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

White Ward didn't do it for me

They did for me

Too low!

they do a lot of things that are extremely in danger of not doing it for me, yet they’re executed so well with such a vast emotional sense of scale that they really do it for me. while i was putting together my ballot i played “no cure for pain” and it seemed undeniable to me, complex yet spacious, romantic and dark and deep. shouts out to the drummer, who maybe makes the whole thing work

Wow I thought this was a lock for the top five!

I feel like I should mention that the student I'm currently teaching is a metal guitar prodigy, and he has just introduced me to the joys of Dokken. Now I am a dream warrior too

Dokken!

now thats some proper Ye Olde School Metal

if the van’s a-rockin’, i’m doin’ coke to dokken

haha

19

Immortal Bird - Thrive on Neglect

318 points, 8 votes 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2602154084_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/16rWku9FIBoyQF9i4UjKw4

https://listen.20buckspin.com/album/thrive-on-neglect

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/immortal-bird-thrive-on-neglect-review/

Every year in Oakland, a strange kind of festival takes place on the Summer solstice. Within the Chapel of the Chimes, a beautiful columbarium of fractal alcoves of marble and glass, dozens of new music artists are stationed seemingly at random, playing everything from electronic noise to liturgical chant to drone-doom, filling the air with strange and beautiful sounds from all directions at once. It’s both a unique musical experience, and, because of the crowds, an extraordinary chance to do some people watching. In my accounting, most visitors belonged to one of three easily distinguishable groups. First, all stages of the hippie life cycle from larval to senescent; second, the typical Oakland yuppie class; and third, diehard metalheads. Needless to say, I was there proudly repping, having recently seen Cloud Rat, Gadget, Immortal Bird, Primitive Man, and Full of Hell in the span of two days and having picked up a shirt from the coolest of those five bands.

Immortal Bird play a cankerous, grindy brand of death-thrash that’s now all but consumed by its nastier wounds. Thrive on Neglect nods its sagging neck towards late-era Revocation (“House of Anhedonia”) but its body sears and aches like the boiling pitch of Plebeian Grandstand (“Vestigial warnings”). Whatever you want to call the sound, there’s no doubt that it’s a logical continuation of sound from the band’s Empress/Abscess debut and a confirmation that the bird is at the very least not dead yet. Single “Anger Breeds Contempt” throws open the doors for an album as clever as it is cutting, counterpointing spotlighted bass and drums with bold, subtly odd phrases. Replacing Evan Berry (Wilderun, Ex- Replacire) on guitar is Nate Madden, but the riffs are as singular as ever – the trademark Bird twist on influences from brutal death metal to thrash to melodic black metal.

my no. 1

great songwriting, playing that turns on a dime, everything i could ever want

Sampling 'Vestigial Warnings' as we speak. Pretty good, I may check out the rest.

quisquillian company was def one of my fave songs of the year. streching out that radiant savagery into the nothingness in a great song form

voted for this rec

I've listened to this dozens of times and I feel like I'm still discovering it.

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

18

Elder - The Gold & Silver Sessions

320 points, 10 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2012554351_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/4WD2n2uML96zPjzds22Ykl

https://beholdtheelder.bandcamp.com/album/the-gold-silver-sessions

Mastodon. Deafheaven. Baroness. Each clawed marks into the well walls as they hoisted themselves out of the filth and muck that is (say it with a shudder) the metal crowd and into the limelight. Likewise, Elder follow, riding the crossover appeal of 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World to respectability by the masses, and not just the unwashed kind. But the New England outfit aren’t just the next indie darling, and were never just metal for metal’s sake. Their proggy tendencies always lurked beneath the surface to some degree; Reflections was simply the unveiling. With a new LP on the horizon, The Gold & Silver Sessions takes Elder in a direction I didn’t expect, but perhaps should have. This isn’t just prog; it’s out-and-out jam.

Despite the title of the EP, Elder have never been less Baroness. In fact, they’ve shared less common ground with any of their prior influences—or releases—than ever before. Their hallmark sound, which truly came into its own on Reflections, returns in sum, but not wholly unchanged. Gold & Silver‘s instrumental nature is hardly the biggest shift, especially given that it’s almost certainly not permanent. Instead, the off-the-cuff, jam-band presentation relaxes Elder‘s already loose collar, while heavy psychedelic styling twist Elder‘s offerings into something different, yet the same. Improvisation contributed heavily to the EP, a fact evident as 36 minutes unwind around just 3 constantly undulating songs enhanced by a lack of vocals to muck up the proceedings with something as silly as song structure.

Kraut Elder is best Elder.

So that’s three in a row from my ballot! Guess I was a bit too pessimistic. White Ward was my #2, expected to see that one higher. I’ll also be bummed out if Vastum doesn’t place.

