2019 Metal ’n’ Heavy Rock/Heavy Music Poll: RESULTS - Top 100 Countdown

Mgła's album from last year, which, uh, may or may not appear in this rollout, also had an unsettlingly AmBiGuOuS title, come to think of it.

Anyway…

78
Motorpsycho - The Crucible
119 points, 4 votes

http://motorpsycho.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/motorp-cruc-1024x1024.jpeg

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2bNIAjyL3hFCuQBQqhPN4T

https://www.echoesanddust.com/2019/03/motorpsycho-the-crucible/

Whilst not as sprawling as previous release The Tower, Motorpsycho’s new album The Crucible is no less epic in scope and although only three songs in length, they easy match up to the wild progressive abandonment of that prior album. In fact, you can almost see this as an addendum, or encore if you will.

Not to cast the album off as simply though, as The Crucible is more than able to stand its own ground and if anything its succinctness makes it a much more enjoyable listen. Whilst we cannot knock The Tower in anyway, as in itself it was a remarkable album, sometimes shorter really is sweeter. Just don’t expect Motorpsycho to skimp on any of the progressive power that they are known for, and with their new dynamic as a trio, find themselves up on the pantheon of other great power trios.

Power trios are always cool so I'll sample this as soon as I can.

The rate these guys crank out these detailed and meticulous prog albums is, frankly, unbelievable.

Discovering their immense back catalog has been one of my musical highlights of the last year.

did frogbs vote?

Here's a band I always mean to give a proper chance to

Love Deathspell Omega but was disappointed in this one.

Motorpsycho is my first one to place. They've been doing so well for such a long time.

This is as good a place as any to start, since it's one of their most succinct. xp

It's staggering to think '97s Angels and Daemons at Play was my first Motorpsycho. That one first lead me to go back to their older albums, and from then on they just stayed with me. Nearly always delivering their unique goods in a 100 different ways. Love this band.

Coming up: a bit of Pitchfork-approved™ metal. Any guesses?

I don't think the title of the Deathspell Omega album was ambiguous, lol, it pretty clearly signaled it's about fascism. The earlier one, though, Synarchy of Molten Bones, that makes me a bit queasy...

Blood Incantation already?

This would be a good place for it

I don't think the title of the Deathspell Omega album was ambiguous

It's an obvious nod to Sarah Palin.

In a way it is...

Dumb jokes aside, palingenesis has many lexical applications beyond its (late) cooptation by fascists…

Back to the 'Fork with another trio…

77
Oozing Wound - High Anxiety
124 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0319864493_10.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2sYvdAeIBt5bGsQJXrmTDK
https://oozingwound.bandcamp.com/album/high-anxiety

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/oozing-wound-high-anxiety/

The Chicago trio Oozing Wound have planted their flag in the spot where metal, punk, and experimental meet. Four albums in, they are firmly devoted to keeping that space both weird and uncomfortable. High Anxiety doesn’t stray from their aesthetic: it’s thrashy if not entirely thrash, it’s dirty and smeared at the edges, and they remain sick of your shit, with their definition of “your shit” an exponentially expanding, spiteful blob. Even without changing much, they’re still the freaks underground metal needs.

Whether or not you can understand any of Zack Weil’s shrieks in the opener “Surrounded by Fucking Idiots,” the bile in his guitar is easily understandable. They’re not interested in metaphors or dressing up their hatred in Latin and sigils. The second half of “Idiots” lurches into swampy riffing, a mutated take on a thrash breakdown. It’s more for throwing a bunch of aforementioned idiots off a cliff than for stage-diving, offering no release but annihilation. “Tween Shitbag” is equally incendiary, with Weil sarcastically yelling “Oh man I really love your band!”, a call back to the anti-industry screed “New York Bands” from their debut Retrash.

