~~~ 2014 ILM METAL POLL TRACKS & ALBUMS COUNTDOWN! ~~~ (Tracks top 30 first then Albums)

feel like Beastmilk's metal classification was sort of conceptually assisted by the trend of bands hybridizing metal with gothier post punk vibes

the second one xp

xp

and being metal musicians releasing an album on a metal label. It was metal dudes go goth/post-punk while Vaura was more Post-punk/goths go metal.
(imago/djp did you check out that Vaura album that placed earlier?)

I don't consider Beastmilk metal, but I also voted for it in the Pazz & Jop. Great, great record.

Beastmilk also helped by having some metal musicians in their ranks.

I wouldn't consider Beastmilk metal either. Metal lists tend to be a little more inclusive than others, it seems, especially when things like Ulver and Earth end up on them. Works for me, there's a similar "heaviness" to that music, even if it's not metal.

Why metal-archives doesn't allow Dillinger Escape Plan is a mystery, however. But I digress.

I think it was Adrien who tipped me off about Beastmilk. Definitely an album that would appeal to non-metallers.

Glenn what did you think of Vaura?

imago : ahh .. thats one i dont have. been on my list ever since. will get it at some point.

xp AG and EZ yeah that kind of tribal classification seems to be all that really matters

fortunately it also feels heavier than basically any post punk revival stuff of the last decade

beastmilk muuuuuch better than vaura imo

"Metal lists tend to be a little more inclusive than others, it seems, "

this is clearly the case.

given that i am anything but a metalhead, its weird for me to be enjoying stuff on the metal lists more than anything on any other lists.

3 of my fave 2013 albums were by 'metal' bands : uncle acid, qotsa, ghost.

have to say i am loving learning more.

it's funny bc i also don't consider myself a metalhead but there's always a lot of crossover to stuff i love so i end up participating in ilx metal community (tho it seems these days like rolling stoner metal is more my speed than rolling promo metal)

the days of metal fans only listening to metal are kinda gone though. yeah it exists for some but not like it was say pre-grunge. all the black metal fans i know love aphex twin.

I think heavy or extreme metal fans dig anything heavy or extreme not just heavy guitar stuff.

hell , even back in the 90s Terrorizer gave a front cover to diamanda galas, swans and a bunch of industrial bands with no guitars. Not sure the readers warmed to Cubanate mind you hahaha

I'm the opposite of imago. I think the Beastmilk is a sad retread of post-punk I didn't much like in the first place, and Vaura is an engaging hybrid.

Last one for today coming up...

also re Vaura, Hufnagel is a metal dude so they're not that different from Beastmilk

vaura also had toby driver on bass apparently, not that this made it any better. also lol where's hubardo on this countdown oh wait it's not very good. raise yr game driver

and guess what's up next....

at this rate and what is included ..

umm ..

arcade fire ?

If it's something Hufnagel-related, I'm guessing it's my #1.

aw man I hope not, too low

will give vaura 1 more go

11 Kylesa - Ultraviolet, 637 Points, 18 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/6Pf0k6O.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/0Ulp47DaF34CcuiNXVUKx6
spotify:album:0Ulp47DaF34CcuiNXVUKx6
http://www.deezer.com/album/6369672

#22 Decibel, #28 Rock-A-Rolla, #15 Obelisk readers, #37 Captain Beyond Zen, #8 Stoner HiVe, #328 Pazz & Jop

http://seasonofmistcatalogue.bandcamp.com/album/ultraviolet
coverkillernation review - http://youtu.be/KhKT43JT67g

Kylesa have always been a moving target. Since their inception, the Savannah, Ga., group has translated instability into energy, outlasting membership changes and tragedies to create strange and compelling stylistic welds. During the last decade, they’ve shouldered themselves nominally somewhere between sludge metal and psychedelic rock, but those terms are simply outsider touchstones for Kylesa’s brilliant internal turbidity. Indeed, their music is a mix of hardcore force and pop approachability, narcotic textures and double-drummer thunder. They are less defined by any one of those elements than the way they treat them as critical components within a grand crucible, parts meant to be steadily whisked into an alchemic whole. To wit, when Brooklyn Vegan asked frontman Phillip Cope to list his favorite songs of the year in 2010, he named the usual suspects and stylistic peers (Torche, High on Fire) alongside dream-state indie rock (Beach House), insurgent post-punk garage rock (Abe Vigoda), and bands that, like Kylesa, still get dubbed metal because of heavy pedigrees and references (Alcest). This variety has long served Kylesa well, too, pushing them toward wider acceptance even as they’ve redoubled their strange syntheses.