This is good as hell and one of my votes but I put it mid ballot cause it's so f'n chill. Grade A w33d smokkin musics.

17

Wyrmwoods - Spirit and Teeth

328 points, 8 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1023355951_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2WQgtq5CpvU0HgeUOKXu7R

https://wyrmwoods.bandcamp.com/album/spirit-teeth-2

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/wyrmwoods/spirit-and-teeth/

I have no idea what this is.

It's a bizarre and slightly disjointed-feeling amalgamation of plonky piano, reverb-drenched (and slightly detuned?) guitar tremolos, and lo-fi drums, with otherworldly vocals that have little discernible definition to them. Musically ranging from ambient strums to balls-out blasting. Definitely way out-there and worthy of its avant-garde label.

The first two songs are brief adventures, with ambient calm and explosions of intensity, built around keyboard lines that meander aimlessly through the chaos, unaffected by anything else that seems to be happening around them. The real meat of the album comes in the last two songs, 16 and 32 minutes long, respectively.

The first of these epic tracks travels through several different moods, includes a wind section of what sounds like trumpets and flutes, and takes its sweet time to unfurl its secrets and finally explode into a wall of noise. The second starts with what might be the first actual "riff" on the album, and evokes the decades-old inchoate beginnings of extreme metal with its retro production and loose performance. When I say loose, I really mean sloppy. It's quite sloppy, but like, fascinatingly so, and it seems like that's what they wanted. The vox also have their first moments of clarity, and even approach '80s Metal Church-esque shrieking. The bass also has its first audible moments, with a sparse walking bass-line bit, before the song explodes into black metal blasting with some crazy ride work that just goes and goes until it just... becomes atmospheric? Once that fades into ambiance, the vocalist re-enters with these scatted falsetto shouts that are unsettling, at best. The song travels through another incredibly organic undulation of intensity and unhinged guitar noises before finally concluding with over ten minutes of dreamy ambient noises that start pleasant and slowly grow increasingly discordant and unnerving before gently fading away.

These compositions are really something. Fascinating. What a fascinating album. Not to mention the bizarrely precise song lengths of exactly 2, 4, 16, and 32 minutes (where's 8 tho?). I've never heard anything quite like it, and I have no idea whether I liked it or not, but I think I want to listen to it again…

– RYM user ohmanitsdan (rating: 2.5/5)

This is the ILM-est pick.

I was thinking this to be interesting but aimless for three tracks, then the 32-minute closer showed up and absolutely destroyed me. For that alone I gave it loads of points - one of the strongest metal tracks of recent years. I really think they could have stood to edit down the rest of the album to focus on it, but I guess they felt they had to stick to their track lengths gimmick

I listened to the whole thing in Tesco for the first time after DAM spoke about it, and it was the most euphoric shop ever. imago needs to relisten to the first three tracks because they are bizarre/blissful in their own right.

I didn't get this one.

As a general rule, I like it better when metal plays to its traditional strengths. Otherwise I prefer to continue dipping into contemporary classical or whatever. But I also enjoy being proven wrong on occasion and, sadly, I don't think this album quite achieved that.

Pom what would you recommend contemporary classical wise?

I'll come up with a POX records for the past 20 years and send it to you as soon as I can.

I liked this album best when it was trying to rip my face off and playing to traditional metal strengths, i.e. in the closing track

Btw where'd ultros-ultros ghali go?

and devilock and hellhouse and edwardiii and adam

I'll come up with a POX records for the past 20 years and send it to you as soon as I can.

― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Friday, 28 February 2020 15:14 (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Awesome, thanks!

Yeah, where is ultros!

16

Moon Tooth - Crux

329 points, 9 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2330438881_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/32v8MVLHUJjGyoTBj0z39J

https://purenoise.bandcamp.com/album/crux

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/moon-tooth-crux/

Moon Tooth draw attention like the big, bold letters of a comic book: Their technical prowess, rabid energy, and pristine-sounding records all work in favor of making your eyes light up, your heart rate accelerate. The Long Island quartet’s sophomore album, Crux, pairs down the hyperactive whimsy of 2016’s self-released Chromaparagon in favor of simpler pleasures. Hooks abound. Lighters are raised. The last decade’s rock heavyweights—from radio titans like Foo Fighters and Incubus to more progressive acts like Tool and the Dillinger Escape Plan—all seem, at various points, like fair comparisons. It’s rock music built from familiar sounds, all drawn together by an ability to swerve suddenly into pyrotechnics.

