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

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.