of lascivious men and scenes that seem stolen from The Fast and the Furious. The band pushes you along for the ride.

Restarter is Torche's first album since Brooks reunited Floor, the band's predecessor in terms of style and personnel. It seems as if, in rebooting that old act, he remembered the root of the formula for both: Write catchy songs and play them at undeniable volumes, no gimmicks or flourishes necessary. On Restarter, that precept again takes the lead, and Torche have made their most compelling record since Meanderthal.

I dig that Floorche record.

I'm about to give up on my #4 & maybe my #1

Torche won a poll? When was that, 2008?

Would I know your #1? The Charlton, London voting bloc is p powerful these days

Dinsdale the very first metal poll i think it was

48 Zu - Cortar Todo 308 Points, 10 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/3obHDH3.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0TOvz6K5hnBsIJEaZoVVho
spotify:album:0TOvz6K5hnBsIJEaZoVVho

http://thequietus.com/articles/17420-zu-cortar-todo-review

Without sacrificing any of the solidity, astringency or brutality akin to their previous blood-lettings, Zu spit out their most astral of recordings. The map as charted out by Carboniferous and Goodnight, Civilization sets Cortar Todo in another frame of reference: the transmundane is portrayed in a musical experience which dances on the shadows of previous experiments, as the new ideas rise a level up towards certitude.

As we could expect, Cortar Todo ('cut everything' in Spanish) becomes its own island and dodges any kind of possible labelling one might throw at it. This being somewhat of a Zu trademark, which more often than not renders them classified under genres which seem inadequate to their unconventional noteworthy sound. Sonic traditions which remind one of processional marches, 19th century factory machinery, fists in the face, but also of unceasing waterfalls, defibrillators, and the inner workings of warm-blooded animals. Here, they come forth as modern hymns, sung into the air more expansively than ever. There is something to be said for Zu in general, whichever their configuration, their music is something to get lost in, willing or otherwise. Leaving the proverbial (and irrelevant) trail of breadcrumbs is perhaps to be advised - or discouraged. Let the ear be the judge.

Loyalty to the instrumental tradition in the making of such "theory-laden" music results in a very precise observation of what the specific anatomies of listening attention and disorientation are, and it shows just how caginess can be attained even when the final result is to be the notorious, ever relentless wall of sound. This we could expect from Zu, and those familiar with their previous work will agree that their style is generally characterised by the radical, martial audacity they enact on the ear. Brain-draining and muscle-cramping, the voluptuousness of these recordings presents itself as a worthy anthem of the disinterested reality of our age. Of the banal oscillation of human life. Of the invisible promised grail.

Concurrent exorcisms of sax, drums and bass - all of them overdriven to the limits of playing and listening capacity. The experience, as if an exploration into phenomenology, is challenging if one is unwilling to let go of expectancy. The sound's investigation into how long a particular gesture should last, or what the contours of musical structure are, remind the ear of previous encounters of the kind with musicians like Radigue or Riley. The ferocity of the bass and drums give way to the hints of lung brought forth by the saxophone, dancing on the swordy edge of improvised dementia and choreographed catastrophe.

The varied backgrounds of the track titles perhaps reflect devotedness to several truths, or: to the impossibility of any actual consequential truth. That is to say: whether you've got a few pieces of the puzzle, or the desire to disregard the idea of the world as a puzzle altogether, both choices are fine, acceptable. Navigable. The truth is, as any other reality we might be willing to consume; in this new album we can be found in being lost. In its somewhat aggressive tone, it does seem to hint at the fact that any perspective in the plurality of commonalities or differences that can be explored on this planet is a valid one. Or a real one, at least. In the sonic tower that is Cortar Todo, there lurks a promise of bifurcation of timelines between ultimate freedom from incertitude or eternal damnation anchored on the indefiniteness granted to us by the human condition.

Listening to this record feels like attempting to escape from a beast inevitable, which is in turn trying hard to hide itself away from us. And as it resists observation, we might realise that among its seemingly disorganised nature, the orderly tradition of persistence lives on. Transformation, whether in ecstasy or in absolute damnation, is achieved by a strange combination of athletic composition and heavy-duty assembly.

I might have voted for this

(xxp)yeah you know it, imago...there was a lot of contention as to whether or not it was metal, but the more I listen to it, the more I'm convinced it works in that context

Ok Zu was my #4. I thought maybe if I started whining lol

Oh your #1 will make it for sure. I gave it a load of points.

Even if it's basically Richard Dawson with more electronics ;)

Need to give Zu a proper listen - didn't seem to have the dynamics of Carboniferous on initial skim, but that was a skim

47 Kowloon Walled City - Grievances 318 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/U18ywQI.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/053RP4e4DPvHGk2w2X6xwF
spotify:album:053RP4e4DPvHGk2w2X6xwF

https://kowloonwalledcity.bandcamp.com/album/grievances

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21149-grievances/
7.8

No one but a person who’d experienced abject powerlessness and the passive acceptance of degradation could have created Grievances. It’s the third full-length by San Francisco’s Kowloon Walled City, a post-metal group that Scott Evans fronts as both singer/guitarist and producer. Wearing that many hats in a band suggests a position of authority, but you’d never guess that listening to Grievances. Evans subsumes his riffs within vast, oppressive swathes of empty space. He submits his voice to a process of industrialized monotony. His guitar doesn’t gently weep—it curls up, plays dead, and still isn’t able to halt its cataclysmic spasms.

Yet Grievances sounds anything but weak. Kowloon’s last album, 2012’s Container Ships, showed a shift toward refinement that felt more like a half measure, but here, Evans and crew have hit on something profound. It isn’t a concept album per se, but it does have an overarching theme: the psychic, social, and spatial anxieties of the modern workplace. But Grievances isn’t about run-of-the-mill disgruntled employment as much as it’s a haunting meditation on humanity’s disassociation from the product—or, in our increasingly cyber-centric world, the service—of its labor.

"You sell it like a poet," Evans howls on "The Grift", the centerpiece and high point of the album. It’s an accusation of self-commodification, seemingly aimed both inward and outward. It’s more than that, though; as a trainwreck of AmRep-style noise rock is sculpted into minimalist shapes, that structure becomes a metaphor for hollowness of all kinds. "The fiction sells," Evans reiterates, and when he slams the "confidence game" of modern interpersonal commerce, his sardonic use of "confidence" is even more lacerating than his sly insinuation of melody.

At just over three and a half minutes, "The Grift" is the runt of the album. Song lengths stretch onward from there, including Grievances’ title track, which crawls along for nearly seven minutes’ worth of forlorn rage. While Evans levels the charge "No love/ No memory/ Just admit it", fellow guitarist Jon Howell locks into a pneumatic, dehumanized groove that sputters out in gasps of dead air. Bassist Ian Miller chugs and claws; drummer Jeff Fagundes (replaced by Julia Lancer since this recording) puts the brakes on spacetime. If Godflesh and Codeine had ever conspired to hybridize, it might have come out like this: bleak but bare, mechanistic yet melancholic.

Grievances is inalienably heavy, but it’s not sludge in the conventional sense. On "Your Best Years", the distortion is more clotted than fuzzy, with immaculate slabs of dissonance left dangling overhead. But it’s "Backlit" that sums up the huge step forward Kowloon has taken with Grievances. Arid and static at first, it builds into a monument to grim resignation that feels weathered and ancient right out of the gate. "Wear out your weaknesses," Evans half-commands, half-implores; later he adds, "Wear all your weaknesses." Resistance is futile, but in that steadfast futility there is strength.

that Torche record was so disappointing to me. a few good songs but too many dirges.

