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

40
Andavald - Undir skyggðarhaldi
187 points, 4 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4226331593_16.jpg

https://andavald.bandcamp.com

Black metal is at its best when it’s raw. And I’m not referring to tin can production quality, which has become an obsessively mandated component of the genre for purists. The rawness I’m referring to is a of a more human variety. Give me black metal that feels utterly unhinged, dripping with inexorable sadness, misery and anger. Give me black metal that does more than herald Satan’s kingdom through decades old, redundant and stale shock value, but feels instead currently gripped by a madness only explored through personal anguish and suffering. Give me despair. Give me struggle. Give me that messy, organic, raw human shit all day.

The Icelandic black metal scene has, over the past few years, come closest to hitting my above stated black metal sweet spot time and time again. It’s aggressive, wild, and inventive enough to almost invariably hold my interest, while exhibiting an emotive core that feels utterly, chaotically human. Bands like Zhrine, Sinmara, Misþyrming, Skáphe, Svartidauði, and a host of others have delivered some of the most profound and emotive black metal I’ve heard this decade, and 2019 has seen a veritable glut of releases from the scene’s most influential acts. But none have taken me by surprise quite like the debut record from Andavald, Undir skyggðarhaldi. Taking the Icelandic black metal template and tweaking it in some fascinating and effective ways, Andavald have here constructed one of the most harrowing, interesting, personal, and vital black metal records I’ve heard in a long while.

There are some key attributes that set this release apart from its contemporaries. First and most immediately noticeable is the record’s tempo. While the majority of bands in the Icelandic black metal scene are prone to utilizing manic speed as a cornerstone of their sound, Andavald take a decidedly more measured approach. As a result, the compositions on this record feel deeply melancholic, drinking sadness in a manner more reminiscent of depressive black metal than anything created by their Icelandic kin. At least that would be true if Andavald didn’t drench their music in enough frosty atmosphere to be of an unmistakably Nordic origin. It’s Icelandic black metal through and through without ever feeling cookie cutter, which in equally potent measure can be credited to the album’s vocal performance, delivered here by A.F. with absolutely breathtaking intensity. “Intense” is a word bandied about with far too much regularity around the metal blogosphere (and I most certainly implicate myself in this sweeping judgment), but here it is meant in its purest sense. The wails, screams, and howls present on these tracks feel utterly human to an unsettling degree, making them truly terrifying and often quite disturbing to sit through. “Hugklofnon” contains a section of maniacal screaming and laughter that sounds like a man about completely lose his mind or burst into tears, and the impact is nothing short of jarring. Throughout the record, A.F. delivers compelling, diverse vocal gyrations that are as unique as they are stunning, and his performance is without question one of the highlights and stand-out components of the record.

Third band of Icelanders in my top 5 and my pick for depressive BM last year, in no small part thanks to that croak.

Another one that totally evaded my radar...

a #1 vote!

#1 voters have been quite shy so far, barring an exception or two. Make some noise!

39
Cerebral Rot - Odious Descent Into Decay
189 points, 6 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1723117247_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/0Gm4wqXkQLiAfobb1G4Dth
https://listen.20buckspin.com/album/odious-descent-into-decay

Look, you guys know by now what my deal is with death metal. I love that shit. Cannot get enough, ever. In many ways, it’s the perfect genre of metal: unusually tight stylistic constraints in terms of instrumentation, vocal style, production, and theme come together to form a musical, tonal, aesthetic language that prizes nuance, subtle variation, and a willingness to engage openly with the sound and aesthetics of the artists and albums of yore. Where some people hear unoriginal, uninspired, or lazy music, I, the wizened sage of Ough, hear bands that are proudly carving their own niche into one of metal’s most steadily-growing monuments. 

Cerebral Rot are the latest band this year to have me pondering and openly lamenting the fact that most people either don’t see it the way I do or don’t seem to care. Sure, the rising surge of death metal bands that are taking up the genre’s classic mantle is steadily growing into a filthy tidal wave courtesy of plenty of benefactors and gospel-spreaders similar to myself, but I still can’t help but be confused that other people simply haven’t let death metal into their hearts yet.

Odious Descent into Decay may not change any minds or reach into the stony hearts of classic death metal’s ardent detractors, but by God, it should. Those people have no idea what the hell they’re missing. The record has the same sort of sonic legibility on its face as other 2019 albums like those of Fetid, Ossuarium, or Krypts. And, just as with its compatriots, Cerebral Rot betray to those with a keener, more learned ear the exact same deep and heartfelt knowledge of the forgotten, obscure, underground treasures that the internet has given all those with the curiosity to match their ability to stomach subpar production. Cerebral Rot are a fireworks display recognizing and honoring all those who bemoan the way metal journalists don’t give any of the deserved credit to their early-90s Finnish death metal demos of choice.

