2019 Metal ’n’ Heavy Rock/Heavy Music Poll: RESULTS - Top 100 Countdown

And 120 is a 3-way tie so will be posting all 3

I listened to everything nominated that I had any interest in (except Yellow Eyes, poor guys, they seem like nice boys) so I'll be interested to see if anything comes up that I didn't give a fair shake to.

\m/

woot woot

Weekend Bonus 120-101
TIE
120 Atlantean Kodex - The Course of Empire 75 Points,2 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/rcNvXsf.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/5AqSLXRAnhQecdpdvGZlyr?si=TbhWL1YgQ_-tKChfRU0XxA
https://atlanteankodex-vanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-course-of-empire

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/atlantean-kodex-the-course-of-empire-review/

When you gaze upon the gorgeous artwork adorning the new Atlantean Kodex opus, does it remind you of another classic album cover? Look closely. If your metal mind went back through time to Bathory‘s Blood Fire Death, you win the Steel ov Approval. And it seems the similarity in art is anything but accidental. After impressing the metalverse with 2013s The White Goddess, the band took their sweet time crafting a followup, and the long-awaited The Course of Empire definitely dials up the Bathory-esque epic Viking side of Atlantean Kodex‘s mammoth heavy metal sound. Along with the band’s usual While Heaven Wept meets Manowar on Manilla Road take on oversized throwback metal, there’s a powerful Hammeheart influence under-girding the already titanic, soaring compositions, making for a heavier, darker sound. With over an hour of Homeric bombast and wanton excess to battle through, it takes a strong back and an iron will to weather this storm, so lash yourself to the mast, ignore the Siren’s song and let’s set sail to high adventure.

After a mighty intro builds a giant-sized mood with Markus Becker dramatically intoning on empires rising and falling, you’re treated to the 9-minute majesty of “People of the Moon” and all its stately grandeur and opulent metallic adornments. It’s the classic Kodex tune, driven by a mixture of doom riffs, and heavier, Viking-esque battle leads, then topped off with Becker’s soaring vocals. It’s as if Manowar circa Into Glory Ride tried their hand at doom, and it’s glorious to behold. Heavy, melodic and accessible as all hell, it’s what epic metal should sound like right down to the most minute detail – the lofty, fist in the wind chorus, the emotional ebbs and flows, the ability to make the music feel ginormous, it’s all here. You’ll be strapping on the Chest Plate ov Bravery before the song is even half over, and if you haven’t become a king by your own hand by its conclusion, you’re no Cimmerian. Brilliant, timeless stuff, and there’s so, so much more to come. “Lion of Chaldea” is every bit as immense, sounding like a metalized retelling of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. It’s stout, catchy and gorgeously lush – a sweeping panorama of metal with a chorus that sticks like tar. “Chariots” begins life with ominous, weighty doom riffs that recall To Mega Therion era Celtic Frost before transitioning into Immortal-meets While Heaven Wept, and the early days Manowar influence is never far away.

As “The Innermost Light” takes flight, it’s almost impossible not to hear “The Misty Mountains Cold” from The Hobbit before the battle axes are handed out. The minor touches of classical orchestration and church organs add a greater sense of grandeur and awe, and the short runtime leaves you wanting more. The album’s back-half is one monstrous epic after another starting with “A Secret Byzantium,” which is a commanding tune – the kind you want blasting as you march into the final battle of Ragnarok, and it’s one of the band’s finest moments – massive, monolithic and as mighty as a song can be without reaching out of your speakers to hand you Excalibur. “He Who Walks Behind the Years” introduces a dose of John Arch era Fates Warning in its proggier structure and vocal patterns, and this one grew to become one of my favorite moments of the album. The biggest set piece comes at the end with the nearly 11-minute title track, and following so many huge, overwhelming compositions, it had to really shine to stave off battle fatigue and Dragon Derangement Disorder, and fortunately, shine it does. It’s almost like a dream collaboration by Bathory, Running Wild, Doomsword, and While Heaven Wept, and it’s just a slobberknocker of an epic metal melting pot. So noble, so regal, this is what classic metal is all about.

The only complaints I have are minor. Some songs could have been trimmed down a tad, especially the title track which seems to wind out, only to surge back for 4 more minutes, approximating the never-ending ending of LotR III: Return of the King. I could quibble and say the highs here are not quite as high as those on The White Goddess, but these are small matters, and what Atlantean Kodex has wrought is a mammoth victory. The band builds one colossal song after another, full of gripping moments and bold bravado, and the entirety of it is amazing to experience. Markus Becker outdoes himself, channeling John Arch and Hammerfall‘s Joachim Cans as he glides over the hefty riffs like an iron eagle, bringing trve metal to the filthy, oppressed masses. He’s the ringmaster in this legendary saga and takes the songs to places many frontmen couldn’t. Manuel Trummer and new axe Coralie Baier piledrive the album with thick, weighty riffs that straddle the doom and Viking genres adroitly. Their playing keeps the material heavy and full of gravitas no matter how melodic Becker’s vocals get1, while their restrained, tasteful and beautiful solo-work transports you to majestic mountain vistas and ancient battlegrounds now at peace. The entire band is in peak form, and they truly accomplished something special here.

The White Goddess was going to be a tough album to top, but Atlantean Kodex has indeed topped it with The Course of Empire. This is the crown jewel of their discography and cements their status as the premier epic metal masters, bar none. It’s a monolithic magnum opus, taking the best of traditional and extreme metal and forging them into the mightiest of war hammers. I’m highly impressed by this record and look forward to having a deep and abiding friendship with it over the coming decades. Guards, knights, squires, prepare for battle!

I don't think I've heard anything by these guys.

That's a sweet-ass cover, though.

I got about three minutes in, not for me. I put on Blood Fire Death right after, I don't see any similarity whatsoever.

You really should. Its a cracking album and their previous 2 made the poll. Epic Doom Metal which has just the right amount of doom and doesn't quite cross the cheese power epic metal line.

I know unperson is a fan of this band.

120 TIE
Fetid - Steeping Corporeal Mess 75 Points,2 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/OTUje5x.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/7zTdv1SRgyW97c8rKm6J3r?si=zqL1M3e8RQOfZhmve5mDeg
https://listen.20buckspin.com/album/steeping-corporeal-mess

https://yourlastrites.com/2019/06/05/fetid-steeping-corporeal-mess-review/

Back in 2017 Fetid came on the scene with a demo entitled Sentient Pile of Amorphous Rot. Fans of sewer-originated death metal flocked to the internet to order cassettes of this absolutely putrid little demo. Yet for all it lacked in stature it more than made up for in performance. Rough production did a piss poor job of hiding the band’s immense potential. As they ripped through those four tracks – vocals gurgling, synthesizers and drum machines popping – a vision of what the future could hold began to take shape. Clubs full of smelly, hairy cave-dwelling folks with their long, curly back hair perfectly teased for the occasion dotted the tours that would be undertaken in Fetid’s future. The stench, rife with body odor and underscored by a hint of vinegar (or is that rotting fish?), came to life through the speakers. It was magical.

With one ear always to the underground, 20 Buck Spin quickly snapped up Fetid (their demo was put out by the unfailing Headsplit Records) swelling their already well-stocked ranks of putrescent death metal. Budget increased. They received the full complement of production typically afforded bands of their ilk. They received cover artwork that would make devotees of X-Files “Monster of the Week” series squirm recalling human-fish hybrid, sewer dwelling parasites. And thus, with the shelves of their cupboards lined with all the tools needed for a band to ascend to the upper echelon of gory, sludgy death metal Fetid set out to make their debut LP.

After making fans wait two full years for any new material, it’s fitting that the album opens with static and screeches, only further cementing the anxiety and urge to check out just what theses jokers have up their sleeves. In general, what they do have up their sleeves is a solid yet unmemorable follow-up to what was a very memorable and exciting demo.

It’s an odd thing that cleaning up the production and using more finances and resources to produce the art as a whole can somehow be a bad thing. Society is capitalist and the more money you have the better you are as a person and the more people will respect you. Turns out that this long held principle of capitalist culture isn’t a universal truth and Fetid is a prime example of that fallacy. Punk ethics, DIY attitudes, and dropping your master tape in the mud and running it over several times with a garbage truck actually produces some of the best gory, sludgy, sewage soaked death metal.

The drums are deep, cavernous even. There is an endless section of toms—each one slightly deeper than its predecessor. Double bass thunders like hoof beats of a strong mare connecting with the brittle sternum of an adolescent boy. The cymbals, used sparingly, ring true and clean, lightening the mood albeit for a brief moment. But mostly the rhythms are pummeling affairs of tom rolls unleashing waves of PTSD in anyone that was once caught on the business end of an automatic grenade launcher.

The vocals are of the bowels: low growls kept muffled in the mix, intertwined with any bass or guitar that finds its way into the depths of this guttural range. Lyrics are barked rhythmically, at times coming dangerously and deliciously close to what could be loosely considered a rap attack. But again, when compared to the demo, the vocals, even when drenched in reverb, seem lifeless. Not the enthusiastic leader they could be but rather a passenger enslaved by the ferocious rhythms that have assumed the job of cavalry commander.

Guitars, handled by Clyle Lindstrom (Caustic Wound, Cerebral Rot), who also shares vocal duties, shine on “Consumed Periphery.” Vacillating between so deep and bombastic and buzzsaw-like efficiency he even throws a few pick dives, whammy screams and technical solos in there. All while holding down the slow-paced riff game.

Holding down the rhythm section is bassist Chelsea Loh (also of Cauterized) along with drummer/vocalist Julian Rhea. Their chemistry is readily apparent with the bass never seeming out of place or showy but merely doing what is impossible for many bassists—to assist, support, and enhance without getting in the way. Particularly on “Dripping Subtepidity,” the bass work shines, holding down the lower riffs while guitar lines spiral into chaos. The ability to groove is one of Fetid’s main selling points, and much of that is thanks to the bass work.

The synth skills are once again on full display for the closing track “Draped in What Was” (a fitting title for a synth sound that was very popular about 35 years ago). This time no drum machine punctuates the eerie tones. The rhythm is kept by a pulsating synth while baritone keys pump a bass line beneath and more whimsical melody lines are layered over the top. The effect is a pronounced, dated mood befitting all the best campy horror films of Ti West. Again, Fetid makes the choice of using the synth as an intro for a track rather than simply an interlude on its own. While that tidbit certainly isn’t pronounced or even noticeable, it is worth mentioning as it’s indicative of a more modern take on synthetic death metal passages. It is also worth mentioning that the passage has no impact, effect, or connection to the track into which it is dumped.

Don’t get it twisted. Steeping Corporeal Mess is damn solid death metal. In fact, in a year relatively bereft of quality death metal – a massive change from the prior three years – Fetid stands tall, making the Pacific Northwest scene proud. The band will do very well touring Europe where they might not even have sewers yet. It’s just that Sentient Pile of Amorphous Rot was that good that the debut LP warranted exceedingly high expectations that simply weren’t met. Spin it. Love it. But keep your eyes to the horizon and hope that whatever they do next harkens back to their brilliant coming out party.

https://grizzlybutts.com/2019/06/06/fetid-steeping-corporeal-mess-2019-review/

Unkempt and festering from teeth to taint as a reeking tube of rarely animated human garbage in life and now a bulging, cold blue-bloated sack of vermin and toxic gaseous churn in death, the swollen corpse wriggles down a steep mud-slicked trench as the rain primes its descent. A leg catches tooth-like snares of jagged glass that’d slash drying rigor’d tendon and let loose the knee from the cadavers hunched formation, kicking outward. The first of many horrors yet conjures no blood. From his maggoted smile belches green and grey foam, the light mist of rain popping his viscous gargle like an enticing bubble mailer in the hands of a mailroom moron. The head rolls left and slaps the putrid water, the shoulder is next to pile on its weight. The great flop of his bloated and gratuitously nude upper body slaps wetly, an epileptic torsion with just one single fit, before the belly is shorn on an opportunistic plate of shale that’d act as a petri dish for the wriggling feast of bacterial stew and parasite within. Oozing outward and downward, a shrimp cocktail of neon green slime and scurrying anaerobic insect barely phase the already putrid swamp of human waste and plastic trash beneath. The rusted-sweet musk of human disintegration grants color and teeming life within a tributary previously only enriched by pipe-siphoned feces and the desperate corpses of fauna willing to drink from it. Count man among the first to create, see, and perpetuate his own doom and the last to prevent the piling of unsustainable life and the cruelty of our slow death. Quench your thirst for decay and cannonball your way into the toxic dead meat soup of Fetid‘s doomed-death and chug the rancid slime from the ‘Steeping Corporeal Mess’ they’d create.

