Fuck Brumpxit its the 2016 Metal and Hard N' Heavy Rock Poll Results Thread (With spotify and bandcamp links)

turns out last-minute hyping really really works!

this is great. first two tracks are on some fiery post-doom violin madness trip and although I'm not entirely sold on the gybe-tastic postrock crescendo of the closer it's really all worth hearing

Dís Generation

In a post-Phife world, at least we have Völur

25 Khemmis - Hunted 307 Points, 8 One #1 #1 in Decibel Albums of the Year.

http://i.imgur.com/veYZXa7.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/4y7VrJEX7lLOHOfEx6dOxE
spotify:album:4y7VrJEX7lLOHOfEx6dOxE

http://listen.20buckspin.com/album/hunted-2

NAMED THE #1 ALBUM OF THE YEAR FOR 2016 BY DECIBEL MAGAZINE.

Appearing live:

January 13th - Reggies Chicago IL
January 14th - St. Vitus, Brooklyn NY
Apr 22-23 - Fillmore, Philadelphia PA (Decibel Metal & Beer Fest)

The first album from Denver’s Khemmis, ‘Absolution’, was released by 20 Buck Spin in July 2015 and slowly but surely steamrolled all that came in contact with its unforgettable heaviness and classic melodicism. Virtually unknown outside Denver upon release, the band gathered acclaim over the ensuing months and by year end had landed in the #9 spot on Decibel Magazine’s annual top 40 albums of the year, not a small accomplishment for a band on its debut album.

The new album ‘Hunted’ reveals a Khemmis fortified in its purpose and vision, forging an unrivaled synthesis between immense Doom riffs and Maiden-esque harmony. Overall song length has increased yielding more expansively arranged and dramatic storms of elegance and melancholy.

And yet Khemmis are not content to plod through a sea of tears, they are always a rock band first, in service to the movement of the song, even approaching a High On Fire like pace to open the pummeling ’Three Gates'. The lauded singing of vocalist Phil Pendergast reaches ascendent new heights on tracks like ‘Candlelight’ and ‘Beyond The Door’, while the tasteful use of harsh vocals remains, providing a dark foreboding contrast. The 13-minute title track once again closes the album with an epic stunner.

Undoubtedly ‘Hunted’ is an album that will solidify Khemmis’s place at the vanguard of Doom’s most notable modern manifestations, in large part because they transcend the label itself. They’ve seamlessly blended their influences into an extraordinarily listenable album worthy of countless spins. With such a glut of music released nowadays, ‘Hunted’ stands apart, rewarding repeat listens with songs seared straight into the heart.
credits
released October 21, 2016

Produced, Mixed & Mastered by Dave Otero at Flatline Audio. Cover art by Sam Turner.

I love how thick the bass is on this Entropia record. The mix is perfect.

Can't say I can find much point in the Metallica record or that I'll return to it, but three, nearly four tracks in and I haven't turned it off in disgust yet

24 Kvelertak - Nattesferd 316 Points, 8 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/L3MI1Vb.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/5EAGz1IagdeJoJ2Cgb4DES
spotify:album:5EAGz1IagdeJoJ2Cgb4DES

Dammit. Khemmis was my #1.

“It sates itself on the life-blood
of fated men,
paints red the powers’ homes
with crimson gore.
Black become the sun’s beams
in the summers that follow…”
— Snorri Sturluson, Völuspá, The Poetic Edda, ca. 1220

If someone were to give the Norse Ragnarök saga a Ralph Bakshi (Wizards, Fire And Ice) treatment, Khemmis would definitely need to be on the soundtrack... http://fastnbulbous.com/khemmis-hunted/

The Metallica album is five years long and nothing has happened yet

MAYBE there's something to be said for Halo On Fire

23 Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows 319 Points, 10 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/y8yN1DZ.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5AE8f7HUdUogfL7ybRlwDu
spotify:album:5AE8f7HUdUogfL7ybRlwDu

https://interarma.bandcamp.com/album/paradise-gallows-2

After already having taken forward-thinking extreme music to unprecedented heights over the course of their short but propulsive career, Richmond's INTER ARMA are back with another opus of epic proportions. Like the band's previous works, the new album 'Paradise Gallows' is direct and foreboding while maintaining a nuanced, artful perspective. INTER ARMA's signature palette of dissonant high-end and abyssal low-end has been augmented with swathes of thick, impressionistic melody that lend 'Paradise Gallows 'a truly biblical sense of scale, both lyrically and in terms of the album's sonic content. Harsh and acoustic passages (including the band's first-ever foray into clean vocals) spar with complex rhythmic structures across nine sweeping tracks over 71 minutes of expansive, progressive heaviness. Dense, funereal, and richly evocative, 'Paradise Gallows' is a vibrant blend of doom, post-metal, sludge, avant-garde, black and death metal, and is a singular and powerful new addition to the band's already monumental discography.
credits
released July 8, 2016

2016 Relapse Records
www.relapse.com
www.relapserecords.bandcamp.com

"Spit Out the Bone" is the only song from that Metallica I've played more than once -- and I've played it a lot. The video's kinda zany. I think I like the new Megadeth more overall.

Volür sound all right, yeah.

Also, wtf, do you people not like "Atlas, Rise!"?

That was OK

It made me listen on

xpost to myself: I plan to watch the Hetfield episode of the Joe Rogan podcast today or tonight and I suspect that will be more entertaining than Hardwired. I hear there's talk of beekeeping.

I liked parts of Atlas Rise and now that I think about it I probably did play that one more than once when it was in advance track status.

Lol I had Inter Arma pegged for top 5. I have no idea whats going on with this poll

One thing that can be said for smaller ballot numbers: consensus is much more idiosyncratic

Weird results come from a small sample size. I was most surprised at Abbath's low placement. I dunno.

yah

lol my predictor ballot is in shreds

Lmao

If my #1 isnt one of the next two, then Im gonna post my ballot

Lol I think an album me, you, tt and gott punch all have in our top 3 is coming soon

Id hope so, lol; it would be wild if it made top 20

and here it is

Gorguts, Deathspell Omega, Hail Spirit Noir, and, god willing, Furia should be coming up. I liked the new Borknagar more than anything from them since Empiricism but I doubt it'll show.

Agatus really should be heard more. It's like Hellenic black traditional metal, some kind of Maiden/Rotting Christ mashup. The first track on the album, however, starts things off ploddingly.

22 Gojira - Magma 337 Points, 9 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/fQRGquN.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/7D7V6M05UIOTjLdqbwRX0w
spotify:album:7D7V6M05UIOTjLdqbwRX0w

Haha this ISN'T the one! Oh my days

I was disappointed and annoyed at first that they sound like Killing Joke now. But it grew on me.

Bodes well

Gojirs's like Melechesh -- they sound phenomenal for about two or three songs, then everything blurs together. That first track from their last album is one of my favs of all time though, "Explosia." Whew.

Gojira's* rather

are you fucking kidding me that there's another new mesarthim ep

feel like a lot of ppl's top 20 predictions are getting ruined by 30-21

21 Dysrhythmia - The Veil Of Control 341 Points, 10 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/jKeAHm6.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1AdkyehBZjfm25SosPgGD4
spotify:album:1AdkyehBZjfm25SosPgGD4

https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-veil-of-control

dys·rhyth·mi·a
disˈriT͟Hmēə/
noun
Medicine
noun: dysrhythmia; plural noun: dysrhythmias
1. abnormality in a physiological rhythm, especially in the activity of the brain or heart.

Having established themselves as one of the most notable progressive and unique instrumental metal bands since their inception over 15 years ago, NY-based (originally Philly-based) power-trio DYSRHYTHMIA reflect their musical expression in mirroring the definition of their moniker.

Through six full-length albums, DYSRHYTHMIA (Kevin Hufnagel/gutiars, Colin Marston/bass, and Jeff Eber/drums, Hufnagel and the ever prolific Marston also comprising one-half of GORGUTS and were specifically recruited by Gorguts mastermind Luc Lemay to join his band when he resurrected the legendary technical death metal wonder several years ago) have shown the ultimate in musical fortitude and expression through wondrous jaw-dropping musical compositions that go beyond the mere definition of jazz-infused avant-garde technical extreme metal.

With their new album “The Veil Of Control”, the band’s seventh full-length and their first since their Profound Lore Records debut in 2012 “Test Of Submission” (the band released their previous albums on Relapse Records), DYSRHYTHMIA have once again created a new expression within their jaw-dropping repertoire (Hufnagel solely using a 12-string guitar on this latest LP) that will go unparalleled within the niche genre of “instrumental progressive metal”, proving once again they are an untouchable entity within the scene.
credits
released September 23, 2016

Hey, my #5! This record is really cool!

i never heard this but i'm guessing i'll immediately love it

Taking this opportunity to listen to Dysrhythmia. This is straight instrummental prog, no? Like a post-Obscura avant-prog/RIO, and taking in lots of King Crimson (at this point, I'm starting to think the KC albums where I got off the train like ConstruKction of Light were ahead of their time).

