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

or wait did i confuse them with something else

yeah i think its the best wittr too

oh yeah i confused them with gates of slumber which is something i do on the reg

and Esoteric are awesome and even LJ would back me up on this

FWIW, coming from someone who only hears a handful of metal records each year, "Celestial Lineage" is easily my favourite metal album of the past several years.

can someone make an argument either for or against all the *wailing leads* on this esoteric album? because i am really on the fence.

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 20, 2012 8:52 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I honestly couldn't, because I haven't heard it yet... however you're making me want to check it out simply to see just how much it wails!

I'll stick with my original guess minus of course the Mastodon.

5. Tyr
4. Wolf
3. Motorhead
2. Powerwolf
1.Rush

it's just weird to be listening to a 16-minute doom song and then have the lead guitarist do a warpspeed run up the neck straight out of 1984.

Ha, how is that Rush album? I totally forgot about that!

4. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust (1,371 Points, 34 Votes, 4 #1s)
http://www.svartrecords.com/shoppe/725-820-thickbox/uncle-acid-and-the-deadbeats-blood-lust-cd.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Uncle+Acid+and+the+Deadbeats

Formed in the old wastelands of witchery and paranoia, Cambridgeshire band Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats deliver the new sound of 60s terror. This popular beat combo crawled from its secluded hideout in 2009 to record their debut album, ‘Vol. 1’ for Killer Candy Records. With a limited release in 2010, the album was warmly received with the track ‘Witches Garden’ appearing on a Classic Rock Magazine cover CD. The band also drew the attention of Leif Edling from legendary doom band Candlemass, who would later recommend them to Lee Dorrian at Rise Above.

The group’s second album Blood Lust (2011) was recorded in a dilapidated barn known as The Slaughter House. Using old fuzz pedals and broken amps to create a lo fi saturated sound, the entire album was laid to rest on tape in the space of four cold months. Blood Lust tells the story of a drug crazed sadist who embarks on a witchfinding killing spree before meeting his own demise at the withered hands of Satan. The bands intention was to create an audio equivalent of a 60’s exploitation horror film. After a steady start in sales, demand for the album eventually grew beyond all expectations with all pressings quickly selling out, including a Rise Above vinyl pressing of 350 which sold out in just 24 hours.

This bastard band of weirdos will plunder on into the 2012 apocalypse with festival dates and other live appearances in the UK and Europe. The acid nightmare has truly begun…

http://www.doommantia.com/2011/07/uncle-acid-and-deadbeats-blood-lust.html

Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats debut went completely unnoticed by me ?. Therefore it’s double the surprise with their sophomore Blood Lust. I have to admit I was drawn to the vintage cover’s art work first, and then some promising words on one of our befriended blogs concerning this album won me over to give this record a spin. Supposedly Uncle Acid et. al. hail from England but in good recent doom tradition there isn’t a whole lot of useful information to be found on these retro doomsters.

As has been proved, I’m a sucker for retro doom, and this is it again for me. The sound is not your typical doom, stoner, heavy psychedelics, etcetera, because Uncle Acid is able to throw that extra spice in the mix which makes (doomy) records worthwhile: a little groove, a little jazz, call it what you want. But it makes perfect sense to me, plus it gives me a perfect companion to the starting summer days – not to mention my vacation – here. To make it clearer: this is music that you can easily headbang to (slowly though) but it’s also perfectly possible to groove to this record.

Qua texts and sphere, you get a lot of horror & knives, but in a nice way, you know? Probably the best way to appreciate a record like this is with your headphones up surrounded by 13 candles. By the way, their debut, called Vol. 1 is worth checking out too. I prefer their latest, but if you want more of Uncle Acid you’ll be glad knowing there is another release to at least have a taste from the same source. As I said, there is not a lot of information on Uncle Acid, plus I’m not sure about the mentioned Killer Candy Records on their Facebook. I wasn’t able to find a corresponding site. On their Big Cartel site you can order one of the limited edition 100 copies of Blood Lust, so with all the media attention (blogspots) going around, the album probably will be sold out before you can say Kung Fu Panda 2.

Allegedly the album was recorded on vintage equipment, but here comes my problem with the marketing of an album like Uncle’s Blood Lust. There just isn’t a lot of material to write on (except for the terrific album) and therefore we have to rely on blogs without any (checkable) reference. So, we let Uncle Acid be a mystery just like Ghost and in the meantime we enjoy the hell out of this album. Cheers!

Er, the live album? Its good. New studio album isn't til later this year.