The new generation of west coast United States filth and fucking doom coalesces in the pits of Portland, Oregon today as many’d migrate their bloody wares and fungal curse down from the traffic jammed Hell of Seattle as Fetid would beyond their formative years as Of Corpse with vital ties to Caustic Wound, Cauterized, and the true horror of Cerebral Rot. Among the most barbaric of the cellar dwellers stinking up the crypts Of Corpse would show their worthiness with a split from the (then) cranking on all cylinders Sewercide. The name was stupid, they moved to Portland and left their brutal Infester-isms to Cauterized and changed their name to Fetid. ‘Sentient Pile of Amorphous Rot’ (2017) demo was their first observation of a critically bubbling mass, a distorted bass and hammered-to-shit set of buzzing downtuned guitar growls already showing the pulverized slap of Cianide‘s ‘The Dying Truth’ and the loosened death/doom crunch of Derketa‘s ‘The Unholy Ground’ demo (alternately Mythic‘s EP). From that point their sound hasn’t strayed too far from the ultimate precursor race that was Autopsy‘s ‘Mental Funeral’, though their debut full-length ‘Steeping Corporeal Mess’ brings an appreciable level of fidelity and exemplar stature to a ‘murky by design’ primitive death metal style that quickly becomes a sub-genre all its own.

In a live setting a band like Fetid create a dominant and grinding groove with distorted bass throwing heavily downtuned thunder that’d guide the experience; This works incredibly well for a trio who’re writing for one guitar by default but it will always sound a bit like an unfinished demo when put to tape. Though they toy with rhythms and bombast that recalls the most classic Finnish and North American death (and death/doom) lordships Fetid never reach for a particularly high technical standard that keeps them just an inch short of the slithering ideals of Paralysis or (mid-era) Morpheus Descends. Rhythms may be attainable and direct but the entire experience hinges on groove and presence that ‘Steeping Corporeal Mess’ doesn’t surprise with. Again, in person it is an appreciably moshable churn but on record it reads as plain-and-powerful death metal. There is plenty to appreciate, though, as the crawling nastiness that Fetid bring is immediately heavy in its evocation of the early Cianide school of rotten bone-rattling down-tuned basement death metal, I’m personally on board for that every time and they do kick the speed up a notch throughout the release.

The whammy diving, bass-growling and hi-hat tapping freakery of “Consumed Periphery” is probably the highlight of ‘Steeping Corporeal Mass’ with its descent into high speed left-handed chord-strangling riffs and jogging double-bass blasts. Sure, the point has already been made that these are tricks of the early Autopsy trade but such is an infinite well of inspiration through fundamental presence. I only wish Fetid wrote tracks with memorable groove-based hooks (a la Morgue) rather than cyclonic pieces that often feel like exhibitions of ‘old school’ death metal motion. “Dripping Subtepidity” is a nearby second most valuable moment on this five song 32+ minute record for its interesting pace changes and progressions. I think most folks would start shaking their fists at the sky around two minutes into the beast of a song but there isn’t much else on the full-length that really begs to be obsessed over or ‘felt’ in any powerful way. I’d hesitate to label ‘Steeping Corporeal Mess’ as rote so much as I’d say its presence is entirely orthodox (read: ‘safe’) as ‘classic’ death metal with a handle upon pacing that is evocative of early death/doom metal progenitors. I’m all in for it and always make the effort to see this type of band live because that is where they shine best but I wouldn’t suggest that this is a timeless classic or whatever. Nonetheless Fetid‘s debut is a very deserved punch of death metal and filth-ridden doom to the sternum. Moderately high recommendation. For preview I’d recommend “Consumed Periphery” for the prime cut and then “Draped in What Was” for the sort of horror and intensity I’d hope the band is headed forward with.

I haven't heard of this but I love the choice of title font.

TIE
120 Have a Nice Life - Sea of Worry 75 Points,2 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/XgqWoNy.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1PHM29evPgbff3brtIEh28?si=otzXTXEgRBm3jWw68JxHSQ
https://haveanicelife.bandcamp.com/album/sea-of-worry

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/have-a-nice-life-sea-of-worry/
7.4

an Barrett and Tim Macuga live double lives. To a rabid subset of the notorious 4chan forum /mu/, they are the mysterious co-founders of Have a Nice Life, whose debut record, 2008’s foreboding, gauzy Deathconsciousness, is regarded as beyond reproach; its accompanying 70-page manifesto has since begot reams of stoned hermeneutics. But man cannot survive on 4chan fame alone; Barrett and Macuga have day jobs, and day lives, with families and children who might be less enamored by the creation myths of Christian cults. Their follow up, 2014’s The Unnatural World, raised uneasy questions about settling into the tedium of adulthood. Five years later, Sea of Worry presents disquieting answers.

Have a Nice Life’s early work had a tendency to shape-shift, presenting as garage rock on one track only to unravel into ambient noise on the next. On Sea of Worry, these shifts are more abrupt; the pace of the record suffers as a result. The momentum of the triumphant, shout-along choruses on “Sea of Worry” is flatlined by “Dracula Bells,” a track rendered exhaustingly slow by awkward rhythmic shifts, multiple melodic tangents, and a painful dash of free jazz.

It’s nearly grating enough to make a new listener pull the plug altogether, which would be a shame—Sea of Worry finds the band honing in on the metallic sheen of goth rock, a subgenre consistently in the mix on previous records but never given its due. With a propulsive bassline that gives way to shimmering guitars, “Science Beat” sounds like “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” as helmed by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, Barrett’s atonal sing-speaking cutting through the blinding brightness. “Lords of Tresserhorn” plays with the same elements—twinkling synths, thrumming bass, clipped vocals—but simmers them slowly, not so much building to a chorus as painting layers of scenery.

But these ambitious experiments are paired with concessions to an active fanbase that is terrified of change. Two of the album’s seven tracks are re-recordings of demos already familiar to diehards, padding a relatively short record with old material. “Trespassers W,” originally a brooding post-punk love song with muffled vocals and a bassline ripped from “Transmission,” justifies its inclusion with a full-band remake. The new version represents what online fans feared for the band, with crunchy, overdriven guitar and full-throated yelps that are more indebted to Superchunk than Bauhaus. But the song benefits from the crisper recording, which highlights impressive chord changes and structural twists that were previously buried. “Destinos,” with a lengthy sample of a sermon about the evils of Satan and Hell, is more similar to its original version; as a closer, it makes a disappointingly safe choice for a dramatic exit.

As Have a Nice Life learn to embrace professional studio recordings and bigger audiences, perhaps the band’s most defining quality will prove to be its lyrics, a potent expression of what one might call dad rage. Sea of Worry addresses the anxieties of adulthood with vengeful indignation. “I opted out by never really opting in,” they sing on the title track, finding simultaneous freedom and sadness in the idea. But the sharpest commentary on the nihilism of total independence comes from “Lords of Tresserhorn”: “I can stay up late whenever I want,” Barrett sings, “but other than that, it’s nothing like I thought. I guess I thought I’d know what I’m doing by now, but I know nothing.” Where Matt Berninger might be ruefully fondling his argyle sweaters, Have a Nice Life eyes revolution: “I am mortgaged to an irrational thought: that we are always on top, and nothing will ever go wrong.” After two records about death, Macuga and Barrett have landed on something truly terrifying: finding oneself, inexplicably, still alive.

Dan and Tim, now adults with adult problems, are reunited by fate once again. And things aren't a whole lot better.

Have A Nice Life are a fairly quiet duo, both in the quantity of their output and I can't say their music is that loud too, except that it can get really noisy. They've always been quality over quantity, which is strange to say of a band that released a behemoth of a double album as a debut album, along with a 70 page manifesto or rather something that puts the "book" in "booklet", and a compilation of demos/alternate takes in Voids. After another EP and a full length, it would 5 years until we'd hear a new Have A Nice Life song. So that's just three full lengths in more than a decade. So you can guess the massive anticipation I had for this record. After seeing them perform two sets at this year's Roadburn, one of which were a full performance of the cult classic Deathconciousness, though I was disappointed no new songs were played, the hype was at its peak.

So when the first single dropped, which was this record's opening and title track, I did like its more post-punk direction, but I can't deny that I was slightly underwhelmed by it. Ever since I discovered Have A Nice Life, everything about them was those few records and limited number of songs, some I liked more than others, some I listened to more times that I'd dare to admit. But there it was, a new Have A Nice Life song. And it was... alright. But I made the wise decision not to draw any conclusions about the entire record and just wait until the entire thing drops so that I can stream it in one piece and enjoy the whole thing instead of calling it underwhelming based on a different song. It was a totally different experience.

Two of the songs on here are re-recordings of older songs from Voids, but even with those in their new form, Sea Of Worry goes through so many of Have A Nice Life's trademark sounds, from the very post-punk/gothic rock opener through more shoegaze tracks through more industrial and droning dark ambient cuts, it's a record that continuously changes and gets darker and noisier. All of those genre tags are fairly useless in a way due to how uniquely Have A Nice Life have always approached those, but if any of them have a strong and coherent presence on Sea Of Worry, it is post-punk, especially in the earlier half of the record, giving some credence to how I imagined "Sea Of Worry" would give clues about the record as a whole, but feeling a lot less underwhelming in context, because it's definitely the lightest song on the record and it all gets worse from there. And by worse, I don't mean quality. I mean that it's really not a nice life.

Have A Nice Life make melancholic music. That's kinda their shtick. Sea Of Worry finds two people (or maybe more, with the inclusion on this record of some of the band's live members) who used to be enamored with tales of a hunter that climbs to God on a staircase of bodies and kills Him with a flurry of arrows; but now are people with lives and children and who probably had hopes that they will have figured it out by now. You can probably guess that they haven't figured it out and the world is still pretty fucked up even as an adult, and they know it, and they're here to tell you. They've still got some talking to do about religion, but lines like "I guess I thought I'd know / What I'm doing by now / But I know nothing" do get quite hard hitting.

At this point, Deathconciousness is just too classic of a cult classic to have anything compared to it. I don't think The Unnatural World did and I don't think Sea Of Worry does. That one just had such an aura and a megalithic quality about it that just cannot be replicated. But am I glad that we got a new Have A Nice Life record and that they're more than just mysterious internet lore. For the first time, I feel like a Have A Nice Life was made by actual people instead of always having existed.

No fun. Not ever.

Spotify playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3JMsiMHffauPncEJCP4NC7?si=wnPMPREKS5Ob8YEd6krQGw

Love these guys but it didn't feel right to vote for them here.

Their previous 2 made the poll iirc

Also made it three minutes into Atlantean Kodex. It's fine, but definitely tilts too far into cheese territory for my liking.

Simon otm re: font

I'm a sucker for anything would-be cavernous and troglodytic so that Fetid album did it for me while it was on, but I wouldn't say it was especially memorable.

yeah the font on the Fetid record really makes it. The music itself is pretty good, not quite as unhinged as the 80s independent thrash record to which the font hearkens back.

As for Have a Nice Life, I liked it – a pretty convincing mishmash of styles. I guess I need to hear their previous LP next, since RYM seems to believe it contains some of the greatest music ever devised.

deathconsciousness is the one to hear.I have an og press of the cdr with booklet and 1st press of the vinyl issue with booklet

Deathconsciousness Is legitimately incredible. Deserves all the praise. Everything after it has been ok but not close to that brilliance.

118 TIE
Eluveitie - Ategnatos 75 Votes, 3 Points
https://i.imgur.com/5vXyCAp.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3krZ5MFF83oXS7gIh8aOag?si=lqlPI0ttSqOKXlrRoyV4fA
https://www.angrymetalguy.com/eluveitie-ategnatos-review/

Taking in Eluveitie‘s closing performance on 70k Tons with sentynel, I recognized something: Eluveitie is popular. Not like entry-level popular, not poser popular (well, maybe), but actually popular. The boat’s Mosh Pit Residentia showed up in spades for that set, but with the floor choked with the trve and weeb alike, group activities like conga lines and dance parties sprung up instead. Everyone knew the songs—hell, I knew the songs.1 The nonet put on too great a show to discount, far better than other bias-confirming trainwrecks I witnessed that weekend. Maybe, just maybe, I’ve written Eluveitie and Ategnatos off too soon.

