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

I'll come up with a POX records for the past 20 years and send it to you as soon as I can.

― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 15:14 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Awesome, thanks!

Yeah, where is ultros!

16

Moon Tooth - Crux

329 points, 9 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2330438881_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/32v8MVLHUJjGyoTBj0z39J

https://purenoise.bandcamp.com/album/crux

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/moon-tooth-crux/

Moon Tooth draw attention like the big, bold letters of a comic book: Their technical prowess, rabid energy, and pristine-sounding records all work in favor of making your eyes light up, your heart rate accelerate. The Long Island quartet’s sophomore album, Crux, pairs down the hyperactive whimsy of 2016’s self-released Chromaparagon in favor of simpler pleasures. Hooks abound. Lighters are raised. The last decade’s rock heavyweights—from radio titans like Foo Fighters and Incubus to more progressive acts like Tool and the Dillinger Escape Plan—all seem, at various points, like fair comparisons. It’s rock music built from familiar sounds, all drawn together by an ability to swerve suddenly into pyrotechnics.

What separates Moon Tooth from legions of shred-happy colleagues is their emotional urgency and the unexpected ways in which they contort their influences. The lyrics do little to offset the band’s cartoonish ferocity—one of the best choruses culminates in a cry of, “Not today, motherfucker!”—and yet they never sound like they’re just screaming slogans in wild time signatures. They’re always reaching toward the audience with the hopes of pulling you up, an intimacy that’s almost entirely derived from the performance of frontman John Carbone. His soulful, clean singing weaves through the imaginative riffs of guitarist Nick Lee, like if Mastodon’s apocalyptic visions were replaced with pure cosmic wonder.

This style would collapse under the weight of too much seriousness, and Crux tightens Chromaparagon’s scope without sanding away the fun. It’s energetic enough for each song to feel like its own distinct action sequence but concise enough to avoid monotony. The wailing chorus of “Awe at All Angles” takes cues from pop-punk, while “Musketeers” spreads messages of solidarity over a frantic new-wave pulse. In the opening “Trust,” Carbone sings about drifting through life, but his bandmates demand his full presence, lest he miss the half-time breakdown or the saxophone-accompanied finale. If Chromaparagon was the sound of a band showing off all their tricks at once, then Crux radiates with a sleeker and starker energy.

my #22

fuckin wildly awesome record

So far today its been a bit of my part of the poll

Much more emo than its mathier predecessor, but the songwriting is really strong and there’s a lot of value and hidden tricks to find in repeat listens. I love the vocals.

Typically not my thing but those vocals are indeed impressive. I like the track I'm sampling.

I've noticed the vocals are the make-or-break for most people. I love them, and the drumming is just unbelievable. But most of all these are just some very tightly composed songs.

In a cooler world, intricate hard rock records like this would be a much more common occurrence.

next album is way too low

my #4 in fact

15

Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence

345 points, 10 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0838307368_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7GrKomosr29udfIEPtk3o0

https://esoteric.bandcamp.com/album/a-pyrrhic-existence

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/esoteric-a-pyrrhic-existence-review/

Funeral doom must be the most impenetrable iteration of extreme metal. The genre’s painfully protracted process either engrosses or evades the listener entirely with its inevitable crawl and morose mass. Cherd of Doom and I are blood-bound for the cause where as “metalheads” like Holdeneye harbor a taste to offend the soul. This lack of middle ground has been exploited to great effect by many bands over the years, but the fittingly named Esoteric take the proverbial cake. The Brits’ particular brand of doom is about as challenging as it gets and wields an entire weather system of psychedelic textures and thunderous passages. A Pyrrhic Existence arrives after an eight year absence and is absolutely no exception. But what may represent the tedious inevitability of an unloved season to some, might just be perfection to others.

Long-form metal can often represent a challenge to quantify. It’s easy to imply gravitas with slow pace and ringing chords, but the proof lies in the writing. If you’re of a mind to do so, the best way to approach Esoteric is to consider their work as close to traditional theater as possible. The material’s depth and span collides with the authors’ compositional intent in the same way a play divides a lifetime into requisite acts. A Pyrrhic Existence is another double-disc experience whose first song clocks in at just under twenty-eight minutes. “Descent” is the best self-contained doom metal EP of the year and shrugs off the potential tedium with unnerving ease. To trivialize such a hefty track is no mean feat, but it’s apparent brevity and immersive quality is surely the finest commendation I can give such an inaccessible genre.

