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

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

i mean big poll, lol

Sleep just placed. Lots of albums nommed in this poll has made big poll

Nice of you to forget to mention D********n

I dont get the hate for Deafheaven from you. It's usually the purist snobs who hate them.

They're the most corny fuxxor band to really gain traction in the metal sphere

and as we all know, imago has an antifuxxor ratio of infinity

I love some """hipster""" metal but DH just come off as trite and cynical, and their song construction is really clumsy in an extremely uninteresting way

^this

also they utilise the most pandering and corny of post-rock melodies

let's fight this in the actual poll tho

It's a losing battle :C

I reckon thats all the metal out the way in big poll and none will crack the top 30 which is where the big votes will be , will be interesting to see where those albums place here.

also they utilise the most pandering and corny of post-rock melodies

tritones only!!!!

Diabolus in musica is metal af.

This song is pretty crackers:

https://youtu.be/1ND8EpzVSVo

Voted

thanks!