(xpost)

Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland is pretty good. Geddy's not in top vocal form (it was early on the tour), but man are they something.

xpost

3. Goatpenis - Depleted Ammunition (1,666 Points, 66 Votes, 6 #1s)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hEGAE8TIT1I/TfwDIw43k2I/AAAAAAAAGyg/sFOeJXEMkNo/s1600/GoatPenis%2B2011%2BDepleted%2BAmmunition.jpg
Spotify
http://www.last.fm/music/Goatpenis

If you haven't heard Goatpenis, they're awesome. They dress up as South American guerrilla fighters and play songs about nuclear warfare and genocide in a raw yet melodic style of black/grind. The music is ultra riff-based: very heavy, ripping, catchy riffs that are a sort of combination of Sarcófago and Napalm Death and almost impossibly savage and brutal vocals ranging from standard growls and screeches to pitch-shifted gurgles right out of fucking nowhere. - Noktorn

i have liked wittr a lot up until now but i absolutely love celestial lineage

it's just weird to be listening to a 16-minute doom song and then have the lead guitarist do a warpspeed run up the neck straight out of 1984.

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 20, 2012 8:57 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's it, I've got to hear this... off to Spotify I go!

nice try Siegbran, but put your goatpenis somewhere else!

That's what she said!

(sorry)

xp Ah, so I didn't miss the studio Rush album.

Well Kerr, your campaigning paid off. Not bad for an album that's not really metal, but nonetheless awesome. They finally shipped my CD yesterday nearly a month after I ordered it. They had run out and didn't bother to tell me.

btw since i am unlikely to be at a computer for the last part of this rollout i want to thank ratfucker and glenn for all their work on this, esp since i was supposed to help out and co-run it and failed miserably due to timing/work insanity. you dudes are awesome.

and i suck.

lol, siegbran

Ah, Uncle Acid made it to #4! I was definitely expecting that record to be 'up there', partly due to Kerr's campaigning and partly because it is (in my opinion) a fucking good record.

LOL @ Siegbran trying to get 'Goatpenis' in there!

And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddlin' kids!

it's just weird to be listening to a 16-minute doom song and then have the lead guitarist do a warpspeed run up the neck straight out of 1984.

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 20, 2012 8:57 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

love this band and love this part of their sound. adds some grandeur and weight to the proceedings imo.

circa metamophogenesis I really think they were THE most psychedelic metal band around. maybe they still are? new stuff perhaps doesn't go quite as deep but I still think they mop the floor with 99% of the generic doom out there.

should I bother w/uncle acid if I think ghost (swe) are boring?

The Mastodon is kind of a lazy vote, good album but I can't really get excited about it. Don't think I've pulled it out since I got it. I did notice it made a lot of indie rock lists as the requisite metal pick, so I guess someone really liked it?

They actually aren't that similar to Ghost, the comparison only gets made because they are each doing distinct takes on retro metal.

(xpost)

Jeff the indie listmakers you are referring to are the laziest voters of all

(Except me who was too lazy to listen to Mastodon)

Well, jeez, sorry guys. I won't vote at all next year if I'm being too "lazy" with my vote.

Uncle Acid sound absolutely nothing like Ghost. They both have a retro sound, granted, but their reference points are completely different.

uncle acid is way less BOC and more sabbath than ghost imo.

THIS JUST IN: metal band sounds kinda like sabbath.

the stuff about 'groove' up in that blurb has me kind of interested. kind of weird how just about everyone copied iommi's riffs but very few doom bands even try to go for the intensely locked-in butler/ward rhythmic interplay.

I mean, butler and ward were pretty amazing, so that may be part of it too.

haha, xpost

They were on my list, it's a good record, it's just not something I can get excited about.

Alternately: STOP FAILING US, JON

so i am starting to make my way through the spotify list and whoa i really dig this vektor album which i know nothing about.

yeah, the vektor album is kind of amazing

maybe my fave album cover of the year too

I wasn't referring to you jvc :(

I just was guessing that some indie folx, esp ones who write for indie pubs that tend towards metal tokenism, would probably check out Mastodon bcz of name recognition and not much else from the genre

3. YOB - Atma (1,527 Points, 41 Votes, 2 #1s)
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/yob-atma-cover.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/yob