I don't know whether to stop now and do 10 on weds and the final 10 thursday or to do another 10 tonight and finish tomorrow

Finish tonight

no

And now here's my ballot:

1. (It's impossible that this album didn't place, but improbable that it placed in top 20. What do u think, Sherlock Holmes?)
2. (No way)
3. (I hope it doesn't make it, tbh. I love the album, but if it shows up over a all these great metal albums, it'll be v hard the counter claims of BULLSHIT. Of course, that's some of yr patented ILX metall poll controversy for ya, eh?)
4. (This'll show up)
5. Dysrhythmia
6. Sunwatchers
7. Skaphe
8. (This'll show up)
9. (No way)
10. (This'll show up)
11. Ophidian Forest
12. (No way)
13. (No way)
14. (This'll show up)
15. Comet Control
16. (No way)
17. (This'll show up)
18. (No way)
19. Lotus Thief

do another 10 tonight

^^

agreed

Been working through checking out list starting at bottom.

Wrong channels AmRep Helmet down cold. Got to figure if it is OK to like some bands for having cloned Sabbath, the world could use one with Helmet. Got to wonder what Hamilton might think of them.

20 Virus - Memento Collider 371 Points, 12 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/0SkdX4O.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/7iYDbFoE46EyEXqmkw0mA1
spotify:album:7iYDbFoE46EyEXqmkw0mA1

https://virus.bandcamp.com/album/memento-collider

As one of the most unique bands coming out of Norway, Virus has built themselves a big following in both the metal and rock scene throughout the world. From the debut album, "Carheart", in 2003, they've developed their otherworldly style for over a decade. In 2016, Virus debuts on Karisma Records with their 4th album called "Memento Collider".

ya this is exceptional. opening track is the jam

my #6

Yeah incredible album

jazzy metal-edged postpunk with the world's best bassist. it's the noir soundtrack to our crisis dreams

19 Horse Lords - Interventions 384 Points, 11 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/qHAybs6.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/2lwVXTWuMvK2Ng3x3Sdxhy
spotify:album:2lwVXTWuMvK2Ng3x3Sdxhy
https://horselords.bandcamp.com/album/interventions

West African rhythms collide with just intonation guitars, art-fire saxophone, minimalist grooves, and collaged zapdowns on Interventions, the powerful third full-length from Baltimore's Horse Lords. The band's Northern Spy debut is also the first Horse Lords album to explore the classic studio-as-weaponry strategies of yore, mapping the quartet's raw Baltimore lightning onto the experimental musique concrète territory surveyed by elder heads like Faust and This Heat.

Founded at the turn o' the 'teens by Andrew Bernstein (saxophone/percussion), Max Eilbacher (bass/electronics), Owen Gardner (guitar), and Sam Haberman (drums), Horse Lords quickly established themselves as avant-heavies with the two extended tracks of their powerful self-titled debut (Ehse Records, 2012). Playing custom electric guitars and basses refretted by Gardner, the band's rolling polyrhythms chime with the strange and distinct harmonies of just intonation inspired by the master La Monte Young and other heroes. Where the earliest Horse Lords releases, also including Hidden Cities (NNA Tapes, 2014) concentrated on linear performance, a trio of Mixtape cassettes (self-released, 2012-2014) pointed the way towards the newest turn in the Horse Lords saga.

Chopped and screwed and stomped and smothered and dissolving to bells and then suddenly (as if through a flung-open door) back into some room where Horse Lords is playing at full flight, the three Mixtapes exploded the possibilities of the quartet. Changing contexts like flipping channels on a dadaistic cable box, the series found a whole expanded universe of Horse Lords there for the squonking. Realizing that promise, Interventions is (as they say) a new phase Horse Lords album with Bernstein's saxophone and the microtonal guitars pinging through the stereo mix with single-minded purpose. Horse Lords is a band, its members serving a range of functions over multiple axes, from the audible (writing and performing music) to the structural (altering their instruments), to the soundscape in between (editing together Interventions' threaded mini-suites).

Part of the newest wave of smarty-arty-weirdos playing DIY spaces and tea houses and college campuses, Horse Lords' soaring heaviness achieves a true poise that seems equally primed to make the leap to concert halls and festivals. Making appearances on freeform radio station WFMU and concert recording site NYCTaper, Horse Lords are recognized, too, as a galvanizing live act, powered by the double-drumming of Sam Haberman and Andrew Bernstein. Last year, their Hidden Cities Remix to benefit the local Living Classrooms' Believe in Music featured the work of influential contemporaries including fellow Baltimore undergroundists Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt of Matmos (contributing separately) and Guardian Alien drummer/lead-brain Greg Fox.

Floating at the boundaries of composition and improvisation, electronics and performance, the underground and the vast improbable 21st century indie mainstream, Horse Lords exist in none of these places and all of them. More accurately, they exist on Interventions, the album you now hold in your proverbial hands, perhaps noticing the reflection of the imaginary room's light reflecting on the LP cover, ready to cue up as you find yourself in the new beyond of tomorrow's ecstasies and today's Horse Lords.
credits
released April 29, 2016

Sam Haberman
Max Eilbacher
Owen Gardner
Andrew Bernstein

recorded by Horse Lords and Chris Freeland

mixed by Horse Lords

mastered by Sarah Register

Northern Spy Records
northernspyrecords.com
tags
tags: experimental rock experimental just intonation microtonal musique concrete polyrhythms rock saxophone Baltimore

:[ my #3

TOO LOW
xp Ha, I guessed that from the description.

Seriously, I don't really think of this as metal at all, and find it hilarious that it made it into the poll, but it is incredible.

Lmao + otm

Listening now...I think I didn't jive with one track ages ago but willing to have my sixth eye opened

ok Intervention 1 is where this has taken off

reminds me of Ligeti Jr's experimental electronic work with Burkinabé folk

Virus is my first prediction that actually made the top 20. At least six of mine didn't make the top 20. Maybe an easy way to score that is just to add up the places of each prediction, lowest score wins.

I didn't vote for Horse Lords, but it's great. The poll is clearly not just about metal, but "hard 'n' heavy rock & roll." I can't say Horse Lords fits, but neither do Wardruna or 40 Watt Sun, so whatevs!

18 Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolutions 408 Points, 12 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/q6CG5ce.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/6M3CAdGcdAn64c7nOuidVQ
spotify:album:6M3CAdGcdAn64c7nOuidVQ

https://hammersofmisfortune.bandcamp.com/album/dead-revolution

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22129-dead-revolution/

7.8
John Cobbett is one of modern metal’s premier guitarists. In Hammers of Misfortune, he reinvigorates ’70s progressive rock and the hard rock of Deep Purple, Rainbow, and Uli Jon Roth-era Scorpions.
Featured Tracks:
“Sea of Heroes” — Hammers of MisfortuneVia SoundCloud

John Cobbett is one of modern metal’s premier guitarists, channeling an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre into virtuosic playing that bubbles with an energy folks from all levels of metal fandom can gravitate to. While he’s remained a cult figure, his work in VHÖL has given larger audiences a taste of his gifts for fusing contemporary and classic sounds. VHÖL almost overshadows Cobbett’s long-running main project, Hammers of Misfortune: In Hammers, he reinvigorates ’70s progressive rock and the hard rock of Deep Purple, Rainbow, and Uli Jon Roth-era Scorpions. Dead Revolution, Hammers’ sixth full-length, retains much of the dynamic lineup from 17th Street and contains some of their most inspired material yet, but it’s also gloomier than much of their work.

It doesn’t begin that way, however. Cobbett and Leila Abdul-Rauf, another Bay Area veteran who’s also in perverse death metallers Vastum, kick off the album with “The Velvet Inquisition,” which begins on a familiar and addictive gallop before Joe Hutton’s vocals come in to dominate. Somehow, he makes triumph sound like despair, a feeling matched by the striding music: Melodically, it’s on point, but there is a pained smile behind the shredding, a sense of reckoning with an encroaching doomsday so ominous it might already be here.

If you’re going to call upon the spirit of Ritchie Blackmore-era Deep Purple, you’re going to have to bring in some organs. Sigrid Sheie, who also plays bass, keyboard, and piano (or rather, “Paino”) in VHÖL, is their John Lord here, but her work goes beyond retro texture. As in Purple, her organ playing acts as a complementary, and sometimes alternate, drive to the guitars, giving off a pollution that clouds Revolution in unease. She gives the Maidenesque “Flying Alone” a turbo boost, with an added dose of weltering confusion, as Cobbett and Abdul-Rauf descend into a tailspin of dueling solos towards the end. On the title track, her work adds to much urgency to the clanking of Will Carroll’s cowbell that it shrugs aside any schlock you might attach to it. One of the album’s most beautiful moments is when “The Precipice (Waiting for the Fall),” breaks into just Sheie’s organ and Hutton’s soaring voice, adding another twist to the duality that characterizes the record.

