The 2018 ILX Metal n' Heavy Rock Poll VOTING + CAMPAIGNING thread! NEW EXTENDED DEADLINE! Ballots due by Friday, February 15th 11.59pm PST

^^ I loved this. Bits of the last track often swimming about.

Also, WOW this Khôrada album is so amazing to my ears! I don't know Agalloch or Giant Squid at all really, but if they sound anything like this, then I should. Sounds very accessible and pretty. I think that Elder fans (i.e. everyone) would find a lot to like here!

You don't know Agalloch?????? Time to immerse yourself in their entire output!

Don Anderson ex-Agalloch now in Khôrada is an academic I think?

Fully cosign on Paara as well.

You don't know Agalloch?????? Time to immerse yourself in their entire output!

Yeah, it might be time. imago: "they've got one good track"

hes talking shite

every single agalloch album is at least good

but they play it about twenty times!!!!1

Have you listened to entropia yet?

Yes. I think imago quite liked it and compared it (favourably) to Devin Townsend, but I couldn’t get into it somehow and I’ve tried a few times. Maybe it’s yet to grow on me? I like the album art.

their last album was great too. i think it made the rollout

we have 6 ballots in so far.

Voted.

I'll be voting. Every year, I am intimidate by the sheer number of albums I missed - even by bands I try to follow - and feel obliged to cram as much of it as possible to make sure nothing awesome escaped me.

Shylmagoghnar sound absolutely tremendous tbh - we're listening again now. You know how most prog metal is kind of wanky and boring? This is PROGGE ALMIGHTY

is that what's putting you off ?

My ballot is 8 records, including the decidedly non-metal AWK album. Was 2018 terrible for metal, or was I just too busy listening to Jandek and Joni Mitchell?

not good for metal imo but am belatedly finding some things

My "ballot" currently has 4 albums, only 2 of them are really metal. I have so little time for music these days. Ugh.

I think 2018 was a bit of disappointment all round in that I didn't find much in the way of absolute favourites (but still found lots to like, too much probably). Have noted down stuff to listen to mentioned upthread and will try to get voting done next couple of days

Plus there's the yearly dilemma of liking stuff that imago's nominated but can't really vote for in good conscience because they aren't metal enough

n.b. The Armed are metal a.f.

Oh yeah I'm voting for that one easy

death metal dominated the eoy lists in 2018 i think

and deafheaven were the token band on the non metal lists though it is in fact a very good album

2018 was a good metal year. I came up with a top 20 easily.

The Armed, KEN Mode, and LLNN were big highlights.

Are write-in votes acceptable? I neglected to nominate Alice in Chains.

Well they aren't remotely metal anymore but george can decide

Not ‘anymore’ metal than they were in 1992, the new record sounds exactly like their old stuff. It’s an excellent album, not metal I’d say but that also goes for a lot of hardcore-related stuff that usually does get accepted in these polls (Converge even won it one year, right?) so who am I to complain.

Fwiw, Spotify went straight to Facelift after Rainier Fog one time and I barely noticed the difference. Not sure what it is you're hearing. xp

nah the original albums were heavy and had sludgey riffs. That's gone now.

It's certainly not less of a heavy rock album than Andrew WK or Ghost. xp

but like i said it's george's call

Nearly every song has heavy guitars and sludgey riffs, u mad!

You're not mad wrt Entropia, though. The first two songs are fantastic and have a pretty unique sound with almost funk-disco grooves behind the dissonant metal guitars.

"The One You Know", "Drone", and "So Far Under" are as heavy and sludgey as any classic Seattle grunge, for a start. I almost feel like you just listened to the two ballads or something.

dissonant metal guitars.

Maybe I should say "dissonant blackgaze guitars"? Idk, trying to not make it sound like nu-metal.

Can someone kindly explain the difference between weighted and unweighted with regard to this poll?

Sund4r, go right ahead and vote for AiC

NYCNative, unweighted means that all entries have the same point amount. Not exactly sure what point amount that is, though...let me get back to you on that...

Okay, that's actually fine. I didn't know if there was a way to weight your polls a la the Pazz & Jop.

2018 was an excellent year for metal because, for the first time in eons, I kept up with new releases. Also because overt metalcoreisms and proggery (I get my avant kicks elsewhere) are only tangentially my thing so maybe it was a bad year for those two subterrains, I wouldn't know.

noone here cares for core though

Converge won the poll a few years ago?

Converge are their own thing though

Ghost and Yob just placed in the ILM’s Top 77 Albums of 2018

and Senyawa which gives me high hopes for em in this poll. that album has blown my mind. going through their back back catalog and im digging all of it so far

I just voted

excellent

I'm listening to a lot of these campaigned albums, and even the stuff that's not usually in my wheelhouse--such as 1914 & Funeral Winds--is sounding pretty good to me...

the armed album turned up in metal poll