Review

by Eduardo Rivadavia

Oregon's trance-doom astronauts YOB approached their fifth studio album, 2011's Atma, with something of a back to basics attitude, intentionally wrapping their trademark, slowly developing epic grinds -- inspired by everyone from Sabbath to Vitus to Sleep to Dark Castle -- inside a hazy production fog. And, as a result, some power (and, one would imagine, some fans) is lost right along with the discarded layers of double- or triple-tracked guitars (God only knows how many), yet the songs themselves are still unmistakably YOB. In fact, the opening psych-punctuated bombast of "Prepare the Ground" could very well pass for an outtake from 2004's The Illusion of Motion, and just when the loosely jammed title track (a Hindu term for "self") teeters on the verge of collapse, a repetitive staccato riff clenches its second half like an iron gauntlet and brings it on home with authority. Yes, attention spans are bound to wander during "Before We Dreamed of Two"'s 16-minute meander, and even the half-as long "Upon the Sight of the Other Shore," but their snail-paced progress gradually reveals a subtle swing as hypnotic as the deep-seated grooves underpinning them. What's more, as the closing "Adrift in the Ocean" proceeds to justify its evocative title by following a series of bewitching guitar notes with a doomsday march worthy of High on Fire, the resemblance between YOB main man Mike Scheidt's ragged guitar tone and Matt Pike's transcends mere coincidence. Speaking of Scheidt, his signature high-pitched warble (which has never been to everyone's liking) is oftentimes replaced by a more commonplace metal growl across this album, thus sacrificing some of YOB's unique imprint for a safer, though certainly very effective new option. All of which points to Atma potentially going down as a transitional, far from perfect album for YOB, or even a creative pause for breath to collect their thoughts before diving off the deep end of experimentation once again.

http://www.doommantia.com/2011/07/yob-atma.html

n my humble opinion, Yob have released two near-perfect albums, 'Catharsis' in 2003 and 'The Great Cessation' in 2009. These two near-masterpieces were as close to perfect as you can get but both had very minor flaws that were just enough to stop them from getting scoring the perfect 10/10. Now move forward and to early next month in-fact and Yob have done almost the impossible and are about to release their best ever album and indeed it is the perfect 10. I admit there is going to be a certain bias in my reviewing of this album, I have been a huge fan since 2002 but even I wasn't expecting something as good as 'Atma.' I will take it one step further and say I think in years in come, Yob will get name-checked as one of the world's greatest heavy bands of all time but in my mind they are there already. Their influence on other bands has been steadily creeping in for the last few years and that will only increased as time goes on as more people become aware of their brilliance. What is interesting is the band split up for about 2 years after the release of the also excellent 'The Unreal Never Lived' but since they have returned, they have got even stronger as players and writers and 'Atma' is the absolute pinnacle of their works. I hate to this but this album is SO GOOD, I doubt if they will ever be able to match it and sorry in advance to the band for putting that pressure on them but I am in awe of this release.

Yob has always had a penchant for lengthy, extended doom epics and this album is no exception. There is 5 tracks ranging from 7 minutes to 16 minutes but not many bands can produce epics that flow as well as these 5 masterpieces of doom-laden groove-based metallic ear-candy. The sound of this album is monstrous; the low-end assault is so heavy it threatens to destroy the speakers at loud volumes and this is certainly not recommended to small computer-speaker set-ups, it is just as likely to shoot the speaker cones right into your unsuspecting face. So sound and production wise, everything is ideal for a ear-bashing sonic-trip of the most damaging proportions so what about the songs? The album begins with 'Prepare The Ground' which shows immediately that Mike Scheidt and Yob have reached a kind of melodic maturity. Not that this is that melodic but compared to earlier tunes; this track and others does display a stylistic progression while still keeping the classic Yob trademarks churning along at full-throttle. 'Prepare The Ground' starts with a series of chugging, monolithic strikes and continues to build even heavier and more dynamically diverse as it progresses. This lumbering beast of a song is punishing but it is also slightly weird in as much as at loud volumes it really doesn't sound all that heavy, certainly not as heavy as some of their early tunes but turn it up loud and it becomes a different, more aggressive animal all together. It is interesting that this album and this song in particular seems to have a completely feel about at different volumes; it is the same song of course but it takes on a new life once cranked up. Most bands songs sound the same at all volume levels, it is not the case here.....My advice, turn it loud for full effect.

The slow-burning monolithic crawl continues with the title-track and it is more plodding than the tune that opens the album. 'Atma' is a composition that is very much a total Yob song. The track wouldn't have been out-of-place of any of their earlier albums but this one has a twist to it. The track is stylistically complex, both musically and thematically as it is based around the Buddhist concept of the spiritual self. Musically it is also thought-provoking, interesting stuff with the bass and drums taking most of the load before it takes a back seat to Scheidt's guitar explorations that are positively unique and mesmerizing. In keeping with the theme of the piece, there is a Eastern-flavor to the guitar solo and Scheidt's vocals are also multi-dimensional going from growls to a effected vocal which sounds like he is singing in a far-away tunnel. I know that is a pretty lame explanation but I can not described it any other way. What Scheidt does at times is a take on a rather brave 'falsetto' kind of voice which normally would be a disaster in any other kind of band like this but with Yob it works to perfection and plays as a great counterpoint to the filthy riff-work.