Too low (but not too Low)!

(also, thanks for all the Bandcamp links, Slop! signed, an anti-Spotify-er)

Cortar Todo is basically what I wanted the second Obake album to sound like but with no vocals abd a fuckton more skronk added into the mix (xps)

Bandcamp seems more universal to metal than, like, tattoos or riffs nowadays

Thats why I started to think it wouldnt make it; bcz mist ppl were justifiably treating it as a follow-up to Carboniferous, and I dont think it's nearly as satisfying from that angle

Lol otm xp

46 Napalm Death - Apex Predator - Easy Meat 321 Points, 9 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/5lK342k.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3McUmHqMv5K9JRdbBDP2RH
spotify:album:3McUmHqMv5K9JRdbBDP2RH

http://thequietus.com/articles/17110-napalm-death-apex-predator-easy-meat-review

Napalm Death have had the line-up of vocalist/lyricist Mark 'Barney' Greenway, bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris, and drummer Danny Herrera, in place for more or less a quarter of a century now. The legendary grindcore band famed for their creation and popularisation of the most explosive metal subgenre (they were Sir John Peel's favourite band for a reason) have really been on a remarkable run of form since around 2000's Enemy Of The Music Business.

The main reason behind the creative success of subsequent albums such as Smear Campaign, Time Waits For No Slave, and Utilitarian is because Napalm, while maintaining the grinding gait founded on their establishment-baiting 1987 debut Scum, gradually introduced an experimental side into their signature sound without diluting the broiling fusion of grind, death metal and hardcore punk. The upshot of which has proven that, musically, Napalm Death seem unlikely to ever rest on their laurels – a necessary trait in a subgenre as strictly defined as grindcore, in which songs detonate and disappear in a matter of seconds, with the ringing in your ears lasting longer than the initial blast.

By playing every festival, sweaty club and bombed-out squat that would have them, this lineup – the definitive lineup – of Napalm Death quickly turned into a well-oiled machine, which has also benefited how tight their music has sounded since the beginning of the new millennium. And given how scummy, deceitful and downright fucked the world seems at the minute, Greenway's socio-political/humanitarian lyrical bent, taking well-aimed pot-shots at the oppressors, has never been more necessary as it is now: You see, we need bands like Napalm Death who avoid forcing their rhetoric down our throats, but who instead grab us by our heads and wrench open our eyes to highlight the injustices festering hideously just beneath the surface.

Because of the foregoing, Napalm Death's new album Apex Predator - Easy Meat is another essential addition to the esteemed band's lengthy discography. It once again finds the veteran four-piece in vitriolic form, striking balance between vehement musicianship and Greenway's enraged diatribes – he covers pertinent topics like human exploitation as well as other aspects of social inequality, all delivered through his expressive arsenal of enraged screams and bellows.

Instantly, Napalm Death grab our attention with the bizarre title track which opens Apex Predator - Easy Meat. Besides some prominent percussion and other layers of crafted noise, the title track is strictly centred on the monotone throat-singing and menacing screams of Greenway. It's definitely the most unorthodox inclusion here, but it makes just as much sense to the overall movement of the album as having saxophonist John Zorn let rip a hysterical, atonal guest solo on Utilitarian's 'Everyday Pox'.

Expectedly, however, Apex Predator - Easy Meat remains loaded with signature Napalm Death synapses-splattering shocks to both the physical and the political system. Brilliantly-titled songs such as 'Smash A Single Digit', 'Metaphorically Screw You, 'Stubborn Stains', 'Timeless Flogging', 'Cesspits' and 'Bloodless Coup' are all crazy fast and chaotic: viciously charging from D-beat-driven churn, to caustic blasts, to crossover thrash sprints, to crippling death metal grooves – all drilled together for high impact without a second's drag. And while the Birmingham band's 15th full-length uses those types of frenetic songs to add memory muscle to an immoveable frame, it's the tracks whereby the more atypical ideas are integrated into traditional Napalm Death tactics and not isolated on their own, that once again prove the most fascinating.

For instance, look past the punked-up Slayer riffs of 'How The Years Condemn' and there's Voivod-ian discordance used as a dynamic. 'Dear Slum Landlord' is placed at a pivotal point during the album, slowing the velocity down to an ill tempo, with Greenway channelling Michael Gira as the chest-caving riffs bring the song to an unexpected end. There's even a hip-hop beat buried in the milieu of blasts during 'Stunt Your Growth', and some Killing Joke post-punk tribalism and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it guitar solo during 'Hierarchies'. Elsewhere, without interrupting its frightening forward attack, 'One-Eyed' sees Harris include an icy black metal riff to great effect; while as the album finishes with 'Adversarial/Copulating Snakes', Harris, Herrera and Embury coalesce together for a monstrous Celtic Frost-worthy finish – a To Mega Therion death-stomp used as a portentous punctuation mark. Once again, as you can tell, there hasn't been some reckless leftfield move from Napalm Death; they've just slightly contorted their sonic palette to keep the songwriting process exciting for themselves. By doing so, Apex Predator - Easy Meat retains the hyperactive energy and deadly pacing of its recent predecessors, and as a result, it gives their fans a diverse and devastating listening experience during what is a quintessential, zeitgeist-destroying grindcore album.

I voted for this. Exceptionally great fun and full of joyful...melody, actually, which sounds mad for Napalm Death, but maybe covering Cardiacs rubbed off on them :)

It basically sounded really fresh

I liked the Torche album, but definitely would have liked it more if it were about 30 tracks at 2:30 or less. That's what they do best, short, melodic blasts of sludge pop. There were four tracks like that, and one long dirge at the end at 8:40.

In theory I should like KWC but I could never get into them

Kowloon just keeps getting better, IMHO. But I understand why it isn't everyone's thing, even with fans of sludgy post-hardcore.

45 Magic Circle - Journey Blind 327 Points, 8 Votes One #1
http://i.imgur.com/1QxSNFW.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1sEnKVVNfq2OPZOqtlIwye
spotify:album:1sEnKVVNfq2OPZOqtlIwye

http://listen.20buckspin.com/album/journey-blind-2

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21263-journey-blind/
7.6

There's little better than the mixture of punk speed and metal riffs. Punk tempo supplies the adrenaline injection that metal's compositional superiority clearly needs. Massachusetts' Magic Circle are a variation on this principle: its members come from a variety of hardcore and punk bands, such as Mind Eraser, the Rival Mob, Innumerable Forms, and Doomriders, and they make traditional metal with a deceptively youthful spunk. Even as most of its members were known figures in their home state, Magic Circle's debut still came out of nowhere in a sense: who knew they were capable of this? Their second record, Journey Blind, doesn't have the mystique of the first, but it makes up by being more assertive.