Any funeral doom record worth its salt requires a narrative to provide structure. “Descent” revels in lilting leads and introspective soundscapes but is consistently anchored by tumultuous doom. The song acts as an immaculate microcosm of the entire album, which soon bleeds smoothly into the melancholic fugue of “Rotting in Dereliction.” Greg Chandler’s vocals walk hand in hand with the music’s dramatic state, matching guttural lows and pained highs with the relevant instrumentation. A Pyrrhic Existence makes a point to play with tempo, so it’s no surprise when the song reaches fever pitch with blastbeats and a particularly emotive solo. During the album’s second half, the guitar work – shared by Chandler, Gordon Bicknell and Jim Nolan -becomes more robust. “Consuming Lies” quakes with the permanence of the Finnish death/doom bands. The huge riffing provides a memorable anchor for the entire record. By the time A Pyrrhic Existence nears its exhaustive end, I feel like I’ve borne silent witness to a mental breakdown. And that’s exactly what the album is: a collection of debilitating episodes that commence, peak and fade with lasting consequence.

My… #15, actually. Esoteric can do no wrong.

funeral doom to get totally immersed in: one of my favorite things

(Moon Tooth was my #11 and this was my #9)

I reckon if they made all their albums exactly half as long as they are, keeping the best stuff, they'd be a favourite of mine. Think I listened to this a bit and liked what I heard? I always like what I hear with Esoteric and very rarely finish it lol

You're too ambient-averse for the stuff to fully enshroud you, no?

Their track Circle is a monstrous masterpiece and that's 20 minutes long with plenty of ambience. I think my problem is more with the sheer amount of music

They only make an album every 5-7 years so I don't begrudge them the indulgence.

Fair enough. I tend to think of it as a feature rather than a bug but such an attitude requires some amount of self-induced suggestion (true of most aesthetic preferences tbf).

xp

This was kinda low on my ballot cause I could only set aside time for a couple listens before submitting but it's clearly a tremendous achievement from one of the most consistent bands around.

fwiw I found their previous album pretty great all the way through, this one didn't cast quite the same spell

the truth is imago isnt really a prog fan at all, he likes songs around the 8 minute mark

14

Wilderun - Veil of Imagination

351 points, 9 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0899408251_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/25EBYaYCG5egyU4BQIbWtJ

https://wilderun.bandcamp.com/album/veil-of-imagination

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wilderun-veil-of-imagination-review/

Wilderun’s Sleep at the Edge of the Earth was a revelation. The record was a powerful blend of ideas that was as enchanting as it was addictive. It was epic and sprawling and my (and the staff’s) Record o’ the Year from 2015, and it came with an elevator pitch as snappy as: “Opeth meets Turisas.” And while this is a simplification that does not do the brilliance of Sleep at the Edge of the Earth justice, it is a good reference point. Because after four years, with my understanding being that Veil of Imagination was done for at least a quarter of it, this elevator pitch does not seem to have enticed anyone to pick the band up. This is absurd, as even after Sleep at the Edge of the Earth, the band was clearly among the most exciting bands in metal. But on Veil of Imagination, Wilderun has not only grown, but they have raised the bar for what progressive and melodic death metal can be. Veil of Imagination is one of the most imaginative, beautiful and interesting records that I have ever heard.

Veil of Imagination is a complete album that is worthy of its length. While other bands have referred to their songs as “movements,” the term is the only appropriate name for what Wilderun has wrought. From the fourteen and a half minutes of “The Unimaginable Zero Summer” to the out of tune outro on “When the Fire and the Rose Were One,” everything flows with the kind of practiced grace that few bands not named Pink Floyd or Symphony X have ever accomplished. The pacing, when seen from a bird’s eye view, is genius. Whether Wilderun recapitulates a riff which transitions perfectly between songs (“O Resolution!” to “Sleeping Ambassadors of the Sun”), or subtly changes key and feel over the course of three minutes before merging into the next movement (“Scentless Core (Fading)” to “The Tyranny of Imagination”), the transitions are brilliant and seem effortless. Veil of Imagination even has a three act feel. The first three tracks spend most of their time in 6/8; that unmistakably Opethian swing (clearest on “The Unimaginable Zero Summer”). The next three tracks comprise Act II with a majestic and powerful Turisasian flare (“Far from Where Dreams Unfurl”). And finally, Act III is comprised of “The Tyranny of Imagination” and “When the Fire and the Rose Were One,” which emphasize dissonance and consonance. These sounds, of course, blend throughout the album, but each act has its own emphasis.

the truth is imago isnt really a prog fan at all, he likes songs around the 8 minute mark

Dayum, shots fired.

