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

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!

Glad Liturgy wasn't top 10. Kind of annoying how critics who almost never listen to metal were so apeshit over it.

but those tr00 kvnts who hate them for being hipsters are equally annoying. I really like both of their albums. Who cares if HH-H is a pretentious twat

Liturgy - The only nominated album that I had actually heard! 'Veins Of God' is great, and I like the rest just fine.

xxp ha, I'm not a critic obv, but point taken.

Don't be a hipster, ASR.

16. Falloch - Where Distant Spirits Remain (874 Points, 27 Votes, 1 #1)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IWhiHgOInPw/Tn9jm0ZTcJI/AAAAAAAAAMk/dWPpB0oXyas/s1600/Falloch-Where-Distant-Spirits-Remain-Artwork-2011.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/falloch

Falloch was formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 2010 by Andy Marshall and Scott McLean

Their sound draws inspiration from a variety of musical styles such as atmospheric rock, metal, post-rock, scottish folk as well as minimalist composers such as Arvo Pärt and Yann Tiersen.

Having a deep connection with nature the band is named after the Falls of Falloch waterfall in Crianlarich. Falloch (“Falach” in Scottish Gaelic) means “hidden/in hiding”.

They started recording their debut album ’Where Distant Spirits Remain’ in 2010. Upon completion they managed to secure legendary producer Ronan Chris Murphy (Ulver, King Crimson etc.) to master the album in early 2011, with the chance to sign to the revered Candlelight Records following shortly after. Their album was released on 26th September to a great critical reception.

http://ripplemusic.blogspot.com/2011/08/falloch-where-distant-spirits-remain.html

With it coming down to the last days of August, the temperature here in Arkansas is still reaching a hundred and five degrees on some days. After going through the miserable heat wave that took several peoples lives when it got as hot as a hundred sixteen degrees at times, I was more than welcoming winter to completely destroy us and bury me in snow. While the majority of humans will say they love winter during the horrible summers and adore summer when they have to drive to work in the freezing cold, I’ve always been the type of person that could live in the winter-esk conditions, forever. So, what goes good with snow, freezing temperatures and icy roads? If I had to choose a new soundtrack to this coming winter, something that literally embraces winter for everything it is, Falloch’s debut record “When Distant Spirits Remain” is that record that will have you freezing to death.

Creeping very slowly out of the harsh winters of Glasgow, Scotland, this two piece atmospheric/post-rock/folk duo, does a spectacular job of setting a mood and sticking to it. “Where Distant Spirits Remain” paints a picture, a picture that may not make you literally freeze, it will place you in a position of whether or not you should cover up with a couple blankets while this record is spinning. From front to back, this record makes me think of snow mountaintops, lakes that are frozen over and old churches that have been abandon for years. Not to mention, even though this record does have speed and chaos, it’s presented in very small doses and those doses are lethal yet very enjoyable.

The one thing that always came back to my mind while this record was playing is that it’s a soundtrack, it could easily be used in a silent film and even in the background to some films. Even though it can get pretty intense with heaviness and pure

“Where Distant Spirits Remain” is magical, it’s passionate and without a doubt in my mind, this record is the most gorgeous yet honest records I’ve heard in the last several years. Even though I am very confident in knowing Falloch recorded this record inside of a very warm, comfortable studio, I can’t help but want to think that these two guys might of recorded it inside of an empty shack in the middle of nowhere. Now, while several tracks on the record such as “Beyond Embers and The Earth” and “To Walk Amongst The Dead”, may be driven with pure power and heaviness that may lead you to believe these two men could produce a very promising black metal record but it’s the sections of melody that tug at your heartstrings. In all honesty, for a debut record, I haven’t heard anything as flawless and down right gritty as this record is, that’s just the facts to.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, any record that can place images of beautiful landscapes and monstrous mountain covered in pure white snow, that record deserves props on many levels. Hell, even a record that could sooth everything out in my life and tell me everything is going to be okay, that’s a record that will stick with me for a very long time. So the final verdict is this - seven tracks, that’s all this duo needs to give you before you fall madly in love with what they’ve done on this record. Some might argue that Falloch seems to be confused as to what genre they want to be but at the end of the day, you can call them what you want, folk, post-rock, black metal with folk influence, all I know is that Falloch has created a masterpiece, hands down. “Where Distant Spirits Remain” – The one record that can kidnap you and place you into a better situation than you might be in right now.

Official Site - http://falloch.com/

Creeping very slowly out of the harsh winters of Glasgow, Scotland

Great album from Scotland for a change too

Whose #1 was that?

I didn't like that Liturgy album; there I said it.

I wish the black metal voting contingent was a little more vocal. It's not my thing (for the most part), but I'd love to have people with more interest and knowledge discuss their thoughts on these records.

15. Krallice - Diotima (899 Points, 28 Votes)
http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2011/07/Krallice-Diotima.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/krallice

Krallice is a New York-based black metal project featuring the guitar work of notorious progressive/experimental metal musicians Colin Marston (Gorguts, Behold… the Arctopus, Byla, Indricothere and others) and Mick Barr (Crom-Tech, Orthrelm, Octis and others), along with Nick McMaster and Lev Weinstein of death metal band Astomatous.

The musical style of Krallice could be described as fairly clean by black metal standards, with long, dynamic songs containing some distinctive progressive metal influences. They’ve been compared to Weakling in some ways, although their music focuses much more on progressive song structures and less on the dissonant droning of Weakling’s Dead as Dreams. They released a self-titled album in 2008 on Profound Lore Records and a follow-up, Dimensional Bleedthrough, on the same label the next year. Double vinyl releases of the two albums were put out by Gilead Media in 2009 and 2010, respectively. A third album, Diotima, followed in 2011, once again on Profound Lore; a vinyl edition, once again by Gilead Media, is expected to ship around September 20, 2011.

Review

by Phil Freeman

The third album by New York-based arty black metal band Krallice is the group's best work to date. Though the songs were mostly written during the same sessions that produced their previous releases, they seem to exhibit evolution, and a gradually expanding sonic palette. The basics of their sound remain the same -- high-pitched tremolo guitar, blasting drums, rumbling and surprisingly full (for black metal) bass -- but some of these songs, the title track and "Telluric Rings" in particular, are downright progressive, their complex structures and pulsing rhythms as reminiscent of Mahavishnu Orchestra or early-'70s King Crimson as of Mayhem or Marduk. The vocals, depending on who's handling them (sometimes it's guitarist Mick Barr, other times bassist Nick McMaster), are either a harsh scream or an ursine roar; the latter is more effective for being unexpected. Krallice, like fellow Brooklynites Liturgy, aren't all that interested in preserving black metal in the amber of tradition. They're taking what they like from the genre and amplifying its power by adding elements from prog rock and minimalism, then stretching the songs to extraordinary length (12-15 minutes at times) in order to push the listener toward cathartic transcendence. At their best, they're an overwhelming sonic force, and Diotima is their best album to date.