With its faster rhythms paying homage to that nook when NWOBHM was picking up but thrash hadn't quite emerged, the lead-off title track shows the influence of Stone Dagger, which features bassist Justin DeTore, vocalist Brendan Radigan, and guitarist Chris Corry, bleeding into Magic Circle. Don't get fooled by the Mellotron intro and think this will be a prog effort. Corry, along with Dan Ducas, turn every melody and lead into a hesher motivational speech. "The Damned Man" takes the majesty of the title track and gives it a more proto-thrash, biker-like thrust. Radigan is the ideal vocalist for this material, going in for maximum horn-raising wailing while maintaining a tough edge in most of the verses.

Another spirit that Magic Circle absorb, albeit not as obvious, is that of early Pentagram. Radigan's vocal range is greater than that of Bobby Liebling's, but he is able to convey darkness with a light of hope shining through, like Liebling before he descended into the path that's been covered to death elsewhere already. "Ghost of the Southern Front" is where the Pentagram influence really emerges, with Corry and Ducas adding a macabre boogie to their riffing. Their ending solos have that purgatorial feeling of Pentagram's "Death Row", perfect for looping. Closer "Antedivullan" begins with a softer passage not unlike Black Sabbath's "After Forever", and when they rage into their standard battle charge, the song's placements gives it a do-or-die urgency. Much like Metallica's "Damage Inc.", it's a choice anthem for going down swinging.

Magic Circle belong to a special group of new traditionalist bands alongside High Spirits, Crypt Sermon, Ranger, Iron Age, and (on the more progressive, much weirder end) VHÖL. All of these bands wear their influences on their battle jackets while bringing a real hunger to the table. Journey isn't just a great heavy metal record, it also dismantles the narrative that punk was put on earth to rid rock of its excesses. Hardcore kids can do something with more complicated structures too, and can draw the same sense of purpose that metal has been excellent in instilling for decades.

This rules so hard. Hope they tour soon. http://fastnbulbous.com/magic-circle-journey-blind/

never heard of them

I'm sure I mentioned them earlier in the year as I was slavering in anticipation for the new one. Despite their self-titled debut from 2013 being nearly as great (and it was #75 in the ILM poll), they had zero online presence -- no Bandcamp, Spotify, FB, site or anything. That all changed this past month.

Except I don't think they're on FB yet.

I'm not even the one who ranked it #1!

It's been a while since the last black metal album.

44 Death Karma - The History of Death & Burial Rituals Part I 346 Points, 8 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/GdWf0rj.jpg

https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/death-karma-the-history-of-death-burial-rituals-part-i

DEATH KARMA's debut EP, A Life Not Worth Living, seemingly appeared out of nowhere in early 2013. The sound introduced by this Czech duo here was an unrelenting whirlwind of merciless battery, caustic misanthropy, and psychic abuse. The record found favor with a number of diehards worldwide, but it's positively humbled by DEATH KARMA's debut album, The History of Death & Burial Rituals part 1. As suggested by its grandiose title, The History of Death & Burial Rituals displays the duo in a considerably elevated state: the ambition and daring DEATH KARMA exhibit here almost sounds like an entirely different band. However, the band remains the same, and includes two members of the critically acclaimed CULT OF FIRE. Not unlike that band, DEATH KARMA here unveil a comparatively kaleidoscopic kind of black metal, bolstered by death metal muscle, surging-yet-layered songcraft, mystical melodicism, and a robust production that highlights every subtle nuance, every dynamic twist, and especially the over-spilling violence. It's an album that not so much abandons black/death in futile favor of something "different" for its own sake, but rather attempts - and succeeds, massively - to inject bold adventure into classicist purity. With The History of Death & Burial Rituals part 1, DEATH KARMA reveal themselves to the world...and it's just the beginning.

Vocalist/guitarist/bassist Infernal Vlad explains the concepts behind The History of Death & Burial Rituals part I: "Death is as young as humanity itself. It accompanies mankind from the very beginning, and it is an integral part of life. As the cultural differences in society have been evolving throughout the centuries, different ways of burying the deceased, as well as their worship and access to the dead, were incurring. In particular, the emergence of different religions in the world had a crucial influence on funerary rituals, historical and current, as well as on the perception of death. Many cults of death were born...

"I have always been fascinated by this topic, and that was the reason behind the conception of this work. The LP The History of Death & Burial Rituals part 1 is the first part of the musicalization of posthumous rituals and the perception of death in different cultures and countries around the world. This is my tribute to death and its great value and importance to man. In the first part of this musical book, we will deal with rituals in the following countries:

"Slovakia - ancient burial customs of superstitious and deeply religious villagers still exist in certain areas till today.

Madagascar - dance with Death, in the name of Famadihana.

Mexico - the most famous dead town which once lived though death. Enter the mouth of the ChichenItza well - where people were buried in blood.

Czech Republic- 'Umrlčí prkna' provide a place for Death through the long and harsh winters, so the earth could accept the bodies in spring.

India – The Towers of Silence. Here one can feel and hear death the most.

China - Hanging coffins on high rocks so nobody disturbs the peace of the dead."
credits
released February 6, 2015

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/death-karma-history-death-burial-rituals-part/

Death is perhaps the most interesting subject to me. Though I don’t study it, don’t have any sort of education in it, and don’t have any right to expand on or analyze it, I just find the human intrigue and fear of death fascinating. Some embrace death and live their lives knowing that everything could end today, others accept but fear death, and many avoid discussion of it (and even the thought of it) more than anything else in the world. However, death is something we all have in common. The rich may differ from the poor, the materialists may differ from the naturalists, the educated may differ from the uneducated, but in the end, titles don’t matter, awards don’t matter, money doesn’t matter, material doesn’t matter, and all the rest of this bullshit doesn’t matter. We are all worm food meant to degrade into the earth and become nature’s fertilizer.

However, this is just one opinion from a hick born from America’s Southwest desert. While I may mourn, drink, and reflect on the preciousness of life when friends and family pass away, many people and many cultures look at death completely different than I. Case in point; Death Karma’s six examples of death worship and burial traditions via The History of Death and Burial Rituals Part I. It may be a forty-two minute crash course in the subject, but be sure to take good notes. There’s a test at the end.

The theme here is obviously… death; however, “Part I” focuses on the traditions and worship of the peoples of Slovakia, Madagascar, Mexico, Czech Republic, India, and China. It’s a cool theme that adds depth to some classic black metal riffage that could have easily been partnered with your everyday satanic topics. Opener “Slovakia – Journey of the Soul” begins with some creepy spoken word and organ presence before slamming you down with its blackened assault. After transitioning from an almost thrashy passage at the 3:00 mark to some galloping riffage, it slows to a melodic, mid-paced section that sports some Shatraug-like (Horna) crooning by Infernal Vlad. Nearly eight minutes in length, this track is full of surprises and drives away the staleness that haunts many a modern black metal band.

Death Karma - The History of Death and Burial Rituals Part I 02Equally as good is “Czech Republic – Úmrlcí Prkna,” which showcases similar diversity and strength but with some added flavors. In this case, there is a little more death in the main riff and the midway transition comes in the form of some catchy old-school riffery, echoing cathedral spoken-words, and a melodic groove that induces headbanging. Instrumental “India – Towers of Sacrifice” incorporates all of the previously-mentioned elements in its seven-minute length; alternating between fast and mid-paced, combining black and death elements, and sprinkling in some Slayer-like thrash. It’s a solid track, but a tad long for my taste. More variety comes in “Mexico – Chichén Itzá,” which really fucks with the formula of the aforementioned songs by spending the first half in blackened Spanish-themed tremolo picking and chaotic rasps before shifting into a dissonant riff full of haunting emotion.