Some solid doomy DM that I didn't vote for.

Andavald was my number #9. It's very melancholy for a BM record, which is what attracted me.

my #9.

pretty much all i really need from dm

Nice. This was somewhere in the 20s on my ballot. Really well done gross death doom.
Will have to give Andavald another shot cause it did nothing for me on one listen last year.

Surely you need to sink further into the sands of depression.

Sage advice :)

Coming up: forkcore nigh disowned by the 'Fork.

coffin rot was my #9. cerebral rot was my#6. a rot mess, sry

38
Boris - Love & Evol
200 points, 5 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0108178099_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/6nwy5F5CdGffhlA6BuQM6r
https://boris.bandcamp.com/album/love-evol

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/boris-love-and-evol/

New Boris albums once offered joyous upheaval and a sense of shock. At their best, and sometimes their worst, they ventured into whatever forms fit their loose-fitting creed of “Heavy Rocks.” Pink, one of the band’s early, essential breakthroughs, moved from the reinvented shoegaze anthem “Farewell” into wild-eyed D-Beat and squalid noise-rock, as if beating a gleeful retreat from perfection. Sure, there have been gimmicks and missteps along the way, but Boris’ restlessness has often been rewarding and contagious.

But it is hard to muster much more than a shrug for LØVE & EVØL, Boris’ double-album debut for Jack White’s Third Man Records. LØVE & EVØL finds Boris at a strange career crossroads—or, rather, just beyond it. Three years ago, they recorded what was meant to be their farewell album but instead stumbled into Dear, their most ecstatic and aggressive LP in years. Boris sounded reborn, their vows renewed. LØVE & EVØL, however, suggests that the euphoria of this second honeymoon has faded. These seven anemic songs find Boris becoming something new yet again—self-satisfied.

They remind us of a lot of their best tricks: Wata’s solos, like the one that leads the lumbering “LOVE” out of its torpor, still streak across these tracks like a rainbow somehow appearing against a moonless night sky—few guitarists sound so rapturous with a trick so simple. And in its ascendant second half, “EVOL” recreates the band’s most disorienting and beautiful effect—the ability to drop down in tempo, key, and distortion and still shoot for the stars, as if the rules of gravity have been temporarily reversed.

Yet another #1 vote.

Boris are generally too playful for me. Metal is serious business, folks.

I loved the opening track on this but the rest didn't seem to do much for me.

Theyve hit an actual return to form over the past few albums and its great to hear. I think they've shed most of the fans they picked up with pink/smile as they aren't flavour of the month anymore and have got some of the older fans back with their releases over the past couple of years

37
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest
201 points, 6 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0402916090_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5Bz2LxOp0wz7ov0T9WiRmc
https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/infest-the-rats-nest-2

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/king-gizzard-and-the-lizard-wizard-infest-the-rats-nest/

Heavy metal demands true devotion. It disdains the hipster tourist; it maintains purity through its own antifa(lse metal) movement; it requires that at least 85 percent of your wardrobe be given over to black band t-shirts. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, on the other hand, are non-commital by nature—the ever-mutating Aussie psych-rock outfit are synonymous with impulsive aesthetic shifts, resulting in a deep, frequently updated discography in which no two albums sound alike. But even by the Gizzard’s scatterbrained standards, 2019 has yielded two albums so diametrically opposed, you’d think one of them was mislabeled. Following the whimsical electro-glam boogie of April’s Fishing for Fishes, the Gizzard return with Infest the Rats’ Nest, an album that embraces the contentious stance that metal isn’t necessarily a way of life, but a passing mood we all feel from time to time.

Infest the Rats’ Nest’s throwback thrash isn’t just a matter of Gizzard king Stu Mackenzie upgrading his favorite Lemmy band from Hawkwind to Motörhead; it’s a raging response to a world where even the most despairing UN climate reports barely make a blip. King Gizzard are no strangers to getting heavy, but Infest the Rats’ Nest is their most succinct and single-minded statement to date, presenting a vision of modernity where fleeing Earth to begin civilization anew in outer space looks less like sci-fi and more like docudrama. And when devising a soundtrack to imminent eco-pocalypse, drug-resistant disease, and furious contempt for the planet-killing powers that be, only the most merciless metal will do.