Hammers feel the sting of the Bay Area’s lightspeed gentrification like almost all of the regions’ artists, something they agonized over on “The Day the City Died” from 17th Street. Revolution addresses this again by ending with a cover of “Days of ’49,” Joaquin Miller’s Gold Rush poem that was eventually covered by Bob Dylan on Self Portrait. It’s a personal take on the aftermath of a large influx of hucksters chasing fleeting economic gains—sound familiar? Hutton carries the song, combining power metal heft with Phil Lynott’s heart. He captures the longing of more optimistic times, while entirely aware of the damage its brought. Sheie brings her disorienting shimmer, as well as some piano, and Carroll’s thunder is the weight that lets Hutton thrive.

There’s an ongoing metal revival in the States, borne of an appreciation of the pre-thrash era, and perhaps a desire to hear some damn melodies, which rock radio nor the extreme underground will provide in abundance. Bands like Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol, who never got their due back in the day, are gaining a second life, and newer bands like Eternal Champion, High Spirits, Sumerlands, and Magic Circle prove traditionalism still can yield great results. Cobbett would like you to know with Revolution that not only was he ahead of the game, but that it can extend beyond hero worship.

tangenttangent, you were awfully close on this one

killer album, as always

Alright! Hammers of Misfortune was my #2. "Here Comes the Sky" might be my pick for metal track of the year.

Hammers of Misfortune won ILM metal albums poll with their previous album yet failed to get near the 77 in that years EOY poll

how misfortunate

😂😂😂

you just lost your 77 jute gyte voting block
lol

xposts

I am really enjoying this competition sub-plot!

I'm quiet today but still daring to hope for some unexpectedly high placements.

the tribe ever expandeth

my fave trax on horse lords are all the interventions lol, and that omega one that got properly amazing three seconds before it ended ffs

It's about the polyrhythms.

17 Forgotten Spell - Epiphaneia Phosphorus (Angel, God or Insanity) 413 Points, 9 Votes, THREE #1's
http://i.imgur.com/Ul2JIK6.jpg

FUCK DRUMMING PROPERLYYYYYYY

i legit hate everything about this record

C:<

Can't help but feel I'm largely responsible for this

I haven't heard this one but I am intrigued by brad's ringing endorsement

i dunno where anyone heard it as i cant find it

Xpost This Horse Lords record is GRATE. Reminds me most of Dawn of Midi.

brad why do you hate it?

YES! 3 #1's!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT-0Qm4XPZE

fuck youtube streams/embeds

can't stand the drumming or the sound

My #3. If I hadn't first heard it the day before the voting deadline it might have ended up my #2. A titanic, bewildering voyage that comes from the heart of metal, the absolute crushing DIY forest spirit madness of metal, the universe of sound beyond what's expected of songwriting and performance...and yet it never gets boring, it never in fact gets anything less than utterly compelling, a headlong five through some of the most spectacularly emotional playing I think I've ever heard. Sure, everything's out of time, out of phase. But it fucking KILLS. Plus, he's obviously a great, original songwriter and his melodic sense is stunning. Please hear this album. Unless you're Brad

There's a soundcloud link! http://www.invisibleoranges.com/forgotten-spell-epiphaneia-phosphorus-angel-god-or-insanity-full-album-premiere/

This album is just bonkers! Who else voted #1?

Well apparently YouTube is the only way to hear it.

Or Soundcloud!

I think I'd really love Hammers of Misfortune with a stronger singer.

like mike scalzi?

Three number ones! I am one of those. Since I had only heard it once at the time of voting I figured this might be too impulsive, but considering it again realised that nothing else could hope to make an impression quite like this.

The singularity of vision here is extraordinary. Feels like it was envisaged (and possibly conducted) amid of flurry of fever dreams. Surely this mad energy can't be sustained, I thought. But it could - and how! Seriously, who knew out of time drumming could have such an impact.

It is metal as all hell, but with weird accents of 80s post-punk.

for those that like the less metal stuff, despite my crowing about the Furia full length, there are EPs that the band release in between their albums, and they tend to be weirder, proggier stuff, almost krautrockish at times. They recorded the most recent one, Guido (from October), down in a mine in Poland.

https://paganrecords.bandcamp.com/album/guido

When I say "proggier," I do not mean, like, wizard music. I don't even know what genre this stuff falls in.

Seriously, who knew out of time drumming could have such an impact.

>:|

16 Thy Catafalque - Meta 424 Points, 10 Votes One #1
http://i.imgur.com/SVCIfNg.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2DB7no5QXEJ3E5mVPgJxel
spotify:album:2DB7no5QXEJ3E5mVPgJxel

https://thycatafalqueuk.bandcamp.com/album/meta

With the new album 'Meta', the ever-evolving THY CATAFALQUE transforms once again. The Hungarian progressive/experimental metal project, helmed by composer, lyricist, and multi-instrumentalist Tamás Kátai, takes a heavier, more direct tack than on last years sprawling 'Sgùrr'. Katai effortlessly weaves idiosyncratic progressive passages and folk melodies through this [much] heavier and more metallic album. THY CATAFALQUE's enduring unpredictability makes it one of metal's most unique bands, and 'Meta' is yet another distinct and indispensable piece of their integral catalog of albums.
credits
released September 16, 2016
tags
tags: experimental metal metal avant-garde Edinburgh

Tamás Kátai is back with another offering in what comes as a bit of an unexpected surprise – avant-garde act Thy Catafalque’s seventh album. You might remember that the previous record Sgurr came out just last year, and Meta is no small EP recording to tide you over to the next one. It is the next one, all sixty-six minutes of it. Yes, you’re getting nearly seventy minutes of what is expectedly not just black metal, but doubles as something so much more. After Sgurr it’s relatively tough to even call the band black metal anymore, but I will say that the record begins a bit heavier than the previous release.

“Uránia” gives us a similar approach that reminds me heavily of the band’s early material, but the next cut “Sirály” is unquestionably different. It’s quite simple to say that it isn’t even metal at all. It feels like a bit of electronic rock with some psychedelic elements and even a female vocal presence. Perhaps there are some metallic thumps here and there, but it’s certainly not what you were expecting. Even so, that doesn’t mean that the piece isn’t effective. It even throws in a rather killer solo section that I didn’t expect to hear, showing just how versatile and magnificent this kind of act is. Songs like this are why I still have a lot of faith in this act, as well as Kátai’s willingness to experiment. The mood changes drastically with the next piece “10^(-20) Ångström” which turns from hard-hitting metal to DnB influenced metal. Kátai is still performing the scowl as we might (or might not expect) on a piece of this nature, but it’s a more upbeat track and you can dance to it.

One of the longer tracks on the disc follows in the form of “Ixión Düün” which once again changes the mood, throwing us right into the center of a video game – preferably one of role-playing fare. This seems to offer what almost feels like a little bit of Rotting Christ or Nile, possibly even Septic Flesh in it’s tone. The track itself is exponentially heavy, with the drums often blazing at full speed and darker vocal realms than I’ve heard from any of Kátai’s projects. These aren’t scowls, folks – and this isn’t black metal. It’s atmospheric death metal. We can even go back to Lykathea Aflame with this. Adding to that, we have the inclusion of the trippy guitar compositions, as well as another fine solo section that almost feels a bit inspired by Nile. This track is literally so good that it could stand out on it’s own, completely separated from the album and even if people don’t care for some of the other realms traversed on the disc, I think that a lot of people will notice this one from the start. It certainly took me by surprise and doesn’t even sound like the same band. Of course, the track mostly succeeds in it’s atmosphere, by which the guitars and keyboards just sound plain majestic. There are times when you listen to a piece of music and are overwhelmed by the complexity and sheer amount of work put into it – this is one of those times. Following that, we have “Osszel Otthon” which feels like a sort of light after dinner mint in which to settle one’s stomach after the explosive and startlingly raucous epic that we had just experienced. It doesn’t bring in the guitar until a little later in the cut, but the almost easy-listening factor of the piece brings with it a very calm, very cool feeling that is akin to a refreshing glass of ice water. If one wants to call it “elevator music” then it is definitely one of the best songs that I think I’ll ever hear while on an elevator.