The neatest part about THoDaBR Part I is the incorporation of subtle influences from the regions mentioned in the song titles. Not overpowering or overused, there’s a slight touch of culture in each song that drags you deeper into the album’s concept. Overall, the songwriting is solid but the production is one of the most compressed I have ever heard. It doesn’t completely ruin the experience because I fully believe it was intentional to make every strum and bass thump feel like the equivalent of being locked within a bomb shelter while missiles slam into the side of it. Simply put, it’s fucking loud. Sadly, it’s because of the compression that I gave this album a lower score than it deserves. So, if you don’t mind your death hurting a little bit and you really want to learn about “hanging coffins,” then come check this out. Maybe next semester we’ll learn “Part 2.” [And they’ll learn proper production techniques. – Steel Druhm].

http://www.stereogum.com/1736332/stream-death-karma-the-history-of-death-burial-rituals-part-1/mp3s/album-stream/

Prague’s Death Karma are a duo whose two members — frontman/mastermind/multi-instrumentalist Infernal Vlad and drummer Tom Coroner — also play in the trio Cult Of Fire. Cult Of Fire’s first album, Triumvirát, was released in 2012, and Death Karma made their debut a year later with the A Life Not Worth Living EP, and over the last few years, both bands have been responsible for some of the most exciting, insane black metal in the world. Cult Of Fire’s 2013 LP, मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान (“Ascetic Meditation Of Death”), found both musical and thematic influence on the Indian subcontinent, paying homage to the Hindu goddess Kali and incorporating sitar and drone into its melodic black-metal buzz. It was one of 2013’s best metal albums. Last year, that band returned with the Čtvrtá Symfonie Ohně EP, which “covered” music by Czech classical composer Bedřich Smetana. Now, Infernal Vlad has shifted his attention back to Death Karma, and as far as I’m concerned, that band’s soon-to-be-released debut LP, The History Of Death & Burial Rituals Part 1, is the best album of his career. The History of Death & Burial Rituals Part 1 is proggy, symphonic, melodic black metal with a high concept (literally: a history of death and burial rituals), but more importantly, the thing fucking rips. It’s one of the year’s early highlights; we covered its lead single in Black Market last month and now we’ve got the whole thing for you to stream. I highly encourage you to do so.

http://www.cvltnation.com/death-karma-the-history-of-death-burial-rituals-part-i-review-stream/

Death – the callous inevitability that hangs over us all, loitering patiently as seven billion clocks tick away their simultaneous countdown towards one of the few true certainties that life has to offer. As the natural world embraces our inescapable journey into the realms of the exsanguinous unknown, one thing that we can all be sure of is that our lingering shell will be dealt with, one way or another.

The depths of the metal underground are a regular depository for such grisly infatuations, often revelling in gruesome morbidity and feeding off the darkness with vampiric lust and lurid intent. Slovakia’s Death Karma have taken an altogether more fascinating approach to the subject of our mortal cessation, choosing to explore – as the album title suggests – historical rituals that the human race have partaken in over the course of its eventful and provocative existence.

“…the corpses are delicately pulled from the tomb or crypt…family members dance with the bodies…”

Indulging in the decadent deluge of ferocious blackened death metal that also plays host to this duo’s other notable venture Cult of Fire, Death Karma step up their game from 2013’s uncompromising EP A Life Not Worth Living, balancing masterful structure with unrestrained savagery whilst concurrently creating a largely engaging, riff-driven album full of intrigue and notable character. A deep sense of unease, disquiet and foreboding surrounds each song as the band explore the posthumous customs that make up The History of Death & Burial Rituals Part I, basking in overwhelmingly morbid melodiousness before unleashing the full extent of their extreme metal repertoire.

“…flung headlong down a precipice…into this well it was their custom to cast living men as a sacrifice to the Gods in times of drought; and it was their belief that they did not die.”

This is far from the unbridled chaos that defines many black metal releases, and although the full-pelt madness impresses with memorable songwriting and tight instrumentation, it’s the mid-paced moments that truly define the band, shaping their identity with charging riffs whilst emblazoning the music with unnerving atmospherics. As exemplified by opener ‘Slovakia – Journey of the Soul’, the album’s concept is emphasised by these very atmospherics; achieved not so much through overused, clichéd synths but rather through genuinely affective sounds and melodies that conjure places where the dead are respected, glorified and culturally accepted.

“…squat circular walled stone structures, inside which bodies of the deceased are exposed to birds who eat the flesh.”

The production yields an album that sounds quite heavily compressed, yet the slightly homogeneous dynamics accentuate the impact of the music rather than stifle it, creating an intimate environment in which to carve their art. As the eerie guitar melody announces the arrival of ‘Mexico – Chichén Itzá’ Infernal Vlad’s portentous vocals transport the listener to ancient sacrificial rites amidst imposing Aztec temples, all the while spurred on by booming drums and funeral dirge. The at-times flagrant aggression, however, fails in places to complement the imagery invoked through the song titles and associated historical fascinations – ‘India – Towers of Silence’ is a rather conspicuous instrumental piece considering the subject matter, although it does instead serve as a reminder to all that Death Karma are – first and foremost – a band unafraid to unleash all hell when so desired.

“It was said that the hanging coffins could prevent bodies from being taken by beasts and also bless the soul eternally.”

The History of Death & Burial Rituals Part I is as much a fascinating peek into humanity’s cultural honouring of the deceased as it is a superlative piece of blackened death metal, with Death Karma finding inspiration within history and tradition rather than immersing themselves in entrails, yet the effect is no less sinister. Death is one of the most intriguing yet morbid facets of our natural world, and rarely is the macabre so indulgently technicoloured as it is here.

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” – George Eliot

https://www.facebook.com/IronBoneheadProductions
http://www.ironbonehead.de/

Voted for this based on hearing only two tracks. It's mighty

The drummer is absurdly great

I've been busy last couple of days so I haven't been able to think out loud or generally whine about stuff here (a real shame, that).

So: I though Dispirit were too obscure to place so it's cool that they did, now I think all DSBM should sound like it's emanating from a cave somewhere.

Valis was my #3 and Pyramids #5. Both fantastic and strangely gripping records.

Zu and Torche were kind of disappointing, Envy I quite like but are beginning to get a bit sappy in their old age, Shining continue to get somehow worse with every new release.

I put FNM last on my ballot of 40 out of respect as much as anything else, though I haven't really gotten into this one.

Fluisteraars are another surprise, good solid atmospheric black metal: Aevangelist and Ad Nauseum are cool too and I voted for them.

Nightwish: really?

I wonder if T** A** W*** will place...?

Also I should probably listen to Napalm Death because they're politically sound and from my neck of the woods

Death Karma sounds interesting + good cover + absurdly great drummer, I'll have to check this one out.
I saw Monolord (when they played with Windhand) this fall and they were great although I don't remember much about the show tbh. I was going to a lot of shows for a while there.

many xxxp, re: Torche, what's funny is I like the 8:40 track at the end. at least it has some get-up-and-go. it's the three songs before it that kill the momentum for me. first six are fine, last track is fine, but those three are no bueno.