“Ategnatos” opens with a potent revival of the evocative and surprisingly capable folken melodeath that made Eluveitie. The run of In Flames-core that opens Ategnatos tops anything the Swiss produced in that vein this decade. It forges a more consistent core than Origins and is just plain better than Everything Remains as It Never Was and the supremely lackluster Helvetios. Rather than waffling from folk to metal and back, or worse, undercutting the meat of their music with a thin production and folk garnish, the Ategnatos platter recalls the heyday of Eluveitie. The music breathes through the performances; the band’s energy and commitment are exactly what I expected after seeing them live. Plus, there’s no doubt that this is still Eluveitie™ folk. Bagpipes, whistles, violins, harps, a bunch of shit I can’t pronounce, and, of course, the hurdy-gurdy fill out more layers than a wedding cake at a tree marriage. Ategnatos takes all of that, the best of the experience, and catapults it at you with no remorse. The fantastic first 20 minutes of the record culminate in fifth-slated “A Cry in the Wilderness,” with the full outfit congealing around memories of their late-00’s melo-might, replete with all of the folkified big boy riffs you ever wanted.

Closer tandem “Rebirth” and “Eclipse,” modeled after Irish folk melody “I Am Stretched on Your Grave,” play bad cop, good cop. Morphing from brutal beatdown into a somber, emotional solo by female lead Fabienne Erni, they close Eluveitie‘s return to habit on a high. However, that the borrowed melody is the best on the record symbolizes what is overall a frustrating run. The nine tracks between “A Cry in the Wilderness” and “Rebirth” scuffles through half an hour of tempered folk and melodreck that’s littered with a who’s meh of influences. Modern thrash-turned-Lamb of God rip-off “Worship,” complete with overwrought biblical passages spoken by Randy Blythe?2 Lame. “Threefold Death” and its Soilwork riffery? So-so. “Ambiramus” squanders a good whistle melody on a glorified pop single, while “Mine Is the Fury” is plain old stock melo. The folky bits in “The Raven Hill” and “The Slumber” aren’t bad, but it all smacks of an opportunity wasted, given the talent on display on other parts of the record. Erni isn’t some unknown; her high ceiling for gorgeous, catchy choruses should have given Eluveitie a fall-back option. She elevated “Black Water Dawn” when given the chance, but that’s about it. “Breathe”3 is her only misstep, overselling what functions as a higher quality Aeternitas, but her spotlights on “The Slumber” and “Eclipse” are magnificent.

The production is beefy where it needs to be and smooth where it doesn’t, solving prior issues with slicing out the bottom ends of the melodeath aspects to let the folk portions breathe. The resulting connection on “A Cry in the Wilderness” is necessarily visceral, the folk elements working perfectly fine without hobbling moments of blackened brutality. Chrigel Glanzmann, already a boon as he handles eight instruments, growls quite well at times, particularly on “The Slumber”—the best of the mid-section—where he and Erni combine for a ton of atmospheric success.

Ategnatos might deserve a kinder fate, as the record features some of Eluveitie‘s best metal since Slania. But while Eluveitie showcase enough ideas to prevent the record from drying out entirely, the folk elements can’t stop the riffs from sounding tired by the midpoint. Were it twenty minutes tighter or twenty years earlier, Ategnatos might fare much better. It will still delight fans who wanted something meatier from Eluveitie‘s most recent entries, but for those of us looking for the top tier hooks or something more ambitious, it turns out we weren’t missing as much as we thought.

118 TIE
Reveal - Scissorgod 75 Points, 3 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/6ihDflY.jpg

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/reveal-scissorgod-review/

While Americans prepare to gorge themselves in turkey, cooked six different ways, and the rest of the world takes advantage of every department store (physical or otherwise) for their Hanukkah and Christmas1 shopping, I’m still in a Halloween mood. This is partly due to my date with King Diamond in a couple of weeks and the fact that Halloween flew by me this year. Work be like that sometimes. No month of horror movies leading up to the big day. No romantic nights with Elvira. No King Diamond/Mercyful Fate marathons. But, I’ll be goddamned if Halloween escapes me before 2019 ends. So, instead of turkey preparations and being thankful for the useless shit in my life, November is my new October. And, as it turns out, there’s no one I’d rather spend it with than Reveal and their third concoction of mindfucking black and death, Scissorgod.2

Before picking up Scissorgod, I’d never heard of these Swedish upstarts. Jumping on the scene with their 2011 debut, Nocturne of Eyes and Teeth, Reveal bends the traditional Scandinavian sound over and fucks it with deathly chugs, punkish attitude, and slow-moving passages. It’s raw, it’s primitive, and it’s full of no-fucks-given character. A theme stamped on every one of their EP and LP releases. Flystrips followed-up in 2016 with a stripped, bare-bones approach that’s every bit as aggressive and hateful as the predecessor. But Scissorgod is something else.

Seconds into the opening title-track, Scissorgod reveals3 some of its deep, dark secrets. And it does so via slow-moving structures, haunting guitar leads, and saxy, Sigh-like additions. Other noticeable changes heard in the opener are Scissorgod‘s improved dynamics. Dynamics that allow the bass and six-string axes to peek their heads out of the muck and filth. Not to mention, these are the band’s strongest vocals to date. But this is just the beginning.

Follow-up track, “Harder Harder”—and its partners in crime, “Clevermouth” and “Feeble Hearts”—displays a punkish quality to it. Moving fast and hitting hard, the blackened rasps punch with each kit hit and drive the album further out into the muck. The muck getting muckier with the drive and gallop of “Clevermouth.” This piece hits even harder than, well… “Harder Harder,” showing that there is no limit to the band’s aggression and their ability to stack voice, guitars, and cymbal crashes to greatest effect. The groove comes a bit later on “Feeble Hearts,” taking a backseat to effects, distant vox, and spurts of horns as only mid-career Celtic Frost or Nattefrost might do. The drums steal the show here, though, and further prove the effectiveness of the mix.

But the unsettling moments of “Feeble Hearts” are but a taster compared to those of “Decomposer” and closer “Coin Toss.” Both move like a corpse on the county examiner’s table. The former is nothing but snail-paced sinisterness and circus-y nightmares wrapped up in whispered words. It’s a creepy motherfucker that could find a place in the dark concept of Cradle of Filth‘s Midian or Godspeed of the Devil’s Thunder. But its true home is here on Scissorgod. The closer begins like “Decomposer” but with blaring horns in the background and a building presence throughout. At first glance, I would have guessed it was Carach Angren, then the peak erupts and Reveal reveals4 themselves.

With the strongest guitar leads, bass work, and vocals the band has ever put to tape, Reveal steps out of their comfort zone and pushes the envelope even harder, incorporating builds and melodics like never heard from these Swedes. The bass is stronger than ever, the songwriting is pure power, and the inclusion of horns and saxy atmospheres increases the creepy factor. Scissorgod is a sinister work of art that will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. Well done, boys, you’re just in time for list season.

Deathconsciousness is amazing, and Sea of Worry couldn't be anything other than disappointing in light of that. Maybe I should give it another chance.

Fetid isn't something I would usually enjoy, but I'm really liking it tonight.

Eluveitie growler dude's folk-meets-metalcore stylings unfailingly elicit irl laughter out of me. I like their female vocalist, though.

On the other hand, that Reveal album was pretty good, suitably hideous stuff.

Eluveitie is sounding like In Flames or something... Oh and there is a little piping.

Reveal is certainly interesting. No thrashing, no blastbeats, just really gross creepy weirdness.

yeah that's TOO LOW! scissorgod was my #3. never heard of this band until late 019, imediately assumed they were the morbus chron kids. wrong. they turned out to be way more deranged, further, harder, down that berceuse dream. they must share drugs with 'em. got obsessed with this rec, still am. that's it.

It's definitely one of the most… uncomfortable metal albums I heard last year, which is an achievement in its own right.

Reveal is grabbing my attention instantly

Oh there are blastbeats farther in. My point stands, I think.

Is that a custard cream?

A cross between that and a Byzantine icon.

imago will make this album cover as a cake for my birthday

(It's sounding really great and unsettling)

The cover is quite Stabscotch imo

117 Paladin - Ascension 76 Points, 2 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/iYuMN6l.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3HkxiSSIxRaT5HaIFR9NDN?si=ZdNiFMtpSXmH4zqHLsYsIg
https://paladinatl.bandcamp.com/album/ascension

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/paladin-ascension-review/

In my early days of metal fandom, there was a period of roughly two years – spanning from the time I stumbled upon DragonForce‘s Inhuman Rampage to when I began exploring Darkthrone‘s discography – where I listened to nothing except for power metal and thrash. During this period, as I worked on my sloppy renditions of “Eagle Fly Free” and “Battery” on a cheap Yamaha electric guitar my parents picked up at a department store, I had an epiphany: why the fuck hasn’t anyone mashed up the two best genres in the world? Sure, hybrids of these genres have long existed, but from Iced Earth to Cellador, no band managed to lean hard enough in both directions to satisfy my craving for this elusive duality. I wanted music that evoked unicorns donned with denim saddles slamming cheap beers. I wanted anti-war lyrics delivered by denizens of Middle Earth. And now – nearly fifteen years later – Paladin’s debut delivers. Even after a decade-plus of evolving taste, Ascension feels like everything I’ve ever wanted.

It’s been said that the opening sentence of any book is vital to hooking the reader. In keeping with this philosophy, the opening bars of “Awakening” command attention with an intoxicating flurry of soaring Lost Horizon guitar harmonies and sharp, party thrash riffs reminiscent of Ironbound-era Overkill. As an opener, this track is an excellent pick, but its focus on power metal acrobatics veils a more varied experience waiting immediately beyond. It doesn’t take long for Paladin to begin tinkering with its immediately successful formula, and while Ascension never loses sight of its Euro-power hooks or Bay Area attitude, elements of melodic death metal inject a welcome dose of aggression and dynamism. Paladin executes each stylistic shift with the utmost conviction, making for a record where every second feels engaging.

While most cuts represent a melding of genres, Paladin manages to divide their influences across Ascension in a way that makes each track unique. “Awakening” and “Black Omen” most heavily explore the band’s power metal side; “Call of the Night” and “Shoot for the Sun,” conversely, are more purely thrash oriented. Yet many of the best tracks here are odd ducks which find Paladin experimenting with more aggressive tones and unconventional structures. “Divine Providence,” for instance, trades off weighty melodeath gallops with Exmortus-esque neoclassical noodling. Elsewhere, “Bury the Light” splices tight, prog-power lead work with deliciously wicked, Skeletonwitch-inspired verses. Ascension’s most ambitious accomplishment by a wide margin, though, is closer “Genesis,” a mid-paced stomper that explores plodding doom riffs and blackened accents in its back half. At six minutes, “Genesis” is the record’s longest track, and feels infinitely more compelling than the longform closing numbers which plague modern power metal.

Ascension’s genre-hopping nature demands a varied vocalist, and guitarist Taylor Washington is fully capable of handling both clean and harsh vocals with skill and confidence. His clean singing can remind of Protest the Hero’s Rody Walker or Rhapsody’s Fabio Lione depending on the circumstances, while his vile, commanding growls recall the tone ex-Skeletonwitch frontman Chance Garnette. His guitar work, alongside that of co-guitarist Alex Parra, is impressively taut and harmony-rich, while the countless rhythmic change-ups and smart cymbal accents from drummer Nathan McKinney further elevate Paladin’s dynamic nature. It’s a shame those accents sound thin in the mix, but aside from diminished cymbals and kicks, Ascension makes for a reasonably balanced example of the modern metal production style. The important thing is that such a guitar-centric record has a solid guitar sound, and the strings here sound excellent, with strong, clear tones bolstering the impact and precision of both the low and high end.

It takes an exceedingly rare breed of record to capture the hearts of a majority of the AMG staff, let alone one that falls within the realm of power metal. Yet as word of Ascension spread through the offices, it quickly became the first staff-wide favorite in the genre that I can recall since Unleash the Archers dropped Apex two years ago. I realize that I’m one of the few power metal pushers on staff here, and that a 4.0 coming from me means absolutely nothing to non-devotees. Yet Paladin’s genre-bending wizardy transcends fandom, making for a level of accessible, exuberant fun that i haven’t encountered since last year’s Necropanther album. I’ve already resolved to make Ascension the go-to soundtrack for my summer. I suggest you do the same, lest you find yourself out of the loop come list season.

The YouTube recommendations led me to Nawaharjan's Lokabrenna, which seems to have come out this year on Amor Fati, and which is great so far. So if nothing else, Reveal did me that favor.

Retro 80s power metal isn't my thing but these guys are pretty good at what they do, mainly thanks to their singer.

I haven't brought it up in the 2020 thread yet but that Nawaharjan album sounded fucking incredible the first time around (yesterday). I hope that impression stays with me.

The Paladin record is pretty good so far! I don't hear anything but power metal, but it's good power metal.

