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. - Best Performances of 2012

Trying for a retrospective description of briefly existing occurrences is absurd. Be prepared for vague reminiscences of events from months ago.

Murmur at the Ultra Lounge
Sure, they were opening for Aluk Todolo, whose "Occult Rock" album has made them minor media darlings this year, but it's very rare that extended krautrock jams do anything other than put me to sleep. Aluk Todolo, for me, was always about that horrid blown-to-hell recorded sound and broken fragments of eerie near-silence, and that's not something they even attempted to achieve live. But I digress.

I'd really like to be adding "The brilliant new Murmur full-length" to this list, but while the album is I understand fully recorded, the time between "done" and "mixed, mastered, and pressed" is rather extensive.
Murmur's extant discography centers on Matthias Vogels' toothsome paean to heroin, "Mainlining the Lugubrious" from 2010. And that album is really good, really it is, but it remains sickeningly opiated black metal--pride of Chicago and W.S. Burroughs. The songs they played that night, though, betrayed the now-established inclusion of Shane Prendiville and Charlie Werber, some of the mad geniuses behind Guzzlemug.
New Murmur is chaotically technical, full of prime meters, strange pitch collections, battering drumming, and bursts of singing. Fuck that was good.


Protest Heaven Festival
I hadn't been down to Wicker Park for a while, and I'll be damned if Hipster Central hadn't gone a step or two further into gentrification--it's all muscles, Affliction shirts, and high heels soaked in awful beer and oddly-colored cocktails. Old mainstays of the local artsy community are slowly fading out; The Enemy, established noise venue/apartment, hosted their last show in July. Upstairs, though, the rather odd Heaven Gallery, with its large collection of vintage clothing, is still hosting live gatherings of members of Chicago's free improvisation scene, occasionally including old Enemy mainstays like Jason Soliday.

In September, we visited Heaven Gallery for an event they described as the Protest Heaven Festival. This took the form of something I'd like to see all the time: 11 musicians appeared and went through a cycle of different combinations from duos to quartets. Katherine Young displayed the glorious sounds of upper-register heavy bassoon with amplification highlighting unpitched breaths and key clicks, Frank Rosaly made a small jazz kit and assorted percussion into a heaven of soft to exhilarating sounds, Guillermo Gregorio turned a clarinet into a slicing, virtuosic weapon. Jim Baker improvised on the beauties of atonality with truly effective piano (please keep in mind that I more often than not hate the inclusion of piano in free jazz), Daniel Fandino spewed dissonant bursts of guitar, Shane Perlowin gave his a more gentle touch, Jason Roebke caressed and combated his bass in turns, Dave Rempis shrieked and croaked through his saxophones . . .

If anyone had any question that group improvisation is the home of a myriad new, inspired, powerful performances, this show was the antidote. I'd see this again and again and drag you all to it given the chance.


Anatomy of Habit at the Cobra Lounge
Holy hell.

During out-of-town-together bonding with our compatriots Sun Splitter, the lot of us agreed that Anatomy of Habit was the best extant band in Chicago. This wasn't something that took a drawn-out debate on the various merits of a bunch of favorites, which we certainly all have. All it took was one person putting on an Anatomy of Habit record at two in the morning. We all already agreed.

Even the best shows rarely engulf us in the cult of humanity, something Anatomy of Habit builds itself around. Every last song is a tribute to the internal/external dysfunction of the human being, its loves, rages, and fears for the future. Add to that the wonder of a group full of musicians taking their instruments and songcraft to a new place that forms a union, rather than a contrast, and you have a hint of the hypnotic power that most of the reviews miss with allusions to "post-punk" and "doom metal."

There's a night that ends with screaming chants and broken glass.

Burial Hex/Kinit Her at The Frequency
I've been a fan of Burial Hex and Kinit Her since Burial Hex and Wormsblood appeared at the Matchitehew Assembly in 2009. Someone referred me to Kinit Her's outsider-ritual take on neofolk through common members of Wormsblood, I found a few sounds online, and was hooked.

The opportunity to finally see Kinit Her live, alongside one of the final live appearances of the Burial Hex project, was not up for debate. Having seen Burial Hex the previous night in Milwaukee, again with post-human pounding of Sun Splitter (there's an interesting common theme here), we took off for Madison and a day spent around the Bartok violin/horn-and-shofar edges of a Kinit Her rehearsal.

The show, when it finally came around, left me short only of another few hours of Kinit Her live. The strangely twisted vocals, dark moor atmosphere, and addictive songcraft (mixed with a perfect cover of Death In June's "Hail the White Grain") could have gone on most of the night before I became sated.