Now for the doom-purists out there, 'Atma' has plenty on tap including the monster 16 minute masterpiece titled 'Before We Dreamed Of Two.' Yob have always been known and loved for their varied approach to doom from the Saint Vitus tinged traditional doom to the screeching sludgy Iron Monkey-ish kind of passages and 'Before We Dreamed Of Two' has them all in the one epic piece. This track features one of the two guest appearances from Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Scott Kelly and that in itself should be enough to get doom fans salivating. This piece is more-or-less split into two halves with the first being a monolithic, staggering slow-burner only to slow-down to an even more painful, plodding crawl at around the 7 to 8 minute mark. In terms of atmosphere, this is Yob's most gripping tune yet but as the first half comes to an almost slow-motion pause, the tracks second half is beyond description. It gets hypnotically minimalist in the guitar department and that is when Scott Kelly makes his appearance and the effect is mind-shattering magic. I have always thought that Kelly was the best thing about Neurosis but this is perhaps the his finest moment he has ever produce; pity it didn't come on a Neurosis album but it is on an Yob album and that is even better in my book. 'Before We Dreamed of Two' is like a Rush or a Yes epic in as much as it has so much scope and depth, that at first you have to replay the first half of the song because the second half leaves you so rattled you can't remember how the song started. This is one of the signs of pure genius and this track is just that....... an incredible tune that leaves you speechless.

In many ways the track that follows, 'Upon The Sight Of The Other Shore' sets the album back-to-land and gets back to how the whole 'Atma' experience started; more straight-forward and more typical of Yob as a band. This track is the odd track out on 'Atma' as it sounds out of context to vibe of the rest of the album but it is certainly not a disappointment; it is just different to what the rest of the album has to offer. Once you get used to the mood change of the piece though, this is another killer track but its place in the albums running order is perhaps a little un-kind. Any track following such a flawless epic such as 'Before We Dreamed Of Two,' would sound under-done by comparison so if there is a weak-link in the album, it would be this tune but weak by this album standards is pure gold material compared to 90% of other albums released this year. What does happen though is the last couple of minutes of 'Upon the Sight of the Other Shore' provides a perfect lead-in to the albums closing track, another epic titled 'Adrift In The Ocean.'

'Adrift In The Ocean' is the slowest moving piece on the album and I am talking about in terms of arrangement, nothing to do with the tempo. Yob has always been a band that require a fair deal of patience, they are not the kind of band to burst into song with an infectious riff or vocal right from the get-go and 'Adrift In The Ocean' is a very slow-moving vehicle in terms of structure. The song spends a good 5 minutes getting going and building in atmosphere and heaviness and then it is another two minutes before any vocals come in so yes, bring a packed lunch for this one. The thing is though, it still keeps you mesmerized and glued to its atmospheric build-up so when it does finally hit, it is an incredibly powerful force that leaves you floored so the wait is worth it. What rings true about this track is it is nothing new for Yob and they have done this kind of track many times before but when it ain't broke, don't fix it. After the 13 minutes of this closer and the 55 minutes of 'Atma' comes to a stop, the feeling is this album is a triumph for not only Yob but for doom-metal as a genre as well.

'Atma' is doom, it is sludge, it is psychedelic and it is progressively melodic but it is also a heavy, taxing album to listen to. Yob fans will instantly dig it, that is a certainly. The album like all Yob albums really; it blends the old-school traditional doom with the more modern rawer take on the genre while injecting something unique at the same time and even though some passages are agonizingly slow in progressing; if you focus on it, you will get taken away with the atmosphere of this album. On first spin of the album, I knew this was something special but by the fifth and sixth spin, I knew it was more than that. This will be high in the top five lists of many doom fans and writers by the end of the year and WILL be the number one album of 2011 for many people and at this stage of the year, I have to say it already has that number one spot reserved by me. So lets see, can anyone beat it? Time will tell but for now, this album is overwhelmingly great. What more can I say......nothing.....buy it in August!!! .............10/10

No worries I was hoping the "geez guys" and threatening not to vote was enough to reveal the sarcasm.

(xpost)

There seems to have been quite a great deal of praise for the YOB record. I feel it's something that I should hear!

this was the year where i finally got why people are so into YOB, its a great record

So much for my #1 prediction. Will be seeing them at the Empty Bottle on Wednesday.

