My #1! Yeah, it's their best album yet, the one where they manage to make their ideas last for a whole album
― Frederik B, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:04 (four years ago) link
my #15
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:05 (four years ago) link
This is some of the better gimmicky faux-metal I've heard. But I didn't vote for it.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:05 (four years ago) link
Agree that this is their best, even when half the tracks are little interludes. Hunter obviously known for his religiosity, and that’s never been more apparent than on this album, so full of sky-gazing awe, choral build-ups and symphonic summoning. Really beautiful work.
― tangenttangent, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:06 (four years ago) link
Could use a Large Sad Man tbh.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:08 (four years ago) link
2Sunn O))) - Life Metal657 points, 16 votes, 1 #1 vote
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1353675718_16.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/7A10XxbkAl4hIQRMp4NyKOhttps://sunn.bandcamp.com/album/life-metal
Sunn O))) albums have tended to be summits where the luminaries of noise and volume gather for electric communion. Almost as soon as the duo of Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley moved beyond the simple amplifier worship of their early days, they began recruiting peers to help build audacious records, as high on concepts as they were on decibels.Noise paragon Merzbow added to the early bedlam, while misfit rock demigod Julian Cope read a poem that inserted Sunn O))) into a continuum of pan-cultural myths to begin their awesome if inchoate White volumes in 2003. Anderson and O’Malley infamously locked Xasthur’s Malefic in a coffin for their breakthrough LP, Black One, and recruited a few of their own idols for 2009’s elegantly textured Monoliths & Dimensions. They’ve made records with Boris, Scott Walker, and Ulver and employed black metal icon Attila Csihar of Mayhem as their lead speaker and performance artist in residence for a decade. Sunn O)))’s liner notes scan like the weirdo metal equivalent of some fantasy sports roster.Sometimes, though, all those guests have clouded out the essence of Sunn O))). Anderson and O’Malley share a rare chemistry; they are able to work through extended riffs at famously testudinal paces and high volumes with absolute control. But Life Metal—the first of two Sunn O))) albums planned for 2019—rectifies the oversight. On four tracks that invoke metaphors about landscapes carved by geologic deep time and references to the music of the spheres, Anderson and O’Malley foreground their seismic relationship and their shared ability to make 12 or 25-minute spans of slow-motion drone feel like a historic religious ritual.
Noise paragon Merzbow added to the early bedlam, while misfit rock demigod Julian Cope read a poem that inserted Sunn O))) into a continuum of pan-cultural myths to begin their awesome if inchoate White volumes in 2003. Anderson and O’Malley infamously locked Xasthur’s Malefic in a coffin for their breakthrough LP, Black One, and recruited a few of their own idols for 2009’s elegantly textured Monoliths & Dimensions. They’ve made records with Boris, Scott Walker, and Ulver and employed black metal icon Attila Csihar of Mayhem as their lead speaker and performance artist in residence for a decade. Sunn O)))’s liner notes scan like the weirdo metal equivalent of some fantasy sports roster.
Sometimes, though, all those guests have clouded out the essence of Sunn O))). Anderson and O’Malley share a rare chemistry; they are able to work through extended riffs at famously testudinal paces and high volumes with absolute control. But Life Metal—the first of two Sunn O))) albums planned for 2019—rectifies the oversight. On four tracks that invoke metaphors about landscapes carved by geologic deep time and references to the music of the spheres, Anderson and O’Malley foreground their seismic relationship and their shared ability to make 12 or 25-minute spans of slow-motion drone feel like a historic religious ritual.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:12 (four years ago) link
Never heard of these guys.
yesssss
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:12 (four years ago) link
Thank God
― strangely hookworm but they manage ream shoegaze poetry (imago), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:13 (four years ago) link
Sorry, Satan
I guess we're lucky they made another album this year
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:14 (four years ago) link
(nothing against SunnO))), they'd just be a boring winner)
re: liturgy, glitch nonsense apart; and safer as it may be, catchier liturgy is alltime. ty our leader
my #2
in 3 maybe 4 years time, we all will consider it their best work
― gaudio, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:14 (four years ago) link
It was my #2 also!
― tangenttangent, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:16 (four years ago) link
I haven't heard every Sunn O))) album (how many people have?) but it's now my de facto favourite after Monoliths & Dimensions.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:17 (four years ago) link
(how many people have?)
Me
― Oor Neechy, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:20 (four years ago) link
Props. I think unperson has too but he doesn't vote.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:22 (four years ago) link
Is this really the real #2?
― tangenttangent, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:22 (four years ago) link
So I assume everyone knows what the #1 will be by this point.
lol tt
Is it cause for concern?
all hail Gloryhammer!!!!!!
