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

Okay, just listened to the title track 'Stand Up and Fight'. It is preposterous, but in an enjoyable way. I dunno, surprised myself by liking it. Not too sure if I could last an entire album.

These guys are fun; I was beginning to think they'd be a surprise top 10 placing, but am happy with this. I voted for it.

Blimey, 'Fear The Fear' is good too! In a Sweeney Todd The Musical kinda way.

"Hunting Pirates" is so over the top I laugh and sing along like a giddy kid.

21. Argus - Boldly Stride the Doomed (800 Points, 24 Votes, 2 #1s)
http://www.cruzdelsurmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ARGUS_boldlyCD.gif
http://www.last.fm/music/argus

Review

by Eduardo Rivadavia

Pennsylvania's Argus made a very strong first impression with their superlative eponymous debut of 2009, but unfortunately not too many people outside a small group of underground heavy metal cognoscenti got word of it. Now, one can only hope that the group's even more accomplished sophomore outing, Boldly Stride the Doomed, will rectify this unjust state of affairs. By all rights, it damn well should -- although using the word "doom" in the album's title actually sells short its much broader creative scope, since Argus, as they did the first time around, stick to slower, dramatic tempos only occasionally (see "The Ladder," the piano-enhanced "42-7-29," the epic-length "Pieces of Your Smile"). In fact, more often than not, and as exemplified by "A Curse on the World," "Wolves of Dusk," and even the album's title track, the band is heard galloping by in full jousting chain mail regalia, twin guitars ringing in unison, in the long tradition of everyone from Iron Maiden to Isen Torr to Grand Magus. No matter what tack they employ, though, perhaps Argus' wisest decision on this second LP was procuring a huge but cleanly separated production that showcases both their songwriting strengths and instrumental prowess, production where even the bass guitar can hold its ground. And when even less distinctive offerings like "Fading Silver Light" and the Crusades-inspired "Durendal" can so easily be rescued from good to great status by emotional guitar solos, it becomes obvious that Argus are firing on all cylinders. Or at least it should be obvious to anyone who actually gets wind of Boldly Stride the Doomed‘s existence -- here's hoping word spreads far and wide.

Glad to see this place so high, since I completely forgot to vote for it!

on the same label as Slough Feg, Bill Magill will love it!

don't like the look of that nightclub much.

famous last words

One of those #1 votes is mine. Really happy to see it place; honestly, I didn't think there was as much love for it as this placement shows.

This is part of what I wrote on my blog:

As I keep saying, I love retro-metal, and I’ll be damned if these guys aren’t doing it as well as any of their inspirations. Vocalist Brian “Butch” Balich has a tendency to throw in the odd, utterly superfluous “Yeah!” and “Whoa!” and other onomatopoeic exhortations to his band and audience, and each brings a smile or quick “Ha!” from my lips. He also delivers with what I assume is a straight face my favorite line of 2011: “Lost/We run from the light/Our inequity knows no end” When you hear that how can you not throw up a fist at that and celebrate?

jeff says doom metal is boring.
i say IT BEAT TURISAS GET IT RIGHT UP YE!

i went to the docs today as i had a sore throat (got antibiotics for the infection) my BP was high and now I got a splitting headache. So this next album is a good one for me to listen to while i roll these results out.

20. Asva - Presences of Absences (845 Points, 25 Votes, 2 #1s)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a6q8TtSbFwg/TiiA0dlQE9I/AAAAAAAACA4/1prTcEW8ee8/s1600/presence+cover.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/asva
http://www.doommantia.com/2011/07/asva-presences-of-absences.html

If someone had to pigeonhole Asva's sound, the category would be Drone, and yet this album has so much more to it. It could be pushed also into Post Metal, but still, a lot of the vastness of this sonic tapestry would be lost. It could be pushed also into Post Metal, but still, a lot of the vastness of this sonic tapestry would be lost. One thing is certain: G.. Stuart Dahlquist has touched something that few musicians touched with this. Some remote, deeply buried frequency of emotional raw power that this majestic sonic art piece awakens.

This is going to be the last album Dahlquist will make as Asva and in that spirit it has the feeling of a final speech from a remote place. It's a testament, an epitaph, something unearthly, almost divine, that isn't concerned with common music structures. It honestly drove me to tears. As weird as it may sound, it did. Possibly, it wont have the same effect to you. It might even bore you. But the best approach to this album could be to free your mind of any prejudice, put it on your stereo, wear headphones, and let it flow into you. The four long pieces that compose it are opened and closed by mysterious “a capella” melodies. While I am not informed enough to know where they're from, they work. Its like being introduced toa ritual. The spiraling sounds then begin. Organs, drums, a sensual and yet unsettling bass build up. The voice of Kayo Dot's Toby Driver chants on, with a hypnotic intensity that simply gets under your skin and trickles inside.