Burial Hex, aside from the dark-room burning-Palo Santo occultism, manifested as noise-wrapped baroque rage. Clay Ruby is sometimes a piece of human installation art, wrapped in bursts of keyboard toccata, screaming anger, reverb tanks, and flame. Sorry, you guys who have missed out permanently. We'll see what he does next.

Dallas's Top 10 of 2011

2011 has been such a fantastic year for extreme music. No matter your preference, there has no doubt been something about which one can get excited this year. Disappointments have been few and far between, with a few obvious exceptions. Death metal especially has taken a big hit. Morbid Angel hit an all time low, Deicide struggled to reclaim past glory and, even though Disma's new album is great, it just doesn't say much about the current state of death metal when it's the absolute best thing the genre has going. With that being said, it's been a stellar year for black and doom metal, each with an abundance of worthwhile listens and several real gems. These are the albums to which I found myself listening the most, along with a quick word about each release.

10. Sourvein - "Black Fangs" [Southern Lord Records]
Growing up in South Louisiana, it's hard not to have a soft spot for some dirty sludge. I looked forward to Crowbar's newest to fulfill this craving but, unfortunately, I was left underwhelmed. Thankfully, longtime favorites Sourvein stepped up with a killer slab of heavy goodness which gave me exactly what I needed.

9. Disma - "Towards the Megalith" [Profound Lore Records]
While certainly not the most original album of the year, the huge sound and well-executed old school death metal made Towards the Megalith a pretty damn enjoyable listen. As a huge fan of old Incantation, I must admit I was expecting a bit much at first. It was only after coming to the conclusion that I really shouldn't be making such a comparison that I began to enjoy this more and more.

8. Endstille - "Infektion 1813" [Season of Mist Records]
Bombastic and absolutely brutal German black metal which conjures up an ungodly amount of sonic aggression the likes of which hasn't been done to this high a caliber in quite some time. The word "relentless" gets thrown around quite a bit but the term has rarely been more fittingly ascribed than with this album.

7. Loss - "Despond" [Profound Lore Records]
After thoroughly enjoying the Life Without Hope, Death Without Reason demo, I was excited to finally hear Loss's debut album. I wasn't let down, and, at times, I found myself getting goosebumps where the depressing walls of sound reached their peak and the bleak atmosphere really took hold. There is a very tangible feeling of longing and desperation found throughout this massive album.

6. Blut aus Nord - "777 - Sect(s)" [Debemur Morti Records]
Weird, abrasive, abstract... but, most of all, unique. This is a schizophrenic study in controlled chaos; insanity never sounded so good.

5. Autopsy - "Macabre Eternal" [Peaceville Records]
Eagerly anticipated and well worth the wait. This is what a comeback album should be.







4. Corrupted - "Garten der Unbewusstheit" [Nostalgia Blackrain Records]
Beautiful in its engulfing darkness, Garten der Unbewusstheit is the sensation of being swallowed up by a tsunami of grief. Legendary is an understatement.

3. Absu - "Abzu" [Candlelight Records]
With superb musicianship and a knack for what can only be described as "the epic and righteous," Absu's latest album furthers the legacy of their "Mythological Occult Metal" genius. Transcending any particular genre but pulling from many, this album is as fun to listen to as it is well written.

2. Mournful Congregation - "The Book of Kings" [20 Buck Spin Records]
Majestic funeral doom of the highest order and one very emotional listen. Mournful Congregation have become the pinnacle of their genre and continue to set the bar incredibly high with each new release. Slow and methodical but never stagnant nor boring, this is, in all honesty, not only one of the greatest albums of the year, but of doom metal in general.

1. Craft - "Void" [Southern Lord Records]
The triumphant return of a band who renews faith and lends excitement and vigor to a genre which has undoubtedly become a mundane and over-saturated pool of shit. With Void, Craft continues to embody the spirit and the very reason black metal appealed to me in the first place. While the legions of bearded flannel-wearers may not have much into which they can sink their teeth, Void is what it's all about.




-Dallas

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.

Brandon's 2011 Year End List

Where to start?  I have this problem where I’m usually about two or three years behind on listening.  The act of finding new music and thoroughly consuming it is almost a job in and of itself, and a lot of stuff slips through the cracks.  I know that I’ve missed listening to a lot of really “high-profile” underground (there’s an oxymoron for you) releases this year, if only because they get lost in the general clutter of all the music I do listen to.  So, here’s my Top Ten for 2011: the releases that really grabbed my attention (in no particular order):

Hella-Tripper

A return to the days of “Hold Your Horse Is”, with Zach Hill and Spencer Seim absorbing all the layered production of their full band albums like There’s No 666 In Outer Space and distilling it into a dizzying tempest of paralyzing drumming, nasty shimmering guitars swept and tapped into submission, and songwriting that is at once hypnotic and infuriatingly tight.  There’s no other band out there you could mistake these guys for.