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:23 (four years ago) link
very deserving winners
You misspelled Steel Panther.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:23 (four years ago) link
I actually don’t know the number 1! Sunn is toooo loooong
― tangenttangent, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:24 (four years ago) link
well i didn't expect borknagar's true north to make it this far but i'm proud of you ilm
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:25 (four years ago) link
borknagar is my guess for 121
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:25 (four years ago) link
Without further ado…
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:25 (four years ago) link
I give you…
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:26 (four years ago) link
The flabbergastingly unexpected…
Unforeseeable and completely fortuitous…
did gecs win
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:26 (four years ago) link
Unanticipated…
I mean…
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:27 (four years ago) link
This was not in the cards at all…
lol Brad
― strangely hookworm but they manage ream shoegaze poetry (imago), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:27 (four years ago) link
1Lingua Ignota - Caligula806 points, 18 votes, 4 #1 votes
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3985780561_16.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/2GBJg7nTQs3go1w24ECKvyhttps://linguaignota.bandcamp.com/album/caligula
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lingua-ignota-caligula/
Eight minutes into her torrential second album as Lingua Ignota, Kristin Hayter lets out a thundering, apocalyptic scream: “I don’t eat, I don’t sleep [...] I let it consume me,” she cries. Her voice is so ugly and shredded and maniacal and alive that it creates a witness of anyone who hears it. It is the sound of trauma, that which is by definition intolerable, and Hayter traverses its most upsetting depths on behalf of survivors, including herself. With Caligula, she has created a murderous amalgam of opera, metal, and noise that uses her classical training like a Trojan Horse, burning misogyny to ash from its Judeo-Christian roots.From renaissance paintings to murder ballads and beyond, feminist revenge has charged art to cathartic ends—envisioning a world in which women do not only demand justice but see it through, in their work, by any means necessary. Caligula embodies that insurrectionary fury. Working with members of The Body, Uniform, Full of Hell, and others, Hayter crafts a 66-minute world ablaze with contempt for man, which, though divided into 11 all-caps tracks—with such imposing titles as “I AM THE BEAST,” “IF THE POISON WON’T TAKE YOU MY DOGS WILL,” and “SPITE ALONE HOLDS ME ALOFT”—plays out like one continuous, epic composition. More than songs, they feel like a succession of enraged suites, each one a threat, an intervention, an act of solidarity.Lingua Ignota sparks fantasies of demonic avant-opera icon Diamanda Galás joining with industrial-metal titans Godflesh to create a horror soundtrack, or Maria Callas in hell. Her goal seems to be to deconstruct and destabilize, to discomfit. She situates death growls and strangulated vocalizations amidst orchestral strings, choral singing, and chimes—like a hex on the whole social order. “Everything burns down around me,” she sings with incantatory grandeur on “MAY FAILURE BE YOUR NOOSE,” atop the incendiary counterpoint of Uniform’s Michael Berdan.
From renaissance paintings to murder ballads and beyond, feminist revenge has charged art to cathartic ends—envisioning a world in which women do not only demand justice but see it through, in their work, by any means necessary. Caligula embodies that insurrectionary fury. Working with members of The Body, Uniform, Full of Hell, and others, Hayter crafts a 66-minute world ablaze with contempt for man, which, though divided into 11 all-caps tracks—with such imposing titles as “I AM THE BEAST,” “IF THE POISON WON’T TAKE YOU MY DOGS WILL,” and “SPITE ALONE HOLDS ME ALOFT”—plays out like one continuous, epic composition. More than songs, they feel like a succession of enraged suites, each one a threat, an intervention, an act of solidarity.
Lingua Ignota sparks fantasies of demonic avant-opera icon Diamanda Galás joining with industrial-metal titans Godflesh to create a horror soundtrack, or Maria Callas in hell. Her goal seems to be to deconstruct and destabilize, to discomfit. She situates death growls and strangulated vocalizations amidst orchestral strings, choral singing, and chimes—like a hex on the whole social order. “Everything burns down around me,” she sings with incantatory grandeur on “MAY FAILURE BE YOUR NOOSE,” atop the incendiary counterpoint of Uniform’s Michael Berdan.
ALL HAIL QUEEN LINGUA
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:27 (four years ago) link
Didn't vote for it because lol purism but this is of course very much deserved.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:28 (four years ago) link
pretty sweet that this won even though i still haven't listened to it
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:28 (four years ago) link
Bonus reviews of our top 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMsEzAg_E7o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaEQeb1pOuE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOwE58DvVQ8
Hssssss. I had forgotten all about this. I prefer it to Sunn)))))
― tangenttangent, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:28 (four years ago) link
pom WHY would you DO that
― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:29 (four years ago) link
Bwahahahaaha
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:29 (four years ago) link
Lady Gaga really made great strides this year
― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:29 (four years ago) link
My #3, but even more gratifyingly, a record that tt will have to listen to in full, without (undue) protestation
― strangely hookworm but they manage ream shoegaze poetry (imago), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:29 (four years ago) link
pom nooooooo
Just to show that we're on the same wavelength as the finest living music critic.
― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:30 (four years ago) link
hell yeah my #1. everyone check out the Sightless Pit album too. plays a bit like a continuation of this.
― gman59, Friday, 28 February 2020 19:30 (four years ago) link
Impressive margin of victory. My #1. Everyone I've put onto it has gotten obsessed with it too. My gf listens to it all the time. Still need to catch her live cause she cancelled last minute when she was on a bill two blocks from my apartment.
― Judi Dench's Human Hand (methanietanner), Friday, 28 February 2020 19:31 (four years ago) link