Little did we know that this short piece was only an intermission to what is unequivocally the largest cut on the record. “Malmok Járnak” is just a little over twenty minutes long, and has several sections within itself, as you might imagine. It begins with something more metallic in the realms of atmospheric black metal (albeit played slower than you might expect, much closer to some of Summoning’s material) as the female vocals come back along with some electronics and atmospheric guitar leads. About midway, the entire nature of the piece changes, transforming the song from metallic to electronic. I’ve done things like this on crude electronic albums with emulated guitars, but they never sounded anything quite like this. The metal sections come back in for a little longer until the whole thing becomes atmospheric prog-rock with one last metal kick and a chant. There are a couple more tracks after that, but my intention is not to give away the entire record.

From just this observation we can sense that Thy Catafalque have returned with not only a much heavier, but far more atmospheric and proggier record than before. It won’t be for everyone, but most of Thy Catafalque’s material is a bit tough for some to chew on and that’s perfectly fine – these songs aren’t necessarily so catchy or easily absorbed. Regardless of that, there is truly something for everyone here and that’s where I find this disc most valuable. Even people who don’t like heavy metal music at all will find at least something here, and that’s worth saying something. Kátai has created a sense of musical harmony between many dissimilar styles of music, and that’s what makes Meta one of the most interesting and ambiguous albums of the year. It is an absolute must have for all avant-garde and experimental metal enthusiasts. (The Grim Lord)

http://newnoisemagazine.com/album-review-thy-catafalque-meta/#

like mike scalzi?

Lol, what? It's so nice! He is drumming his heart out

lol i'm just mad

Well I never liked what I've heard of Thy Catafalque before but I'll give this a go cos I like the cover

Head-trauma black metal is an acquired taste don't worry Brad

I think I'd really love Hammers of Misfortune with a stronger singer.

I like him. He reminds me of John Wetton.

Was Forgotten Spell your #1 too, DAM?

Head-trauma black metal is an acquired taste don't worry Brad

i'm not averse to head trauma, i voted for skaphe

Yes! I mostly picked up on this through some back and forth between GOTT PUNCH and ultros about weirdo black metal that spanned both the 'black metal' thread and rolling metal. It just kicked everything else's ass, I couldn't help ranking it #1.

Xp to tt

Thy Catafalque cover is amazing but the music felt like an opening track in search of an album a bit. May try again

It's quite frustrating to be on vacation and following this thread while my headphones are sitting at home.

I like good drumming too :) good...bad...it doesn't matter.

Exactly DAM, it could only be number 1! Outstanding strangeness. Thanks to all of you for bringing it to our attention. The soundtrack of Christmas.

15 Neurosis - Fires Within Fires 444 Points, 11 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/GX3TC3r.jpg
https://neurosis.bandcamp.com/album/fires-within-fires

Of all that humankind has inherited through our ancestry, no single language has transcended every age as powerfully as music. For those few who channel that inheritance of sound today, none have wielded its command and authority like Neurosis. Showing their discontent with convention from the very beginning, Neurosis revealed what would become an instinct for transformation in sound and scope. With each release, the sound became interchangeable with vision. A vision of the conscious and unconscious coexisting in an audial spectrum that challenged not only the constraints of what listeners expected but of the listeners themselves as beings.

Over the collective’s past ten albums, Neurosis have invited listeners to join them on the path their music carved. Going beyond the remarkable, Neurosis became unforgettable. Throughout the last 30 years, the journey of their music has found the band relishing the unpredictable and embracing the unknown possibility of where the music was capable of taking them. This year finds Neurosis taking their most dominant step yet with their eleventh full-length, Fires Within Fires. Three decades in the making, Fires Within Fires is a testament both to the history and future of Neurosis. Striking the band's signature balance between light and dark, beauty and repulsion, Fires Within Fires gives due to its predecessors while progressing forward into the unfamiliar and formidable.

Featuring exquisite album artwork from the renowned Thomas Hooper and the stellar recording work of the group's longstanding engineer Steve Albini, Fires Within Fires is at once a beautiful and forbidding work of mastery. For members Scott Kelly, Steve Von Till, Jason Roeder, Noah Landis, and Dave Edwardson, the album is a welcomed companion to what’s now been a 30-year-long trek into the infiniteness of sound and sight coalescing into consciousness. An all-encompassing reminder that transfiguration in sound remains their most commanding and inimitable strength, Fires Within Fires is the next powerful step towards a destination that has long been and continues to be the very heart of "becoming" for the mighty Neurosis.
credits
released September 23, 2016

Neurosis is:
Jason Roeder
Dave Edwardson
Scott Kelly
Steve Von Till
Noah Landis

Recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio, Chicago IL

Artwork by Thomas Hooper

more like neurosizzzzzzz

Strongest thing they've done in over a decade

more like znzezuzrzozszizsz

(i never managed to hear this and i love neurosis oh well)

I'm realizing I never really listened to Scalzi-era HoM. As predicted, I do love The Locust Years.

ultros simon and brad all strangely otm

The track that's actually about fire is good

Fire Is The End Lesson is great at least. Closing track almost put me to sleep

ie tt otm

more songs about fire and fires

The soundtrack of Christmas.

Haha this is perfect

I get Brad's complaints: it goes off the rails quite a bit. Part of what makes it such a bracong listen to me is listening to it retain momentum when it's very obviously just going to pieces.

Anyways, I thought the Neurosis wd be way higher, maybe bcz I didnt listen to it

I've never been able to get into Neurosis but bra-CONG sounds like a good onomatopoeiac representation of the sounds they make.

My world of useful typos

^^^rejected hetfield line iirc

14 Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust 464 Points, 13 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/x7VrTQQ.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1jHnBn49GmPMoukkfBnzbc
spotify:album:1jHnBn49GmPMoukkfBnzbc
https://gorguts.bandcamp.com/album/pleiades-dust

tbh as good as colored sands, but in ep form

otm (I might like it even more, even)

It's awesome yeah

And the drumming is in time

^^^^not very kvlt imo

This Forgotten Spell album is hilarious! Thanks

Hahaha, it is

we must always remember to keep laughing through the grim

It's pretty great. Although I think I heard a door slam at one point, and a voice say 'the egg sandwiches are ready petal!'

hahahaha

Hilarious, exhilarating--same root word...

http://i.imgur.com/E1jmOym.jpg

winning hearts everywhere

lol

Thread really delivering on all levels tonight

13 Hail Spirit Noir - Mayhem in Blue 473 Points, 12 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/Gm9HHEg.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/5JZVNF8J3vHB8ELeXKhZre
spotify:album:5JZVNF8J3vHB8ELeXKhZre

https://hailspiritnoir.bandcamp.com/album/mayhem-in-blue

"Mayhem In Blue", the new album from Psychedelic Prog Black Metallers Hail Spirit Noir, is set for release on Dark Essence Records on the 28th October. The album will be the third full-lenght release for the Greek trio, whose debut album "Pneuma" appeared in 2012, followed by 2014´s "Oi Magoi".

5/5
Review Summary: A very dark musical and lyrical trip that progresses the band’s vision without losing any of their originality.

On their sophomore album, Oi Magoi, Hail Spirit Noir created a truly original album, blending black metal and psychedelic progressive rock. It was a true work of art, which reminded us that by tastefully mixing genres, great albums are born. Where do you go from there, though?

Mayhem in Blue, while not discarding the avant-gardish dark style of music that made Hail Spirit Noir so extravagantly unique, stands completely in its own right pushing the theatrical element to the extreme. The new album relies heavier in effects while in the same time the structure of the songs became more straightforward: Spoken parts in Greek, a variety of horrifying sounds and bizarre instruments like didgeridoo, humdrum or barrel organ set up a majestic yet dark ambience in almost every song. Again, labeling their music in any way is something Hail Spirit Noir refuses to do.

There is a subtle and addictive paradox in Hail Spirit Noir’s latest work. One would expect that extending the theatrical elements on Mayhem in Blue would take its heavy toll on heaviness, which is clearly not the case. It seems that the band decided to take every aspect of their music a bit further. Yes, there are more mellow acoustic parts and clean operatic singing than in the past, but when the band decides to lay out the riffs, they are heavier than ever before. While the instrumentation is remarkably varied, the songs never lose their focus or drag out aimlessly. Everything is there for a reason.

The opening sequence and sharp riffing of I mean you harm picks up from where the last album concluded, creating a certain groove that screams to be reproduced live, while it’s fast playful rhythm carefully paves the way for the blunt spoken and effective chorus. Clearly the band means us harm. A sudden change in pace in the eponymous track is meant to catch off guard the unsuspecting listener and it works brilliantly. Like a poisonous snake that hypnotizes its victim, Mayhem in Blue is a spaced out, acoustic opus that showcases its great charm using a structured interplay of clean singing and brutal devilish growls.

