V.'s List of Problems With Lists 2013

This year, something I probably should have figured out a long time ago about lists finally clicked. It's not really the "best album," sure, and it's not just a bunch of personal-incompetence-to-judge issues. It's been obvious for a long time (even in my own posts) that putting an album out in maybe October is the best way to get on a year-end list, sure. The new obvious? People are just listing shit they WISH belonged on the list that didn't fail so horrendously they could ignore it.
Suddenly, I'm really glad The Inarguable has dropped mostly out of the generic list game so I can actually have something to say you haven't read 20 times in the last week. So, here's a list of complaints that DON'T include stuff like "Fleshgod Apocalypse because I don't like it" and "Deafheaven because it's pink and also I don't care." Other people like other stuff. This stuff just factually doesn't belong on best of 2013 lists.


Things That Shouldn't Be On "Best of 2013" Lists

Gorguts - Colored Sands
Yes, it's fucking Gorguts. I love Gorguts. If I were making an "essential metal albums" list, Obscura would be one of the first things I scribbled down. It's glorious.
And Colored Sands is pretty good, too. The soundtrack-romanticism of "The Battle of Chamdo" isn't what I would have expected the Luc Lemay of 15 years ago to do with a string quintet, but it's nice and I hope someone pays Luc to write a soundtrack for their obscure film as a result.
It's not one of the best bloody albums of 2013, though. It's (particularly in terms of overall sound) more like Colin Marston invited Longstreth, Lemay, and Hufnagel to put together a full-band Indricothere (unfamiliar?) album than like a new Gorguts album. I enjoy Indricothere but . . . anyway, Colored Sands is nice and because it's Gorguts and isn't Luc's Lulu Radikult, it's dominating all the lists.

The Body - Master, We Perish
[see my review here]
Okay, this hasn't been on THAT many lists, but it's been on too many. I've hardly seen Christs, Redeemers on any lists so far (maybe one?) and Christs, Redeemers is the crushing work that we were waiting for Chip and Lee to put out so we could forget the 5-song CD-R and mostly neglect Master, We Perish. It's RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. If this were a top-ten list, it'd be a very strong contender for #1. Where is it on the lists? WHERE. And Master, We Perish is pretty decent/good, but I'd only list it if Christs, Redeemers hadn't happened and I'd debate including it. Did nobody listen to Christs, Redeemers? What's going on?

Inquisition - Obscure Verses for the Multiverse
Inquisition is and has always been boring. They're not QUITE the ideal example of why I hated most black metal for the first several years of my exposure to it, but they've got most of that going on. All the clichés, chords instead of riffs, boring drum beats, bleating uninterested vocals? Check. And they don't have bass. I mean, for a black metal band, they didn't make their sound as unpleasantly thin as they might have, and this album's a step up in sound, but some token distorted ratty boring basslines that sometimes cut out would've added some interest.
For quite some time (well, most of 2008), I gave them the benefit of the doubt based on repeated assurances that they were "intense" live. I don't know why everyone uses "intense" to describe them. It's possible that the sheepherd is merely bleating/believing what other sheep said. Then I saw them. And I nearly fell asleep despite being well-rested. I've had BATHROOM VISITS more intense. Thumbs down.
P.S. Obscure Verses even has chord progressions that sound like poorly-constructed pop ballads.

Black Sabbath - 13

It doesn't matter. It's not particularly interesting or great or anything. If it were a new band, nobody would care (they'd turn it down for that Uncle Acid album). I didn't want to listen to metal before Sabbath, but . . . it's a whole album of the bonus new studio tracks from Reunion. Yay? Whatever.

Vhöl - Vhöl
It's a weak mix of mostly 30-year-old riffs and melody+blasts. "Melodic" gets specified in subgenres for a reason--it's a warning to get the fuck away. Feel the need to include one of Mike Scheidt's random supergroups? Go check out Lumbar, which is heavy and solid and actually a desirable listen. I don't give a damn who's playing sloppy d-beats on your album. Vhöl is just okay and moderately annoying to listen to.








Things That Should Have Been On "Best of 2013" Lists, But Mostly Weren't

The Body - Christs, Redeemers

Seriously. Do I need to continue this? It's everything that made The Body suddenly popular with All The Waters of the Earth Shall Turn to Blood, made better and fresher and heavier and more enveloping. It has all the satisfying songwriting that Master, We Perish and even moreso the 5-song CD-R didn't really manage to deliver with the perfected version of the sound development they worked on through those two releases. The title looks very hand-sharpie'd, but it's a glorious record. Glorious.