43 Baroness - Purple 356 Points, 9 Votes by Metal Writers Three #1's (by metal writers)
http://i.imgur.com/9EDsp9z.jpg

Not Available to Plebs

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21179-purple/
8.5 Best New Music

It's been almost four years since Baroness’ last record, 2012’s Yellow & Green. That 18-song, 75-minute double album found the onetime sludge group making calmer, more melodic rock music, and seemed to presage a crossover. There was energy around the band, a palpable sense of momentum. But a month or so after the release of the record, Baroness got into a bus crash while on tour in England. It was a serious accident, a slide off the road, that stalled the Yellow & Green roll-out and almost ended the band. It was jarring enough that drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni, who both suffered fractured vertebrae, ended up leaving the group.

There was emotional and psychological healing, as well as bones that had to be reset: A photo of the banged-up band surfaced and frontman and visual artist (and the group's poet and beating heart) John Baizley said he was close to having his arm amputated. But he healed, as did longtime guitarist Peter Adams. After the accident, Baizley wrote an amazing letter reaffirming his commitment to Baroness and music and art in general before he and Adams went on tour with new members, bassist/keyboardist Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thomson. Their shows after the accident were powerful—even the calmer Yellow & Green songs had a magnetic, life-affirming force.

Shortly before Y&G's release, before the accident, I interviewed Baizley. He told me he wanted Yellow & Green’s cover art, like the songs themselves, to reflect the feeling of the moment before or after a disaster. It’s eerie rereading his words now: "A lot of what I tackled lyrically or conceptually with [Y&G] is present on first glance but has... this implication of horror, or 'this is the moment before a car crash,' or the moment after a car crash. It seemed a little bit more engaging and interesting to me to consider those moments before, those moments after, rather than the ease and bluntness that comes with graphic violence or obvious, terrifying things." In a very real-life way, Purple, their first studio album since the accident, has ended up doing this, too.

Purple is the color of fresh bruises. It's also the combination of Red and Blue, which makes sense musically for those familiar with the group's albums of those names. These are some of the biggest, strongest songs Baroness have written; it's rock music that folds in their more metal leanings, along with something more delicate and spare. The hooks and melodies are their best. It also marks a number of firsts for the band. They're releasing it themselves on their new Abraxan Hymns imprint, and instead of recording with John Congleton, who produced the last couple of albums, they worked with Dave Fridmann, best known for his longtime collaboration with Flaming Lips (and you'll notice a larger presence of psychedelic keyboards throughout). It's also the first album to feature the new lineup, the same group as that first tour after the accident, and at this point they play together like longtime vets.

It’s shorter and more precise than Yellow & Green, with 10 songs in 43 minutes. The opener "Morningstar" rips into the thoughtful synths of "Shock Me", before that song, too, starts to burn. "Shock Me"'s an elegant song about being shocked into a new reality, about bad dreams coming true, about going into battle without proper preparation. On one level it feels like a song about the struggle and battle of day-to-day living, but this isn't dour or sad music: In fact, Baizley sounds thankful for the clearer, sharper vision personal tragedy's afforded him.

Songs like "Kerosene" and "Desperation Burns" nod to heat or flames, as do many of the lyrics. There are also lyrics about breathing and disappearing, doctors and spines and pills and death. The excellent, epic first single "Chlorine & Wine", features a harmonizing breakdown after a gentler piano bridge that seems to signal survival. In it, the entire band sings (or, shouts really): "Please don't lay me down/ Under the rocks where I found/ My place in the ground/ A home for the fathers and sons." These feel like war stories, or more aptly, stories from some people who feel ecstatic to be alive.

Baizley likes to tell stories through his cover art as well. On the sleeve of Purple, four women huddle together in what looks like the cold, with calm dogs and falcons by their sides. There are some mice (food for the birds) and nails (tools for building). There's a full moon, too, as well as blooming flowers and bees and berries and honey (the promise of Spring). The picture, which seems to be referenced in the lyrics to "Morningstar", communicates the hardiness of spirit it takes to live through tougher times and emerge hopeful. It's easy enough to see the four band members reflected in these four women. Here they are, alive and astonished, and here is this record.

http://thequietus.com/articles/19404-baroness-purple-review

"Nothing can truly prepare you for a brush with death. The event is [a] unique one, singular to the observer." - John Baizley, Baroness

In August 2012, a month after the release of their ambitious and well-executed double album Yellow & Green, Georgian sludge rockers Baroness were involved in a terrifying bus crash in Bath, England. Travelling from Southampton to the next show in very heavy rain, which seriously affected visibility, Baroness's tour bus careened through a guardrail and plunged 30 feet off a viaduct. Everyone aboard was injured but thankfully no one was killed. In the wake of this life-threatening event, John Baizley - Baroness's founding member, guitarist and vocalist - wrote for the band's website: "Our bus accident left indelible marks, external and internal, physical and mental, you name it. Each of the nine of us went through and continues to go through an entirely different, yet common experience."

Three years have passed, and during that time bassist Matt Maggioni and drummer Allen Bickle have left the band on good terms following their recuperation after both suffered fractured vertebrae in the crash. Baizley, who endured a two-and-a-half week hospital stay as a result of his broken bones, spent months in rehabilitation; but both he and Pete Adams (guitars/backing vocals) eventually decided to soldier on with Baroness, refusing to be defeated by brutal circumstance. “I spoke to [Metallica's] James Hetfield, who has also dealt with the fallout from a bus-related accident, and he said, "Life is going to be difficult for a while; but you'll be fine." And once I had done some physical therapy and played guitar again, I thought, 'Yes, I've got this. It's not over'", notes Baizley in the press release that accompanies his band's first post-accident album - and their fourth studio effort overall - Purple.

While it's not short of weighty emotional moments - most explicitly, the poignant and vulnerable 'If I Have To Wake Up (Would You Stop The Rain)' - Purple refuses to wallow in misery. Instead it finds positivity in the band's past situational misfortune and the songs surge with this forward vitality. Interestingly, given the personal difficulties prior to its creation, when it comes to the music, Purple sounds like a very natural follow-up to Yellow & Green. Sadly the band didn't get to properly promote that bountiful record, which saw Baroness fully expand their horizons beyond classic rock-infused sludge metal following the critically acclaimed Blue Record, released in 2009. By fully incorporating their fondness for hard rock, indie, pop, alternative and folk into Baroness's established sludge paradigm, a more melodious, experimental and hook-hungry band emerged on Yellow & Green, with Baizley's scream-free vocals moving right to the foreground.

The sprawling nature of its predecessor has clearly been curtailed on the ten songs that comprise Purple. Two of which are merely soundscapes; 'Fugue' is a placid instrumental reprieve, while 'Crossroads of Infinity' is a rather pointless outro. Overall, however, this album can be fittingly described as a potent consolidation of the distinctive sounds that Baroness, sometimes exclusively, explored on both sides of their 2012 double disc, condensed to their most immediate forms. 'Chlorine & Wine', arguably the strongest track on the anthemic Purple, is a rousing rock song that naturally ebbs and flows between affecting, almost lullaby laments and Queen-esque grandstanding. Its concise and creative songwriting is indicative of Baroness's evolution to date, and Baizley's determined vocals backed by heartening gang chants makes for another passionate highpoint on an album with very few faults. Prior to this, the first four songs - 'Morningstar', 'Shock Me', 'Try To Disappear', and 'Kerosene' - showcase the band's sharpened verse/chorus song craft, and do so in quick succession. Baizley's bellowing vocals engage with the equally vibrant and affirmative instrumentation. Each player has a firmly defined role on this album, with the excellent new rhythm-section of Nick Jost and Sebastian Thomson (Trans Am), on bass/keyboards and drums respectively, adding plenty of accented textures and aggressive thrust to Adams and Baizley's twin-guitar thunder and their sparsely-used, yet highly effective harmonising leads.