Well here it is then

"Opeth meets Turisas.”

Whither Jeff T?

I mean this is my #1 and I consider it an all-time feat of metal songwriting, but yes, the average song length is about 8 minutes, you have been warned

Was I the first to mention them on Rolling Metal?

Their last album was really good but comparatively modest, even quaint. This sucker is massive in every sense.

It's more Opeth meets Cardiacs btw. The singer more or less confirmed when I joined a Discord listening party to ask him about it. Yeah I'm lame enough to do that #notsorry

More sublime than annoying, but with an indelible dash of the latter. At first I thought I'd never want to hear it again, then it cracked my top 10 before ultimately nestling at #20.

8 minutes? that's how long the intro should be!

So next up is the best album by a band in years

13

Alcest - Spiritual Instinct

357 points, 11 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3962441999_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/54wQ1ifimLwrohkH9ImlSX

https://alcest.bandcamp.com/album/spiritual-instinct

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/alcest-spiritual-instinct-review/

There is a point during the first minute of “Les Jardins De Minuit,” the opening track of Alcest’s sixth LP Spiritual Instinct, when the French duo’s stylish cohesion of shoegaze, black metal, and pop elements reaches a zenith. A digging, revolving bass line, shy, fluttering tremolos, and ethereal vocal harmonies all surge into a striking atmospheric black metal melody. It’s a moving instant, one that is candidly emotional yet eschewing of kitsch and banal melodrama. Instead, it feels earned and lived in. Throughout their career as Alcest and helped by gradual fluctuations in style, French multi-instrumentalist Neige and drummer Winterhalter have been cultivating a deep sense of beauty and unfiltered sentiment. An exploration of sonic poetry in the vein of The Lake Poets, unmistakably filled with a romantic ache, a longing, and an expression of beauty and infatuation with the world so deep it hurts. Looking back at their previous work, Spiritual Instinct appears as one of the purest manifestations of this search.

Compared to 2016’s wonderful Kodama, Spiritual Instinct is an album that is embalmed in lighter tones and motifs, charmingly optimistic against Neige’s often morose themes. Where Kodama was overwhelmingly mournful and draped in hazy overtones, Alcest here embrace a more direct musical approach right from the start. On the aforementioned “Les Jardins De Minuit,” dispersed vocals, punctuating blast beats, and sharp tremolos mesh with clean and growled vocals—evoking in many ways the band’s early records—before a break and goosebumps-inducing leads guide us through an instrumental, faintly progressive part. “Night collapses as a / Suspended tapestry / And I hear / Roars within / And I struggle / And fight / The shadows / Piercing us / Like arrows,” Neige sings (in French) on “Protection,” but despite the heaviness of his words, the feeling they project is not that of mourning nor surrender. Accompanied by an energetic, unusually dynamic rhythmic backdrop, the emphasis of the lyrics and the inflection of the delivery shift, peeling layers of meaning and opening them to the world.

Yep, incredibly solid from beginning to end. Lots of older bands put out excellent albums last year, come to think of it.

Yeah, I agree with that. But for some reason that doesn't excite people who live for new artists to merge. Is that just an ILM thing?

It still made the top 20, but we all do privilege the new for some reason and I wonder why that is.

Maybe one for TT to answer?

Nah, I think it's fairly ubiquitous. Novelty is exciting in and of itself, I suppose. If anything, I'd say older bands did quite well in this poll so far.