Wormed - Exodromos
This is a pretty clear-cut case of "too early in the year." I guess nobody can remember as far back as March. It's Wormed. It's everything it's supposed to be, not a dismal attempt that isn't quite dismal enough to pass up. It should be on lists Gorguts/Sabbath style at least (for being a Wormed album that doesn't completely blow), but it actually deserves to be on lists because it's good.









Defeated Sanity - Passages Into Deformity

This one's kind of a margin case--it's more accurate to say it was missing from all the lists made by journalists. For some reason, it doesn't seem to be having any problem showing up on lists that journalism-outlets wrangle out of musicians. I wonder why. Maybe it's really good or something. MAYBE. Maybe it's one of the best death metal albums of the year, certainly outperforming Portal's "Vexovoid" (which I have nothing against, though I know Jon would probably put it first on his hate list this year), which seems to be on every list ever. Wait, Exodromos and Passages are both on Willowtip. Is there a conspiracy against Willowtip? Are they doing a shit job of promotion despite having amazing albums? Is it completely The Inarguable's fault for completely failing somehow to review albums we love? Hmm.




Love,
V. who hates everything

In no particular order, more of the best albums I personally failed to review this year (which is assuredly missing many more):
Pandelis Karayorgis Quintet - "Circuitous" (Driff Records)
The Ames Room - "In St. Johann" (Gaffer Records)
Suzuki Junzo - "Portrait of Medeleine Elster" (Utech Records)
Colin Webster - "Antennae" (Gaffer Records)
Tim Daisy Trio - "A Fine Day in Berlin" (Relay Recordings)
Brötzmann/Drake - "Solid and Spirit" (Nero's Neptune)
Wooley/Yeh/Chen/Carter - "NCAT" (Monotype Records)
Trumpets & Drums - "Live in Ljubljana" (Clean Feed)
Minton/Chen - "By the Stream" (Sub Rosa)
Olivia Block - "Karren" (Sedimental)

And more of the best albums The Inarguable failed to review this year:
Common Eider, King Eider - "Taaleg Uksur" (Caribou People) and "Earth Liver" (Black Horizons)
Kinit Her - "Hyperion" (Pesanta Urfolk) and "Cavern Stanzas" (Reue Um Reue)
Low - "The Invisible Way" (Sub Pop)
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - "Bonnie 'Prince' Billy" (Palace Records)
Castevet - "Obsian" (Profound Lore)
Ulcerate - "Vermis" (Relapse Records)
Ulver & Tromsø Chamber Orchestra - "Messe I.X-VI.X" (Neuropa/Jester Records)
Kayo Dot - "Hubardo" (Ice Level Music)

P.S. - Bear in mind that we covered so little stuff this year that most of it (Burning Tree, Trees, Gris, Devotion, Kinit Her, Merkstave, Cara Neir, etc. etc.) is among our favorite stuff of the year. This has been a glorious year for new releases.

Bonus: Pop Music That Shouldn't Be On Lists
. . . my day job keeps me informed.
Justin Timberlake - 20/20 blah blah and "Mirrors"
Robin Thicke et al - "Blurred Lines"
Katy Perry - "Roar"
Music video or no, "offensive" (I really hope the metal kids reading this weren't offended by this) performances or no, Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" is a great song, performed well. And there's a bunch more reasonable pop stuff--we can count Lana Del Rey's "Summertime Sadness" because the remix has made it popular this year, and there's a bunch of other stuff that was pretty okay. Even some great bass grooves (Bruno Mars' "Treasure") are preferable to some of the sleazy and/or boring crap that's getting more recognition.

V.'s Top 10 of 2011

Top ____ lists are an idiotic farce. Ain't nobody out there who has either the expertise or the taste to say anything really meaningful. With the canon of "great art" throughout the ages so disputed, coming up with the best of a certain year with only the resources of one pair of ears is absurd.

So here's an incarnation of ego-pushing delusion.

10. Wormsblood - "Black & White Art for Man & Beast" [Brave Mysteries]

Wormsblood? Because I need my doses of "wait what the fuck was that noise" and I will not be content without them. Conscious LLN for the new age. I could call it "consistently engaging exploration of timbre and intervalic tempering," but then you'd laugh at me.