Clevermouth is an incredible song

116 Nile - Vile Nilotic Rites 77 Points,3 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/STOSXnL.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/00UG7HkPlz5iF4sxdEnKs9?si=RpGy6MenTAGVnpoFmLU4xg

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/nile-vile-nilotic-rites-review/

I fucking love Nile and I’m certainly not alone. For many, they represent the upper echelons of extreme metal. But with such elevation comes even loftier expectation. Particularly after a decade of lackluster output. At the Gates of Sethu was beleaguered with limp songwriting and a vapid production whereas What Should Not be Unearthed tried too hard to make amends with blunt force boredom and impenetrable brickwalling. Such turmoil usually infers necessary change and ninth album Vile Nilotic Rites features some serious lineup alterations. Most notably, the inclusion of Enthean‘s Brian Kingsland in place of longtime guitarist and co-vocalist Dallas Toler-Wade. Despite the album being predictably marketed under the auspice of the dreaded “comeback” and the added scrutiny inherent in new membership, my question remains singular and simple. Are Nile any fucking good again?

The answer is yes. In many ways Vile Nilotic Rites is business as usual. The Egyptian lyrical themes and eastern musical motifs are as prevalent as ever, but thankfully delivered with a renewed vibrancy. To address the obvious difference, Kingsland’s voice is of a slightly higher register than Toler-Wade’s, but sounds increasingly similar as the album progresses. Stylistically, Nile don’t often deviate from their established formula and Vile Nilotic Rites is no exception. Chromatic riffing and wailing solos resound, allowing the band plenty of opportunity to ply their titaniferous content. Opener and first single “Long Shadows of Dread” is about as definitively Nile as can be and that’s no bad thing.

The album’s unique voice echos in the writing process, albeit faintly. Each track has been afforded its own identity and to some degree this works. “Oxford Handbook of Savage Genocidal Warfare”1 brandishes an immediately memorable gattling gun riff, while “Seven Horns of War” opts for churning passages with the occasional savage bluster. Such melodrama strikes a fine contrast to “Snake Pit Mating Frenzy” whose reticulated rhythms could shame even Apep’s cataclysmic coils. Unfortunately, the focus on individuality also detracts from the whole. Vile Nilotic Rites feels more like an abstract collection of songs than a cohesive album. This lack of immersion also highlights the record’s bloat, particularly in the second half. “The Imperishable Stars are Sickened” is grandiose in scale and a perfect closer. Sadly, the inferior “We Are Cursed” folds the album instead. A more scrupulous approach during the editing process might have gone a long way here. As it is, the record is unjustifiably long.

Discussing individual performances seems redundant considering Nile‘s reputation. George Kollias’ drumming is predictably superhuman and Karl Sanders still oscillates between chaotic soloing and monotone growls. Kingsland’s riffing, however, has definitely influenced the rhythm section. His more typical tech death background has fostered a prevalent vein of immediacy, which furnishes certain tracks with a, not unwelcome, linear nature. That’s not to say that the band’s signature compound of epic scale brutality isn’t still present. “Revel in Their Suffering” exemplifies its title by dual-wielding bone-cracking density and whip-sharp transitions while “Where is the Wrathful Sky” embodies its creators’ cinematic stylings. Fortunately, the material doesn’t have to contend with an abominable production. Nile have reverted to the even balance that buoys their most effective records, wisely allowing their own writing to do the talking instead of leaning on any misguided pledge of intent.

Reviewing an institution like Nile can be a challenge. The immediate question is one of comparison. How does Vile Nilotic Rites measure up to former glories? In truth, it can’t quite compare to the effortless quality and depth of In Their Darkened Shrines, Annihilation of the Wicked or even Those Whom the Gods Detest. But, under its own steam, the album is a success. It places emphasis back on the songs and it never sacrifices writing in a bid for excess. However, I would hesitate to call it a return to form. Mostly because Nile‘s ability has never truly waned. What the album represents is a return to enthusiasm – a necessary catalyst for all quality metal. Vile Nilotic Rites is a good album featuring some very good songs. But more importantly it means death metal aficionados can stop considering Nile with trepidation. Praise fucking be to Ra.

This was my introduction to Nile and it was… okay?

115 Dawn Ray'd - Behold Sedition Plainsong 77 Points,4 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/vJyU66w.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/70WWyU9uXdCHVmOurOneH1?si=0Lnv27_5SUmeFGddPPMdzg
https://dawnrayd.bandcamp.com/album/behold-sedition-plainsong

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/dawn-rayd-behold-sedition-plainsong-review/

Pyres become beacons as flames rise with a dangerously bright burn, lick the sky, and drape the green banks of the Sava river in a majestic red glow.

It’s a transporting and defiant occasion: the roaring fires ignite our inner blaze and unite us in remembrance of Partisans like my grandfather that on May 8th, 1945 freed Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, from occupying Nazi (and collaborationist) forces.

These memories of the Trnje bonfires flicker in my mind while I listen to Behold Sedition Plainsong, the second full-length of Liverpool black metal trio Dawn Ray’d. Because this is a music of awakening that sweeps away the waters of Lethe meant to make us forget what the liberation from occupation and similar historic moments stood for then and today. Reactionary forces gain strength and fight an insidious war against the heritage of antifascism. They exploit the failings of capitalism and its social fallout to point the finger at the eternal other. They recycle tyrannical ideas and repackage them into edgy, “freethinking” rhetoric. “Nazism is in the past, you fools,” they write with one hand, while the other rises into a Roman salute. “The only fascists are in your head,” they shout as their grimacing faces wink to each other. But Dawn Ray’d compel us to remember. Dawn Ray’d once again light the fires of revolt.

From the call to arms of the introductory canticle “Raise the Flails” to the anguished closing anthem “The Curse, the Dappled Light,” Behold Sedition Plainsong carries a scream of “¡NO PASARÁN!” in each blast beat, riff, and growl. Dawn Ray’d’s righteously angry and impassioned style is painfully necessary, fueled by the projected voices of the oppressed and the helpless. On “The Smell of Ancient Dust,” Simon B.’s fiery violin envelops black metal crescendos with a grandiose feeling. It gifts the cut, and most of the album, a propulsive momentum and channels it through a mosaic of solemnity, sorrow, and rebellion reminiscent of Partisan songs. “Comfort has led us to this hibernation / The struggle, less visible, has allowed us to forget,” they warn us: we don’t fight because we want to, but because we need to.

The eleven swift tracks alternate between black metal attacks and atmospheric interludes led by the violin’s mournful cries, often lost amid streams of acoustic guitar strums. The black metal barrages are especially inspired, focused on the exchanges of Fabian D.’s harmonious tremolos and Matthew B.’s disarming drum cadences. They frame the band’s stirring lyrics and explicit dialectics, which Simon B. delivers with conviction, standing sharp against pseudo-intellectual despotism. This becomes evident when the crunchy guitar strikes, booming blast beats, jolts of growled and screamed vocals, and the violin’s indomitable legatos raise their voices against worker exploitation on “To All, to All, to All!” It becomes painful when “A Time for Courage at the Borderlands” directs a punch in the gut of today’s increasingly xenophobic Europe and mourns refugees left to die on invisible borders. Finally, it becomes urgent as the mid-tempo hymn “Salvation Rite” muses about ecosystems crumbling under the pressure of the industrial machine.

Viewed from a distance, Behold Sedition Plainsong is a well-written and performed, but not flawless record—an unwelcome repetition here, a muddier section there—that owes its humanity exactly to the occasional cracks left behind by powerful messages. And while their themes might have more in common with punk and hardcore bands like Downtown Boys and Cliterati or crust influenced black metallers Iskra and Ancst, Dawn Ray’d indulge in a riotously traditionalist sort of black metal; melodious and folksy at times, raw at others, but always subverting of the genre’s dominant signifiers. Through flirting with the tropes of such an orthodox genre, each tune implicitly births an affront to the ubiquitous apologetics of neo-reactionary views and cowardly dog-whistle politics in the black metal scene.

If 2017’s The Unlawful Assembly was a furious “call to arms” and collection of “battle hymns for the coming class war,” then Behold Sedition Plainsong is the weapon for a harsher and harder offensive. The time to act is now and with Dawn Ray’d’s eternal fire on our side, we will never go fucking gently into the night.

This should be right up my alley (medieval meloblack) but the vocals are kind of weak.

tried to get into this band and record, because of their politics. gave it several shots. idk, i struggle with meloblack, i guess. enjoyed the love they got last year tho

114 Veiled - In Blinding Presence 78 Points, 3 Votes
https://i.imgur.com/1zG9KFR.jpg
https://thetrueveiled.bandcamp.com/album/in-blinding-presence

https://grizzlybutts.com/2019/02/13/veiled-in-blinding-presence-2019-review/

The auditory hallucination is without failure a signet of a failing region of the brain be it chemical, psychic or physical trauma. Disintegrating gyrus, or slashed left temporal lobe, over-extend the mind into spontaneous creation of unreal noise. The ‘earworm’ or rather the involuntary sonic recreation of memoria within a persons ‘inner dialogue’ is no less a symptom of psychosis; This despite the cultural normalcy enjoyed by those afflicted with bursts of void-filling, musical loss of control. These are in fact neologisms that most often serve to influence the mania of creation due to persistent obsessive thoughts. That the artist appear driven is not always such a voluntary or calculated persona, in fact the ecstasy we call influence is most often a necessary post-traumatic recreation, an easing of the torment experienced by those captured, hexed by the dark rituals of others. ‘In Blinding Presence’ is the result of several generations of occult musical curses, a creature of distilled moldy synapse firing under duress into sickness, mania and horror. Leipzig, Germany is unassuming ‘ground zero’ to the spread of such plague, this propagandized black essence is the untamed apocalyptic malevolence of musicians past spit through frantic vibrations and scowling hoarseness onto the skulls of future generations. (The True) Veiled appear dripping from the walls as they debut a fine coalescence of clangorous blur, a hallucination manifested as symptom of ubiquitous impending death.

Serpentine within their nihilistic pulsation Veiled endure a massive density of Scandinavian traditions deconstructed with untoward ambivalence towards traditional forms. That is to say that the shocking insight of Ved Buens Ende‘s futuristic Dali-esque hum on ‘Written in Waters’ is sped to the precise dissonant fervor of Thantifaxath and/or Deathspell Omega before a grand Hoest-like reshaping of that chaos forms as hook, and noose. The very seizure of ‘In Blinding Presence’ is ugliness and wretch beyond the relative beauteous niceties of Fleurety, Whirling or Dødheimsgard and nigh punkish in its trailing abandon. Where minds are left scoured and slaked by passing daimonian pressures onto unknowing victim that intensity approaches the stifled beauty of ‘Grand Declaration of War’, the crisp roaring hiss of early Slægt and the shamanic twitching of Wulkanaz. The guitar work is modern extreme metallic curse that’d bounce off every eardrum into psychedelic eternity, a Voivod-esque melancholia that would push the psyche into the depths and drown all hope, kill all cells, suffocate all reason.

A psychic sickness creeped its opaque tendrils across my self as I first approached Veiled, the driving noise-rocked bulge of “Triunity” expressed its rhythmic insanity as if Hasjarl had guided their hands himself and as the three minute mark approached I’d removed from husk to despair projection for the sake of self-preservation. When the silence and hidden ancient psychedelia punctuated “Bringer of Lambency” I set it aside, pushing away the trauma endured. I lay there into the early morning, window lit by the reflection of light pollution upon deep snow, and again it came in pieces and waves. For weeks, and then months ‘In Blinding Presence’ spoke to me as cursed addiction and incessant ear-twinging racket impossible to shake. Possessed and with weakened will by way of cabin fever, I gave in and resolved to wear it out; To bask in Veiled in the hopes of drying out the grip of darkness. No salvation came. Highly recommended. For preview “Steps” offers a mountain range to portend the terrifying plummet of “Bringer of Lambency” but it was “Triunity” that first scoffed and murmured with excitement as I unwittingly ventured into nothingness.

My #11 and something to tidy us over while we wait for the next Thantifaxath LP.

Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Opeth - In cauda venenum
Zig Zags - They'll Never Take Us Alive
Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension
Cloud Rat - Pollinator
Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir
Cerebral Rot - Odious Descent Into Decay
Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave
Jute Gyte - Birefringence
Crypt Sermon - The Ruins of Fading Light
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
Dysrhythmia - Terminal Threshold
Botanist - Ecosystem
Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
Obsequiae - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
Brutus - Nest
Baroness - Gold & Grey
Disentomb - The Decaying Light
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind
Vesperith - Vesperith
No One Knows What the Dead Think - No One Knows What the Dead Think
Krallice - Wolf
Shin Guard - 2020
Slough Feg - New Organon
Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas
Superstition - The Anatomy of Unholy Transformation
Car Bomb - Mordial
Wilderun - Veil of Imagination
Deus Mortem - Kosmocide
Skáphe + Wormlust - Kosmískur hryllingur
Darkthrone - Old Star
State Faults - Clairvoyant

Tomb Mold and Blood Incantation both things that seems like should be up my alley but so far haven’t clicked.