The undercurrent of impending threat in Riders to Utopia, unveils in the form of a menacing guitar lead and a monotonous yet dynamic drum beat. Although the shortest song of the album, the band is pulling no punches and unleashes its most addictive chorus. By the time Lost in Satan’s charm begins, you find yourself lost inside the album’s peak and longest cut. The carnivalesque, freaky intro gives way to blackened riffing that drives the song in the most absurd way, mixing slow guitar parts with sudden rhythm changes and militaristic beat with energetic drumming. Running around 11 minutes, this carves a niche for larger epics for Hail Spirit Noir and the album’s highlight. The Cannibal tribes come from the Sea paints a gloomy atmosphere showcasing a cleverly used reverb effect that midway transforms into a hellish stream of layered guitar leads. Towards the end of the song, a well crafted short solo erupts into a violent blast beat, seconds before the closing number How to fly in Blackness tightens its mournful grip for one last time on the listener.

This is a very dark musical and lyrical trip, affecting listeners' mind and soul as every great album should. It progresses the band’s vision without losing any of their originality and most probably, Mayhem in Blue will be like nothing you have heard this year. Above all, there is something special in watching a band evolve. Hail Spirit Noir has come a long way the last 5 years, getting a better grip of their art, song by song, album by album. Mayhem in Blue is their audacious step to become one of the best metal bands out there. Just listen.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/72131/Hail-Spirit-Noir-Mayhem-In-Blue/

Thread continues to deliver :)

bravo tangent you got this one right on the money

amazing album

I wonder if HSN used a real calliope. Pretty fun, but also silly. At times this is bordering on surf rock.

Yes! I like both this album and doing well at the competition.

Only listened to this once (just before voting), and it's my #9. Psychedelic grandeur.

HSN manage to to take exactly the right amounts of kitsch and self-awareness and make something brilliant

Love HSN, hope they're around forever. Would've been my #1 had Furia not come along and decimated everything.

I love its whole Svankmajer-at-the-beach cover art vibe

really hope the furia places

um

12 Alcest - Kodama 482 Points, 14 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/FkkoFQl.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1nWcB3qwsbx0nimMZH6sCw
spotify:album:1nWcB3qwsbx0nimMZH6sCw

https://alcest.bandcamp.com/album/kodama

"Kodama" the fifth album from Blackgaze pioneers, Alcest, marks the French duo's ferocious return to the stylistic maximalism of its early albums while continuing the band's relentless pursuit for new sounds and fresh ideas.
"Kodama" is the Japanese word for 'tree spirit' and 'echo' and from the album's structure and dynamics to its cinematic sound, "Kodama" indeed 'echoes' Alcest's 2010 classic, "Écailles De Lune". But this is no simple back-to-the-roots album: the band has more punch, rhythm and organic feel than ever before. While clearly influenced by bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, Dinosaur Jr, Grimes and The Cure, "Kodama" ultimately reveals itself as Alcest's 'Japanese album', drawing substantial inspiration from Japanese art and culture.

Originally triggered by Hayao Miyazaki's anime film "Princess Mononoke", "Kodama" picks up on the fate of its protagonist and, at its core, deals with the sensation of not belonging; of living in between worlds, be it city and nature or the physical and spiritual one. Duality is also crucial for the visual approach of the album, realized by French graphic designer duo Førtifem. Paying tribute to Japanese illustrators like Takato Yamamoto, the visuals portray contrasting elements like nature/urbanity, youth/death, femininity/animality and combine poetic elements with darker ones that were not present in Alcest's earlier works.

By giving the album a cultural, stylistic and compositional narrative, Neige and Winterhalter keep "Kodama" from just being the latest improvement on the Alcest sound and instead make the album a most rare and exciting thing: a vital, relevant record from a pioneer that not only upholds the band's trailblazing legacy but actually makes you want to see where they go next.

Buy in our shop here:

en.prophecy.de/artists/alcest
credits
released September 30, 2016

ha, false

jeez man. WTF is going to be in the top 10? probably only 1 thing I voted for.

contrasting elements like...femininity/animality

Lol

I can think of a couple things

Also yeah lol neige

lol no one guessed alcest

I guess I should listen to this

I like this album fine but it's the sound of a band treading water

Yeah that was kind of an oversight... I don't like it as much as some previous efforts, but it's still very lovely. Eclosion favourite track.

Would anyone have flipped and voted for Astronoid instead of Alcest if they heard it in time?

If given an ultimatum, definitely

11 BÖLZER - Hero 511 Points, 13 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/hXe0kda.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/20aO400BOYxMXy7X07PXJy
spotify:album:20aO400BOYxMXy7X07PXJy

https://bolzer.bandcamp.com/album/hero

IRON BONEHEAD PRODUCTIONS is proud to present BÖLZER's massively anticipated debut album, Hero. Hailing from Switzerland, BÖLZER are one of the most unique entities the metal underground has birthed in years. For one, BÖLZER are proudly and resolutely a duo, using the barest essentials of voice, guitar, and drums and yet creating one of the densest, most world-eating sounds around. For another, the duo have wisely and patiently parceled out their recordings, with a lone nine songs to date across three records - 2012's Roman Acupuncture demo, 2013's IRON BONEHEAD-released Aura EP, and 2014's Soma EP - judiciously chronicling the band's evolution into one of the most critically acclaimed metal bands in recent memory. And yet, "critical acclaim" has never been a part of BÖLZER's agenda: their commitment is to their art alone, but it just so happens that word-of-mouth built organically (and feverishly), especially on the strength of their devastating, soul-draining live performances, where they can recreate every aspect of their records in the flesh.

And at long last, flesh is given to a full-length album, and it bears the characteristically idiosyncratic title Hero. Here, in many ways, BÖLZER break from their past. Rich 'n' resonant clean vocals often take center stage, lending an alternately mournful/majestic quality to the duo's earth-juddering bulldoze. Likewise, the production across Hero is categorically cleaner than their grime-coated EPs, which dynamically enhances the spiraling melodicism that explodes into being here. Suitably, the songwriting itself takes on dazzling new contours, wending 'n' winding with even more fluidity - and certainly more daring - than the band's epic-yet-effortless EPs. And yet, for however seemingly radical these developments are - ultimately, they shouldn't be that "radical" in the hands of capable and sincere artisans - it all sounds like BÖLZER, both what they were, what they can be, and most especially, what they currently are. Every aesthetic suggestion, every subtle nuance, every thing left unsaid in the past: here on Hero, it's all harnessed into a molten maelstrom that's ever more unique (and alien) because it's unshackled itself from expectation. It is, in a word, heroic. But what is the meaning of Hero? Discover for yourself, plunge into that maelstrom, and let BÖLZER be your guide.

LP/CD/Tape available through shop.ironbonehead.de
credits
released November 25, 2016

- All sensory awakening by BÖLZER
- Initiated by M. Zech and V. Santura at Woodshed Studios, Landshut, Bavaria
tags
tags: black metal death metal metal doom metal Zürich

ok that I did not expect

it all sounds like BÖLZER, both what they were, what they can be, and most especially, what they currently are

No kidding. Who writes this stuff?

Hahaha exactly what I was thinking

it bears the characteristically idiosyncratic title Hero

"idiosyncratic" oh ya

(like w/ the band brad was ragging on these guys are v bad at downplaying the nazi angle iirc)

xpost Joining this late - didnt vote this year as I heard fa metal this year. wouldve voted for Horse Lords and Jute Gyte tho. im liking the Gorguts and Alcest so far. This Bolzer thing is pretty cool too altho yeah thats a bullshitty write-up.

LOL at the album description. classic Artist Statement nonsense.

Is that a three foot long hookah coming out of his golden thong or...?

Recap

101 Khthoniik Cerviiks - SeroLogiikal Scars (Vertex of Dementiia) 108 4 1
98 Abbath - Abbath 109 3 0
98 Blood Ceremony - Lord Of Misrule 109 3 0
98 Lord Vicar - Gates of Flesh 109 3 0
97 Dawnwalker - In Rooms 109 4 0
95 Madder Mortem - Red In Tooth and Claw 110 4 0
95 Wardruna - Runaljod - Ragnarok 110 4 0
94 Sunwatchers - Sunwatchers 112 3 0
93 Truckfighters - V 116 4 0
92 Atomikylä - Keräily 118 3 0
91 Wo Fat - Midnight Cometh 121 4 0
90 Grand Magus - Sword Songs 122 3 0

89 Rotting Christ - Rituals 123 4 0
88 Wrong - Wrong 124 3 0
87 Melvins - Basses Loaded 126 4 0
86 Batushka - Litourgiya 127 3 0
85 Bloodiest - Bloodiest 128 3 0
84 Wretch - Wretch 128 4 0
83 Urfaust - Empty Space Meditation 128 4 1
82 Mare Cognitum - Luminiferous Aether 128 6 0
81 ColdWorld - Autumn 129 3 0
80 Void Meditation Cult - Utter the Tongue of the Dead 131 4 0