High Anxiety also recalls Voivod on “Die on Mars” and “Riding the Universe,” not just for their space themes but also how punky thrash and prog goofiness chop it up with one another. “Mars” throws some death metal in the mix, the intro guitar leads sounding like Bolt Thrower solos drifting into a trash-filled outer space. These songs are house shows as terrariums populated by metal dudes too strange for the pay-to-play clubs and punks who punish themselves in Ph.D. programs, and Oozing Wound makes the chaos coalesce. They’re serious, but not serious.

oh this record fuckin slaps

More stuff I need to hear. Mentions of Voivod and Bolt Thrower are more than enough to whet my appetite.

I FUCKING LOVE OOZING WOUND

the spot where metal, punk, and experimental meet

were TFS nominated/eligible? slightly annoying if so as I left them out

Eligible, sure. Nominated, I'm afraid not… (Don't quote me on that, though.)

There is absolutely nothing experimental about Oozing Wound, lol

Anyway, glad the real rollout has finally started ;)

Pffft.

Tropical Fuck Storm were indeed nominated

if that is who you meant

Aight, thanks. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE, IMAGO!

That said, it disappointed me after a couple of spins and I never revisited it afterwards. And I was blown away by their debut.

I kept it kvlt, I did the right thing

And yeah, if I liked it anywhere near as much as the debut I'd have probably found a space for it

Actually, what is the least metal thing I voted for? Probably The Young Gods, who I think we can safely say won't place

76
Major Stars - Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy
125 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0490728063_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0TxomauWobIcb9XfYYtWID
https://majorstars.bandcamp.com/album/roots-of-confusion-seeds-of-joy

https://www.treblezine.com/major-stars-roots-of-confusion-seeds-of-joy/

Psychedelic rock never went anywhere. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherswise, considering the more recent fervor and enthusiasm for the psychedelic sounds of bands such as Ty Segall, The Allah-Las and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard such that it might have seemed like psych had been on a multi-decade holiday, the sounds of sitars and screaming wah-wah pedals thought never to return. The truth is more mundane than that; some have yet to opt out of the trip after quite a few decades, and if there’s a psychedelic renaissance happening right now, it’s simply the next in a long string of them, following an arguably weirder and more exciting acid communion in the mid-’00s among the likes of Dead Meadow, Comets on Fire and White Hills—not to mention Dungen, whose transition into the next generation of psych has been the smoothest.

Major Stars can be counted among this batch of mind-bending string-benders, the Boston group having released their debut way back in 1998. And after more than 20 years, they’re still delivering some of the heaviest and densest fuzz in psych rock with Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy. The influence of bands such as Hawkwind and The Stooges (particularly Fun House) still loom large in their soaring freakouts, and as is often the case with bands steeped in space rock and classic psych, they’re not completely reinventing psych-rock or putting it in a radically new context. What they are doing is continuing to write outstanding songs within this framework, that is when they’re not simply allowing their jam session to spiral out into far-off galaxies as on the album’s leadoff track “The Tightener.”

Psychedelic rock never went anywhere.

Speaking of ambiguity…

I voted for the young gods

xp

I also voted for this

I finally got george into this band

I still prefer their earlier stuff but they've never let me down

Someone wake up George

So far they sound like Acid Mothers Temple a bit!

Oh the saxophone made things better, this is cool. More sax

Just learned that Major Stars are the owners of Twisted Village!

Major Stars! My #6!

I've heard them described as a 'state fair band' but they're like the best one of those ever. The melodies and vocals are as strong as any Windhand or Bardo Pond album but even BP doesn't have such a preternaturally incendiary guitarist like Wayne Rogers

'preternaturally incendiary'

somebody wake up LBI

Crystallized Movements were great too

as were Magic Hour and Heathen Shame

I'm definitely planning to get into them this year re: CM

One of the best and most important bands ever up next btw

re: amygdala, yeah the well captured anguished vocals was what first kept me going back to this record

will rep even more for this band when they get a more unrestrained sound (iskra-like production would fit'em, i believe). my #18

'preternaturally incendiary'

somebody wake up LBI

― hooper (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, February 25, 2020 4:45 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Preternaturally incendiary is the name of my pet hamster! Your BP reference pulls me over the line to try this out though.