Weighted, bold DNP:

Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Funereal Presence - Achatius
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Yn Ol I Annwn
Jute Gyte - Birefringence
Botanist - Ecosystem
Witch Trail - The Sun Has Left the Hill
JAMBINAI - ONDA
Wyrmwoods - Spirit and Teeth
Car Bomb - Mordial
Lightning Bolt - Sonic Citadel
Departure Chandelier - Antichrist Rise to Power
Warforged - I:Voice
Rashōmon - Pathogen X
Moon Tooth - Crux
Ithaca - The Language of Injury
Sadness - Circle of Veins
Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations
Wilderun - Veil of Imagination
Astronoid - Astronoid
Jorge Elbrecht - Coral Cross - 002
Helms Alee - Noctiluca
La Dispute - Panorama
Skáphe + Wormlust - Kosmískur hryllingur
Mdou Moctar - Ilana (The Creator)
Uniform & The Body - Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back
Gaahls WYRD - Gastir - Ghosts Invited
Sadisme - Festering in Telepathic Communion
Quercus - Verferum
The Number Twelve Looks Like You - Wild Gods
Seer - Vol. 6
Cloud Rat - Pollinator
Shin Guard - 2020
Esoctrilihum - The Telluric Ashes of the Ö Vrth Immemorial Gods
No One Knows What the Dead Think - No One Knows What the Dead Think
Ifernach - V. Wastow
Hexvessel - All Tree
Mesarthim - Ghost Condensate
Akasha - Canticles of the Sepulchral Deity
Griefloss - Griefloss
Obsequiae - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
USA/Mexico - Matamoros
Freighter - The Den
Devin Townsend - Empath
Vircolac - Masque
Idle Hands - Mana
The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism
Veiled - In Blinding Presence
Pensées Nocturnes - Grand Guignol Orchestra

Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Deathspell Omega - The Furnaces of Palingenesia
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Wyrmwoods - Spirit and Teeth
White Ward - Love Exchange Failure
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Inter Arma - Sulphur English
Pissgrave - Posthumous Humiliation
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
Wormed - Metaportal
Abyssal - A Beacon in the Husk
Dead to a Dying World - Elegy
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Big Brave - A Gaze Among Them
Astronoid - Astronoid
Blut aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Vanum - Ageless Fire
Weeping Sores - False Confession
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas
Nocturnus A.D. - Paradox
Baroness - Gold & Grey
Vastum - Orificial Purge
Alcest - Spiritual Instinct

everyone come down to Pittsburgh in August to see 11 (I think) of the top 120 play Migration Fest!

Weighted, bold DNP in top 120

Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations
Weeping Sores - False Confession
Falls of Rauros - Patterns in Mythology
Haunter - Sacramental Death Qualia
White Ward - Love Exchange Failure
Wilderun - Veil of Imagination
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Microwave - Death Is a Warm Blanket
Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
Oozing Wound - High Anxiety
Moon Tooth - Crux
Inter Arma - Sulphur English
Eternal Storm - Come the Tide
Baroness - Gold & Grey
Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Devin Townsend - Empath
Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect
Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear
Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind
Motorpsycho - The Crucible
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Cloud Rat - Pollinator
No One Knows What the Dead Think - No One Knows What the Dead Think
Big Brave - A Gaze Among Them
Dead to a Dying World - Elegy
Nightfell - A Sanity Deranged
Ithaca - The Language of Injury
Opeth - In cauda venenum
Soen - Lotus
False - Portent
Inculter - Fatal Visions
Fvneral Fvkk - Carnal Confessions
Borknagar - True North
Midnight Odyssey - Biolume Part 1 - In Tartarean Chains
Yellow Eyes - Rare Field Ceiling
Wormed - Metaportal
Russian Circles - Blood Year
Lightning Bolt - Sonic Citadel
Gloryhammer - Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex
Saor - Forgoten Paths
Spirit Adrift - Divided by Darkness
Týr - Hel
Vanum - Ageless Fire
Idle Hands - Mana
Astronoid - Astronoid
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Botanist - Ecosystem
Serpent Column - Mirror in Darkness
Waldgeflüster - Mondscheinsonaten
Slow - VI - Dantalion

Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Sanguisugabogg - Pornographic Seizures
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations
Vastum - Orificial Purge
Undeath - Sentient Autolysis
Organectomy - Existential Disconnect
Spirit Adrift - Divided by Darkness
Frozen Soul - Encased in Ice
Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave
Haunter - Sacramental Death Qualia
Suffering Hour - Dwell
Vomit Forth - Northeastern Deprivation
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Devourment - Obscene Majesty
Mystik - Mystik
Fetid - Steeping Corporeal Mess
Fuming Mouth - The Grand Descent
Encoffinized - Chambers of Deprivation
Wormed - Metaportal
Fvneral Fvkk - Carnal Confessions
Paladin - Ascension
Undeath - Demo 19’
Warforged - I:Voice
Vitriol - To Bathe from the Throat of Cowardice
Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond the Dark
Pissgrave - Posthumous Humiliation
Cerebral Rot - Odious Descent Into Decay
Blut aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Warsenal - Feast Your Eyes
Obsequiae - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
Nucleus - Entity
Mortiferum - Disgorged from Psychotic Depths
Casket Huffer - Filth Ouroboros
Dead to a Dying World - Elegy
Elder - Gold & Silver Sessions
Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
Malignant Altar - Retribution of Jealous Gods
Traveler - Traveler
Exhumed - Horror
Midnight Odyssey - Biolume Part 1 - In Tartarean Chains
Ripped to Shreds - Demon Scriptures
Cosmic Putrefaction - At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm
Panzerfaust - The Suns of Perdition - Chapter I: War, Horrid War
Sentient Horror - Morbid Realms
Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas
Nile - Vile Nilotic Rites
Ripper - Sensory Stagnation
Algebra - Pulse?
Mizmor - Cairn

It is pretty impressive that Lingua Ignota made it onto half the ballots.

Favorite new discoveries from the countdown:

Moon Tooth - Crux
Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect
Zig Zags - They'll Never Take Us Alive
Amygdala - Our Voices Will Soar Forever
Jorge Elbrecht - Coral Cross - 002

Spotify results playlist up to date

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3JMsiMHffauPncEJCP4NC7?si=x2W_MK6uQKqchYGn32lfxQ

Thanks to all who voted and posted and nominated etc!

and pom did a great job!

My ballot

Sunn 0))) - Life Metal
Chelsea Wolfe - Birth Of Violence
Waste Of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
Botanist - Ecosystem
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Schammasch - Hearts Of No Light
Mdou Moctar - Llana (The Creator)
The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Organon
Alcest - Spiritual Instinct
Have A Nice Life - Sea Of Worry
Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear
Astronoid - Astronoid
Atlantean Kodex - The Course Of Empire
Baroness - Gold & Grey
Fly Pan Am - C'est ça
Boris - Love & Evol
White Ward - Love Exchange Failure
Elder - The Gold & Silver Sessions
Major Stars - Roots Of Confusion Seeds Of Joy
Pup - Morbid Stuff
Moon Tooth - Crux
Alameda 5 - Eurodrome
Sunn 0))) - Pyroclasts
Dysrhythmia - Terminal Threshold
Jute Gyte - Birefringence
Cave In - Final Transmission
Cherubs - Immaculada High
Coffins - Beyond The Circular Demise
The Young Gods - Data Mirage Tangram
Yellow Eyes - Rare Field Calling
False - Portent
Candlemass - Door To Doom
Avatarium - The Fire I Long For
Bölzer - Lese Majesty
Botanist - Hammer of Botany + Oplopanax Horridus
Desert Sessions - Desert Sessions Volume 11 & 12
Krallice - Wolf
Lightning Bolt - Sonic Citadel
Morne - Rust
Pharaoh Overlord - 5
Saint Vitus - Saint Vitus
The Cosmic Dead - Scottish Space Race
Torche - Admission
The Wildhearts - Renaissance Men
Yawning Man - Macedonian Lines
Falls of Rauros - Patterns in Mythology
Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension
Bloody Hammers - The Summoning
Ataraxie - Résignés

It was a great year, and a great roll-out! Thank you to the poll-runners, you all did a wonderful job. Here's my ballot, bold DNP:

The Lord Weird Slough Feg - New Organon
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
Chelsea Wolfe - Birth of Violence
Baroness - Gold & Grey
Jorge Elbrecht - Coral Cross - 002
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Chevalier - Destiny Calls
Obsequiae - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension
Astronoid - Astronoid
Elder - Gold & Silver Sessions
The Cosmic Dead - Scottish Space Race
Rainbow Grave - No You
The Neptune Power Federation - Memoirs of a Rat Queen
Black Mountain - Destroyer
Pensées Nocturnes - Grand Guignol Orchestra
Schammasch - Hearts of No Light
Pelican - Nighttime Stories
Candlemass - The Door to Doom
Lightning Bolt - Sonic Citadel
The HU - The Gereg
Bloody Hammers - The Summoning
Pinkish Black - Concept Unification
Smoulder - Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring
Swallow the Sun - When a Shadow Is Forced Into the Light
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest
Lord Vicar - The Black Powder
Russian Circles - Blood Year
Sur Austru - Meteahna timpurilor
Alcest - Spiritual Instinct
Hope Drone - Void Lustre
Mesarthim - Ghost Condensate
Monolord - No Comfort
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Spirit Adrift - Divided by Darkness
Lunar Shadow - The Smokeless Fires
Crypt Sermon - The Ruins of Fading Light
Toxic Holocaust - Primal Future: 2019
The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism

My Ballot (too busy now to do 'bold DNP'):

Inter Arma - Sulphur English
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Serpent Column - Mirror In Darkness
Schammasch - Hearts of No Light
Idle Hands - Mana
Cerebral Rot - Odious Descent Into Decay
Critical Defiance - Misconception
Imprecation - Damnatio Ad Bestias
Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations
Nile - Vile Nilotic Rites
Vastum - Orificial Purge
Wilderun - Veil of Imagination
Ossuarium - Living Tomb
Monkey3 - Sphere
Blut aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Krypts - Cadaver Circulation
Ceremony of Silence - Oútis
Moon Tooth - Crux
Witches of God - Into the Heart of Darkness
Mortiferum - Disgorged from Psychotic Depths
Disentomb - The Decaying Light
Lightning Bolt - Sonic Citadel
Magic Circle - Departed Souls
Mizmor - Cairn
Alcest - Spiritual Instinct
Epitaphe - I
Cloud Rat - Pollinator
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Sentient Horror - Morbid Realms
Troll - Legend Master
Hath - Of Rot and Ruin
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Angel Witch - Angel of Light
Brutus - Nest
Arch/Matheos - Winter Ethereal
Obsequiae - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
Departure Chandelier - Antichrist Rise to Power
Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave
Altar of Oblivion - The Seven Spirits
Infernal Conjuration - Infernale metallum mortis
Devourment - Obscene Majesty
Necropanther - The Doomed City
Warforged - I:Voice
Traveler - Traveler
Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas
Lord Vicar - The Black Powder
Reveal - Scissorgod
Dawn Ray'd - Behold Sedition Plainsong

Weighted:

Car Bomb - Mordial
Yellow Eyes - Rare Field Ceiling
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocebo
Greet Death - New Hell
Wormed - Metaportal
Andvaka - Andvana
Haunter - Sacramental Death Qualia
Kostnatění - Hrůza zvítězí
The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism
Celestial Grave - Secular Flesh
Andavald - Undir skyggðarhaldi
Gaahls WYRD - Gastir - Ghosts Invited
Știu Nu Știu - Sick Sad Love
Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Consummation - The Great Solar Hunter
Brutus - Nest
Inter Arma - Sulphur English
Moon Tooth - Crux
Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind
Takafumi Matsubara - Strange, Beautiful and Fast
Portrayal of Guilt - Suffering Is a Gift
Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations
Warforged - I:Voice
Misþyrming - Algleymi
Sinmara - Hvísl stjarnanna
Bölzer - Lese Majesty
Serpent Column - Mirror in Darkness
Cosmic Putrefaction - At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm
Mystagogue - And the Darkness Was Cast Out
Spirit Adrift - Divided by Darkness
Disentomb - The Decaying Light

