THE ILM METAL POLL 2011 RESULTS (All lurkers/non metalheads welcome to join in!)

a japanese band coming up next. Also known for being good live

Loudness put out an album last year? Damn, I missed it.

83. Boris - Attention Please (382 Points, 14 Votes)
http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2011/02/Boris-Attention-Please.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/Boris

Boris (ボリス Borisu) are a Japanese experimental rock band formed in Tokyo in 1992. The band’s original lineup consisted of Atsuo, Takeshi, Wata, and Nagata who was the band’s original drummer. After his departure, Atsuo took over drums and the lineup has remained consistent to this day. Boris draw influence from a huge variety of styles including, but not limited to, psychedelic rock, punk, sludge, doom metal, drone, pop, noise, shoegaze, and ambient. The band’s name is taken from a song on Melvins’ album, Bullhead.

They released their debut full-length album, Absolutego, on their own label, Fangs Anal Satan, in 1996. Since its formation, Boris have released 17 full-length albums, three live albums, six collaborations with Japanese noise legend Merzbow among various other collaborations, and one best album Variations which focused more on the rock side of the band.

Boris saw a huge increase in popularity when Southern Lord reissued their works in North America, garnering them critical acclaim and recognition in music press. Pink, originally released in 2005 in Japan via Diwphalanx, was reissued in 2006 by Southern Lord and met with a very positive reception in the US. Blender magazine and SPIN magazine both named it one of the year’s best albums. The album also made the top of the metal section in Canadian magazine Exclaim’s reader’s poll of that year, and was in the top 10 of Pitchfork Media’s top 50 records of the year.

In 2011, Boris announced plans to release three full-length albums in the same year. The first to be released was New Album, their fifteenth album, on March 16 in Japan. The album consists of mainly j-pop with some elements of psychedelic rock and electronic styles. The next two albums, Heavy Rocks (2011) and Attention Please, were released simultaneously on May 24 through Sargent House. Heavy Rocks shares its name and cover art style with Heavy Rocks, released in 2002 in Japan. Attention Please is mostly noted for featuring lead vocals by Wata on each song. Boris co-headlined a European tour with their new label-mates Russian Circles throughout the summer from June 17 to July 17 and continued touring Europe alone from July 19 to July 24. They will also be headlining a North American fall tour from October 7 to November 12 with various openers including Tera Melos, Asobi Seksu, True Widow, Liturgy, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Coliseum, and Joe Lally.

Boris maintains a Tumblr page at http://borisheavyrocks.tumblr.com/ and an official homepage at http://www.borisheavyrocks.com/

Anyone see them touring last year?

Haven't seen them since they toured with Nachtmystium and Torche, but that was a fantastic show. I'm actually glad this was Boris because I'm holding out for a much higher placement by a certain other Japanese band.

so is jeff

but that might be a different band

or maybe the same. who knows!

C'mon, Corrupted are top ten, surely?

82. The Flight of Sleipnir - Essence of Nine (382 Points, 16 Votes)
http://cache1.bigcartel.com/product_images/38081988/A5cover.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Flight+of+Sleipnir

A collaboration between Clayton Cushman (Acheronian Dirge, Ex-Throcult) and David Csicsely (Acheronian Dirge, Nexhymn, Ex- Throcult) to create a project that is lyrically based on Norse mythology and built on a “doomy” foundation with elements of psychedelic and progressive rock.

taking it all the way down to 76 tonight. Would have finished earlier but for my internet problems

Its hard to gauge, there wasn't a lot of chatter about the new album, at least not as much as I expected there to be. But I do know a couple of metal thread people absolutely loved it.

(xp re corrupted)

http://www.tribbleagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/siren1.gifMORDY METAL ALERThttp://www.tribbleagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/siren1.gif

81. Pitom - Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes (384 Points, 12 Votes, 1 #1)
http://www.israbox.com/uploads/posts/2011-04/1301736176_3cc0b4c1f07d6ec205b7d3b861de9172.jpeg
http://www.last.fm/music/Pitom

Pitom is a very exciting young band from Israel that remains true to the “fusion” aesthetic without succumbing to any of the pretentions sometimes associated with that word. Taking progressive jazz and melding it with elements of rock, punk, prog and traditional Jewish melodies makes for a unique and exciting sound. The band consists of Yoshie Fruchter on guitar, Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz on bass, Kevin Zubek on drums and Jeremy Brown on violin and viola.

!!!

Such a good album. To celebrate I'll play some tracks in Outloud tnite

now you need to sell it to everyone reading the thread now

Can anyone tell me - do these "doom metal with female vocals" albums actually sound like they have female vocals or do they vocally sound like every other doom metal band it just so happens that it's a female making those noises and not a guy?

This was my review when it came out: http://www.forward.com/articles/135976/

On “Blasphemy,” Fruchter has done no less than undermine the very concept of teshuvah, or repentance, so pivotal in Jewish expression and experience. He posits a universe of uncertainty and fear where we are always begging for forgiveness and — sometimes — left unforgiven. Staked out in the midst of metal, a genre more commonly associated with anti-religious sentiment, Fruchter’s album is ultimately a stunningly and unexpected religious artifact. We are distant from God, and we are troubled, and we are lost, and redemption is very hard to find. It is a vision of life and religion far more terrifying than any devil horns, and darker than the blackest Scandinavian metal.
“Playing music, and playing specifically this music, is like prayer when you’re not in the synagogue,” Fruchter said. Like the most moving prayer experiences, it is unpredictable, inchoate and primordial. It can be terrifying.

they're generally clean vox and arent like Salome

Wounded Kings nearly made my top 30.

http://boris.bandcamp.com/

Having released three albums, there's a chance another Boris album might appear. Kind of overkill -- I thought New Album was a good balance between the other two, but not really metal. There was so much damn actual metal to choose from, I didn't see the point of voting for shoegaze.

