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

Picked up the Coffin Rot.

Some really great stuff. The guitar tones sound like 80s Trouble filtered through death metal.

YES! :D

Love this more than I should. Voted for it obv.

While I don't love these guys as whoever put them at #1 (Siegbran maybe?), they seem incapable of making a bad album. My #13 (heh) and therefore TOO LOW.

*as much as

I haven't heard this one yet as it somehow passed me by when it came out, I loved the previous one.

Then chances are you'll love this one as well.

good good. What was the controversy about them btw? It wasnt actually band related was it?

This is more thorough than what I could muster:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mgła#Controversy

Ok so since this is a NSFL cover, you'll need to click on the link if you're a curious cat.

67
Pissgrave - Posthumous Humiliation
133 points, 5 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3301336635_16.jpg (NSFL cover)

https://open.spotify.com/album/1iTPEduzZ4XhOJEjWAbQaW
https://pissgrave.bandcamp.com/album/posthumous-humiliation

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/pissgrave-posthumous-humiliation/

Pissgrave had only one option: to get more extreme. In 2015, the Philadelphia band released one of the most disgusting death metal albums in recent history, Suicide Euphoria. A more frenzied version of Revenge’s blasting war metal, the album led with cover art where bones floated in what’s most politely called brown death goop. Posthumous Humiliation makes the gore even more clear, sporting a ripped-open face with its jaw prominently split in two. If you’re familiar with goregrind’s frequently exploitative, voyeuristic tradition, it’s nothing new, though most goregrind bands wouldn’t pass the muster of a tastemaking, subgenre-agnostic label like Profound Lore. As such, some potential Pissgrave fans may actually be turned off by such a blatantly malevolent image. But the music matches it: Posthumous Humiliation is gratuitously violent, getting off on its own vulgarity. It is not the first great death metal album of 2019 in spite of being reprehensible but because of it.

Pissgrave are again chiefly driven by war metal’s savagery-above-all approach, but the crucial difference comes this time with intensity. Despite its fury, war metal—black metal concentrated on speed and near-endless blasting, nothing else—is tight and controlled. Pissgrave are not sloppy, but they understand that carnage is messy, and their music should reflect that reality. Humiliation is louder and noisier than Euphoria, as Demian Fenton and Tim Mellon render endless sheets of mangled guitar noise, screamingly incoherent but cohesive. Blown-out riffs, torrential blastbeats, and vocals so low they seem subterranean crowd the same space, inseparable in their pain. “Emaciated” has what you could loosely call guitar solos, so damaged they make Kerry King’s Reign in Blood squabbles sound like the disciplined work of some YouTube shredder. Even when these leads suggest something familiar, like the swells and carnivorous bird pecks of “Into the Deceased,” they feel wonderfully senseless.

As with the cover, those guitar sounds may suggest that Pissgrave only provide denim-and-leather’s version of shock and awe. But there’s more here. Where their chaos ultimately leads is not as important as its blistering, tumultuous course, akin to Cecil Taylor’s percussive, jarring piano flights or Australian extremists Impetuous Ritual’s howling towers of noise. They seem free and unplanned, not deliberate. Each track is a new trial, a chance to live again through a cycle of misery and pain. Are the opening blasts in “Canticle of Ripping Flesh” and “Celebratory Defilement” the same as opener “Euthanasia?” Not quite—it just feels that cyclical, the ultimate source of Pissgrave’s bloodlust. “Catacombs of Putrid Chambers” seems like it offers a different path through Incantation-like dirges, yet it’s ultimately the same torture.

Yay! This one was further down my ballot but love these peepees

more fey Pitchfork metal, I see.

Yep, this too is forkcore. It's a hard and fast law.

i wanted to check out that warforged before i voted, no time like the present

Huzzah! My number uh 27. Good gross shit.

i regret looking at the pissgrave cover

I assume unperson would have voted for this if he deigned descend from his Tower of Brutality.

Can't say I didn't warn you!

Next one I thought would be way higher given how excited everyone seemed to be whenever the band's name would come up in the rolling metal thread.

66
Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas
133 points, 7 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0376496450_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7pp0eBrLEcmprISZOmY4ve
https://cattledecapitation.bandcamp.com/album/death-atlas

https://thequietus.com/articles/27528-cattle-decapitation-death-atlas-review

Despite a volume of reported warnings from ecologists and other learned academics for decades, the rapid degradation of our planet at humanity’s hand has now become a hot topic. However, instead of dealing with such evidently serious issues in a productive, inclusive manner, we have done what we always do: split into factions to push disparate agendas and argue in circles, all the while our billowing emissions increasingly tighten their death-grip on our collective throat and everything suffers.