Eh, I know this is blasphemy around here, but I respect YOB more than I like listening to 'em. I understand the vibe they are going for and I think they are really good at it, but I just find myself wishing for something a little more to happen when I listen.

2. Iwrestledabearonce - Ruining It for Everybody (1600 Points, 42 Votes)
http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Ruining-It-For-Everybody.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Iwrestledabearonce

Review

by Gregory Heaney

It would be easy, exceptionally so even, to lump a band like Iwrestledabearonce into the same class of bands as Attack Attack!, where metalcore and electronic elements are fused together into a hyper-ironic mess of heavy breakdowns and Auto-Tuned pop insanity. While Iwrestledabearonce certainly skirt this line, there’s something about their sound that helps them avoid this kind of classification, instead putting them somewhere between a scene band and the avant metal vanguard where bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Daughters melt minds with reckless abandon. On their second album, Ruining It for Everybody, the band continues to establish itself as a more serious player in the metal world than anyone could’ve expected, delivering an album that lurches unpredictably between twisting discordance and pleasant, flowing ambience, agitating the musical waters with an acerbic blast of frenzied screaming and searing, rapid-fire guitar blasts before calming them down with singer Krysta Cameron’s soaring vocals. While it would seems like these two disparate elements would be at odds with each other, the band is able to create a natural flow between the two aspects of its sound, alternating between the calm and the storm with a naturalness that would seem to be impossible given the blistering pace of the music. It’s this organic quality that allows Iwrestledabearonce to stand apart from their peers. The songs on Ruining It for Everybody don’t feel slapped together, and despite the fact that they don’t seem like they should work, the band pulls off their sound well. Add the album's concise running time to the mix and you have an album that works like Ritalin for anyone with a serious case of heavy metal ADD.

232. Loutallica - LULU (1668 Points, 44 Votes)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bM-SchQRp0o/TtKw1avRUvI/AAAAAAAAAOY/tg48WV-sTYY/s1600/lulu.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Lou%2BReed%2B%2526%2BMetallica

Review

by Mark Deming

First and foremost, Lulu is a Lou Reed album. Metallica may receive collaborative billing, and Reed has made canny use of the band's skill set, but it's clear after the first ten minutes that he is the auteur on this project, and most Metallica fans are going to be awfully puzzled by Lulu. Then again, Reed's fans may be scratching their heads, too -- Lulu is a purposefully difficult album, one that insists you meet it on its own terms, and the angry flood of sounds and ideas that pours from its ten long songs demands more than a little patience. Lulu had its genesis in a theater project by frequent Reed collaborator Robert Wilson, who was creating a new adaptation of the plays of Frank Wedekind; in these songs Reed sings from the perspective of a young woman who is corrupted by her experiences with men, as well as some of the characters she meets. The personal pronouns offer occasional clues as to whom Reed is channeling at a given moment, but for most of its 87 minutes, Lulu sounds like one long, bitter, spiteful rant as Reed pours out gallons of lyrical bile, mostly unfettered by rhyme schemes, and with rare exception Reed doesn't sing here, he mutters or shouts or barks like an angry beast. At the age of 69, time seems to be catching up with Reed's strength, but he uses it to his advantage on Lulu, and while he frequently sounds like a mean and slightly crazy old man here, it absolutely suits the tenor of the piece. Reed holds nothing back, and the torrent of curious, ugly, and puzzling images gets to be more than a bit much, rarely cohering into a larger whole. As for Metallica, it's easy to see why Reed wanted to work with them -- for this music, he obviously wanted a massive wall of guitars, and James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett certainly deliver, and with the band's usual acrobatic soloing stripped from these performances, they summon a towering wall of chugging menace on "Dragon," "Frustration," and "Mistress Dread." Reed wanted Metallica for their strength and stamina, and they deliver, but when he needs subtlety or dynamics they often drop the ball, especially in Lars Ulrich's drumming, which is clumsier and busier than it should be, and Hetfield's vocal interjections, which are full of arena-level bombast and sound silly compared to Reed's weary croak, making the frequent disconnect between the music and the lyrics all the more telling. It's not difficult to see what Reed was shooting for on Lulu, but one might argue Metallica were not the right collaborators for the project -- the huge, arty drone of Sunn 0))), the stop-on-a dime assault of the Jesus Lizard, or the limber noise of Shellac might have better served Reed's vision. Ultimately, Lulu is a brave experiment for both Reed and Metallica, but it's one that falters as often as it succeeds.

So Lulu is the real 2?

it was certainly the biggest number 2 since st anger

I voted.

lolz, but wrong

I didn't vote for it, but if the whole thing had been "Junior Dad" I might have.