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

The 'Fork was none too impressed, though.

placed low on my ballot - maybe not quite up to the debut but still pretty damn great, and no one else sounds quite like em

yeah i didn't find this as mindblowing as the debut but it's still good

i'm guessing moon tooth placed higher? not that they have much to do with each other besides touring together, but that record's a definite case of a second album breakthrough

god seeing them on the same night ruled so much

24
Cult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear
295 points, 7 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2342486250_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5wF8QXoGV5Woz6EzfZjMZC
https://cultofluna.bandcamp.com/album/a-dawn-to-fear

https://thequietus.com/articles/27201-a-dawn-to-fear-cult-of-luna-review

Cult of Luna's return treads a lot of ground, not all of it new. Nonetheless, seventy-nine minutes of new material is a mammoth offering for their re-surfacing. And whilst there's not a great deal that's dramatically changed, their latest has a huge amount of available space, which they use to play to their strengths, taking complex ideas and exploring them in full.

How does this stack up to Mariner? 2015's Julie Christmas collaboration was a career high, adding a sharp snap to a band whose weight was tempered by their dense, blunt textures. A Dawn to Fear takes a different shape; the record is slower, moodier, and less savage. Wherever it's tempting to lament the missing howl of Christmas, dropping the sturm-und-drang edge leaves space for them to be more reflective, darker, icier.

The first of two main takeaways: they use the space to play to one of their particular strengths, taking ideas and stretching them, working through hypnotic riffs, exploring every variation until the riff is completely bled dry. It's a sensible way of using more time, and means the record isn't totally overwhelming. And besides, the riffs are fun; this is an enjoyable, driving metal record even when they just reflect on their repetitive, labyrinthine passages.

The second is how classy this record feels. Luna have always been a stalwart band but here they sound particularly detached and moody. Part of this is the gloomy, bass-heavy production, and part of this is their willingness to dial the energy back. Mostly, though, is just how well everything hangs together; the deceptively ideas-light approach means that everything is worked out meticulously, all with a sweeping synth undercurrent.

REALLY good album, even earns the absurd length.

A personal favourite. I badly need to check out the rest of their discography now. Christ, I've got so much catching up to do…

way too low. Easily the best think they have done. I expected it to be top 10

It was my #8 btw, so I did what I could to get it into the top 10.

my #12 and i think i assumed it didnt need the extra couple of points

imago & TT have you heard it? i assume you're the other voters

i forget if tt voted for this but i never got around to it in full

Alright, time to fess up. But first, see if you can guess how we tried to deceive you (whether successfully or not).

Korn

*and* Babymetal

this is the VAR of the rollout

Value-added reseller?

I love BABYMETAL and the fact that 7 other people voted for them makes me more excited about the rest of top of the list.

I'm sorry, glenn. :(

Coming up next: the actual nos. 27 & 26.

i knew it

27
Full of Hell - Weeping Choir
275 points, 9 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1502568514_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7ckjkkVbGQXYuEdfErmRfC
https://fullofhell.bandcamp.com/album/weeping-choir

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/full-of-hell-weeping-choir/

Full of Hell can be hard to parse, even for those well-versed in grindcore or for connoisseurs of harsh noise. The East Coast outfit—with its members split between Maryland and Pennsylvania—have made their name by cracking apart genre conventions like oracle bones. Grindcore, hardcore, and death metal meet within their music to produce something feral and unknowable, doubly so when they team up with other like-minded oddballs like The Body or Merzbow. There’s just something about them, a reason that they’ve been met with such acclaim and fervent fandom. The nihilistic vibe helps—when Samuel DiGristine gurgles, “All goes onward and outward/All collapses” on “Silmaril,” it’s hard not to shudder.

Recorded by the legendary Kurt Ballou at God City, the band’s third album (and Relapse Records debut) is intended as a companion piece to the band’s innovative 2017 LP, Trumpeting Ecstasy, but even a passing listen shows that the band’s interests have shifted a bit. The band’s affinity for the most bestial side of grind is on full display, and on Weeping Choir, only death is real.

“Burning Myrrh” blasts the record wide open with two minutes of pummeling grind, dual vocalists Dylan Walker and Samuel DiGristine frantically trading off registers like they’re pulling a double shift in hell’s biggest department store. “Haunted Arches” abruptly ends with a few seconds of warped, ghostly audio reminiscent of The Caretaker’s bastardized 1930s parlor recordings, before “Thundering Hammers”—an apt title if there ever was one—comes crashing down, its destructive grooves redolent of classic Morbid Angel.