What separates Moon Tooth from legions of shred-happy colleagues is their emotional urgency and the unexpected ways in which they contort their influences. The lyrics do little to offset the band’s cartoonish ferocity—one of the best choruses culminates in a cry of, “Not today, motherfucker!”—and yet they never sound like they’re just screaming slogans in wild time signatures. They’re always reaching toward the audience with the hopes of pulling you up, an intimacy that’s almost entirely derived from the performance of frontman John Carbone. His soulful, clean singing weaves through the imaginative riffs of guitarist Nick Lee, like if Mastodon’s apocalyptic visions were replaced with pure cosmic wonder.

This style would collapse under the weight of too much seriousness, and Crux tightens Chromaparagon’s scope without sanding away the fun. It’s energetic enough for each song to feel like its own distinct action sequence but concise enough to avoid monotony. The wailing chorus of “Awe at All Angles” takes cues from pop-punk, while “Musketeers” spreads messages of solidarity over a frantic new-wave pulse. In the opening “Trust,” Carbone sings about drifting through life, but his bandmates demand his full presence, lest he miss the half-time breakdown or the saxophone-accompanied finale. If Chromaparagon was the sound of a band showing off all their tricks at once, then Crux radiates with a sleeker and starker energy.

my #22

fuckin wildly awesome record

So far today its been a bit of my part of the poll

Much more emo than its mathier predecessor, but the songwriting is really strong and there’s a lot of value and hidden tricks to find in repeat listens. I love the vocals.

Typically not my thing but those vocals are indeed impressive. I like the track I'm sampling.

I've noticed the vocals are the make-or-break for most people. I love them, and the drumming is just unbelievable. But most of all these are just some very tightly composed songs.

In a cooler world, intricate hard rock records like this would be a much more common occurrence.

next album is way too low

my #4 in fact

15

Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence

345 points, 10 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0838307368_16.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7GrKomosr29udfIEPtk3o0

https://esoteric.bandcamp.com/album/a-pyrrhic-existence

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/esoteric-a-pyrrhic-existence-review/

Funeral doom must be the most impenetrable iteration of extreme metal. The genre’s painfully protracted process either engrosses or evades the listener entirely with its inevitable crawl and morose mass. Cherd of Doom and I are blood-bound for the cause where as “metalheads” like Holdeneye harbor a taste to offend the soul. This lack of middle ground has been exploited to great effect by many bands over the years, but the fittingly named Esoteric take the proverbial cake. The Brits’ particular brand of doom is about as challenging as it gets and wields an entire weather system of psychedelic textures and thunderous passages. A Pyrrhic Existence arrives after an eight year absence and is absolutely no exception. But what may represent the tedious inevitability of an unloved season to some, might just be perfection to others.

Long-form metal can often represent a challenge to quantify. It’s easy to imply gravitas with slow pace and ringing chords, but the proof lies in the writing. If you’re of a mind to do so, the best way to approach Esoteric is to consider their work as close to traditional theater as possible. The material’s depth and span collides with the authors’ compositional intent in the same way a play divides a lifetime into requisite acts. A Pyrrhic Existence is another double-disc experience whose first song clocks in at just under twenty-eight minutes. “Descent” is the best self-contained doom metal EP of the year and shrugs off the potential tedium with unnerving ease. To trivialize such a hefty track is no mean feat, but it’s apparent brevity and immersive quality is surely the finest commendation I can give such an inaccessible genre.

Any funeral doom record worth its salt requires a narrative to provide structure. “Descent” revels in lilting leads and introspective soundscapes but is consistently anchored by tumultuous doom. The song acts as an immaculate microcosm of the entire album, which soon bleeds smoothly into the melancholic fugue of “Rotting in Dereliction.” Greg Chandler’s vocals walk hand in hand with the music’s dramatic state, matching guttural lows and pained highs with the relevant instrumentation. A Pyrrhic Existence makes a point to play with tempo, so it’s no surprise when the song reaches fever pitch with blastbeats and a particularly emotive solo. During the album’s second half, the guitar work – shared by Chandler, Gordon Bicknell and Jim Nolan -becomes more robust. “Consuming Lies” quakes with the permanence of the Finnish death/doom bands. The huge riffing provides a memorable anchor for the entire record. By the time A Pyrrhic Existence nears its exhaustive end, I feel like I’ve borne silent witness to a mental breakdown. And that’s exactly what the album is: a collection of debilitating episodes that commence, peak and fade with lasting consequence.

My… #15, actually. Esoteric can do no wrong.

funeral doom to get totally immersed in: one of my favorite things

(Moon Tooth was my #11 and this was my #9)

I reckon if they made all their albums exactly half as long as they are, keeping the best stuff, they'd be a favourite of mine. Think I listened to this a bit and liked what I heard? I always like what I hear with Esoteric and very rarely finish it lol

You're too ambient-averse for the stuff to fully enshroud you, no?

Their track Circle is a monstrous masterpiece and that's 20 minutes long with plenty of ambience. I think my problem is more with the sheer amount of music