ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

I am cracking up though that the first minute of this loud, impolite album is a soft note played over and over though

needs more triangles in the artist name

Matt DC - Liturgy are a black metal band who've caused controversy because they dress like hipsters and try to unravel the usual black metal tropes of being Norwegian and dressing like a Vril-Ya. I still haven't heard it, but it's supposed to be good.

Metal, I'm assuming?

― Matt DC,

transcendental black metal

wiki

Liturgy are a self-described "transcedent black metal" band from Brooklyn, New York. Originally the solo project of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, the band expanded to a four piece in 2008, after the release of the 12" Immortal Life, which was followed in 2009 with their debut album Renihilation. The group call their style "transcendental black metal",[1][2] which is described in a declaration written by Hunt-Hendrix.[3] Hunter cites Swans, Glenn Branca, Alexander Scriabin, Iannis Xenakis and Lightning Bolt as influences.[4]

the cover could be a witch house album

haha witch house was the first thing i thought of

happy 4 the metal crü

Save us J0rdan Fever!

"Hunter Hunt Hendrix" sounds like a Gossip Girl character/actor but his name isn't his fault.

http://youtu.be/qciRxrlTFGc

^ Liturgy - Generation

(I didn't vote for this btw, but that was the best track imo)

here is a jaunty excerpt of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix's Trancendental Black Metal theory

PROLEGOMENON

One could propose a new meaning for black metal along with a new array of techniques to activate that meaning. The meaning of Transcendental Black Metal is Affirmation, and its new technique is the Burst Beat.
The will to power has two stages. The first may be called Fortification; the establishment of a paradigm or set of rules and the ensuing exploration of potential that lies within those constraints. The second stage may be termed Sacrifice; an auto-destruction, a self-overcoming whereby the initial rules, having been fully digested and satisfied, are thereby mutilated. They are transformed into the basis for something new and unprecedented.
Transcendental Black Metal is black metal in the mode of Sacrifice. It is a clearing aside of contingent features and a fresh exploration of the essence of black metal. As such it is solar, hypertrophic, courageous, finite and penultimate. Its tone is Affirmation and its key technique is the Burst Beat.
The black metal that was born in Scandinavia in the mode of Fortification can be termed Hyperborean Black Metal. Hyperborean Black Metal is lunar, atrophic, depraved, infinite and pure. The symbol of its birth is the Death of Dead. Its tone is Nihilism and its key technique is the Blast Beat.
Today USBM stands in the shadow of Hyperborean Black Metal. The time has come for a decisive break with the European tradition and the establishment of a truly American black metal. And we should say “American” rather than “US”: the US is a declining empire; America is an eternal ideal representing human dignity, hybridization and creative evolution.
The act of renihilation is the betrayal of Hyperborean Black Metal and an affirmation of Transcendental Black Metal. And it is at the same time the constitution of an apocalyptic humanism to be termed Aesthetics. As such, the question of Transcendental Black Metal is only the tip of an iceberg at the base of which is hidden a new relationship between art, politics, ethics and religion.

Played Konkylie a couple of times after a friend raved about it, liked it quite a lot.

Voted for Thora Vukk. Heavily played throughout the year, never tired of it, good holiday memories attached.

the only 'metal' album i heard last year prior to the ILM Metal Poll. It's p good.

xxxp:
It comes with a manifesto on Transcendental Black Metal.

Transcendental Black Metal is a Renihilation, a “No” to the entire array of Negations, which turns to an affirmation of the continuity of all things

prolego-memnon?

I have like zero interest in black metal, apparently. I don't even dislike this, it just is making zero impression on me.

Like, there is no way this album should aurally scan as "beige, forgettable" to me but there you go.

I think the issue I have with a lot of how black metal is constructed/presented is that it's a LOT of effort put into playing what is ultimately a relatively simple song/melody; like on this first track, everything is played on like 32nd notes but it's all subdivision of a really really really simple tune that's not particularly interesting or impressive, so my end reaction is "eh, why bother with all that?"

It's like Dr Bronner meets the Maharishi School of Management.

"eh, why bother with all that?"
mood music? i dunno, why bother with anything?

lol and then they follow up with a big chanty thing, which erupts into another simple tune chopped up into 32nd notes. It's like the musical equivalent of the moment when Scooby-Doo is running in place away from a monster, legs all awhirl and dust and smoke getting kicked up but he's not going anywhere, stretched out over a five minute period.