26
Schammasch - Hearts of No Light
294 points, 8 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2267679372_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1PmHVrFZdWmaaOni45bqD7
https://schammasch.bandcamp.com/album/hearts-of-no-light

There are two kinds of metal albums that tickle my fancy. The first kind takes a band’s trademark sound, alters it just enough to keep things fresh, but also retains everything that makes that artist or band unique, enjoyable, and otherwise impossible to do without. The other has mere glimpses of what made that band who they are, but throws so many curveballs, surprise left hooks, and a kitchen sink or twelve your way, and demands that you catch it all. Swiss avant garde spiritualists Schammasch most certainly fit into the latter with relative ease. Even after releasing a three-disc, exactly-100-minute monstrosity in the form of Triangle back in 2016, it still didn’t fully prepare me for what Hearts of No Light had in store for me, even with Roquentin‘s glowing, informative review giving me an incredible insight and synopsis.

I’m not complaining, mind you. Hearts of No Light features some of the same intense moments showcased on Triangle, and in some ways exceeds them. Opener “Winds That Pierce the Silence” starts off with guest pianist Lillian Liu setting up a dramatic first half while the band builds up the second with a pulsing rhythm while a lone guitar plays a lick that wouldn’t be out-of-place on a latter-day Death album. As soon as “Ego Sum Omega” launches, you can tell the prog influences that were hinted at on Triangle begin to shine, but not at the expense of the spiritual intensity that Schammasch has made their bread and butter. Guitars that sound like a blackened Fates Warning punctuate above B.A.W’s tricky drum fills and patterns. The song slows down considerably before ramping up the tremolo, ending with synthesized horns building up before an amazing climax.

Full of Hell album is stunning

Clever of you to joke-list both Korn, who didn't place, and BABYMETAL, who will actually show up for real later.

PS: BABYMETAL and Schammasch and Astronoid are all great.

:)

Both great records that I regretted not voting for after sending in my ballot.

Schammasch record was a late cut from my ballot but could have just as easily made it.

It could have made the cut if I had spent more time with it before the deadline.

The Schammasch is fantastic and my #7

I did my best by campaigning for it

Babymetal have indeed made metal poll previously btw

23
Big Brave - A Gaze Among Them
300 points, 8 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0693568513_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1i10no8p3y1igTW46jquub
https://bigbravesl.bandcamp.com/album/a-gaze-among-them

https://www.echoesanddust.com/2019/05/big-brave-a-gaze-among-them/

BIG | BRAVE are a trio from Montreal dealing in heavy minimalism and a full exploration of quiet/loud dynamics. The band is made up of Robin Wattie (vocals, electric guitar, guitar amp, bass amp), Mathieu Ball (electric guitar, guitar amps) and Loel Campbell (drums). Volume is a key tool, where there is sound it is a physical force, played at levels that resonate and hum, connecting almost beyond rational understanding. Like the blues it’s as much as about what and when they don’t play – the chasms of silence pregnant with meaning, sometimes foreboding, often desolate, but sometimes desperate for fulfillment.

The vocals of Robin Wattie are a raw, impassioned yelp and they add to the feeling you are listening to a much slower, more cautious Brutus. Lyrics are personal, impassioned but oblique “you don’t get to do this” is repeated on opener ‘Muted Shifting of Space’, it’s gets ever angrier as the music roils, but I’m not sure what ‘this‘ is. Often the words are so drawn out that they seem to lose meaning, becoming otherworldly and strange like the Cocteau Twins.
 
The last album, 2017’s ARDOR was a progression from earlier recordings – fuller, with lengthy soundscapes. On A Gaze Among Them the band return to a core sound and ethos – “How do we take very little and make something bigger than what we actually have?” was the question they asked themselves, according to Wattie. It feels like the band are more pensive, despite the juddering violence of a lot of the music and tighter running times of songs. There’s a tension in uncertainty, like a fist in a pocket. ‘Holding Pattern’ is ritualistic, threatening, the ever-present bass rumble presaging a storm.