With a handful of members tending to other musical and familial obligations, Infest the Rats’ Nest finds the Gizzard in a rare power-trio formation: Mackenzie is backed by fellow guitarist Joey Walker and drummer Michael Cavanagh. As a result, the album forsakes thrash’s technical precision and more grandiose, prog-inspired qualities for a gritty immediacy redolent of the genre’s early days. While jackhammer beats and gratuitous shredding abound, the album also shrewdly connects the dots between thrash and its ’70s-metal forebears: The murderous charge of “Planet B” (as in: “there is no”) peels down the asphalt laid by Deep Purple’s “Highway Star,” while “Mars for the Rich” mimics the bloozy, brontosaurus chug of Black Sabbath’s “Hole in the Sky.” But if King Gizzard’s take on thrash still bears their stoner-rock stamp—particularly on the sludgy “Superbug”—Mackenzie treats the occasion like heavy-metal Halloween, abandoning his natural singing voice for a Venomous bark that favors hook-free howls and minimalist rhymes (“Counterfeit! Hypocrite!”; “Auto-cremate! Self-immolate!”) to hammer home his doomsday prophecies. (Only lines like “shoot the dingo while the shit goes out the window!” remind you that you’re still listening to Australia’s most proudly absurd rock group.)

Haven't heard this as I usually avoid stoner metal (probably because I'm not much of a stoner myself).

Can't stand this lot for some reason

I like them and this album is fun, but not more than that.

That awful band name, namechecking Motörhead, heavy metal and 'electro-glam boogie'.... Not touching this with a ten foot pole.

lol I don't blame you.

The sort of band who'll record an album inside of a week with absolutely minimal regard ot songwriting, have some sort of weird tuning, and put the word 'microtonal' in the fucking album title like they just invented it. I'm sure they're freaks but they're really annoying freaks

As an aside, it's kind of amazing how averse I am to 'heavy metal' in general even as I worship Sabbath.

wE dId A mETaL aLbUm!

The sort of band who'll record an album inside of a week with absolutely minimal regard ot songwriting, have some sort of weird tuning, and put the word 'microtonal' in the fucking album title like they just invented it. I'm sure they're freaks but they're really annoying freaks

There's plenty of gems/jams scattered across their albums. They seem to thrive on limitations and concepts as frameworks to compose in/around, which is totally fine. I just didn't think this was a standout album for them.

I'm being harsh. They did that one good psych pop song early on at least

Sund4r is definitely behind this one…

36
Glenn Branca - The Third Ascension
203 points, 6 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1165242204_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5a1XfxTK4jgBJ8E3X1xvOD
https://glennbranca1.bandcamp.com/releases

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/glenn-branca-the-third-ascension/

“There are very few animals that kill their own kind.” Avant-garde composer Glenn Branca often began interviews with bleak screeds on human existence. “We’re vicious, psychopathological beasts,” he said in 2011, referring to our planet as a “disgusting shithole.” It was easy to take one look at Branca, drink in hand and perpetually smoking, and think you had him figured out. It was even easier to hear his vitriolic compositions and find them oppressive and terrifying, as John Cage famously did in 1982. But there was always an armored optimism in Branca’s work that suggested: If we can get lost in this maddening sound, we might be able to transcend our shared shithole, if only for a moment. With Branca’s final work The Third Ascension, released a year and a half after he died of throat cancer, the composer and his ensemble take the familiar instruments of a rock band and transform them into machines of calculated pandemonium, whose noise is so merciless it’s blissful.

The concluding entry in his Ascension series, The Third Ascension premiered at New York’s famed art space the Kitchen in February 2016, where Branca and his ensemble were recorded for this very album. Branca, dressed in his trademark black duster and slacks, flailed around the stage as he conducted for bass, drums, and four guitars (one of which was played by his wife, Reg Bloor). His movements were spasmodic, and he occasionally shimmied his hips like a beleaguered Elvis. He grumbled between songs, brief quips about the best hot dog he’d ever eaten, or a dig at John Zorn. He kept his sheet music in a plastic shopping bag, which, if memory serves, had a yellow smiley face on the front. It was the only concert I’d ever been to where earplugs were forcefully handed out at the entrance, like safety goggles at a gun range.

Branca was known to say that if you didn’t like loud music, you shouldn’t bother with his. At live performances, you had no option regarding volume. When it comes to his albums, you unfortunately do. But heed the man’s words: The Third Ascension should be played at full blast, neighbors and landlords be damned. One of the most exhilarating aspects of Branca’s music is the amount of aural hallucination it inspires—a frequent side effect of listening to his work is hearing things that aren’t really there. “The Smoke,” a 16-minute odyssey that kicks off like the opening credits in a western film, eventually bursts into a fit of distortion, and it appears as though a synthesizer simulating gale-force winds has been added to the mix. On closing opus “Cold Thing,” Branca’s guitar quartet sounds like a squad of machine guns firing at point blank range, and yet the continued roar somehow registers as distant screaming, air raid sirens, and a choir of angels all at once.

I haven't heard it yet, but it's on my list.

I'm being harsh. They did that one good psych pop song early on at least

Papier Mâché Dream Balloon! <3

I knocked it off my ballot for some reason I can't recall, but have no qualms with it showing up here. RIP

yup sund4r is responsible for this, hurrah!