After a string of LPs that have consistently found Kylesa fortifying these wayward genre aggregations, Ultraviolet-- their sixth album and second for Season of Mist-- is an unexpected misstep. At first, Ultraviolet might feel passive or polite, as though Kylesa is the metal band auditioning for a roster spot on Sub Pop or Merge. There’s a slow-burning ballad, a straightforward charge or two, and at least one tune that stretches shoegaze reverie over quickly flickering riffs. It’s as if they’ve tempered their approach, eliminating the exciting outliers of their toolkit to arrive at a hard rock album that sounds standard enough to be safe. Past Kylesa albums have felt alternately like bulldozers and magnets; Ultraviolet often feels only like another middling record.

But the problem is that Kylesa have actually let their genre pillaging overtake their actual songcraft-- that is, in trying to give the psychedelic, shoegaze and jam band aspects of their sound more room within the spotlight, they’ve created a mess that sometimes seems rudderless. The first three tracks, for instance, feel like a non-navigable maze with no steady vectors or outlined intentions: Opener “Exhale” shortchanges a great hook from Laura Pleasants with verses that don’t support the same weight and an instrumental breakdown that simply stalls the song. “Unspoken” hides behind an unnecessary 80-second introduction and subsequently plunges into an unremarkable and overly long solo, with Cope dancing around the impressive groove as though he’s ashamed of its simplicity. And during “Grounded”, Cope drowns many of his own vocals in effects, hiding them behind the wallop like coded messages. Likewise, Pleasants harmonizes the chorus with herself, singing in a round that distracts from the song’s sizzling riff. Time and again, from start to finish, Ultraviolet pauses to concede to such extraneous effects and rockpiled elements, as if Kylesa have finally made the mistake of brandishing their eccentricity rather than simply thriving on it. Ultraviolet rarely feels singular or confident; it’s the sound of a band attempting to underline its claims to distinction.But when Kylesa allows those extrinsic factors to emphasize their momentum rather than detract from it, they are unstoppable: “We’re Taking This”, for instance, is a monstrous flogging, with guitars that twist like rusty corkscrews, drums that push ahead like a cavalcade, and a refrain that feels like a battle cry. Thing is, all of Kylesa’s itinerant weirdness is here, too-- guitars that suddenly warp out of time, drums that pull back enough to give the textures space, and backmasked harmonies that swirl around Cope’s lead like vapor trails. The same holds for the two-minute bruiser “What Does it Take”, which gallops from the gates and doesn’t pull up until the next song begins. But Kylesa shoehorns a kaleidoscopic guitar solo into the tune and saturate the space between the drums and the vocals with guitar effects, not a central riff. “Low Tide,” the album’s best surprise, is a drifting, magnetic ballad; overactive bass, distant harmonies, and streaks of soft guitar noise create an impressionistic web for its starry-eyed hook. In all three instances, Kylesa’s disparate strains work together to create the same inexorable sense of euphoria that unites most of the band’s influences, if no longer their entire catalog. Kylesa albums once seemed cut instantly from whole cloth. Despite its highs, Ultraviolet is a patchwork of arduousness, with some seams still showing. - Brandon Stusoy, Pitchfork, http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18057-kylesa-ultraviolet/

10-1 will be posted tomorrow. Will start later - around 4pm UK time

Oh, them. I need to catch up with Kylesa. I have their first three but my enthusiasm sort of petered out a few years ago.