Montreal reprezzzzent x3 (my #3).

ayyyyy!

do they like fiddle with the volume knobs during their gigs or something

Maybe? I don't go to gigs.

i don't even own a gig

I'm the only knob at most gigs I attend

Two more for tonight.

22
Cloud Rat - Pollinator
300 points, 10 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1107819575_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/620a5hNUjGyYWWUtpNHUka
https://cloudrat.bandcamp.com/album/pollinator

https://toiletovhell.com/review-cloud-rat-pollinator/

With a groan that seems to last forever, a giant crashes through the canopy and lies still on the forest floor. Communities disappear in the upheaval, and the survivors scatter through mazes of fallen branches. Before long, hulking machines arrive, gouging the landscape, clamping onto the fallen tree like jaws on the throat of prey. While conflict has always been present in nature, the scale of human violence—toward ourselves and the world around us—has created an imbalance that only continues to grow, manifesting as barrens tracts in the heart of our planet’s ecosystems.

If you can read the symbols making up this review, congratulations (or condolences), you’re a human. That is to say, a nervous ape who was born into this perplexing stretch of time when so many things seem to be spinning out of control. Cloud Rat captures our cacophonous moment, plunging listeners into the absurdity of modern life with their new album, Pollinator.

The opening salvo of “Losing Weight” and “Delayed Grief//Farmhouse Red” checks most of grindcore’s rickety boxes: punk riffs flicker quicker than dying street lamps, d-beats and blasts make the kit ask what it did to deserve this, and maniacal vocals mirror the commotion of a fast-paced society. However, even when playing within the confines of a single genre, the band’s attention to detail sets them apart from the pack; the crisp production ensures that Brandon’s rapid drumming never loses clarity (note the cymbal choke embellishments at the end of “Losing Weight”) despite the thick tone of the guitars, and every song, no matter how minute, quickly establishes its own personality.

What a great fuckin band. I found their split comp last year even more thrilling but this is pretty great.

brilliant record

Hopefully imago won't be too heartbroken when he finds out it didn't make it into the top 20…

21
Jute Gyte - Birefringence
301 points, 8 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0522655153_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/6q98xuIQSOyI9bkQIq1nAs
https://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/album/birefringence

Up to this point, Jute Gyte has made an almost annual tradition of releasing the boldest black metal album of the year. With this project, multi-instrumentalist Adam Kalmbach has channeled the black metal blueprint through classical composition techniques—microtonality and serialism, primarily—and paired the results with elements of dark ambient, industrial, and noise. His recent output has been particularly exceptional, with our staff bestowing high praise on albums like Perdurance (2016), The Sparrow (2017), and Oviri (2017). Each release is challenging and rewarding in its own way, as Kalmbach continuously reconstructs his music around different ideas.

It’s a rare, rewarding feat when an already ambitious artist manages to enhance their music further, which is exactly what Jute Gyte has accomplished on Birefringence. While Kalmbach still employs advanced compositional concepts with these tracks, he revealed via Bandcamp that “this album was written more freely than the last few.” As a result of that, Birefringence is far and away Jute Gyte’s strongest release in recent memory. The album just as experimental as Kalmbach’s back catalog while also boasting a fresh, varied approach that makes its density all the more worthwhile to parse out.

First, let’s address the elephant in the room regarding the ability of listeners to “get” Jute Gyte’s music. I’ll openly admit to my limited background with music theory, which is why I was happy to link to articles explaining microtonality and serialism rather than attempting to explain them myself. Yet, despite Jute Gyte’s incredible complexity, Kalmbach’s approach to songcraft produces music that’s universally enjoyable to those with an affinity for avant-garde music. Regardless of your own musical background, his compositions should strike you as intriguing and stimulating, making for an inherently worthwhile listening experience.

A mere point ahead of the Cloud Rat!

Probably only like his 5th best album. My #4 and a work of intense and savage brilliance

This one didn't connect for me at all.

Final recap before tomorrow's top 20 countdown:

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

A lot of people seem to think this might be his best, though, which is nice and encouraging. It certainly might be his furthest-out. I personally love how it twists, turns and ultimately subsumes itself. He really knows how to construct an album, even if his dice are doing some of the work for him!

Skipping the opening track (the shortest on the album but possibly the most impenetrable!) might be a way in for some of you

Dissected Grace is the best Jute Gyte shoegaze track ever