(structurally this is reminding me of some of the Baltic pieces we did in our last choral concert, only more static)

Decent black metal can be pretty complex, musically speaking - lots of time signature changes etc...

that literal scooby-doo sound effect looped over five minutes would be more "up my alley" than this Liturgy album, but I like this okay too.

why bother with anything?

depressed now

can someone point me in the direction of some Morton Feldmanesque black metal?

I like the intro of Tragic Laurel, it sounds like Philip Glass

http://i.imgur.com/sa2WL.jpg

74. The Joy Formidable — The Big Roar (266 points, seven votes, one first place vote)

P4K: DNP
P&J: 58

Spotify

the song that placed in tracks was way too landfillesque for me - any chance I'll like the album?

This Robag Wruhme album is really nice. Is the name an anagram for something or just German?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/48/Slayer-GodHatesUsAll-WhiteSleeve.jpg/220px-Slayer-GodHatesUsAll-WhiteSleeve.jpg

naughty naughty very naughty

lol so to completely contradict what I just said re: Liturgy, the thing I dug the most about the song that placed on the track countdown was the shoegazy outro; interested to hear if that sensibility runs through other songs on the album

seandalai: I've only heard the Joy Formidable album once, but my guess is that if you didn't like "Whirring," you won't like the album.

My biggest problem with that Liturgy (and most black metal) is the quality of sound. If I'm in a metal mood then I want to listen to it LOUD, but this stuff is best set at like 2 on the volume knob, otherwise its completely blown out.

I didn't vote for Joy Formidable, but it has its moments. It's a crying shame that only Yuck and JF contend in the British hard-rock (non-punk/metal) stakes these days. But where Yuck are hazy and nostalgic, I hear JF as being big and powerful (love that guitar sound). I don't know which nineties rock band I'd be tempted to compare them with - part of me wants to say early Manics without the lyrics. Anyway, the album's got maybe 4 good songs, the rest is a bit forgettable. I still love A Heavy Abacus, particularly that Glastonbury performance.

I should give The Joy Formidable another chance. Didn't love the track we covered at Jukebox but it seems to be one of the consensus picks of indie rock this year.

I haven't heard any of these... The Joy Formidable tracks on the poll were alright I suppose. I also remembered that they were on Conan one night last year.

I really like the Joy Formidable's huge walls of screeching guitars but the songs themselves I can take or leave. Surprised that album wasn't higher, I thought they had a committed following on here.

Is it weird that the first song at least is coming across to me like a harder-edge School of Seven Bells?

love the last track on the joy formidable album a lot

http://youtu.be/84yRe--OJ00

Joy Formidable remind me of that era between Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie when the Pumpkins were still figuring out just how big of an arena band they wanted to become.

JF and liturgy both on my ballot :D

love that liturgy album.

I think the issue I have with a lot of how black metal is constructed/presented is that it's a LOT of effort put into playing what is ultimately a relatively simple song/melody; like on this first track, everything is played on like 32nd notes but it's all subdivision of a really really really simple tune that's not particularly interesting or impressive, so my end reaction is "eh, why bother with all that?"

what's wrong with a simple melody/progression? it's all about execution, and the major chords + huge wash of sound guitars + the rubato-but-still-in-tempo drumming approach really works for me.

another album that's good in small doses.

is "generation" the long instrumental one that's kind of more math-rock than metal? that's my favorite one. love this album.
xpost about liturgy but i love the joy formidable album too. really good guitars.

I have a feeling JF will go supernova on their next album - what's to stop them?

though i wish the joy formidable album didn't have the one song where the dude sings. it's really boring and i don't know why they bothered.

Re: The Joy Formidable
The four songs reprised from the 2009's A Balloon Called Moaning EP were sharper in their "original" version. The album production veers too far into stadium-rock for its own good.

Still TJF captures an early 90's sound like few bands since. Think Tanya Donelly of Belly fronting gazy lads like Swervedriver. Pure nostalgia treat for me.

I saw Joy Formidable live in 2010. They weren't for me, and what I've heard by them since has confirmed this several times over.

they need to replace all that guitar work with keane style pianos

The four songs reprised from the 2009's A Balloon Called Moaning EP were sharper in their "original" version.

maybe it's because i heard the album before the ep but i don't agree with this at all, would much rather hear the album versions which are humongous. "whirring" esp. on the ep just seems like a rough draft to me.

Joy Formidable still suffers from a bit of a marketing problem, I think -- terrible band name, overzealous inane tweeting (imo), not mysterious enough --> can add up to "blah" for some people. Still, I like their sound and I think Ritzy has a lovely voice well suited for this type of music.