To be fair, we probably all deserve extinction, since we have chosen money as our god and our selfishness gets in the way of creating a better, more sustainable world. This is pretty much the underlying nihilistic stance death/grind phenoms Cattle Decapitation have been firing off about on socially conscious screeds such as 2004’s Humanure (replete with striking vegetarian friendly artwork of a cow defecating human remains), 2006’s Karma.Bloody.Karma and on a grander scale, the rightfully acclaimed Monolith of Inhumanity (2012) and its follow up, The Anthropocene Extinction (2015).

As we reach boiling point – environmentally and socio-politically – Cattle Decapitation’s conceptual message has never been more timely. "The core concept of this record is humanity's insignificance despite what we've convinced ourselves," explains vocalist Travis Ryan in the press release accompanying the promo. "That's kind of why this album cover takes place in space, to remind you that 'the universe always finds a way to purge’. In the grand scheme of things, our species is merely a fleeting thought.”

Wow. Very low

Lotta people liked it but no #1s

I loved the singles a lot in isolation but the album as a whole didn't come together for me like the last one did, both due to length and production I think

How does it stack against their previous stuff? It was my first encounter with the band and I didn't get much out of it tbh.

(xp)

voted for this one! think it placed appropriately. for my money their masterpiece is still monolith of inhumanity but this came close and is just the brutal and catchy record about climate change i wanted

The climate change spoken word warnings really made this one. Just like the violins did for Weeping Sores. Lol, I'm doing this metal thing so wrong :)

Awesomely literal cover art imho.

Simon H otm
Was super hyped off the singles but found it kind of a let down compared to their last two when taken all together. Still I threw it on my list at 46.

y'all were right about this funereal presence record

Yes! I’ve been waiting for more people to freak out about it.

That new Pissgrave is literally the first time a cover art has legit stopped me from buying an album. I must be getting soft in my old age.

I love that the narration on that Cattle Decapitation record means the drummer from Phish now has his own page at the Metal Archives.

We've got a tie, ladies and gentlemen! Last one of the rollout.

TIE 64
Krallice - Wolf
136 points, 5 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2009963986_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/4mgiok969U9SPO1fh12HiI
https://krallice.bandcamp.com/album/wolf

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/krallice-new-york-metal-band-wolf-777567/

Think of Krallice as the underground-metal equivalent of a gourmet food truck. Much as that set-up allows a chef to make their own hours and cook pretty much whatever they want, this Queens, New York, band’s M.O. affords them an unusual degree of logistical and creative freedom. They tour infrequently, record all their material in-house at guitarist Colin Marston’s Menegroth studio and release music direct to Bandcamp with little fanfare, at whatever rate feels comfortable to them.

If their methods are humble, the end product is anything but. Krallice’s output — like Wolf, a new 15-minute EP marked by daunting musical density and a diverse range of extreme-metal approaches — is some of the more challenging and surprising in the contemporary scene, a fact that’s reflected in their passionate cult fan base. The more they do exactly as they please, the more their renown seems to grow.

A new Krallice release doubles as a reminder of how tough, and probably pointless, it is to try to categorize the band. Their Bandcamp page contains the self-description “black metal or not.” It’s a terse statement but a telling one. Metal remains taxonomy-obsessed, with acts being slotted into ever-tinier niches, from “tech-death” to “blackgaze,” but the best bands don’t seem to pay the slightest attention to genre (or subgenre) signifiers. Since their inception, Krallice have morphed again and again, drawing initial inspiration from Nineties black metal but gradually growing proggier and more imposingly technical, as heard on 2015’s excellent Ygg huur.

TIE 64
Bölzer - Lese Majesty
136 points, 5 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4274797077_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0Gg4QDrVUfIHzCUO5Isdzs
https://bolzer.bandcamp.com/album/lese-majesty

http://www.metalstorm.net/pub/review.php?review_id=15342

The Swiss duo Bölzer won a good deal of street cred earlier in the decade with their Aura and Soma EPs, featuring thunderous blends of blackened death metal with a distinctly modern twist. They followed them up in 2016 with a proper full length in the form of Hero, which generated something of a mixed reaction in yours truly. While it moved in a more epic, melodious direction that was quite enjoyable, it did so almost at the sacrifice of the riff heavy, memorable compositions of the band's earlier history, and felt as though it was missing some vital element of forward momentum. 2019's Lese Majesty essentially merges the Hero sound with the more riff driven sound of Bölzer's earlier days, resulting in a formula that feels more balanced, cohesive, and mature. Opener "A Shepherd In Wolven Skin" establishes a style that is more or less followed throughout the rest of the release: catchy and full of energy, but with an underlying sense of harmony and warmth that was lacking with the band's earlier material.