12

Vastum - Orificial Purge

369 points, 10 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1704940385_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0XHUl6yQ2B4jUnrmTo9DVW

https://vastum.bandcamp.com/album/orificial-purge

https://www.indymetalvault.com/2019/10/08/album-review-vastum-orificial-purge/

I’m going to be completely honest with y’all here, when the latest batch of promos was posted up, I pounced on this the instant I read the name. “Fuck yeah!” I said, “Trance of Death absolutely fucking smashed, they were one of the unsung gems of 2017, I definitely want that one.” I realized pretty quickly that they’d undergone a pretty noticeable shift in sound, with Orificial Purge being much murkier and abstract than their previous album, which was a bit more outwardly destructive. But, to my utter embarrassment, it actually wasn’t until I started writing this review that I actually did some research into the band and realized they didn’t release anything in 2017. Yeah, I got Vastum mixed up with Venenum. Well, there’s half the review you gotta rewrite, moron.

Anyway, Vastum’s upcoming fourth album, Orificial Purge, is quite good. If there’s any real flaw, it’s that I could clock that it was released on 20 Buck Spin within a few seconds of listening. There’s nothing wrong with a label having an identity, but man, you can spot their death metal representatives a mile away. Regardless, even their worst release is still solid, so I knew I was in for a good time and wasn’t disappointed. Like labelmates Tomb Mold, Cerebral Rot, and Fetid, Vastum specializes in a very “brown” sounding death metal. It’s hard to describe without pretentious abstraction, but I hear a band like Vastum, and instead of the vibrant “red” flowing blood and gore of most death metal, I can only think of vile and disgusting infections, greenish “brown” sores and open wounds that have decayed into something resembling three-day-old guacamole. There are more traditionally straightforward moments here and there like the Cannibal Corpse-esque “Abscess Inside Us,” but for the most part, these songs are presented more as a swirling morass of putridity. The riffs and twisted into brutally alien forms and thrown at you four at a time. That’s not to say they come at you rapid-fire, because they really don’t. Vastum spends maybe half the runtime playing at full speed, instead putting a lot of effort into crawling passages that drip with filth in a way that recalls Autopsy’s best work.

Good album, kind of overrated tho tbh.

pom, no. i heart leila & shelby

Fuck yeah, my #5. Basically my platonic ideal for DM.

they didn't top hole below with this one, no one did afaict, still the most gifted death metal band in a long time, and they don't even know it. 4 stunning albums in a row

hookless in comparison, but masters of suggestion, they went hard with the gravitational atmosphere empty breast was hinting at, which, who would think, fuckin crushes.my#4

I had Vastum in my top 10, but I was just listening to it again this morning and thinking I should have rated it higher.

It ticks all the right boxes for me too and I love Leila’s solo work but this one just didn’t stick.

11

Botanist - Ecosystem

379 points, 13 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2440025988_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2lTG63edSmiHyzbYWPqOWT

https://verdant-realm-botanist.bandcamp.com/album/ecosystem

https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2019/10/14/botanist-ecosystem/

Uniqueness is often conflated with interesting ideas in our modern music consumption landscape. There’s plenty of experimental music that, while undeniably different, is pretty deniably good. I’ve encountered albums of all-acoustic black metal and blackened trip-hop on my travels, both of which defied the norms of their genres but were hardly well-executed or engaging.

All that said, there’s still virtue in risk-taking when it comes to music, something that Botanist have done consistently throughout their short but prolific career. The group has tinkered with the post-black metal formula in a different way than their Bay Area peers like Bosse-de-Nage and Deafheaven. Of course, they’re most well-known for their instrumental choices, opting for hammered dulcimers rather than the genre’s textbook guitar tremolo attacks.

But beyond this, Botanist have carved their own unique, striking lane of post-black and blackgaze. The atmospheres and progressions the band unravel conjure heavy dream pop and ethereal wave vibes, akin to Alcest with a much more raw, earnest sound; imagine a wise druid instead of a flighty tree sprite. The band have developed their style significantly from lo-fi double album I: The Suicide Tree / II: A Rose From the Dead to recent, higher budget highlights like VI: Flora and Collective: The Shape of He to Come.

Ecosystem is yet another excellent development in this journey. Furthermore, it further demonstrates how versatile Botanist can be with their signature, dulcimer-led sound. As exhibited on opener “Biomass,” the instrument can be delicate and melodic one moment and then contribute to a larger, sweeping musical flourish the next. It somehow holds a similar and contrasting role to traditional black metal guitar, creating the genre’s signature atmosphere while maintaining a bright, resonant tone unlike any other instrument in metal. It’s almost like a prettier, more reserved harpsichord.

I frankly hated Shape and didn’t even bother with this one.

tbh this one was the first botanist album i've heard

my #5