The guitars start creeping inside. The effect is scary yet magnificent. The mood is something that word can't describe, almost like the whole music is screaming for you to simply let yourself be absorbed and enraptured by the crescendo. It's like watching a stark work of art develop under your eyes, the sounds twirling one into the other and creating a melody that doesn't really sound like any other. You could name their first work “What you don't know is frontier” or even some of the original post-rock innovators, but the whole thing is different. More hypnotic. More sober and yet grandiose. The four songs are just like one glorious piece in different movements, they tie together and take you elsewhere.
Simply magnificent. That's the only word that really fits.

Review Written By Andrea Contanzo

absolutely fucking brilliant album.

I'm feeling sleepy...

you shouldn't have put opeth on then

Sorry, that Asva record was a real snore for me. And I liked the last one.

I thought it was great!

I think this year I just lost my ear for that kind of drone. Might come back, might not.

19. Fen - Epoch (851 Points, 27 Votes, 1 #1)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_90NQUbo5w/Tq1Z5wOihoI/AAAAAAAAC4I/1na9S44wRYQ/s1600/folder.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/fen
http://dontcountonitreviews.blogspot.com/2011/02/fen-epoch-2011.html

Ever since I heard of Fen about two years ago, I've heard nothing but praise sung for them. From their debut EP "Ancient Sorrow" into this, their second full-length, I've not heard a single bad word about this band. Taking cues from post-rock and shoegaze, but altering it in such a way as to make it more progressive than most within the post-black metal or blackgaze genre.
Showing their true colors, this is an album that doesn't show fear in moving into more melancholy realms that do call back to post-rock music, even within the opening title-track, Epoch. From what I've seen, the fact that these guys have only one guitar player brings something a little bit different to the table, as guitars aren't as overpowering as other groups make them. Not to say there aren't parts on here where the guitars get loud and aggressive, as more than half the album is pretty brutal melodic black metal, but there's a more dreamy quality in the tone of the guitar, not to mention the use of keyboards adding a similar vibe on top of it as well.
But I think it's the dreamy quality of this album that really makes it stick out from both other records from similar bands, not to mention black metal bands in general. The spacey and more atmospheric sections are what really stuck out on this record, to me anyway. Though I do have to say the dynamic between heavy and soft is explored quite a bit throughout this disc, constantly evolving between the two and sometimes going for a sound somewhere in between. This variation definitely justifies the song lengths on this album, as several of these songs end up pushing around eight minutes. Plus, listening to tracks like The Gibbet Elms or Half-Light Eternal, you can't help being encompassed by all the atmosphere that they bring.
Overall, I have to say that I really enjoyed this album and it is certainly a refreshing listen. I have always been attracted to unique atmospheres within bands, and I absolutely love the soundscapes found on this record. If you like experimental black metal, I'd suggest you check this out immediately.
Overall Score: 9.5

Good album, kinda surprised at the high placing though.

My 21-25 guesses were a total miss, but great to see ARRRRgus! My #24. I don't think they're as lumbering-slow as most doom, so I consider them more classic metal.

good album, lovely cover!

the Fen album is fantastic. I big upped it a lot on the rolling bm thread

Argus are more Iron Maidenites than doom to my ears.

glad it went down so well with you all
xp

Fen - Like the music well enough but can't deal with the 'vocals'.

^^this.

and THAT is why i am chagrined when i invest 6 min listening to something i like only to find some breathy dude murmuring about his pain at 6:01
scream it, belt it or stfu imo

18. Altar of Plagues - Mammal (855 Points, 26 Votes, 1 #1)
http://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Altar-of-Plagues-Mammal-PL-version.jpg
Profoundlore version
[img]http://www.thrashhits.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Altar-Of-Plagues-Mammal-album-cover-artwork-packshot-Thrash-Hits.jpg[img]
Candlelight version
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/altar+of+plagues

Cork, Ireland’s Altar of Plagues was formed in 2006. Terms that are most frequently used to describe their sound include black metal, ambient and progressive or post metal, though it seems no one description can sum up the acts massive sound. The act themselves consider black metal to be the genre to which they are most attached, but on the contrary they have also been quoted to take influence from acts as diverse as Emperor, Björk and Arvo Pärt.