FULL RESULTS

Rank Name Score Votes #1 Votes
1 Lingua Ignota - Caligula 806.0 18 4
2 Sunn O))) - Life Metal 657.0 16 1
3 Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q. 615.0 15 1
4 Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance 571.0 15 2
5 Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race 529.0 13 2
6 Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis 494.0 15 1
7 Inter Arma - Sulphur English 457.0 13 1
8 Baroness - Gold & Grey 401.0 11 0
9 Chelsea Wolfe - Birth of Violence 383.0 10 1
10 Obsequiae - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings 381.0 12 0
11 Botanist - Ecosystem 379.0 13 0
12 Vastum - Orificial Purge 369.0 10 0
13 Alcest - Spiritual Instinct 357.0 11 0
14 Wilderun - Veil of Imagination 351.0 9 1
15 Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence 345.0 10 1
16 Moon Tooth - Crux 329.0 9 0
17 Wyrmwoods - Spirit and Teeth 328.0 8 0
18 Elder - Gold & Silver Sessions 320.0 10 0
19 Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect 318.0 8 1
20 White Ward - Love Exchange Failure 314.0 9 0
21 Jute Gyte - Birefringence 301.0 8 0
22 Cloud Rat - Pollinator 300.0 10 0
23 Big Brave - A Gaze Among Them 300.0 8 0
24 Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear 295.0 7 1
25 Astronoid - Astronoid 294.0 8 2
26 Schammasch - Hearts of No Light 294.0 8 0
27 Full of Hell - Weeping Choir 275.0 9 0
28 Blut aus Nord - Hallucinogen 262.0 7 0
29 Opeth - In cauda venenum 249.0 7 0
30 Darkthrone - Old Star 246.0 8 0
31 The Lord Weird Slough Feg - New Organon 235.0 6 1
32 Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations 223.0 6 1
33 Lightning Bolt - Sonic Citadel 209.0 7 0
34 Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts 207.0 6 0
35 Witch Trail - The Sun Has Left the Hill 204.0 5 1
36 Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension 203.0 6 0
37 King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest 201.0 6 0
38 Boris - Love & Evol 200.0 5 1
39 Cerebral Rot - Odious Descent Into Decay 189.0 6 0
40 Andavald - Undir skyggðarhaldi 187.0 4 1
41 Mdou Moctar - Ilana (The Creator) 186.0 6 0
42 Candlemass - The Door to Doom 185.0 6 0
43 Mayhem - Daemon 181.0 4 0
44 Tool - Fear Inoculum 179.0 6 0
45 Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Yn Ol I Annwn 178.0 4 0
46 Car Bomb - Mordial 176.0 6 1
47 Imprecation - Damnatio Ad Bestias 174.0 5 1
48 Brutus - Nest 170.0 6 0
48 Misþyrming - Algleymi 170.0 6 0
50 Wormed - Metaportal 169.0 5 0
51 Yellow Eyes - Rare Field Ceiling 168.0 5 0
52 Fly Pan Am - C'est ça 164.0 4 0
53 Crypt Sermon - The Ruins of Fading Light 162.0 5 0
54 Ossuaire - Derniers chants 161.0 4 0
55 Disentomb - The Decaying Light 160.0 6 0
56 Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir 157.0 6 0
57 Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind 157.0 5 0
58 Haunter - Sacramental Death Qualia 155.0 4 0
59 Ghost - Seven Inches of Satanic Panic 150.0 4 0
60 Jorge Elbrecht - Coral Cross - 002 148.0 4 0
61 Falls of Rauros - Patterns in Mythology 145.0 5 0
62 Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave 144.0 5 0
63 Dysrhythmia - Terminal Threshold 142.0 4 0
64 Bölzer - Lese Majesty 136.0 5 0
64 Krallice - Wolf 136.0 5 0
66 Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas 133.0 7 0
67 Pissgrave - Posthumous Humiliation 133.0 5 0
68 Mgła - Age of Excuse 133.0 3 1
69 Warforged - I:Voice 132.0 5 0
70 Black Mountain - Destroyer 132.0 4 0
71 Funereal Presence - Achatius 132.0 3 0
72 Andvaka - Andvana 131.0 3 0
73 Weeping Sores - False Confession 129.0 4 0
74 PUP - Morbid Stuff 127.0 3 0
75 Saint Vitus - Saint Vitus 126.0 5 0
76 Major Stars - Roots of Confusion 125.0 3 0
77 Oozing Wound - High Anxiety 124.0 3 0
78 Motorpsycho - The Crucible 119.0 4 0
79 Deathspell Omega - The Furnaces of Palingenesia 119.0 3 1
80 Amygdala - Our Voices Will Soar Forever 115.0 3 0
81 Nightfell - A Sanity Deranged 112.0 4 0
82 Skáphe + Wormlust - Kosmískur hryllingur 111.0 4 0
83 Kostnatění - Hrůza zvítězí 110.0 4 0
84 The Neptune Power Federation - Memoirs of a Rat Queen 110.0 3 0
85 Krypts - Cadaver Circulation 109.0 4 0
86 No One Knows What the Dead Think - No One Knows What the Dead Think 108.0 4 0
87 Dead to a Dying World - Elegy 107.0 4 0
87 Pharaoh Overlord - 5 107.0 4 0
89 Serpent Column - Mirror in Darkness 105.0 5 0
90 Angel Witch - Angel of Light 105.0 3 0
91 Pinkish Black - Concet Unification 101.0 5 0
92 Putrescine - The One Reborn 100.0 3 0
93 Terminal Cheesecake - Le sacre du lièvre 96.0 2 1
94 Inculter - Fatal Visions 95.0 5 0
95 Drudkh - A Few Lines in Archaic Ukrainian 95.0 3 0
96 Zig Zags - They'll Never Take Us Alive 95.0 2 0
97 False - Portent 92.0 4 0
97 Russian Circles - Blood Year 92.0 4 0
99 Fvneral Fvkk - Carnal Confessions 92.0 3 0
99 The Cosmic Dead - Scottish Space Race 92.0 3 0
99 Vesperith - Vesperith 92.0 3 0
99 Vircolac - Masque 92.0 3 0
103 Coffin Rot - A Monument to the Dead 90.0 2 0
103 Sanguisugabogg - Pornographic Seizures 90.0 2 0
105 Deus Mortem - Kosmocide 89.0 3 0
106 Spirit Adrift - Divided by Darkness 88.0 4 0
107 Venom Prison - Samsara 86.0 2 0
108 Devin Townsend - Empath 85.0 3 0
108 Gaahls WYRD - Gastir - Ghosts Invited 85.0 3 0
108 Multishiva - Savupäivä 85.0 3 0
111 Mizmor - Cairn 82.0 4 0
112 Vanum - Ageless Fire 82.0 3 0
113 Ithaca - The Language of Injury 80.0 3 0
114 Veiled - In Blinding Presence 78.0 3 0
115 Dawn Ray'd - Behold Sedition Plainsong 77.0 4 0
116 Nile - Vile Nilotic Rites 77.0 3 0
117 Paladin - Ascension 76.0 2 0
118 Eluveitie - Ategnatos 75.0 3 0
118 Reveal - Scissorgod 75.0 3 0
120 Atlantean Kodex - The Course of Empire 75.0 2 0
120 Fetid - Steeping Corporeal Mess 75.0 2 0
120 Have a Nice Life - Sea of Worry 75.0 2 0
123 Nocturnus A.D. - Paradox 74.0 2 0
124 Cherubs - Immaculada High 73.0 3 0
124 Mortiferum - Disgorged from Psychotic Depths 73.0 3 0
126 Ceremony of Silence - Oútis 73.0 2 0
126 Takafumi Matsubara - Strange, Beautiful and Fast 73.0 2 0
128 Mesarthim - Ghost Condensate 72.0 3 0
129 Helms Alee - Noctiluca 72.0 2 0
129 The HU - The Gereg 72.0 2 0
131 Within Temptation - Resist 71.0 3 0
132 Celestial Grave - Secular Flesh 71.0 2 0
132 Clouds Taste Satanic - Second Sight 71.0 2 0
134 Magic Circle - Departed Souls 69.0 2 0
135 Borknagar - True North 68.0 3 0
136 Portrayal of Guilt - Suffering Is a Gift 67.0 2 0
137 The Young Gods - Data Mirage Tangram 65.0 3 0
138 Clouds Taste Satanic - Evil Eye 65.0 2 0
138 Rammstein - Rammstein 65.0 2 0
140 Suffering Hour - Dwell 64.0 2 0
140 Troll - Legend Master 64.0 2 0
142 Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocebo 63.0 3 0
143 Pensées Nocturnes - Grand Guignol Orchestra 62.0 3 0
144 Rainbow Grave - No You 62.0 2 0
144 Rorcal - Muladona 62.0 2 0
144 Sempiternal Dusk - Cenotaph of Defectuous Creation 62.0 2 0
147 Abbath - Outstrider 61.0 2 0
147 Avatarium - The Fire I Long For 61.0 2 0
149 Pelican - Nighttime Stories 60.0 3 0
150 Trepaneringsritualen - ᛉᛦ - Algir; eller Algir i Merkstave 60.0 1 1
151 Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond the Dark 59.0 2 0
151 Devil Master - Satan Spits on Children of Light 59.0 2 0
153 The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism 58.0 4 0
154 Esoctrilihum - The Telluric Ashes of the Ö Vrth Immemorial Gods 58.0 3 0
155 Casket Huffer - Filth Ouroboros 58.0 2 0
155 Valborg - Zentrum 58.0 2 0
157 Ifernach - V. Wastow 57.0 2 0
158 Idle Hands - Mana 56.0 3 0
159 Bloody Hammers - The Summoning 55.0 3 0
159 Toxic Holocaust - Primal Future: 2019 55.0 3 0
161 Eternal Storm - Come the Tide 55.0 2 0
161 Quercus - Verferum 55.0 2 0
161 Sur Austru - Meteahna timpurilor 55.0 2 0
164 Exhumed - Horror 54.0 3 0
165 Coffins - Beyond the Circular Demise 54.0 2 0
166 Alameda 5 - Eurodrome 53.0 2 0
166 Uniform & The Body - Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back 53.0 2 0
168 Sacred Reich - Awakening 52.0 2 0
169 Traveler - Traveler 51.0 3 0
170 Smoulder - Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring 51.0 2 0
171 Cave In - Final Transmission 50.0 2 0
171 Departure Chandelier - Antichrist Rise to Power 50.0 2 0
171 L'Acéphale - L'Acéphale 50.0 2 0
174 Akasha - Canticles of the Sepulchral Deity 49.0 2 0
174 Dhidalah - Threshold 発端 49.0 2 0
174 Infernal Conjuration - Infernale metallum mortis 49.0 2 0
177 Wigrid - Entfremdungsmoment 49.0 1 0
178 Abyssal - A Beacon in the Husk 47.0 2 0
178 Witchbones - The Seas of Draugen 47.0 2 0
180 Judiciary - Surface Noise 47.0 1 0
181 Yawning Man - Macedonian Lines 46.0 3 0
182 Novembers Doom - Nephilim Grove 46.0 2 0
183 Greet Death - New Hell 46.0 1 0
184 Drastus - La croix de sang 45.0 2 0
184 Misery Index - Rituals of Power 45.0 2 0
186 Myrath - Shehili 45.0 1 0
186 Undeath - Sentient Autolysis 45.0 1 0
188 Devourment - Obscene Majesty 44.0 2 0
188 Monolord - No Comfort 44.0 2 0
190 Aver - Orbis majora 44.0 1 0
190 Kampfar - Ofidians Manifest 44.0 1 0
190 Organectomy - Existential Disconnect 44.0 1 0
193 Chevalier - Destiny Calls 43.0 1 0
193 Critical Defiance - Misconception 43.0 1 0
193 Gatecreeper - Deserted 43.0 1 0
193 Mefitis - Ember Dawn 43.0 1 0
193 Microwave - Death Is a Warm Blanket 43.0 1 0
198 Shin Guard - 2020 42.0 2 0
199 Body Void - You Will Know the Fear You Forced Upon Us 42.0 1 0
199 Frozen Soul - Encased in Ice 42.0 1 0