My #10. Probably listened to it the least of all the albums I voted for, but it's memorable, and great.

the album cover is definitely metal enough for entry

Very true.

35
Witch Trail - The Sun Has Left the Hill
204 points, 5 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0766589755_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2tp9Fj7RuhOmXcA1O8ipOt
https://witchtrail.bandcamp.com/album/the-sun-has-left-the-hill

https://grizzlybutts.com/2019/11/15/witch-trail-the-sun-has-left-the-hill-2019-review/

Punks don’t just happen upon enlightenment, right? The long-standing tradition of the reactionary flinging their body, and ‘self’, into the fire of psychedelics when seeking relief from any congealed societal ache is yet upheld by virtue of the unchanging brutality of existential dread. Far beyond the greenest corner-of-the-eye shade an irascible venture into psilocybin could provide, the isolation and disconnection provided by these substances manifests most wildly in complete darkness; The biggest picture relatable to the species, poisoned and projecting into invisible worlds, comes when the astral-viewer reaches the frozen void of space where the war between light and darkness is proven hopeful fable and an antiquated notion of men. Without this great dilation of all senses the defiant will forever be the shortsighted warrior of the light, the underdog reactionary; A furiously shitting ostrich eating with his head tucked warmly in his own pile. Where does this ‘enlightenment’ come, then? Do we mourn the grey area, as the light goes to die? By law, it is the only truly proven constant. Do we grasp and hug this old concept of ‘nothingness’, bite down on the strap, and cease all meaning? Cease to see the wars of everyday life as anything but the absurd, fractally-sprouting nonsensical downward spiral it is, you fool, and bear down on the darkness. The only question left, in my mind at least, is what to do with the mind while the body is burnt to a crisp amidst the impending suffocation-by-fire of all mammals on Earth? The cause of all suffering is greed. Somewhere in the midst of this 30-minute psychedelic post-blackened post-punk record from Ghent, Belgium wunderkind Witch Trail hashes at least some of the best answers out, first through brain-bursting genre defiance and then by way of its equally shot-gunned concept.

There is an end to suffering. The pains of growth end physically here, where a grand metamorphosis is complete by way of Witch Trail successfully crossing the pale from morbid thrashing metalpunk maniacs (‘The Witch’s Trail‘, 2013) to a post-black metal act toying with post-punk and noise rock ideas (‘Thole‘, 2016). Their sound at that point was akin to modern atmospheric black metal groups from the Netherlands such as Iskandr, Wiegedood or Fluisteraars but their style was relevant to the atmospheric lilt of ‘Sweven’-era Morbus Chron and thereabouts (see: “Residue”) thanks to persistent psychedelic wanderlust that’d build toward pointed and intense post-rock and/or post-punk songwriting. There are no comparisons to be made with ‘The Sun Has Left the Hill’ and its tenfold expansion beyond that breakthrough– It is a one-of-a-kind headpiece crowning Witch Trail alone, beyond any poe-faced post-black metal creatives who’d never thought to be this bold with their sound design. They’re still a punk band, though, and it warrants pointing out that this gaunt Ghent-based trio are healthily kicking out a mutated modern noise/post/indie-rock level of songwriting throughout their second album and all of the riffs are designed to hit the ground running; A jaggedly directional spontaneity only amplified by a distinctly psychedelic glass-shattering guitar sound that doggedly characterizes the shifting mood of ‘The Sun Has Left the Hill’. Despite the massive doubling down on ‘hipster’ black metal aesthetics, Witch Trail avoids even a whiff of this last decade’s obsession with the crescendo-thickened post-metal style currently infesting every weary corner of extreme metal thanks to an avoidance of typical black metal rhythm; It will inevitably be labeled as ‘black n’ roll’ by many because of this.

Awesome stuff. Went from never heard to very high on my ballot in the last day or so before voting

Another #1 vote! I didn't give this a proper chance and I don't know why, since the reviewer namechecks Iskandr, Wiegedood and Fluisteraars (the latter's new album is coming out tomorrow btw).

woah, no idea what this is

I gotta say, I'm fairly surprised by rankings and results so far.

Yes!! Thanks to DAM for this. Heard a few days before the poll deadline, straight in at #8 on my ballot. Fuzzy punk bm with lots of character

Haven't heard it, but definitely will, mainly due to the namechecks Pom already mentioned.

The track Afloat is a monster

my #1!

it really is uncategorizable

got some traction in the branca metal thread, didn't expect it this high, tho. shout outs to the other 4 voters

gaudio becoming the go-to post-punk-metaller between this and Reveal

gaudio's main poll ballot was awesome

Or nominations in this maybe...I can't remember. Something was good