79 Car Bomb - Meta 134 3 0
78 Anciients - Voice of the Void 137 4 0
77 Wormrot - Voices 138 4 0
76 Saor - Guardians 138 6 0
75 Asphyx - Incoming Death 139 3 0
74 The Body, Full of Hell - One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache 139 5 0
73 High Spirits - Motivator 140 4 0
72 Inverloch - Distance | Collapsed 141 4 0
70 Occult Burial - Hideous Obscure 142 4 0
70 Testament - Brotherhood Of The Snake 142 4 0

69 Horse Latitudes - Primal Gnosis 143 4 0
68 Howls of Ebb - Cursus Impasse: The Pendlomic Vows 148 5 0
67 Sumerlands - s/t 154 6 0
66 Eight Bells - Landless 156 5 0
65 Anicon - Exegeses 160 4 0
63 Cadaveric Fumes - Dimensions Obscure EP 164 5 0
63 Nails - You Will Never Be One of Us 164 5 0
62 The Body - No One Deserves Happiness 165 6 0
61 Woman is the Earth - Torch of Our Final Night 166 4 1
60 Anaal Nathrakh - The Whole Of The Law 166 5 0

59 Amon Amarth - Jomsviking 174 5 0
58 Chthe'ilist - Le dernier crépuscule 177 6 0
57 Mesarthim - Pillars [EP] 180 5 0
56 Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas - Mariner 185 5 0
55 Lotus Thief - Gramarye 186 6 0
54 Ulcerate - Shrines Of Paralysis 187 5 0
53 Sabaton - The Last Stand 190 5 0
52 Skáphe - Skáphe² 195 6 0
51 The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation 196 6 0
50 Inquisition - Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith 198 7 0

49 Blues Pills - Lady In Gold 200 4 1
48 Megadeth - Dystopia 200 5 1
47 Russian Circles - Guidance 200 6 0
46 Astronoid - Air 201 6 0
45 Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Y Proffwyd Dwell 209 6 0
44 Deftones - Gore 215 5 1
43 Blood Incantation - Starspawn 216 7 0
42 Moon Tooth - Chromaparagon 219 5 1
41 Ophidian Forest - Susurrus 222 6 0
40 Mesarthim - .- -... ... . -. -.-. . 228 7 0

39 Ulver - ATGCLVLSSCAP 228 9 0
38 Wormed - Krighsu 231 6 0
37 Comet Control - Center of the Maze 235 6 0
35 Krallice - Hyperion 246 8 0
35 Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep of Reason 246 8 0
34 Darkthrone - Arctic Thunder 259 8 0
33 Oathbreaker - Rheia 262 7 1
32 Cultes des Ghoules - Coven, or Evil Ways Instead of Love 263 7 0
31 Opeth - Sorceress 265 7 0
30 Mesarthim - Isolate 266 7 0

29 Metallica - Hardwired...To Self Destruct 270 9 0
28 40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky 284 7 0
27 Entropia - Ufonaut 298 9 0
26 Völur - Disir 302 8 0
25 Khemmis - Hunted 307 8 1
24 Kvelertak - Nattesferd 316 8 0
23 Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows 319 10 0
22 Gojira - Magma 337 9 1
21 Dysrhythmia - The Veil Of Control 341 10 0
20 Virus - Memento Collider 371 12 0

19 Horse Lords - Interventions 384 11 0
18 Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolutions 408 12 0
17 Forgotten Spell - Epiphaneia Phosphorus (Angel, God or Insanity) 413 9 3
16 Thy Catafalque - Meta 424 10 1
15 Neurosis - Fires Within Fires 444 11 0
14 Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust 464 13 0
13 Hail Spirit Noir - Mayhem in Blue 473 12 1
12 Alcest - Kodama 482 14 0
11 Bolzer - Hero 511 13 0

Spotify playlist to subscribe to

Bold prediction: Babymetal at #1.

had to make some hamburgers before I'm too impaired but I guess all I missed was Bolzer (hambolzers)

thanks for the rollout as usual, I have no idea what's gonna be in the top 10

I liked the Horse Lords record a lot, all year long, but no-way no-how is it a Metal record, and I strongly feel it should not have been eligible in the end of the year Poll. Oh well.

xps it's j3ffs birthday today

Vektor, Deathspell, Oranssi Pazuzu locks

actually surprised Chilean death/thrash band Ripper didn't make the top 100 -- as retro thrash goes, it was pretty fun

and yeah, pre-emptive thanks for doing this!!

Happy birthday!

hails from afar

my guesses:

SubRosa
Vektor
Cobalt
Oranssi Pazuzu
Aluk Tolodo
Mesarthim again
Jute Gute
Furia

and I can't think of two more.

Hapy B-Day J3ff hope you're lurking to see this!

Mesarthim
Mesarthim
Mesarthim
Mesarthim
Mesarthim
Mesarthim
Babymetal
Mesarthim
Mesarthim
Mesarthim

huh there was no Devin Townsend

so far I've only guessed 2 of the top 20 so I probably shouldn't be making predictions lol

and of course thanks to sendelai and cs for making the magic happen.

huh there was no Devin Townsend

― Devilock, Tuesday, December 20, 2016 3:08 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wasn't even nominated

In an alternate timeline he is one of the most influential and important figures in metal, and Strapping Young Lad are a multi-platinum arena act. Sadly, not in this timeline though.

Yeah, thank you so much S and CS. These polls are always amazing

^this!

still need to hear Transcendence tbh

I really appreciate all the input of dudes on this thread. I heard a ton of stuff that I'd have otherwise ignored and found some real gems. That said, my picks appear way off base of consensus so far. Maybe I'll be surprised by the top 20? Where's the metal tho? A lot of this stuff is gateway for curious listeners of other genres, which is cool, I'm omniverous in my listening, too. But really, this poll stretches the definition of metal. I love slimy, pit demon, black thrash barf. I'd chill on NWN but that's a vile and childish scene. I'm hanging up my horns. Btw, a band I play in has placed already.

Seriously? Tell us more.

Mesarthim

It's definitely Khthoniik Cerviiks.

I'm actually amazed Occult Burial placed at all. Glad, though. And Void Meditation Cult. Hostium and Mortem were also good, in the NWN vein, which, yes, is a resource best used with minimal interaction.

All the previous top 20's

2008

1 - 479 - 25 - 2 - Torche - Meanderthal
2 - 357 - 19 - 3 - Harvey Milk - Life...the Best Game in Town
3 - 276 - 19 - 0 - Earth - The Bees Made Honey...
4 - 227 - 16 - 0 - Boris - Smile
5 - 212 - 13 - 1 - Opeth - Watershed
6 - 203 - 11 - 1 - Nachtmystium - Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1
7 - 183 - 10 - 2 - Esoteric - The Maniacal Vale
8 - 179 - 12 - 0 - 5ive - Hesperus
9 - 165 - 10 - 2 - Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner
10 - 163 - 10 - 0 - Gojira - The Way of All Flesh
11 - 158 - 11 - 1 - The Goslings - Occasion
12 - 155 - 10 - 0 - Meshuggah - obZen
13 - 145 - 9 - 0 - Enslaved - Vertebrae
14 - 141 - 10 - 0 - Melvins - Nude With Boots
15 - 140 - 8 - 0 - Caina - Temporary Antennae
16 - 137 - 8 - 0 - Krallice - Krallice
17 - 128 - 8 - 0 - Leviathan - Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
18 - 126 - 8 - 1 - Asva - What You Don't Know Is Frontier
18 - 126 - 8 - 0 - Cynic - Traced in Air
20 - 123 - 8 - 0 - Sunn 0))) - Domkirke

2009

"1","Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions","757","31","4","24.419"
"2","Converge - Axe to Fall","722","30","2","24.067"
"3","Mastodon - Crack the Skye","709","31","6","22.871"
"4","Baroness - Blue Record","708","30","6","23.6"
"5","YOB - The Great Cessation","705","28","5","25.179"
"6","Cobalt - Gin","566","24","1","23.583"
"7","Kylesa - Static Tensions","490","22","","22.273"
"8","Zu - Carboniferous","454","21","1","21.619"
"9","Isis - Wavering Radiant","437","22","1","19.864"
"10","Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough","412","22","","18.727"
"11","Wolves in the Throne Room - Black Cascade","405","22","","18.409"
"12","Zombi - Spirit Animal","401","17","3","23.588"
"13","Slough Feg - Ape Uprising","390","16","2","24.375"
"14","The Gates of Slumber - Hymns of Blood and Thunder","380","18","","21.111"
"15","Om - God Is Good","335","16","","20.938"
"16","Shrinebuilder - Shrinebuilder","334","17","1","19.647"
"17","Khanate - Clean Hands Go Foul","315","17","1","18.529"
"18","Slayer - World Painted Blood","293","15","","19.533"
"19","Liturgy - Renihilation","260","16","","16.25"
"20","Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights","253","13","","19.462"