When has ILM ever passed up the chance to vote for Shoegaze? You saw Jesu up there.

WTL for Ash Borer. I thought that was aces.

As this is ILM I'm just going to assume that Fen, Alcest, and Meads of Asphodel place pretty near the top.

I appear not to have voted for any metalgaze this year.

hey asr - when you compile the stats and stuff, can you also tag albums by vox (male/female)?

The US release eventually was the one Boris album I went with. The inclusion of "Luna" clinched it.

Sorry, the US release of New Album, I mean.

not really as i havent heard all the albums and its a bit much too work on top of everything else. but there's been plenty of female singers so far in the countdown

also -- wooden stake might have female vox but i can't hear any difference from any other doom vox

80. Dornenreich - Flammentriebe (386 Points, 13 Votes)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5FKglh38b_c/ToCm1dLDyII/AAAAAAAAC3E/9CoObcPnJ-Y/s1600/folder.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/Dornenreich

Dornenreich is a Melodic Black Metal band from Tyrol, Austria. The name means realm of thorns (noun) or full of thorns (adjective) in German. Founded in 1996, the band has progressed in style from black metal on their first album, Nicht um zu sterben, to what the band describes as “a vision beyond (black) metal, neofolk and ambient” on their latest works.

xp hey Mordy did you check out Windhand? They have a female vocalist.

I was wondering about the female vocalist thing too -- I mean, female vocalists have lots of different styles, breathy, growly, operatic, other. Didn't want to press my luck asking for more adjectives though ;)

despite my great interest in, and sometimes even admiration for, i admit i am not quite enough of a connoisseur of the cookie monster vocal to appreciate the subtle differences between male + female practitioners

I think the female vocalist that have been pointed out so far are, for the most part, clean singers. At least in the stuff that I've heard. Within Temptation certainly. As for the cover art on that one – it's a tie in with a comic book that they cocreated or something. And I like that record all right, but it's really not metal.

its some dude music ie bland mallrock for 10 year olds

and it sounds like 'ass'

78. CIRCLE of OUROBORUS - Eleven Fingers (389 Points, 14 Votes, 1 #1)
http://www.handmadebirds.com/store/img/store_images/HB-016.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Circle+of+Ouroborus

Circle of Ouroborus is an experimental black metal and sometime krautrock influenced band from Finland, formed by Antti Klemi and Rauta in 2004. The band’s sound is characterized by lo-fi production, unusual use of clean vocals and sometimes entirely acoustic releases that have very little in common with black metal. Sadness and nature themes seem to be prevalent in their music. While particular influences on their work seem unclear there seems to be an obvious influence of Joy Division, as they covered this band’s classic “She’s Lost Control” on their debut album.

The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol that depicts a serpent swallowing its own tail and forming a circle. It has been used to represent many things, but it most generally

TIE
78. Obake - Obake (389 Points, 14 Votes, 1 #1)
http://www.rarenoiserecords.com/jukebox/_images/covers/Obake-Obake.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Obake

Obake is a sludge/doom rock band with noise rock, psychedelic rock and jazz elements formed by Balázs Pándi (The Blood of Heroes), Eraldo Bernocchi (Somma), Massimo Pupillo (Zu) and Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari (Owls). Their first album (お化け) was released in 2011.

The Obake album is actually on spotify but its marked down as additional tracks to an album by a totally different band but only shows on band page not album page.

If you like Zu check it out

the C.o.U. album is one of the 'weird' albums btw

so emil.y if you're still reading this is one you should try

77. Moonsorrow - Varjoina Kuljemme Kuolleiden Maassa (389 Points, 15 Votes)
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/reviewpics/moonsorrow2011cd.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/Moonsorrow

Moonsorrow is a self-described ’epic heathen metal’ band formed in Helsinki, Finland in 1995. The group’s earliest formation consisted of cousins Ville Sorvali (vocals and bass) and Henri Sorvali (guitar and keyboards) who released various demos that were much more characteristic as being symphonic black metal, musically, than future folk/viking metal releases. However, their albums contain occasional flashbacks to their black metal roots.

Their newest album, Varjoina kuljemme kuolleiden maassa, was released on 21st of February 2011. Moonsorrow had initially stated they would be returning to shorter songs but all the tracks on Varjoina except the interludes are over 10 minutes.

oh hey i voted for that

you only get the sirens once

Hey there! Obake was my #1!

Moonsorrow was my #3 album. It's probably the biggest sounding metal album ever recorded.

last for tonight coming up then a recap

76. Lento - Icon (390 Points, 12 Votes)
http://www.rockfreaks.net/files/a/1310668609.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/Lento

Lento is an instrumental doom/space/sludge/psychedelic/post metal collective based in Rome, Italy.
The former members joined in 2004 as a quartet and started working out a sort of introspective and implosive approach, taking their cue from a wide range of influences including seminal bands such as Neurosis, Earth and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. After a short time break, in late 2005, Lento expanded into a five piece act, and began structuring the basement of a more elaborate mood. Incorporating elements of ambient, doom and hardcore, lento has created a perfect opposition between sludge heavy riffs and ambient psychedelic suites. Lento’s tone is a blend of heavily down tuned guitars, apocalyptic slow tempos, systematic drones and resonant
feedbacks, their live sets alternate from hardcore assaults to intimate collapses of the signals.

See, now we are getting into the stuff that I expect to do well on an ILM poll. Hipsters.

J3ffsTers

wait, "post-metal" is a thing?