Rolling Metal Thread 2010

It has The Wizard. It has The Body. It has High On Fire. It has Nachtmystium. It has Kylesa. It has Sailors With Wax Wings... it's not that bad.

man I haven't even heard a lot of that. I have become the metal fan who would rather listen to old-school death & proto-BM than know what's going on in the genre.

There are lots of good albums on the list, but almost without exception they're way lower than they should be, buried under boring unlistenable shit.

unperson you're getting crankier by the day!

hey, at least Burzum didn't crack the top ten (a mistake, imo), Phil.

Nachtmystium and Ghost should have placed much higher tho, tru.

some excellent records on that list

3. Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones
4. Dawnbringer - Nucleus
7. Ludicra - The Tenant
12. Immolation - Majesty and Decay
16. Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
17. High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine
20. Electric Wizard - Black Masses
21. Deathspell Omega - Paracletus
24. Ghost - Opus Eponymous
27. Fear Factory - Mechanize
29. Christian Mistress - Agony & Opium
30. Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle Part II
31. Deftones - Diamond Eyes
36. Decrepit Birth - Polarity
38. Hail of Bullets - On Divine Winds

Those are the 15 albums on the list I actually like. I wouldn't consider all of them for my own year-end list. There were some close calls - the Father Befouled is okay, but I think it's only on the Decibel list because Incantation didn't make a record this year, and frankly Incantation should be charging them with copyright infringement; and the Dillinger album seemed okay at the time but I haven't listened to it since filing my review, and that's not a good sign.

in 2011 news the music on the new Owen Hart is kicking my ass

the vocals are fucking boring. have said this before. a whole generation of decent metal bands are fucking up by thinking that singing like the dude from Brokencyde is somehow intense or brutal or w/e. I would rather listen to the most generic death gurgle in the world than another fuckin note of BLEEEOWWW BLEOWWWW! oh yes dude you are feelin it I totally believe you! fucking whatever. you guys learn to play this awesome and then can't come up with a more original vocal look than this, it's a crying fucking shame. because this is an outstanding band fully knocked down to "ok & you'll forget you like them by this time next week" because of this.

These are the one's on that list I like:

1. Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit
3. Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones
7. Ludicra - The Tenant
16. Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
20. Electric Wizard - Black Masses
22. Kvelertak - Kvelertak
29. Christian Mistress - Agony & Opium
33. The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
39. Lantlos - .Neon

Though I think the Cathedral record is better than all of them.

100% with aero on the vocals thing. He doesn't have to review as many screamo/metalcore albums as I do, I don't think, so I'm probably even sicker of the current "extreem" vocal sound than he is. No wonder I listen to so much power/trad metal in my spare time these days.

Weirdly, I wrote that & then found myself listening to the new Graf Orlock EP. It's screaming for sure, but it's dynamic, plus the actual hardcore link is audible & clear...so it works for me! (it doesn't hurt that Graf Orlock is basically a freestanding awesome riff factory & play like they're starving to fucking death.) but with SO much of the screaming metalcore style, there are ZERO dynamics. there's two levels of scream, and both of them sound like children who didn't get what they wanted for their birthday. which is why I am dubbing that style Bad Birthdaycore.

Only 11 albums I voted for made the dB list...there's not a lot here I agree with. Watain's far too high, Thou is overrated, and what the hell's a Pivixki???

The most heinous exclusion has to be Maiden. And Alcest. Overall it's a pretty disheartening list in my opinion.

Maiden and Cathedral are grievous omissions, but so's Negura Bunget IMO.

By the way, the new Motörhead disc is up on loadown.org. Just FYI.

no maiden on a TOP 40 year end list is mind boggling!

no cathedral is less surprising. love it personally but it's a bit divisive, no?

bought my watain tix today

even cathedral fans are split on it. It's certainly nowhere as good as some people think on here.

xp

I still really enjoy the Cathedral album. It didn't crack my top 20 unfortunately...I had to leave out a LOT of great albums this year.