199 JAMBINAI - ONDA 42.0 1 0
202 Abyssic - High the Memory 41.0 1 0
202 Cân Bardd - The Last Rain 41.0 1 0
202 Iron Kingdom - On the Hunt 41.0 1 0
205 Bethlehem - Lebe dich leer 39.0 2 0
206 Die Klute - Planet Fear 39.0 1 0
206 Kwade Droes - Onder de toren 39.0 1 0
208 Vomit Forth - Northeastern Deprivation 38.0 1 0
209 Belenos - Argoat 37.0 1 0
209 Big Business - The Beast You Are 37.0 1 0
209 Ossuarium - Living Tomb 37.0 1 0
209 Overkill - The Wings of War 37.0 1 0
209 Știu Nu Știu - Sick Sad Love 37.0 1 0
214 Hashshashin - Badakhshan 36.0 2 0
214 The Wildhearts - Renaissance Men 36.0 2 0
216 Gorgon - Veil of Darkness 36.0 1 0
216 Monkey3 - Sphere 36.0 1 0
216 Nebula - Holy Shit 36.0 1 0
216 Otoboke Beaver - Itekoma Hits 36.0 1 0
216 Rashōmon - Pathogen X 36.0 1 0
221 Redbait - Cages 35.0 2 0
222 Batushka - Panihida 35.0 1 0
222 Consummation - The Great Solar Hunter 35.0 1 0
222 Hot Lunch - Seconds 35.0 1 0
222 Martyrdöd - Hexhammaren 35.0 1 0
222 Mystik - Mystik 35.0 1 0
222 Queensrÿche - The Verdict 35.0 1 0
228 Hawkeyes - Last Light of Future Failure 34.0 1 0
229 Fuming Mouth - The Grand Descent 33.0 1 0
229 Maestus - Deliquesce 33.0 1 0
229 Plastic Crimewave Syndicate - Massacre of the Celestials 33.0 1 0
229 Sadness - Circle of Veins 33.0 1 0
233 Torche - Admission 32.0 2 0
234 Altarage - The Approaching Roar 32.0 1 0
234 Encoffinized - Chambers of Deprivation 32.0 1 0
234 Eugenic Death - Under the Knife 32.0 1 0
234 Transgression - Lost All Light 32.0 1 0
238 Saor - Forgoten Paths 31.0 2 0
239 Asagraum - Dawn of Infinite Fire 31.0 1 0
239 Ashes - Ashes 31.0 1 0
239 Hibushibire - Turn On, Tune In, Freak Out! 31.0 1 0
239 Witches of God - Into the Heart of Darkness 31.0 1 0
243 Cosmic Putrefaction - At the Threshold of the Greatest Chasm 30.0 2 0
243 Saint Karloff - Interstellar Voodoo 30.0 2 0
245 10 000 Russos - Kompromat 30.0 1 0
245 Diocletian - Amongst the Flames of a Burning God 30.0 1 0
245 Potential Threat SF - Threat to Society 30.0 1 0
245 Rotting Christ - The Heretics 30.0 1 0
249 Kaleidobolt - Bitter 29.0 1 0
249 Xentrix - Bury the Pain 29.0 1 0
251 Ripper - Sensory Stagnation 28.0 2 0
251 Ultra Silvam - The Spearwound Salvation 28.0 2 0
253 Ausmuteants - Present the World in Handcuffs 28.0 1 0
253 Neckbeard Deathcamp - So Much for the Tolerant Left 28.0 1 0
253 Suicidal Angels - Years of Aggression 28.0 1 0
253 Undeath - Demo 19’ 28.0 1 0
257 Midnight Odyssey - Biolume Part 1 - In Tartarean Chains 27.0 2 0
258 La Dispute - Panorama 27.0 1 0
258 Ringarë - Under Pale Moon 27.0 1 0
258 Writhing Squares - Out of the Ether 27.0 1 0
261 Lord Vicar - The Black Powder 26.0 2 0
261 Sentient Horror - Morbid Realms 26.0 2 0
263 Dreamtime - Tidal Mind 26.0 1 0
263 Goatpenis/Defecrator - Bloodpact in Cataclysmic Warfare 26.0 1 0
263 Noisem - Cease to Exist 26.0 1 0
263 Vitriol - To Bathe from the Throat of Cowardice 26.0 1 0
267 Aephanemer - Prokopton 25.0 1 0
267 Ancient Bards - Origine (The Black Crystal Sword Saga, Pt. 2) 25.0 1 0
267 Andromida - Soulseeker 25.0 1 0
267 Asphodelus - Stygian Dreams 25.0 1 0
267 BABYMETAL - METAL GALAXY 25.0 1 0
267 Battle Beast - No More Hollywood Endings 25.0 1 0
267 Batushka - Hospodi 25.0 1 0
267 Cellar Darling - The Spell 25.0 1 0
267 Deathchant - Deathchant 25.0 1 0
267 Deiquisitor - Towards Our Impending Doom 25.0 1 0
267 Delain - Hunter's Moon 25.0 1 0
267 Demon Head - Hellfire Ocean Void 25.0 1 0
267 Depressor - Hell Storms Over Earth 25.0 1 0
267 Dream State - Primrose Path 25.0 1 0
267 Edge of Paradise - Universe 25.0 1 0
267 Elvenking - Reader of the Runes - Divination 25.0 1 0
267 Evergrey - The Atlantic 25.0 1 0
267 Fallujah - Undying Light 25.0 1 0
267 Foscor - Els sepulcres blancs 25.0 1 0
267 Freedom Call - M.E.T.A.L. 25.0 1 0
267 Golgot - Estrangement I: Floodline 25.0 1 0
267 Gurthang - Ascension 25.0 1 0
267 HYDE - anti 25.0 1 0
267 Head Phones President - Respawn 25.0 1 0
267 Hellvetron - Trident of Tartarean Gateways 25.0 1 0
267 Herxheim - Cultivating Throne of Fur 25.0 1 0
267 Hollow Haze - Between Wild Landscapes and Deep Blue Seas 25.0 1 0
267 IKINÄ - Millenniaalin itsehoito-opas epävarmaan aikuisuuteen 25.0 1 0
267 Imperia - Flames of Eternity 25.0 1 0
267 Infected Rain - Endorphin 25.0 1 0
267 Ivy Crown - Echo 25.0 1 0
267 Jade - Smoking Mirror 25.0 1 0
267 King - Coldest of Cold 25.0 1 0
267 Kiyoshi - Kiyoshi4 25.0 1 0
267 Light Dweller - Incandescent Crucifix 25.0 1 0
267 Liv Sin - Burning Sermons 25.0 1 0
267 Lvcifyre - Sacrament 25.0 1 0
267 Metalite - Biomechanicals 25.0 1 0
267 Molasses - Mourning Haze / Drops of Sunlight 25.0 1 0
267 Månegarm - Fornaldarsagor 25.0 1 0
267 Nemesea - White Flag 25.0 1 0
267 Not Secured, Loose Ends - BrightDark 25.0 1 0
267 Numenorean - Adore 25.0 1 0
267 October Tide - In Splendor Below 25.0 1 0
267 PH - Osiris Hayden 25.0 1 0
267 PassCode - CLARITY 25.0 1 0
267 Pretty Maids - Undress Your Madness 25.0 1 0
267 REXORIA - Ice Breaker 25.0 1 0
267 Rage of Light - Imploder 25.0 1 0
267 Ruin - Death Tomb 25.0 1 0
267 Scarleth - Vortex 25.0 1 0
267 Signum Regis - The Seal of a New World 25.0 1 0
267 Sinmara - Hvísl stjarnanna 25.0 1 0
267 Skay Beilinson - En el corazón del laberinto 25.0 1 0
267 Spoil Engine - Renaissance Noire 25.0 1 0
267 Stitched Up Heart - This Skin 25.0 1 0
267 Swallow the Sun - When a Shadow Is Forced Into the Light 25.0 1 0
267 Tales of Evening - A New Dawn Awaits 25.0 1 0
267 The Dark Element - Songs the Night Sings 25.0 1 0
267 Tristengrav - II: Nychavge 25.0 1 0
267 Triumvir Foul - Urine of Abomination 25.0 1 0
267 Varaha - A Passage for Lost Years 25.0 1 0
267 Visionatica - Enigma Fire 25.0 1 0
267 Visions of Atlantis - Wanderers 25.0 1 0
267 Vorna - Sateet palata saavat 25.0 1 0
267 Zeal & Ardor - Live in London 25.0 1 0
333 An Isolated Mind - I've Lost Myself 24.0 1 0
333 Bergraven - Det framlidna minnet 24.0 1 0
333 Epitaphe - I 24.0 1 0
333 Sanhedrin - The Poisoner 24.0 1 0
337 Imperium Dekadenz - When We Are Forgotten 23.0 1 0
337 Polemicist - Zarathustrian Impressions 23.0 1 0
337 Unaussprechlichen Kulten - Teufelsbücher 23.0 1 0
340 Aara - So fallen alle Tempel 22.0 2 0
341 HWWAUOCH - Into the Labyrinth of Consciousness 22.0 1 0
341 Sadisme - Festering in Telepathic Communion 22.0 1 0
341 Soen - Lotus 22.0 1 0
341 Superstition - The Anatomy of Unholy Transformation 22.0 1 0
341 Wreck and Reference - Absolute Still Life 22.0 1 0
346 Akrotheism - The Law of Seven Deaths 21.0 1 0
346 Allegaeon - Apoptosis 21.0 1 0
346 Diamond Head - The Coffin Train 21.0 1 0
346 Mystagogue - And the Darkness Was Cast Out 21.0 1 0
346 Warsenal - Feast Your Eyes 21.0 1 0
351 Psychedelic Speed Freaks - Psychedelic Speed Freaks 20.0 1 0
351 Swans - Leaving Meaning 20.0 1 0
351 The Number Twelve Looks Like You - Wild Gods 20.0 1 0
354 BAEST - Venenum 19.0 1 0
354 Darkenhöld / Griffon - Atra Musica 19.0 1 0
354 Hope Drone - Void Lustre 19.0 1 0
354 Nucleus - Entity 19.0 1 0
354 Scissorfight - Doomus Abruptus Vol 1 19.0 1 0
354 Seer - Vol. 6 19.0 1 0
354 Sordide - Hier déjà mort 19.0 1 0
361 Falaise - A Place I Don't Belong To 18.0 1 0
361 Hath - Of Rot and Ruin 18.0 1 0
363 State Faults - Clairvoyant 16.0 1 0
363 Ænigmatum - Ænigmatum 16.0 1 0
365 Panzerfaust - The Suns of Perdition - Chapter I: War, Horrid War 15.0 2 0
366 Botanist - Hammer of Botany + Oplopanax Horridus 15.0 1 0
366 Sabaton - The Great War 15.0 1 0
368 Arch/Matheos - Winter Ethereal 14.0 1 0
368 Desert Sessions - Desert Sessions Volume 11 & 12 14.0 1 0
368 Imperial Cult - Spasm of Light 14.0 1 0
368 Lunar Shadow - The Smokeless Fires 14.0 1 0
368 Violet Cold - kOsmik 14.0 1 0
373 Hexvessel - All Tree 13.0 1 0
373 Kvelgeyst - Alkahest 13.0 1 0
373 Malignant Altar - Retribution of Jealous Gods 13.0 1 0
376 Desecresy - Towards Nebulae 12.0 1 0
376 Exhorder - Mourn the Southern Skies 12.0 1 0
376 Gloryhammer - Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex 12.0 1 0
379 Eggs of Gomorrh - Encomium of Depraved Instincts 11.0 1 0
379 Morne - Rust 11.0 1 0
379 Mylingar - Döda själar 11.0 1 0
382 Altar of Oblivion - The Seven Spirits 10.0 1 0
382 Amon Amarth - Berserker 10.0 1 0
382 Griefloss - Griefloss 10.0 1 0
382 Ultar - Pantheon MMXIX 10.0 1 0
386 Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean - Tell Me What You See Vanishing and I Will Tell You Who You Are 9.0 1 0
386 Ripped to Shreds - Demon Scriptures 9.0 1 0
386 Týr - Hel 9.0 1 0
389 Flamen - Furor lunae 8.0 1 0
389 USA/Mexico - Matamoros 8.0 1 0
391 Freighter - The Den 7.0 1 0
391 Monarque - Jusqu’à la mort 7.0 1 0
391 Necropanther - The Doomed City 7.0 1 0
391 Rattenfänger - Geisslerlieder 7.0 1 0
391 The Rods - Brotherhood of Metal 7.0 1 0
396 Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild 6.0 1 0
396 Profetus - The Sadness of Time Passing 6.0 1 0
398 Dream Theater - Distance Over Time 4.0 1 0
398 Wraith - Absolute Power 4.0 1 0
400 Algebra - Pulse? 2.0 1 0
400 Dunkelnacht - Empires of Mediocracy 2.0 1 0
400 Orodruin - Ruins of Eternity 2.0 1 0
400 Waldgeflüster - Mondscheinsonaten 2.0 1 0
404 Asthma Castle - Mount Crushmore 1.0 1 0
404 Ataraxie - Résignés 1.0 1 0
404 Jeromes Dream - untitled 1.0 1 0
404 Ossuaire - Premiers chants 1.0 1 0
404 Slow - VI - Dantalion 1.0 1 0

I swear to satan, next year I'm getting a power metal album into the countdown.