Album results (so far) playlist
http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/6fsnIonKsPLF5NzZ9hJg27
spotify:user:pfunkboy:playlist:6fsnIonKsPLF5NzZ9hJg27

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xp well this sounds nothing like the first albums especially iirc

That review did not incline me to catch up with them after all.

fwiw i am enjoying Vaura a damn sight more the second time around

you cant judge albums after only 1 or 2 listens

Trust my review then

it's good

"This is not some Scott Weinrich/Matt Pike/Bill Ward fantasy project"

That would be fucking awesome.

Direct Link to poll recap & full results

Well the guys in Beastmilk were indeed sad, at least with S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder), according to the interview in Decibel that I read in the courtroom. I'm surprised no one pointed out their many similarities (vocal, etc) to Interpol, heh. But there are not so many sad retreads in metal as much as genuine tributes. Guess it all comes down to which genres you prefer bands pay tribute to.

I finally got to leave court. I was worried the defending attorney would want to pick me because I said it's an abuse of the legal system to treat it like the lottery with ridiculous awards of millions of dollars for minor injuries in an accident where no fault was proven either side. However he asked potential jurors about their hobbies. I said running, writing about music, concerts and worshiping Satan. No I didn't say the last part. However I think it's a way they try to judge to see how easily they can manipulate jurors, which is why they don't like people who are too educated or intellectually engaged. Good thing to keep in mind if you don't want to get stuck in several week trial and perhaps even have to get sequestered.

I like some of the psychedelic tendencies on the last couple Kylesa albums, but would prefer a bit more psych and less sludge. Maybe the next album.

i got the impression some folk thought there was too much psych and not enough sludge

hang on f-n-b ..
is court thing a job, or, a temp jury service kind of groove ?
ps. i like what i have heard of kylesa, but i love psych.

Just now listening to a little Beastmilk; p cool

But there's no shortage of sludge! I would have expected Beastwars, Celeste and Jucifer to do better.

mark - In the U.S. all citizens are obligated to do jury duty no more than once a year if they are randomly picked. I've gotten the notices nearly every year the past 6 years, while my wife has never gotten the letter. She wishes she could do it but I hate it.

ahh.
same in uk.
so far, despite my age, i have never been called up for jury duty.

Album I'm surprised hasn't placed yet = Shooting Guns

xxxp

Really what wore thin with me about Kylesa was the monotonous, shouty singing style. Musically they didn't change much over the first 3 albums so I guess I have at least a widened musical palette to look forward to.

Also, this countdown is sort of fun, thanks for doing it. I should probably shut off the Finnish black metal and avail myself of the opportunity to check out what I've missed.

They change up the vocals some, but could still improve in that area.

Other thoughts, glad to see Avatarium high up, since it's release seemed kind of under the radar at first. The band is Leif and Carl from Candlemass, Lars from Tiamat and Marcus from Evergrey, who I'm not familiar with. Jennie-Ann Smith mainly sang blues and jazz previously.

vaura losing its appeal towards the end of the album. when yer doin metal/postpunk crossovers it's not like yer really going for avantgarde complexity, so may as well make it as propulsive and fiery as you can. vaura fudge it ever so slightly by trying to keep it black metal. a bit of a cake that's been had, eaten and corpsepainted

fwiw Evergrey had at least one really good album in them, In Search of Truth -- dark and moody power metal with a gruff baritone on vox, kind of a rarity. Supposedly Recreation Day was good too.

Pinkish Black, now THIS is more like it

i played the kylesa record quite a bit when it came out cos i really liked the noisiness and the shoutiness of it - reminded me a bit of unwound. did end up getting a bit bored of it though

imago does it pass your art school qualifications test? :P