Cave In-White Silence

I’ve looked at quite a few early year-end lists and not a single fucking one has had this album on it.  What gives?  Look, I liked Antenna and I absolutely adored Perfect Pitch Black and critics loved both of those albums.  You can’t tell me an album like White Silence, being the flawless combination of both aforementioned albums, isn’t pants-shittingly good.  And it is, which makes me wonder why so many people are sleeping on it.  Alternately heavy and melodic, spacey and progressive, it spans panoply of sound while still remaining unmistakably Cave In.  Get it.

Jay-Z & Kanye West-Watch The Throne

                Two of the greatest rapper’s alive working on a joint album?  Sign me up!  It’s strange I never got into Jay until Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album.  I guess it took getting his slick lyrics away from the stereotypical rap production to really let me hear how great of a rapper he is.  Kanye killed me with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, so the chance to hear the two of them work together is great.  The production on most of the tracks is unmistakably Kanye, with the two trading verses over thick samples and synth pulses.  It’s amazing to hear to artists most people pass over as “popular” make an album that is unapologetically weird.

Ulcerate-TheDestroyers of All

                I want to track each one of these bastards down and stab them all in their necks, collecting their lifeblood in a skull chalice.  Then, when I’m done, I’ll drink their blood at a 1984 Slayer concert (having busied myself with inventing time travel while not occupied killing all the members of a New Zealand tech-death outfit) and absorb the massive amount of metal power contained inside Ulcerate.  If you’re a fan of shit that like, sounds really weird and hella sick, brah...then you’ll like this.  Off-kilter riffing and tighter-than-a-nun composition melded with production that knows that Ulcerate operates as a unit.  Each song is exercise in discord, and I love them all.

Death Grips-Ex Military

                This. Album. Fucking. KILLS.  Odd-ass beats (some provided by Zach Hill of Hella) and a downright scary MC who yells at you like he hates your every breath make for one of the most solid hip-hop releases in years.  And it’s a bedroom tape!  Weird, violent lyrics in line with Esham and Three Six with, at times, a much more poetic and expansive take on psychedelia.  One song is based around a Black Flag sample, for Satan’s sake!

Yob-Atma

                This album could have been titled Exploding Riff Volcano Of Love and I’d still listen to it once a week.

Opeth-Heritage

                When I first put this on, I was honestly shocked.  That’s the only reason this album gets on the list: I was in no way expecting the prog-rock explosion that obliterated all my preconceptions about post-Blackwater Park Opeth into smoke.   Twisted, inventive, and nothing like I’ve ever heard before.

 Rwake-Rest

                A lumbering, shapeshifting monster of an album that takes my mind places I’m not sure it was meant to go.  I reviewed the album here on The Inarguable not too long ago, so why don’t you go check that out?  Go on, champ, run along.  I’ll wait here.

Amon Tobin-ISAM

                Tobin at his apex.  A more organic, smoked-out IDM sound than some of his previous efforts with almost no overtones of drum n’ bass.  This album is one for late night Reddit sessions where you need something to keep your mind off the fact you just saw something you can never un-see.  Hauntingly beautiful, not to mention coupled with one of the most innovative stage shows ever (do yourself a favor and YouTube some show videos of the ISAM tour).

Batillus-Furnace

                So ridiculously heavy and heartbreaking that, at times, it makes me forget where or who I am.  This album pounds the listener into a semi-conscious zen state that is almost addictive.  The opening crush of ...And The World Is As Night To Them drops my jaw every time I listen to it, and it only gets better from there.  A world-altering album for me, absolutely essential.

Honorable Mention: Mastodon-The Hunter, Blotted Science-The Animation of Entomology, Swamp Witch-Gnosis, Cloudkicker-Let Yourself Be Huge, Servile Sect-TRVTH

Bjørn´s Top 10 list for 2011

 2011 was once again a great year for Metal in my opinion. This year was more of a epic Progressive Metal, treasure and gem finding for me there have been so many albums and new bands I have found this year than really any other so far I think I can safely say most metal heads have enjoyed this year because through other metal heads I found some other nice bands but every body was happy until Morbid Angel came along and shit on every ones hopes and dreams hmm. Well You will not find Morbid Angels new hip shit record if you want to call it that on my top 10 no.