I think the cathedral album is pretty stellar myself. really jam-packed with ideas and I just love the SOUND of it.

have played it for a few folks IRL and the folks who already liked cathedral were way into it but I couldn't sell it to people who weren't already familiar.

watain sux imo

what's the new graf orlock? a little gimmicky but it is a good gimmick and I'm a sucker for a well-executed grind/hardcore hybrid. like those guys.

it's called DOOMBOX. a little less chaotic than that crazy one with the cardboard bug housing, but to me that's a plus -- I'm pretty through with as-crazy-as-we-can-get stuff. the riffs on this one are fucking AWESOME and yeah the hardcore pedigree is shining through. fuckin exellent release, due in January I guess.

Well, that does explain why I was only assigned blurbs for two records this year... they were the only ones outside of the top 10 that I voted for (and I only voted for 4 out of there).

Also, that's not a bug, Aero, that's a facehugger -- haven't you seen Alien?!

hahaha.

that sounds awesome, aero. looking forward to it.

1. Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit
2. Watain - Lawless Darkness
3. Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones
5. Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini
6. Torche - Songs for Singles
7. Ludicra - The Tenant
8. Thou - Summit
16. Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
17. High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine
18. Burzum - Belus
19. Atheist - Jupiter
20. Electric Wizard - Black Masses
28. Unearthly Trance - V
30. Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle Part II
32. Father Befouled - Morbid Destitution of Covenant
37. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis

I will rep for all of these, Nachtmystium is way low though. And, as much as I love the Torche, that one is a bit too high.

Yeah, the Torche us merely a good stopgap EP and nothing more. Certainly not in the same league as the two albums.

I thought that Nachtmystium was way too low, but then, it was my album of the year -- so really, any position outside of the top 10 would have been too low.

Fear Factory is kind of glaring to me -- good album, definitely a big step up, but I don't know about top 40 of the year. I hadn't even come close to getting promos for a lot of the stuff that made it by the time we had to submit our lists, too. In fact, I just received Deathspell Omega yesterday. Still haven't heard the Agalloch (don't suppose you could help me out there, Nate?).

I know there's somebody here who works closely with Agalloch & all love, respect, etc., but when Agalloch is winning metal polls & getting generally repped for, that tells me I am way way way out of the current.

They can't all be Prostitute Disfigurement, Aerosmith!

Fear Factory making the top 40 must be some generational thing, people nostalgic for that 90s era connecting with it. I was too old in the mid-90s for that band to have any impact on me whatsoever. The album is a step up from their recent mediocre records, but great it's not.

I'm actually surprised to see Agalloch get album of the year, I've been huge into it of course but I wasn't too sure what others would think. Great choice in the end...I had it at #5 on my dB ballot in early October, and when I voted again for other mags a couple weeks later it had jumped to an easy, obvious #1.

And Jeff, I didn't get any blurb assignments! I was baffled until I saw just how little in common my ballot had with the final list.

I love Fear Factory, but as far as legacy records go, there were a lot better (Cathedral, Iron Maiden, Armored Saint, Exodus, and Rotting Christ all come to mind). I mean, the list isn't a bad one, just some really surprising omissions and inclusions(where's Yakuza, for example?). Decibel lists are always like that, though -- there's such a wide variety of taste in the writers that the aggregate lists always feel a little schizophrenic.

I know J3ff, like I dig Axoma Ethica Odini as much as the next guy...I just 100% don't get how Agalloch is anything but sort of generic gloom devoid of inspiration. Just doesn't engage me at all.

Fear Factory making the top 40 must be some generational thing, people nostalgic for that 90s era connecting with it.

I sill like Belus, it still holds up well. And oh man, I forgot about Rotting Christ. What an album Aealo is.

Yeah, if there's one great thing dB has, it's diversity (though hardcore inclusions always make this old-school headbanger cringe just a little!). To see traditional metal do well in the form of Dawnbringer and Christian Mistress made me smile.

If there's one thing that might entice Agalloch skeptics it's that the new CD is a lot more varied than their past work.

I just 100% don't get how Agalloch is anything but sort of generic gloom devoid of inspiration.

New Arckanum slips back to Antikosmos level of solid, autopilot Arckanum. Last years ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ really hit it out of the park for some reason, been revisiting that one over the past month and as far as proper asskicking Black METAL goes that record shits on pretty much everything else out there from the last three, four years.

holy shit, i forgot all about the Rotting Christ, too. that one's definitely top ten for me.

finally got hipped to the body--man that's a cool album.