9. Sutekh Hexen - "Luciform" [Wands Records]

There are a couple ways we could approach Sutekh Hexen's LP "Luciform." I could discuss how they've revolutionized the sound of black metal. But they haven't, really. Luciform reminds me of that Nightbringer LP from a few years ago: absolute black metal built of giant spaces and night. Sutekh Hexen has a bit more of dynamics and different sounds, but it's all space and darkness. Play it inside and the lights go out and the room becomes miles larger.

8. Wreck and Reference - "Black Cassette" [Self-Released/Music Ruins Lives/Flenser Records]

Wreck and Reference's Black Cassette is right. It's that strength inside. It's music that doesn't have to be thought, it just is. Solid, noisy, black heavy everythings in a greater-than-the-sum mesh.

7. The Body/Whitehorse - Split [Aum War Records]

Faster The Body (crushcrushcrush) and Whitehorse is new on me, but "Fierce Reprisal" is the perfect blacknoisedoom punk companion to The Body, which makes it awesome. Destroy destroy destroy, lalala.

6. Mount Moriah - "Mount Moriah" [Holidays for Quince Records]

To call Mount Moriah a traveling record perhaps doesn't make clear its strength. Just remember; I need that engagement, just enough change, crativity, complexity and beauty to keep me alive, content, thinking, and singing across thousands of miles of empty road past the beauty of great untamed fields. I'm sorry that you folks in Europe are so crammed together. You'll have to live with us to understand why this music is America.

5. Locrian - "The Clearing" [Fan Death Records]

The sort of language I mentioned around Wormsblood is better suited to the new Locrian full-length. It's old news now that they're working with Steven Hess, who is something of a modern experimental mastermind (not just "a drummer"). Hess' contributions, along with what I have to imagine is more leisurely and better-equipped studio time, have made for a Locrian that's not only a feeling, but development, flow, and, well, a consistently engaging exploration of timbre, auditory space, and perfect understatement wrapped up in structure.

4. Wrnlrd - "Unknown Tongue" [FlingcoSoundSystem]

Wrnlrd has shown that all the things that are great about "fucked-up" black metal don't have to stay in a little black metal cage and pander to black metal idiocy; they've taken all of those things, shed their black metal bits, and made something worth listening to. Yes, this is an EP. It's important enough.

3. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - "Wolfroy Goes to Town" [Drag City Records]

Wolfroy Goes to Town is lulling me. Not to sleep, because I daren't miss a moment of it, but I can't do anything but listen to it right now. I'm writing in the midst of sketching out this list, and I'd like to check out some more of my maybes, but God I have to keep listening to this.

Jon and I agree that this is the best album Will Oldham has put out since The Letting Go, and its sparsity suits it beautifully. Not only do hundreds of albums wish they could write like this, probably even more wish they could sound this good.

Yes, I'm gushing. You would be too.

2. Low - "C'mon" [Sub Pop Records]

I know I'm at least the third person here alone to mention C'mon. There's a reason for this. If you listen to it, you fall in love with it. The only way to avoid this is by having a deliberately bad attitude, and then it's only a matter of time. Like Drums and Guns, there're a few new sounds we didn't think of Low doing before, but the songs are perfect and there.

1. Haptic - "Scilens" [FlingcoSoundSystem]

Haptic is dangerously close to being the kind of meandering, meaningless series of sounds that always disappointed me in much of the old musique concrète scene. But damned if I couldn't listen to Scilens for hours. The sheer range of sounds and structures that Hess and company make into their music pulls me in and makes me feel an other-where that normally requires a damned good book. Top score not only for quality but for making me love something in a genre that nigh-always fails me.

Honorable mentions:

The Judas Horse - "Holy War" (Inherent Records): This is beautiful.

Peste Noire - "L'Ordure à l'état Pur" (Transcendental Creations): If they hadn't essentially done this album before, it'd be better.

Rab'ha - "The Defiance Demos" (Small Doses): The world needs more real noise/black/doom like this.

Nooumena - "Argument with Eagerness" (Antithetic Records): Really creative sound: sort of an Ulver/Toby Driver blend.

Cara Neir - "Stagnant Perceptions" (Self-Released): Amazing stuff, all the more so considering the way it's made.

Sky Burial - "Aegri Somnia" (Utech Records): Sky Burial's ritual ambient wrapped around the soul of Nik Turner's saxophone.

Botanist - "The Suicide Tree/A Rose For The Dead" (tUMULt Records): Because what is this. It's a bit too stereotypical and could have been made godly with more artistry.

-V.