1 Paul Wardingham - Assimilate Regenerate

There has not been a day I have not listened to this album, It is a branching out on the style of Scar Symmetry´s Holographic Universe with not stop shred. Overwhelming melodic death metal and atmosphere. When I really lose my self in this album I really do feel in some since colors on what they might feel like I mean shouldn´t epic space metal be like that?

2 Leprous -Bilateral

This was a very emotion provoking album with its different styles of music and mood changes.

One thought that came to mind when I wrote my review for this album was it made me think of if Modest Mouse did a extreme progressive metal album haha and I mean that. I think Frank Zappa were still alive to this day we would have loved this album. The band worked along side Ihsahn on this album so you know there is some extra creative genius in there some where.

3 Mournful Congregation – The Book of Kings

It came as a shock to me that Mournful Congregation put out a new album on the 1^st of November it slipped right under my radar. Thankfully through our very own Jon told me about the albums release and I gave it a listen and I was blown away It was a much better come back that their previous record The June Frost. The album is really dark and ambient.

4 Anubis Gate – Anubis Gate

I have only been into this Danish Progressive Metal act for about 6 months now This was a pretty common Melodic Progressive Rock/Metal album but it made my top ten because each songs moody segments where they kind of hit you hard in the heart if you really get into the progressive sine like I do and also Henrik Fevre´s vocals there is something powerful and magical about his vocal tone. This also being my favorite release from them by far.

5 Dystopia Na! - Syklus

I found this band while searching around on youtube just over the fall. It is a really moody Post-Black/Doom Metal album and being really one out of a small hand full of post-Black Metal bands I like there are calm moments of new age atmospheres and melodic acoustic guitars and harsh slowed down black metal this album a great gem for any post-Black Metal fan. Underground bed room Black metal at its best.

6 Andromeda - Manifest Tyranny

Another shock to see I am a big fan of these guys one of the best Progressive Metal bands to inspire me musically and lyrical and this album might be their heaviest album to date and maybe their darkest to the lyrical content which being subjects on the New World Order and all the problems that the world is facing today. One thing I loved is through parts of some of the songs they play clips of world leaders saying some really scary things that really make you think is there really some one pulling the strings in world affairs.

7 Scar Symmetry – The Unseen Empire

Ah yes another anti New World Order album makes the list. I waited day in and day for this album to come out and at first after listening I was kind of disappointed in it but after I did my review and gave it a couple of more listens and it grew on me. The two new singers had improved than the previous release Dark Matter Dimensions but I still think in some ways that album is still a little better than The Unseen Empire, The lyrics to this album when it comes to the subject matter more up front and out there to say the least.

8 Taake - Noregs Vaapen

This one album I have been waiting for this year and Taake always delivers the goods. They still remain to the true Norwegian Black Metal sound though there were some interesting influences on this album with the banjo, the album brought back memories of the old Darkthrone sound. This also was a much better improvement than the previous self titled album I thought. Also with the band only singing in Norwegian I found it interesting that there was a english sound clip of a girl saying I hope we have the coldest winter ever.

9 Shattered Skies – Reanimation

Wow a Djent band made my top 10 list strange huh ? Well to say the least this Djent band Shattered Skies is more Groove Progressive Metal even though some people say that is what Djent is any way but this does not have any break downs and less of that bright Djent tone it is more melodic and colorful and the vocal melodies are just fantastic the production is ok but the musicianship makes up for where the production fails in my opinion. This group has a lot of talent and deserves a little more notice I will be looking forward from more from this band.

10 Galleon – In The Wake Of The Moon

One of my all time favorite if not truly my favorite Progressive Rock band Galleon released this new album on the 26^th of November it caught me off guard since their last album was released in 2007 it seemed like they were running out of ideas. When I got this new album I found it to be a small come back to what they have done in the past or at least in the mid point in their carrier. I did like every song on this album Mr. Murphy and In The Wake Of The Moon are my favorite songs by far. I think a little more could have been done with this album but the album is different in its self it has a lot of progressive rock and pop melodies mixed in every but still remains moody.

Runners Up/ Almost made it on my top 10 list.

1 Abnormal Thought Patterns - Abnormal Thought Patterns EP

2 Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of Events

3 Devin Townsend Project – Ghost

4 Vintersorg – Jordpuls

5 Opeth – Heritage

What I hope for in 2012:

Well I hope to see some new stuff from Mirrorthrone, up coming music from Christian Älvestam, Soilwork, and I hope to God Winds puts out a new album in 2012 they are much over do for a new release. Who knows what else is in store for in 2012 when it comes to music only time will tell.

-Bjørn