I just 100% don't get how Agalloch is anything but sort of generic gloom devoid of inspiration.

u mad doggie!

Agalloch does basically nothing for me. And Axioma Ethica Odini is such a dropoff after Vertebrae that it's almost shocking.

I agree it's not as good, I still dig it -- I don't know, when a band's been kicking ass as long as Enslaved they get to mellow out with a little axioma ethica odini once in a while.

seriously thought you guys the damn ares kingdom album. I am rocking it hard tonight, it's so. fucking. great. belongs on any metal year-end top ten in my opinion & it's in my overall top ten too.

Well, I only like 8 of those 40, but 4 of them are in the top 7, so that's something. And if anybody gives me crap when I put HIM on my metal list, I'm referring them to the inclusion of Pivixki here.

Does anyone even know what the heck that Pivixki is? Something tells me it's some kind of grindcore silliness.

Here's the description from Amazon:

The duo known as PIVIXKI are a unique combination of two distinct talents: two hard-working veterans of the Melbourne (and indeed international) music scene, one still in his mid 20s, the other having just scraped the 30-year mark. Multi-instrumentalist, and keyboard player within the band, Anthony Pateras, has a CV big enough to fll three press releases. Working within the musical realms of modern composition, improvisation, electronics, avant-rock and noise, he's composed for major orchestras, played with a multitude of collaborators (including the likes of Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz, Tony Buck, Han Bennink, Dave Brown and violin virtuoso Richard Tognetti), performed in everything from seedy dives to concert halls the world over, released his music on a multitude of labels (including two acclaimed CDs on John Zorn's Tzadik imprint) and is currently the composer-in-residence at the Australian National Academy Of Music. Max Kohane, just 26, has been playing in bands since he was 12 and touring since he was 16. He turned 18 whilst on a three-month tour of Europe. He's infamous for his dynamic, intensely fast and technical drumming style and has earned a rep as perhaps the best skin-hitter in Australia's hardcore punk scene. He's played in the likes of Far Left Limit, George W. Bush, Terra Firma, Cut Sick, grind kings Agents Of Abhorrence and crust-punkers ABC Weapons. The beauty of Pivixki lies in the clash of these two musical cultures, though the willing experimentation of Pateras and Kohane has seen ft that there is no clash at all. Pivixki's debut, Gravissima, recorded by US ex-patriate Casey Rice, sees an amazing melding of sensibilities. Nominally a piano/drums duo, the band expands their sound with percussive fourishes and the addition of organ and electronic keyboards into the mix. Some of the songs are short, fast and cut to the point; others organically develop over several minutes like soundtrack pieces, occasionally feeding through the creepy, picturesque qualities of Italy's horror-music legends Goblin, or the seething musical soundscapes of France's avant-prog troupe, Magma. Most of all, the album works as a cohesive piece of music, each track making a perfect segueway for the next. If you can imagine a perfect melting pot made up of the likes of Conlon Nancarrow, Iannis Xenakis, Cecil Taylor and the insane grind trio Discordance Axis, it might sound a little like Pivixki. Their unique instrumentation is never used as a mere gimmick or prop: it's simply a set-up which best suits their mode of expression.

Cecil Taylor and the insane grind trio Discordance Axis

Okay, that's actually kind of intriguing.

Not really sure how that group qualifies for the list and Black Mountain and Maserati don't, but oh well.

Aero -- I actually am on the same page regarding "generic gloom" as you. When I was listening through a bunch of stuff while compiling my top 20, there was just so much stuff that got good reviews that I listened to 30 seconds of and went "great, more atmospheric black metal, next." Agalloch definitely don't fall into that category for me, though.

Not really sure how that group qualifies for the list and Black Mountain and Maserati don't, but oh well.

Hell, I voted for Ratt.

Jeff, yes email and I'll hook you up.

As for me, Wolvserpent is my album of the year. I love the new Enslaved and don't see it as any sort of quality drop from Vertebrae, and certainly don't find it to be less energetic. Also, saw them live on Tuesday with Demon Burger and Enslaved's set was FAR more fiery than when they support Opeth.

Overall, it's very interesting to contrast this list with Terrorizer's.

btw, i <3 u guys to pieces. don't ever change.