2010

1. Electric Wizard - Black Masses (1,583 Points, 49 Votes, 10 #1s)
2. Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit (1,540 Points, 48 Votes, 8 #1s)
3. Ludicra - The Tenant (1,387 Points, 46 Votes, 4 #1s)
4. Alcest - Écailles de Lune (1,330 Points, 49 Votes, 4 #1s)
5. Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle Part II (1,226 Points, 38 Votes, 4 #1s)
6. High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine (1,199 Points, 40 Votes, 3 #1s)
7. Slough Feg - The Animal Spirits (1,197 Points, 42 Votes, 2 #1s)
8. Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones (1,076 Points, 40 Votes, 3 #1s)
9. Harvey Milk - A Small Turn of Human Kindness (1,015 Points, 35 Votes, 3 #1s)
10. Dawnbringer - Nucleus (1,009 Points, 34 Votes, 2 #1s)
11. Ghost - Opus Eponymous (868 Points, 32 Votes, 1 #1)
12. UFOmammut - Eve (790 Points, 30 Votes, 2 #1s)
13. Kylesa - Spiral Shadow (733 Points, 27 Votes)
14. Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier (703 Points, 29 Votes, 1 #1)
15. Christian Mistress - Agony & Opium (700 Points, 25 Votes, 1 #1)
16. Apostle of Solitude - Last Sunrise (693 Points, 26 Votes, 1 #1)
17. Bongripper - Satan Worshipping Doom (666 Points, 25 Votes, 1 #1)
18. Drudkh - Handful of Stars (665 Points, 25 Votes, 1 #1)
19. Torche - Songs for Singles (663 Points, 23 Votes, 1 #1)
20. Envy - Recitation (660 Points, 26 Votes, 1 #1)

2011

1. Hammers of Misfortune - 17th Street (1,601 Points, 39 Votes, 5 #1s)
2. Corrupted - Garten Der Unbewusstheit (1,599 Points, 40 Votes, 4 #1s)
3. YOB - Atma (1,527 Points, 41 Votes, 2 #1s)
4. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust (1,371 Points, 34 Votes, 4 #1s)
5. Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage (1,351 Points, 36 Votes, 2 #1s)
6. Esoteric - Paragon of Dissonance (1,344 Points, 35 Votes, 4 #1s)
7. Mastodon - The Hunter (1,253 Points, 33 Votes, 6 #1s)
8. Pantheïst - Pantheist (1,187 Points, 30 Votes, 2 #1s)
9. The Gates of Slumber - The Wretch (1,085 Points, 32 Votes, 1 #1)
10. Subrosa - No Help for the Mighty Ones (1,080 Points, 30 Votes, 3 #1s)
11. The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre (1,056 Points, 29 Votes, 3 #1s)
12. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room (1,049 Points, 27 Votes, 1 #1)
13. Blood Ceremony - Living With the Ancients (1,014 Points, 31 Votes, 1 #1)
14. Absu - Abzu (901 Points, 26 Votes, 1 #1)
15. Krallice - Diotima (899 Points, 28 Votes)
16. Falloch - Where Distant Spirits Remain (874 Points, 27 Votes, 1 #1)
17. Liturgy - Aesthethica (873 Points, 26 Votes, 2 #1s)
18. Altar of Plagues - Mammal (855 Points, 26 Votes, 1 #1)
19. Fen - Epoch (851 Points, 27 Votes, 1 #1)
20. Asva - Presences of Absences (845 Points, 25 Votes, 2 #1s)

2012

1 Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind - 364 points, 17 votes, 6 first place votes
2 Neurosis - Honor Found In Decay - 358 points, 19 votes, 4 first place votes
3 SWANS - The Seer - 344 points, 16 votes, 7 first place votes
4 Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine - 235 points, 18 votes
5 Dawnbringer - Into The Lair Of The Sun God - 223 points, 15 votes, 1 first place vote
6 Old Man Gloom - No - 214 points, 14 votes, 1 first place vote
7 Krallice - Years Past Matter - 213 points, 16 votes, 1 first place vote
8 Christian Mistress - Possession - 195 points, 17 votes, 2 first place votes
9 Aluk Todolo - Occult Rock - 195 points, 16 votes, 1 first place vote
10 Agalloch - Faustian Echoes EP - 194 points, 14 votes
11 Pallbearer-Sorrow and Extinction - 183 points, 15 votes, 1 first place vote
12 OM - Advaitic Songs - 181 points, 13 votes, 1 first place vote
13 Dordeduh - Dar de duh - 178 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote
14 Saint Vitus - LILLIE: F-65 - 170 points, 14 votes, 1 first place vote
15 Alcest - Les Voyages De L'Âme - 164 points, 13 votes
16 Goat - World Music - 163 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote
17 Baroness - Yellow & Green - 162 points, 12 votes, 1 first place vote
18 Les Discrets - Ariettes oubliées... - 162 points, 11 votes, 2 first place votes
19 High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis - 156 points, 14 votes
20 Jess and the Ancient Ones - Jess and the Ancient Ones - 154 points, 11 votes, 1 first place vote

2013

1 carcass - surgical steel 1121.0 27 8
2 in solitude - sister 831.0 21 2
3 altar of plagues - teethed glory and injury 798.0 22 0
4 gorguts - colored sands 779.0 19 2
5 subrosa - more constant than the gods 741.0 19 2
6 windhand - soma 732.0 19 1 knaaq
7 uncle acid and the deadbeats - mind control 707.0 20 2
8 melt-banana - fetch 686.0 18 1 matt
9 asg - blood drive 668.0 17 0
10 deafheaven - sunbather 666.0 18 3
11 kylesa - ultraviolet 637.0 18 1
12 atlantean kodex - the white goddess 615.0 15 1
13 avatarium - avatarium 613.0 16 1 Paul R
14 darkthrone - the underground resistance 597.0 17 0
15 nails - abandon all life 561.0 16 1
16 hell - curse and chapter 560.0 14 1
17 queens of the stone age - like clockwork 557.0 15 1
18 beastmilk - climax 529.0 15 1
19 ghost - infestissumam 502.0 15 0
20 summoning - old mornings dawn 500.0 14 0

2014

1 YOB - Clearing the Path to Ascend 1240 Points, 32 votes , THREE #1s
2 Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden 1233 Points, 33 votes, One #1
3 Agalloch - The Serpent & the Sphere 1165 Points, 31 votes, Three #1s
4 Electric Wizard - Time to Die 1130 Points, 27 votes THREE #1's
5 Triptykon - Melana Chasmata 1078 Points, 27 votes FIVE #1's
6 Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire 876 Points, 23 votes, THREE #1s
7 Darkspace - Dark Space III I 813 Points, 22 votes , ONE #1
8 Scott Walker & SunnO))) - Soused 799 Points, 21 votes, TWO #1s
9 Earth - Primitive and Deadly 738 Points, 21 votes , ONE #1
10 Jute Gyte - Ressentiment 697 Points, 18 votes
11 Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun 680 Points, 19 votes, One #1
12 Bölzer - Soma EP 666 Points, 18 votes , One #1
13 Slough Feg - Digital Resistance 662 Points, 19 votes, One #1
14 Panopticon - Roads to the North 654 Points, 18 votes , One #1
15 Sunn O))) & Ulver - Terrestrials 621 Points, 17 votes, One #1
16 Botanist - Vi: Flora 619 Points, 18 votes, One #1
17 Alcest - Shelter 612 Points, 18 votes, One #1
18 Blut aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry 609 Points, 17 votes
19 Jute Gyte - Vast Chains 599 Points, 15votes , THREE #1s
20 Blues Pills - Blues Pills 557 Points, 13 votes

2015

1 Ghost - Meliora 1161.0 26 5
2 Myrkur - M 1156.0 32 1
3 Panopticon - Autumn Eternal 1016.0 26 1
4 Shape Of Despair - Monotony Fields 817.0 21 1
5 Thy Catafalque - Sgùrr 816.0 19 3
6 Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss 809.0 21 2
7 Skepticism - Ordeal 806.0 19 1
8 Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - The Night Creeper 747.0 21 1
9 Sunn O))) - Kannon 723.0 20 1
10 Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower 705.0 19 1
11 Mgla - Exercises In Futility 689.0 18 2
12 Krallice - Ygg huur 660.0 19 0
13 Sarpanitum - Blessed Be My Brothers 654.0 16 1
14 Liturgy - The Ark Work 623.0 17 0
15 Avatarium - The Girl With The Raven Mask 592.0 14 1
16 Pinkish Black - Bottom of the Morning 582.0 17 1
17 VHÖL - Deeper Than Sky 582.0 17 0
18 Jess And The Ancient Ones - Second Psychedelic Coming: The Aquarius Tapes 576.0 15 1
19 Tribulation - The Children of the Night 569.0 16 1
20 High on Fire - Luminiferous 567.0 17 1

Which years had the strongest top 20s?