Review

by Gregory Heaney

At first glance, a black metal album of anguished contemplations about death and inevitability that opens with a nearly 19-minute song would seem impenetrable at best, but on Mammal, the second full-length offering from Irish experimenters Altar of Plagues, the whole thing somehow works. In the way that all great black metal albums are, Mammal isn't alienating so much as it is isolating, making the album not only a collection of songs, but a space in which to ruminate carefully over them. By putting the listener into the appropriate headspace, Altar of Plagues are able to exert total control over the listening experience, taking listeners on a journey that, through all of the brittle production and icy, unforgiving atmosphere, is remarkably thoughtful, introspective, and visceral. This feeling really shines through in how surprisingly dynamic the record is. The songs don't just pummel listeners into submission with their intensity, but are instead more tidal, ebbing and flowing between feverish, blastbeat-laden outbursts and quieter, more expansive passages. Combined with the spaciousness of the production, this push-and-pull approach speaks to a certain inevitability, as if to say that no matter how hard they fight, the songs always have to slow down. As an album, Mammal asks a lot of the listener. It presents an uncomfortable space in which to consider an uncomfortable subject with an austerity that will dispel any notions of black metal being only concerned with the evil or the brutal. Altar of Plagues have created something that's challenging and haunting, and those who are willing to put in the time will find an album that's not just effective, but affective.

john fix that img tag please

Turisas's Stand up and Fight is pure musical joy, one of the most inspiring, original, and fearless metal albums since, well, ever. I tried to give it a perfect score in Decibel, and my editor vetoed that, but they will always have a perfect score in my heart.

I bought the previous Turisas CD, The Varangian Way based on similar hype and was pretty disappointed. How does this improve on it?

more Vikings

guh fen sounds like a wack version of agalloch

Stand up and Fight just goes for it. Like I said, it's fearless. Doesn't feel constrained by any conventions or genre requirements.

I'm probably building it up too much, but it just hit all my buttons in exactly the right way.

'wack'?

ready for a shock low entry?

No.

Look what the Decibel hipsters are up to:

Blackened clouds are gathering overhead, and it's all our fault. North America's premier heavy metal magazine is launching the maiden edition of its annual earth-scorching tour this April. The inaugural Decibel Magazine Tour will feature not just the long-awaited stateside return of Polish blackened death metal overlords Behemoth, but support from Swedish black metal provocateurs Watain, Dutch prog mystics the Devil's Blood and Swedish old-school occultists In Solitude.

Tour dates and other details announced on Jan 24. Hope it's not too off topic, as it does include bands from the poll.

I wonder if I can get a discounted ticket if I promise to leave after the two openers.

weird lineup

I don't think I even knew there was an Asva album out last year

You know there is a rolling metal thread for news like that, right?

these two posts super otm

guh fen sounds like a wack version of agalloch

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 20, 2012 10:43 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Stand up and Fight just goes for it. Like I said, it's fearless. Doesn't feel constrained by any conventions or genre requirements.

― Gamera died for our sins (J3ff T.), Friday, January 20, 2012 10:44 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

Fen are awesome and I'll sb anyone who disagrees!

17. Liturgy - Aesthethica (873 Points, 26 Votes, 2 #1s)
http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2011/04/Liturgy-Aesthethica.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/liturgy

Review

by Thom Jurek

It's very tempting to break down Liturgy's sophomore album Aesthethica into the numerous parts that make it up, or point to the band's obvious influences. While Liturgy has gone to great lengths to insist they are a black metal band, the Brooklyn unit -- vocalist/guitarist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, drummer Greg Fox, bassist Tyler Dusenbury, and guitarist Bernard Gann -- is much more. While it's true that Aesthethica reflects and retains the intensity and single-pointed, focused drive of their debut, Renihilation, their musical development -- as composers and players -- is undeniable. Where the former album relied heavily on simple song structures to anchor the overarching furiousness of their attack, Aesthethica, by contrast, is far more sophisticated; enough so to get them barred from the "black metal" club forever by purists. The minimal guitar plinks that intro the opener "High Gold" gain in frequency and become a blur before the entire unit kicks in on full stun. Fox's blastbeats quadruple-time the band, Hendrix shrieks incoherently, and the high-pitched, syncopated wall of guitars suggests an exponentially overblown version of one of Glenn Branca's guitar symphonies, but moves much further off the scale. "True Will" (whose lyrics are transcendentally spiritual) begins with a modern version of vocal polyphony before the violence of instruments creates a startling corridor of noise; before long, however, it reveals a very complex network of tones, sounds, pulses, and textures, and though it seems there are few of them here, actual spaces. Hendrix's screaming sounds more like ecstasy than pain, as if he is indeed communing with God in the outer reaches of the spheres. Each of these 12 tracks is so melodically and dynamically labyrinthine -- not too mention outrageously heavy -- they're exhausting. Other choice cuts include "Returner," "Red Crown," "Sun of Light," and closer "Harmonia" (the last of these at least appears to be slower, but that's deceptive). Aesthethica consists of intricate, sophisticated songs, full of majesty, nearly insane drive, intention, and the frighteningly unleashed power of emotion; and they all rock. Hard. This is extreme music. Period. It may come to define or utterly transcend metal; but it doesn't matter because this album is in its own class. Anyone remotely interested in heavy music needs to encounter Aesthethica at least once.

*Picks George up off the floor*

Well I just heard In Solitude for the first time through this, and on the same day it was announced they're touring. I might go because of this poll, just sayin'.

thank the mercyful fates!