Since he retired his lion's roar, Baizley's singing has been criticised for sounding one-dimensional from time to time. While he does have his technical limitations, he shrewdly plays to his strengths throughout Purple by investing plenty of passion into the catchy, chest-thumpin' refrains he has clearly spent time honing alongside his expressive turn of phrase. Baizley has matured further as a singer and a songwriter in the years following Yellow & Green; and as a lyricist he is never overly morose or literal here in how he broaches the accident and the physical and emotional pain experienced in its aftermath. However, while such maturity is firmly in place, the band's primal origins still flicker incandescently on occasion. The heat is felt on churning, broiling riffs of 'Morningstar' and the spiralling licks of 'Kerosene'. Both songs recall the band's untameable 2007 full-length debut Red Album, released back when Baroness and their fellow Georgians in Mastodon and Kylesa were fervently barging their way to the vanguard of sludge in the US. But the major difference is that in 2007, Baroness would have raged through numerous tangled movements. Here, and on the emphatic rush of 'Desperation Burns', they know how to confidently hold and release the reins of the mighty riff and it's corralled into a sensibly structured alternative rock song to great effect.

Purple is an album of firsts for Baroness: their first with Jost and Thomson's sterling input; their first for their own label Abraxan Hymns since leaving Relapse's stable; their first with famed producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Sleater-Kinney); and their first following near-death. It therefore acts as an essential rebirth for an important modern rock band whose sky-reaching career arc almost came crashing down in tragic fashion. But through great hardship and heartache comes a greater understanding and appreciation of the transience of life and the worthwhile beauty that does exist behind all the horror this world can inflict upon us without a second's notice. This experience of overcoming grave adversity and living to tell the tale exists at the thumping heart of Purple, and accordingly in the accomplished, passionate and fully mended band who has gifted it to us.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/03/baroness-purple-review-metallers-lunge-for-mainstream-glory

Having narrowly survived a brutal bus accident while on tour in the UK in 2012, Baroness have every reason to be relieved that they were able to make a fourth album at all. Prior to their dance with death, the Georgians were steadily becoming one of the hottest names in heavy music, their sprawling Yellow & Green double set earning them widespread acclaim, despite being a gentler and more diverse record than its predecessors. Purple is a far more focused and fiery beast; both a return to the stormy riffing and skewed melodies of old and a subtle but unmistakable lunge for mainstream glory. It’s a balance they pull off brilliantly. Songs such as Chlorine & Wine and Shock Me still erupt from left of centre, but there are giant hooks in abundance, frontman John Baizley’s voice has improved immeasurably and Dave Fridmann’s production has added a potent sheen to the elegantly interwoven guitar lines. Peaking with the glowering bombast of Kerosene and the woozy menace of If I Have to Wake Up ..., Baroness’s rejuvenated momentum must surely carry them beyond cosy underground circles this time around.

we can come back to this on December 18 when it actually comes out

Well there are three of the 10 tracks available: https://open.spotify.com/album/25FRZSpdZCczTURlAcMm6r

I've never even heard of Death Karma

42 Bell Witch - Four Phantoms 375 Points, 12 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/cKWj7QC.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1uc16sAAwVyQzLOb7PYORx
spotify:album:1uc16sAAwVyQzLOb7PYORx
https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/four-phantoms

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20352-four-phantoms/
8.2

The colossal pieces on Four Phantoms, the second album from Seattle duo Bell Witch, aren’t merely about death. Instead, they detail painful, violent ends inflicted by nature’s four forces—fire, earth, water, and wind—that the dead are forced to endure for eternity. There’s a suffocation, where the victim breaks teeth to keep breathing, and an immolation, where the narrator becomes "the blooming ash." One ghost falls into an endless canyon forever, while another buried at sea swims in salt water and skin. A case-by-case survey of horrible ways to go, Four Phantoms is appropriately and hyperbolically morose for the subgenre known as "funeral doom." But Bell Witch answers the extreme, existential despondency of these motifs with absolutely triumphant songs, built with heroic riffs and headstrong rhythms. Four Phantoms, then, is like second-line funeral doom—very heavy metal that celebrates life by staring straight at death.

Though Bell Witch were good from the start of their 2012 debut Longing, bassist Dylan Desmond and drummer Adrian Guerra are great on Four Phantoms because they’ve recognized and addressed their own faults. Longing, a six-song set that also examined mortality, was promising but unfocused, moving between lethargic 20-minute slogs and mid-tempo marches, horror-sample instrumentals and tone-obsessed drifts. Desmond plays a six-string bass, meaning he’s able to elicit piercing, guitar-like leads and subdural lines from one instrument. On Longing, the capability felt like a compositional toy he was still learning to wield.

But the pair refined their approach for Four Phantoms, eliminating extraneous elements and moving fluidly between what remains. Recorded by resurgent metal impresario Billy Anderson, this hour is sharper, louder and brighter than the last one. Too often with doom or stoner metal, the mantra "everything louder than everything else" leads to self-defeat, where members crowd each other out of the mix and reduce the music’s overall impact. (See, for instance, Windhand’s Soma.) Due in part to the band’s slim configuration, Four Phantoms feels sculpted, each part perfectly visible and framed.

The result is a high-tension, high-contrast mix of ideas and idioms, where brutal doom and filmic post-rock share space with melodies worthy of glam-rock and manipulated textures similar to experimental acts like Locrian. These four pieces collectively suggest that metal is an incremental form: Substantial differences in how something sounds and in what niche it lands stem from subtle decisions about how fast, long or loud certain parts are played. Bits of opener "Suffocation, A Burial" sound like thrash metal drugged to stoner speed. "Judgment, in Fire" suggests Sunn O))) exploring liturgical music and adding a percussive pulse.

This hybridized scheme gives Bell Witch an uncanny appreciation of momentum. The type of low-and-slow music Bell Witch makes often requires a real commitment from the listener, a certain patience with songs that creep through half-hour spans to reach their high-volume peaks. But even during the pair of Four Phantoms numbers that break the 22-minute mark, Bell Witch don’t stall. Sure, they lock into loud, sustained roars, as with the start of "Judgment: In Air", and lurk in muted valleys, as when Desmond takes a glacially paced bass solo during "Suffocation, A Burial". But they emerge from that last reverie with a jolt so loud it’s terrifying, especially if you’ve fallen for the bass’s soporific sway. As the song marches toward its end, Guerra doubles and triples his steady beat, and Desmond plays a melody so radiant it seems like an isolated Van Halen lead. Like the album itself, the moment aims for (and often achieves) symphonic grandeur, both in scope and sound.

Bell Witch's commitment to progress is most obvious on "Suffocation, A Drowning", the longest song of their career and their best use of a guest musician to date. Both Guerra and Desmond sing, but their ranges are typically limited to ghoulish incantations, monstrous growls and terrified screams. So they recruited a real vocalist—Erik Moggridge, who sings solo and plays acoustic guitar as Aerial Ruin—to create what’s essentially a long-form power ballad. It arches and lifts, arriving at a hook so intoxicating you can envision lighters being raised. As Moggridge croons about "the strangling beast" of the ocean around him, Bell Witch turns funeral doom and its moribund focus into a beautiful hymn meant for the living.