I didn't keep a copy of my ballot, but it's basically the tie for 267th in the full results where everything that appeared on a single unranked ballot ended up.

Paladin kind of made it, no?

xp

Thank you very much, pollrunners! I have been complety out of the loop last year so this will definitely be a helpful list of releases to check out. My first discovery of the rollout is Venom Prison's Samsara, this album is great and I wish I had voted for it.

Thanks a lot pollrunners - much appreciated - very fun to see the roll out/discussion every year!

rollout's nationality breakdown

USA(65), Finland(6), Canada(5), England(5), Norway(5), Sweden(5), Iceland(4), Australia(3), France(3), Germany(3), Switzerland(3), Belgium(2), Poland(2), Spain(2), Ukraine(2), Wales(2), Costa Rica(1), Ireland(1), Japan(1), Niger(1), Scotland(1)

Hah, that's more than 50%! Telling, isn't it…

label-wise, 20 buck spin the most represented, i'm taking a guess?

they sign flawlessly, and it's a fact they work their socks off. power to them

weighted, bdnp

Witch Trail - The Sun Has Left the Hill  
Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Reveal - Scissorgod
Vastum - Orificial Purge  
Yellow Eyes - Rare Field Ceiling
Cerebral Rot - Odious Descent Into Decay
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
Cloud Rat - Pollinator 
Coffin Rot - A Monument to the Dead
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Ceremony of Silence - Oútis
Sunn O))) - Life Metal 
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Big|Brave - A Gaze Among Them
Krypts - Cadaver Circulation
Martyrdöd - Hexhammaren
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Amygdala - Our Voices Will Soar Forever  
Coffins - Beyond the Circular Demise 
Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect
Drastus - La croix de sang
Bölzer - Lese Majesty
Krallice - Wolf
Darkthrone - Old Star
Botanist - Ecosystem
Pissgrave - Posthumous Humiliation
Disentomb - The Decaying Light
Witch Vomit - Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave
Witchbones - The Seas of Draugen
Inculter - Fatal Visions 

fave discoveries: veiled (unpretentious ~trves~ like this are welcome) and vesperith

Terminal Cheesecake - Le sacre du lièvre
Fly Pan Am - C'est ça
Multishiva - Savupäivä
Jute Gyte - Birefringence
The Cosmic Dead - Scottish Space Race
Major Stars - Roots of Confusion
Cherubs - Immaculada High
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Wyrmwoods - Spirit and Teeth
Jorge Elbrecht - Coral Cross - 002
Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Lightning Bolt - Sonic Citadel
Skáphe + Wormlust - Kosmískur hryllingur
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Pharaoh Overlord - 5
Boris - Love & Evol
Hawkeyes - Last Light of Future Failure
Plastic Crimewave Syndicate - Massacre of the Celestials
Elder - Gold & Silver Sessions
Hibushibire - Turn On, Tune In, Freak Out!
10 000 Russos - Kompromat
Kaleidobolt - Bitter
Ausmuteants - Present the World in Handcuffs
Writhing Squares - Out of the Ether
Dreamtime - Tidal Mind
PH - Osiris Hayden
Dhidalah - Threshold 発端
Botanist - Ecosystem
Mdou Moctar - Ilana (The Creator)
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Psychedelic Speed Freaks - Psychedelic Speed Freaks
Sordide - Hier déjà mort
White Ward - Love Exchange Failure
Pinkish Black - Concet Unification
Yawning Man - Macedonian Lines
Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocebo
Misþyrming - Algleymi
Car Bomb - Mordial
The Young Gods - Data Mirage Tangram
Hashshashshin - Badakhshan

Here's mine. Thanks to poll runners for your work. This was fun. I look forward to sifting the results.

Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear
Wilderun - Veil of Imagination
Big Brave - A Gaze Among Them
Blut aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Helms Alee - Noctiluca
Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect
Vastum - Orificial Purge
Vanum - Ageless Fire
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Vesperith - Vesperith
Wormed - Metaportal
Yellow Eyes - Rare Field Ceiling
Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
Wyrmwoods - Spirit and Teeth
Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond the Dark
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Witch Trail - The Sun Has Left the Hill
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Obsequiae - The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
Krallice - Wolf
Jute Gyte - Birefringence
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
Moon Tooth - Crux
Baroness - Gold & Grey
Bergraven - Det framlidna minnet
Pharaoh Overlord - 5
Ithaca - The Language of Injury
Pinkish Black - Concet Unification
Rorcal - Muladona
Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir
Imprecation - Damnatio Ad Bestias
Eternal Storm - Come the Tide
Misery Index - Rituals of Power
Xoth - Interdimensional Invocations
Krypts - Cadaver Circulation
Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas
Cloud Rat - Pollinator
Deathspell Omega - The Furnaces of Palingenesia
Disentomb - The Decaying Light
Inculter - Fatal Visions
Mdou Moctar - Ilana (The Creator)
Cerebral Rot - Odious Descent Into Decay
Cherubs - Immaculada High
Pissgrave - Posthumous Humiliation
Brutus - Nest
Car Bomb - Mordial
Inter Arma - Sulphur English
Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocebo

Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Amygdala - Our Voices Will Soar Forever
Moon Tooth - Crux
Elder - Gold & Silver Sessions
Clouds Taste Satanic - Second Sight
Mizmor - Cairn
Funereal Presence - Achatius
Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect
Body Void - You Will Know the Fear You Forced Upon Us
Dawn Ray'd - Behold Sedition Plainsong
Clouds Taste Satanic - Evil Eye
Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear
Portrayal of Guilt - Suffering Is a Gift
Kostnatění - Hrůza zvítězí
False - Portent
Big Brave - A Gaze Among Them
Inter Arma - Sulphur English
Cloud Rat - Pollinator
Transgression - Lost All Light
Asagraum - Dawn of Infinite Fire
Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
Motorpsycho - The Crucible
Neckbeard Deathcamp - So Much for the Tolerant Left
Monolord - No Comfort
Cave In - Final Transmission
Fallujah - Undying Light
An Isolated Mind - I'm Losing Myself
Imperium Dekadenz - When We Are Forgotten
Wreck and Reference - Absolute Still Life
Tool - Fear Inoculum
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Scissorfight - Doomus Abruptus Vol 1
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance
Borknagar - True North
Falls of Rauros - Patterns in Mythology
Botanist - Ecosystem
Exhumed - Horror
Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Redbait - Cages
Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean - Tell Me What You See Vanishing and I Will Tell You Who You Are
Abyssal - A Beacon In the Husk
Serpent Column - Mirror in Darkness
Misþyrming - Algleymi
Saint Karloff - Interstellar Voodoo
Dream Theater - Distance Over Time
The Great Old Ones - Cosmicism
Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
Jeromes Dream - untitled

the rest of the ranked shortlist:
Follakzoid - I
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
Blut aus Nord - Hallucinogen
PUP - Morbid Stuff
Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocebo
Jute Gyte - Birefringence
Fly Pan Am - C'est ça
Ausmuteants - Present the World in Handcuffs
Tengger Cavalry - Northern Memory, Vol. 1
Russian Circles - Blood Year
Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension
La Dispute - Panorama
John Garcia - John Garcia and the Band of Gold
Boris - Love & Evol
Chelsea Wolfe - Birth of Violence
Nebula - Holy Shit
Ceremony of Silence - Oútis
Opeth - In cauda venenum
Troll - Legend Master
Darkthrone - Old Star
Lacuna Coil - Black Anima
Dysrhythmia - Terminal Threshold
Astronoid - Astronoid
Mayhem - Daemon
Vastum - Orificial Purge
Nekrasov - Lust of Consciousness
BABYMETAL - METAL GALAXY
Desert Sessions - Desert Sessions Volume 11 & 12
Botanist - Hammer of Botany + Oplopanax Horridus
Nordjevel - Necrogenesis
Krallice - Wolf
Alcest - Spiritual Instinct
Have a Nice Life - Sea of Worry
Candlemass - The Door to Doom
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest
Wilderun - Veil of Imagination
DragonForce - Extreme Power Metal
Saor - Forgoten Paths
Baroness - Gold & Grey
Nile - Vile Nilotic Rites
Enthroned - Cold Black Suns
Noisem - Cease to Exist
Pelican - Nighttime Stories
Overkill - The Wings of War
Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Yn Ol I Annwn
Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas
Spirit Adrift - Divided by Darkness

Hi other Abyssal voter :)

hihi
I didn't put it real hi because I didn't like it quite as much as their last one, but it was still good.
I'd love to knwo who the other voter was for the two Clouds Taste Satanic albums. I love those guys, I've got like their last five as test pressings.

This was my ballot:

Imprecation - Damnatio Ad Bestias
White Ward - Love Exchange Failure
Coffin Rot - A Monument to the Dead
Judiciary - Surface Noise
Vircolac - Masque
Vastum - Orificial Purge
Aver - Orbis majora
Mefitis - Ember Dawn
Inculter - Fatal Visions
Fetid - Steeping Corporeal Mess
Infernal Conjuration - Infernale metallum mortis
Putrescine - The One Reborn
Deus Mortem - Kosmocide
Sempiternal Dusk - Cenotaph of Defectuous Creation
Veiled - In Blinding Presence
Multishiva - Savupäivä
Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect
Valborg - Zentrum
Altarage - The Approaching Roar
Celestial Grave - Secular Flesh
Schammasch - Hearts of No Light
Nightfell - A Sanity Deranged
Weeping Sores - False Confession
Elder - Gold & Silver Sessions

It’s interesting to hear the city being straightforwardly (as in, no dystopian or technocratic concept) evoked in White Ward. Also, it’s nighttime! Really nice

― tangenttangent, Friday, February 28, 2020 9:45 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

on a related "night-cityscape metal" note I recommend Basalte's Vertige.

Holy shit o. nate you were one of the Multishiva voters!

Lantlos - Neon is my favorite cityscape metal record still.

on a related "night-cityscape metal" note I recommend Basalte's Vertige.

Very much seconded.

^good album

Thanks Pom and Oor Neechy for a great poll! Misses yesterday's roll-out, will catch up on the banter later. Meanwhile, I was the sole voter for my number 1: a dark ambient ritualistic album that built up a huge house for me to live in.

1. Trepaneringsritualen - ᛉᛦ - Algir; eller Algir i Merkstave
2. Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q.
3. Lingua Ignota – Caligula
4. Wyrmwoods - Spirit and Teeth
5. Sunn O))) - Life Metal
6. Blut aus Nord - Hallucinogen
7. Jute Gyte – Birefringence
8. Ossuaire - Derniers chants
9. Andavald - Undir skyggðarhaldi
10. Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension
11. Krallice – Wolf
12. Darkthrone - Old Star
13. Fly Pan Am - C'est ça
14. Misþyrming – Algleymi
15. Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
16. Mgła - Age of Excuse
17. Motorpsycho - The Crucible
18. Elder - Gold & Silver Sessions
19. Botanist - Ecosystem
20. Boris - Love & Evol
21. Chelsea Wolfe - Birth of Violence

Holy shit o. nate you were one of the Multishiva voters!

Yeah, pretty sure it was your post that introduced me to it. It was a late discovery for me, but I'm a sucker for swirling, noisy psych.

on a related "night-cityscape metal" note I recommend Basalte's Vertige.

I remember really liking this! I should return

Meanwhile, Cattle Decapitation is like mindblowingly brilliant!! They’ve been around for ages...how didn’t I know? This would have been in my top 5 for sure.

I can't find my ballot but I'm pretty sure it was these seven albums, unweighted:
Alcest - Spiritual Instinct
Lingua Ignota - Caligula
Jute Gyte – Birefringence
Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension
Botanist - Ecosystem
Witch Trail - The Sun Has Left the Hill
Kostnatění - Hrůza zvítězí

I'm slowly catching up with Liturgy, Sunn O))), Big Brave, Fly Pan Am, Ossuaire, all of which I liked.

Tomb Mold seems to have terrified the cat.

Your cat is such a pussy...cat

Some really appealing moments on the Blood Incantation, reminding me a bit of Obliveon and Voivod.

favorite discoveries ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XykVtBm3vg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLwvW7uoi84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFeHsMDKW9s