On Lese Majesty Bölzer still retain many of the more epic elements from Hero, but here they appear to have exerted a lot more control over how they're integrated into the music. Particularly notable would be the use of clean vocals, a polarizing ingredient that first reared its head on Hero and seems a lot more refined here, better positioned around the harsh vocals and seeming to be utilized primarily during the climaxes of the compositions. Additionally Bölzer seem a lot more comfortable experimenting with atmospheric, ambient type moments, such as on the interlude-like "Æstivation," a technique I'd definitely like to see them play around with more in the future. With all that said, Lese Majesty still maintains a certain gravity with the upbeat, riff heavy style that forms the bulk of its compositions (see "Into The Temple Of Spears" especially), a gravity that doesn't feel as compromised as it was on Hero.

With Lese Majesty Bölzer really seem to have learned from both the successes and failures of Hero, taking the more dynamic and atmospheric ingredients from that album and using them as more of an embellishment upon their compositions than as the predominant element. The result is a release that sees the band going back to their more riff based fury, but also upgrading that approach with an added sense of nuance and ambiance. Love it or hate it, one thing that can't be denied about Bölzer is their commitment to evolving their craft. Compared to where they were at the start of the decade, the band have grown a lot in terms of sound, and Lese Majesty closes out the decade on a considerable high note for them while also generating much curiosity about just where they may choose to go from here.

I fuckin love Krallice but I...sorta forgot this cool lil release existed

I like the idea of Krallice better than the actual music, but I'm always happy to hear new material by them. As for Bölzer, that review mirrors my own feelings for the most part.

So two EP's were tied? Not often EPs make polls

As a side note, both are EPs, which makes for a rather unusual tie.

xp!

I only voted for one EP but I'm hoping it will top these.

63
Dysrhythmia - Terminal Threshold
142 points, 4 voters

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3804832551_10.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/72wKTJ6Z4MEIg72x8tStGA
https://dysrhythmia.bandcamp.com/album/terminal-threshold

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/dysrhythmia-terminal-threshold-review/

It’s been almost three years to the day since I reviewed Dysrhythmia’s last album, The Veil of Control. Of course that one appealed to me: it was loaded with virile, complex songs that at times borrowed heavily from King Crimson⁠—specifically, that band’s The ConstruKction of Light era. Dark, heavy, and discordant, it all added up to an enjoyable romp through instrumental prog-metal fields. By not overstaying its welcome (6 songs in 36 minutes), the album managed to hold my attention longer than many other instrumental prog albums. So three years on, the trio has dropped a new album in my lap, Terminal Threshold, complete with some mind-bending cover art. Color me excite.

It’s clear from the outset that things are different for Dysrhythmia this time around. A quick glance at the tracklist is one hint: 8 songs on this one, but only 32 minutes of runtime. No song is more than four and a half minutes long. From the opening fade-in of “Nuclear Twilight,” it’s clear Terminal Threshold is not going to be the same as The Veil of Control. “Nuclear Twilight” is loaded with thunderous toms and jagged, thrash-like riffs. It’s an insanely complex and busy track; thank goodness it doesn’t last much more than four minutes, because I get dizzy listening to it.

No idea what this is but that description sounds pretty cool.

One of my votes

I loved the last one but had a hard time cracking this one for some reason. I'll try again at some point.

We're kinda in the sund4r section of the poll except sund4r says he didn't pay much attention to metal last year so wont have voted for these albums , which he almost certainly would have if he had heard them, as he has liked and voted for them before.

Quite a lot of folk didn't keep up last year either. Was 2019 seen as a weak year?

Because I didn't keep up last year*

(*I didn't keep up as much as I normally would but for different reasons, lol)

I thought it was an excellent year but this may well be predicated on the sheer volume of time spent sampling left and right. So-called bad years are usually those when I wasn't paying attention.

Next up: one of the tautest, most bad-ass listening experiences of 2019.

I think for most people a great year is multiple underground albums getting critical and a bit of commercial success.

Others its judged by mainstream crossover success. And has there been much of the latter recently? Any top 10 albums?