Quite a year for ILM discovering funeral doom at last

I got halfway through Death Karma and I wasn't really moved by it. Giving Bell Witch a go now and like it so far despite my lack of patience for funeral doom which is a good sign.

btw Im not stopping at #41 tonight as I'd rather just get on with it so we can finish on the traditional thursday leaving friday for discussion, stats etc

unless everyine stops posting of course. Will you all be hanging around for another few hours?

I guess

yes

I gotta sleep and run errands before work but I'll try to keep up intermittently.

OK Bell Witch are very good at what they do but personally I can only get through one 20 minute funeral doom track at a time, a whole album is just too much for me.

I saw Bell Witch last night. Stupid volume really helps their music.

41 Goatsnake - Black Age Blues 403 Points, 11 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/gGWeL26.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7qWtInTFlADCGNuZs8v6vC
spotify:album:7qWtInTFlADCGNuZs8v6vC

https://goatsnakesl.bandcamp.com/album/black-age-blues

http://thequietus.com/articles/17960-goatsnake-black-age-blues-review

BB King is dead, a bad moon is rising, and we've all got the Black Age Blues. Cult supergroup Goatsnake return for the first time in over a decade: bigger, brighter, groovier and heavier than before. When guitarist Greg Anderson moved to Los Angeles from Seattle in the late 90s, he transplanted his roaring Sunn O))) amp engine into The Obsessed's rhythm section chassis, and put Pete Stahl at the wheel. A stalwart of the desert rock scene with a concise remit to out-Ozzy Ozzy himself, Stahl's natural vocal power, authenticity and sense of composition elevated the band immediately above its volcanic rock peer group. The mix of Melvins sludge, Black Flag urgency and the obscure grooves of the 70s rock underground − Captain Beyond, Buffalo and Sir Lord Baltimore − was left out to bake to perfection in the Mojave sun.

Black Age Blues initially promises continuity: 'Another River To Cross' fades in with the piano and Petra Haden's wailing vocals that were the climax of 'The River' from Goatsnake's last album, Flower Of Disease (2000). Then its first surprise: the acoustic guitar of Slint's David Pajo recorded outside with running water in the background, resolving itself into a loping muscular riff that Anderson, drummer Greg Rogers and bassist Scott Renner suddenly take up in unison. It's a hulking, crystal clear statement of intent. Producer Nick Raskulinecz has been on a journey since he cut his teeth on Flower Of Disease fifteen years ago, subsequently working with the Foo Fighters, Alice In Chains and Deftones, but he pays Goatsnake back in kind with a sound that supplies ample power, warmth, breadth and depth.

On their recordings before this Goatsnake relied on two or three musical themes per song at most, but 'Coffee And Whiskey' showcases a broader palette and an armoury of supercharged riffs that Anderson has been hoarding all the intervening years he has been deconstructing the sound wave with Sunn O))). It jumps out of the traps with an edgy, jittery swing, then is thrown another way by a surging chorus − "Coffee, whiskey / Til the cows are coming home" – but finally shifts gears into a swaggering two-note throwdown that emphatically hammers the track into the ground. Greg Rogers' cut-and-dry drumming keeps it honest and nods to John Bonham with a phaser, 'space drums' effect in the last turnaround.

The title track is similarly bullish, its opening riff powers up like the introduction to Sabbath's 'Children Of The Grave' crossed with 'Slippin' The Stealth', which opened their first album, I: "Oh, I have to run, and clear my head!" Stahl cries. His delivery is so simple, so heartfelt, that you're heading to the door with him on your headphones, ready to tear up the tarmac. But the real revelation is the breakdown riff halfway through: a gnarled, sickly slowburner with a sting in the tail; all throttled neck slides, subtle variations and Anderson's trademark trill. It might be his best ever, and should cause consternation in Eyehategod's next band meeting when they turn to each other, asking how the fuck they couldn't come up with anything as grim and soulful on their comeback album last year.

Goatsnake used to be a two-speed band: their tunes either dune buggy head-nodders or miasmic dirges shrouded in palls of Grief. Not anymore: this whole record lunges forward with a propulsive energy that drives through even its slow-mo sections. It's not that they aren't guilty of recycling − the same mid-tempo chug of I's 'Mower' can be heard a couple of times here; does the intro to 'House Of The Moon' bring to mind 'Portraits Of Pain' from 2004's often overlooked Trampled Under Hoof EP? Yes, it does. But on that song there's a brave new element, the singing of Dem Preacher's Daughters, which adds melodic ballast to the song, laid over a chorus with a plunging lead-weight chord sequence which sounds like it could blast through solid granite on the way to the centre of the earth. The backing singers' 'Shine On' refrain takes the band into another direction which I can only describe as Gospel Doom, signified by the dark hues of the dust bowl church of the album's cover art. This new sound is consecrated fully on 'Jimi's Gone', a paean to Hendrix where the stellar mid-section sounds like 'Iron Man' fronted by multiple Tina Turners ('Bang, Bang, Shoot!'), decorated with harmonica flourishes and that archaeological rarity from Anderson: a guitar solo (and a tastefully sparse on at that).

I must single Stahl out for praise. Not only the centre of the Rancho De La Luna scene as documented in Dave Grohl's LA episode of Sonic Highways, he is an immensely talented frontman who pioneered hardcore in Scream. He is affable and humble too, currently road managing several bands including Rival Sons, a group who recreate classic blues rock, whereas in Goatsnake he actually reinvents it. In the liner notes to the reissue of their debut, Anderson credits Stahl for getting to grips with the arrangement of their masterpiece, 'What Love Remains'. He excels when he's afforded the space for those long sustained vocal sequences as powerful as "Steals the light from the sun/I need to breathe" from 'Graves'. Album closer 'A Killing Blues' moves malevolently forward like a battalion of black cloud on a summer prairie − invoking Stagger Lee it billows out to encompass the mythology of a style of music Goatsnake seek to take grimly onwards, disappearing to a whisper before the storm bursts: "Lightning, Thunder/ Wash my soul to the Ground". Preach it, brother.

As the rain comes down at the end of the album it signifies that Goatsnake are determined to finish what Black Sabbath started. Not only is Black Age Blues Goatsnake's best album, it is an instant classic of the stoner-doom hybrid and an earthy, electrifying endgame for rock & roll itself.

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/goatsnake-black-age-blues-review/

Goatsnake was originally formed by veterans of seminal doom act The Obsessed, and though they’ve rattled around since 1996, they haven’t been the most prolific crew in the doomiverse. With only two albums and a few EPs to their credit and their last full-length dropping way back in 2000, they would already be relegated to a footnote in the Big Book of Doom if not for how righteous early works like Goatsnake Vol. I were, and the sheer number of bands ripping off their sound. After an eleven year drift through limbo, something motivated three fourths of the original lineup to rejoin forces for their long-awaited third album, Black Age Blues, and boy, was that the right damn decision! This is a two-ton mass of heavy stoner doom with enormous backwater NOLA swagger and an authentic southern fried sensibility, borrowing the best elements of Crowbar, Down, Floodgate, Kyuss and Clutch, while maintaining a unique identity. It’s also one of the more infectious and fun doom outings you’ll hear this year. A fun doom album, you say? Madness!

And yet it’s true, as slobberknocker opener “Another River to Cross” ably demonstrates. After some country western acoustic noodling, the main riff stomps forth to convert all non believers. It’s the kind of riff Black Sabbath invented but it still manages to sound pretty fresh and vital. The huge bluesy swing and shake to the music hooks you right in for the swamp crawl ahead, and Pete Stahl’s soulful croons sell the music like a fire and brimstone preacher. This one is a strong contender for Song o’ the Year and I can’t stop spinning it.

Things remain highly infectious with “Elevated Man” as it shotgun marries ponderous riffs with memorable vocal hooks and a noticeable Soundgarden vibe mixed with what is an obvious homage to Sabbath‘s “The Wizard,” complete with harmonica lines. At first blush “Coffee and Whiskey” seems like a silly throwaway tune, until you realize you can’t remove the chorus from your head, and it sports a jubilant Blue Cheer influence. Around the album’s halfway point, the band starts to incorporate backing vocals from Dem Preacher’s Daughters, who give the southern-styled doom an even greater dose of old timey boogie, reminiscent of a Baptist revival meeting or a backwoods hoedown. The slow motion destruction of “House of the Moon” benefits from this odd addition as the Daughters chant along in the background like a supporting church choir. The same can be said for the rocked out swing of “Jimi’s Gone” and especially the grinding “Grandpa Jones,” where things really take on the feel of a bizarre church outing.

The album runs a concise 47 minutes and the band wisely kept most songs to judicious lengths, with only a few running over the five minute mark. This makes the material much more digestible and accessible, even to non-doom fans. That isn’t to say they couldn’t have trimmed a minute or so from longer cuts like the title track and closer “A Killing Blues,” but overall, the writing and arranging is quite remarkable and the album is an effortless joy to sit through.

Greg Anderson’s guitar playing really shines from start to finish, with a plethora of huge, tooth rattling doom riffs wisely balanced with more rollicking rock leads. Sure, he robbed the oft-sacked crypts of Sabbath, but he took all the right bones and that makes all the difference here. As Anderson is laying waste with fat riffs, Stahl’s vocals provide the honey and moonshine. He has a pleasant and powerful voice with just enough edge and muscle, often sounding like a more versatile Kyle Thomas (Floodgate, Trouble) mixed with a slightly less aggro Danzig. He’s adept at sounding plaintive and exasperated when necessary and more upbeat and hopeful when the tunes go in that direction. Scott Renner’s bass is also a big part of the sound, acting like a second guitar at times and filling the gaps with a rich low-end rumble.

Unfortunately, the production is a bit too compressed, and while it definitely gives the guitars a huge impact, a bigger dynamic range would really bring out the full palate of what these guys are doing. You can’t have it all though.

This is another happy surprise for 2015 and I’m stoked to see Goatsnake rise from the ashes with such a strong dose of southern stonage. Black Age Blues makes it seem like they were never gone and certainly proves they’re still relevant in 2015. If you’re hankering for a new Down or Crowbar album, this may just do the trick. Welcome back boys.

was really pleased with this album

Goatsnake have always bored me. Plus I hate Stahl's voice.

yeah - I didn't get the love for this one

not death or black metal enough for most of you then ;)

I love "biker doom" when it's done well - Spirit Caravan, Iron Man, etc. - but the rapturous response to the Goatsnake album just felt like nerd nostalgia-wanking (see also: Faith No More) rather than an honest assessment of musical merit.

40 ABYSSAL - Antikatastaseis 410 Points, 10 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/CF3cz6V.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3RSCxNN2kG66swQkvnJjaA
spotify:album:3RSCxNN2kG66swQkvnJjaA

https://abyssal-home.bandcamp.com/

http://yourlastrites.com/reviews/8614/abyssal-antikatastaseis
Release Details
LABEL Profound Lore Records
RELEASED ON 6/23/2015
GENRES Death,Doom,Black

The artwork is inscrutable; the production yawns like a bottomless well; the guitars warp and stretch; the album title is Greek and the closing song title Latin: you know it, you love it -- Abyssal plays Very Serious Metal exclusively.

Unlike too many of its Very Serious peers, however, Abyssal backs up its tar-black aesthetic with tremendous riffs, unexpected ambient and atmospheric passages, and a canny sense of naturalistic songwriting. Where a band like Ulcerate has recently tended to be too transparent in pulling the listener again and again to one side solely for the trick of dropping that seasick twist and yanking her back to the other side, Abyssal's songs breathe more openly. They still know their way around tension and release, however, as the glorious melodic climax of "The Cornucopian" proves. Though all the instrumentation clatters and bleats and hammers as one would expect from this sort of blackened, lurching death metal, the drumming is inventive and thoughtful throughout, as on the jazz-leaning, gently tripping accents in the first few minutes of "Chrysalis."

At its best, then, the album is jaw-dropping, but it still gets in its own way. The chant-and-drone intro of "A Casual Landscape," for example, is effectively spooky, but kills any momentum by dragging on for three minutes. "Telomeric Erosion" moves from soft, suspended riffs punctuated by staccato gut-checks to a wistful furrow, but it wears itself out by leaning a little too far back on the beat. More broadly, Abyssal's vocals are such a hoarse, whispered abstraction that they are nearly a non-entity.

Even with these flaws taken into account, it's hard to imagine that there will be a better album in this style released this year. This is primarily because Abyssal has mastered the art of building seamlessly to a huge crescendo or breaking point but then, rather than puttering out, somehow building atop that crescendo to ratchet the intensity even higher. The best example of this is the album MVP "Veil of Transcendence," which whips and thuds along its merry way before bowing out to introduce a severely unsettling piano motif which sounds a little like a demonic calliope. Where so many a lesser band would leave it at that and exeunt on that note of quiet horror, Abyssal doubles down and then some by reentering the fray with a renewed, full band death-vigor. Through the rest of the song, then, that damnable children's carnival melody is there, playing neither in sync with nor at a clear offset from the metal, but at an oscillating angle, as if the song is running - fitfully and sometimes unsucessfully - away from its own ghost.

Though it takes its time getting there, when the closing track really hits its stride, it makes good on the rest of the album's promise. When the spidery guitar lead syncs up with the bass about halfway through, it is a thing of deep beauty. In fact, by the time the song reaches its end, it has managed to recast the listener's sense of the journey involved to get there. The closing minutes are so refreshingly nimble that it's easy to overlook how otherwise jarring it should be to hear a syncopated house rhythm against a swift post-punk bass line in a Very Serious Death Metal Album. But that, it turns out, is Abyssal's true magic: elevating sounds that in other hands have become overplayed by privileging feel over form, tactile emotion over trite erudition, truth over template.

As it was and shall be.

Great album!

so is is portal style death metal then?

Pretty much, but with more in the way of discernable riffs, melodies and dynamics. It's just a bit better than your average "caverncore" album

come on I said top 30

39 Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls 420 Points, 14 One #1
http://i.imgur.com/v22DaIs.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/4vSfHrq6XxVyMcJ6PguFR2
spotify:album:4vSfHrq6XxVyMcJ6PguFR2