2010,2014,2015 seem especially strong

i love how a conservative metal snob going thru our 2015 list would get to number 2 and spit out his coffee in disgust at the shitforbrains hipsters of ilx

...then get to number 1

2010 & 2013 seem particularly strong to me.

xp LOL "these guys are just taking the piss, right?! gotta be..."

ILM, where post-rock and synthpop are subgenres of Metal! :D

Frobisher the two youre missing are Schammasch and Deathspell Omega

"But surely metal will be respectably represented on the overall albums lists! Let's see, 2014, #77..."

2010 is impressive. But that Melt-Banana album is probably my favourite of the whole lot (file under 'art rock').

jeff & emil.y were responsible for getting that in the 77

xp

that 2014 is sorely lacking Emptiness, Domains, Hail Spirit Noir, Behemoth, and Horrendous

speaking of Emptiness, they've released 3 tracks from the 2017 album and it's gonna be even weirder than Nothing But the Whole

2013 has the most of my favourites in the top 20, e.g. In Solitude, Carcass, Subrosa, Melt-Banana.

our falseness is our strength xxps

xps

you can see full results of each year (inc the 00-15 poll) here

Previous Metal Poll EOY Results Thread

Sorely Lacking Emptiness Domains

Frobisher the two youre missing are Schammasch and Deathspell Omega

― U2 (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, December 20, 2016 11:01 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's one more, as we're all out of Mesarthim (of that nominated - there's ALWAYS more Mesarthim irl)

also lol tt

the one more begins with an s btw

Ok I chose this fine night to read this whole thread in one go. Didn't vote, didn't get to indulge in the "genre" that much this year. Best takeaways for now are defo Mesarthim and Skáphe <3 The former v heavy on the cheese melody wise, but I dig, I dig. Not a lot of sluggish, doomy black metal out this year right? Love Deathspell Omega as per usual, thought Spectral Lore's last album was great (though technically from last year?)

Still miss stuff like Lurker of Chalice and Xasthur though. Anything in that vein out this year? Regardless, great thread, great work allround.

didn't vote this year and using this thread to catch up on things. all i have to say is my god (satan) this Forgotten Spell record, spectacular.

Nice to see the Hail Spirit Noir, Horse Lords and Kvelertak placing. Lots of interesting stuff as always. I'm digging this Bolzer so far.

I'm about a 1/4 through the list. Only band I know so far is the Melvins and I had heard some Wo Fat before.

DIG- Blood Ceremony, Lord Vicar & Wo Fat
INTERESTING- Dawnwalker, Madder Mortem (excellent vocals), Truckfighters, Grand Magus, Wrong, Bloodiest (first track was kinda like Neurosis doing a Shellac tune), Anciients.

Some of the others had some cool elements but I couldn't get with it.

looking at those past top 20s is fun. lots of tight races ... Hammers won 2011 by TWO points!

and then look at how much Carcass STOMPED the rest of the field in 2013.

anyway ... metal poll rollout is THEEEEEE best, seriously.

Yeah, these poll threads the one times this century I lay off the Nazareth, Molly Hatchet and The Minutemen and try something different. I listen to plenty of stuff I haven't heard, it's just often old stuff.

It's weird to still hear complaints about non-metal albums placing, looking at last year's top 20. Ghost, Chelsea Wolfe, Uncle Acid, Sunn O))), Pinkish Black and Jess And The Ancient Ones are all non-metal to varying degrees.

SubRosa
Vektor
Cobalt
Oranssi Pazuzu
Aluk Tolodo
Mesarthim again
Jute Gute
Furia

and I can't think of two more.

I'd be surprised if Cobalt makes it. Removing this one and adding Schammasch / Sumac / Deathspell Omega makes it 10.

there won't be another mesarthim (although their two december eps, combined into one release and put out two months ago, might well have). cobalt will surely make it!

Oh yeah I forgot Sumac

I should go for a slow rollout today and post an album every hour so everyone can listen to it and comment while listening.

That's cool. But if you post our #10 now, our American friends will have to listen and comment only in their dreams

So I'd wait until like 1pm

and finish in the wee small hours? fuck that

Lol, give it a couple of hours though! Even I'm usually still asleep at this time

So much metal from the last couple of days to digest as well! I'm listening to Hammers of Misfortune. It's quite fun!

Why am I enjoying this so much ffs, it's anachronistic twaddle!

(But with such great melodies, dynamism and songwriting!)

Great melodies, dynamism and songwriting would preclude it being twaddle though, wouldn't it? And just IMHO they do a pretty good job of not being terribly anachronistic within the bounds of a genre that would probably prefer them to be as anachronistic as possible.

40 Watt Sun's name, when said aloud, sounds like a Sublime-related band so I did this.

put an "ANYWAY," before 40 tia

Oh, 'anachronistic twaddle' was a self-knowing joke, I absolutely loved the album :)

Forgotten Spell are an excellent sleep aid

that sounds fairly backhanded lol

I'm as much a sucker for space metal as the next guy but Mesarthim crosses the line into pure Italo cheese a bit too often.

Forgotten Spell would've made my top 10 easily if I'd heard it earlier.

both a backhanded compliment and not, I value good sleep, hell I voted for the Midnight Odyssey album last year

Fair enough!

Siegbran, what were your favourite dungeon synth/space metal/sleep-aid albums this year?

10 Jute Gyte - Perdurance 539 Points, 14 Votes, TWO #1's
http://i.imgur.com/vtuUR7f.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/4ewLfzMxythcXotxny48Md
spotify:album:4ewLfzMxythcXotxny48Md

https://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/

threw this on the bottom of my ballot, don't rly care too much though

it's all been done before, y'know?

Remember to subscribe to the SPOTIFY RESULTS PLAYLIST

That was Imago's #1 btw

Who else was it number one for?

This suffered a little on my ballot due to overexposure in our household, but still made the top 10, of course. It's horrible.

He is now going to tell us why he thinks it's his best album yet

sund4r i expect. theyve had him #1 3 years in a row now i think

nope, it was someone else

btw remember that #1 Megadeth got? it was by a user called 'make metal great again'

Oh Jute GYTE! I thought that read Jute Goat. Ah yes - well, it's the best and most exciting music being made right now, a truly fearsome and limitless synthesis of metal, modern classical and avant-electronica whose songwriting instincts are both cavernous and razor-sharp. Apologies for the misreading.

btw this Forgotten Spell album I downloaded are these drums meant to sound like the clanking of pots in the sink?

And sure it's his best album yet. Each one feels like a monstrous breakthrough at this point. The electronics, polytempi and layers of composition are being integrated in new and spectacular ways - even as the songs get catchier and more memorable. I don't know how he does it.

The Forgotten Spell drums probably ARE pots in the sink, but at least he's playing them, unlike Mr Autechre over here!

Gimmie Autechre

As an introduction to the album for the skeptical, I suggest the second track The Harvesting Of Ruins, which quickly settles into a truly startling eastern European folk melody of all things, and develops it beyond all reason.

I sent in small unweighted ballots both this year and last year (and don't think I voted in previous eoy metal polls?). I did put Vast Chains at #1 on my ballot for the ILM lifetime metal poll. I remember thinking this was great but didn't end up spinning it a lot after the summer. Will pull it out again. Listening to actual Branca now though.

this is my fave 'Gyte yet

9 Schammasch - Triangle 543 Points, 15 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/9baBfEr.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/08pUbf5AYJ38OpjpPKoXpr
spotify:album:08pUbf5AYJ38OpjpPKoXpr

https://schammasch.bandcamp.com/album/triangle

The colossal new album from Swiss avant-garde extreme metal titans SCHAMMASCH. Entitled 'Triangle', it encompasses a 100 minute masterwork in three distinct movements - Part I : The Process Of Dying, Part II : Metaflesh and Part III : The Supernal Clear Light Of The Void. Presented as a bold triple vinyl / triple gatefold limited ediition vinyl set and 3 separate cd albums presented in a slipcase with imagery realised by acclaimed photographer Ester Segarra and graphic designer Valnoir. Rarely is such a grand musical and aestethic feat accomplished within the bounds of extreme metal. Recorded by V. Santura (Triptykon / Dark Fortress). CD set strictly limited to 2000 copies worldwide. 3LP set limited to 666 copies worldwide.

Includes unlimited streaming of Triangle via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

It's with great pleasure that we introduce you to the colossal new album by SCHAMMASCH. Entitled 'Triangle', it encompasses a 100 minute masterwork in three distinct movements - Part I : The Process Of Dying, Part II : Metaflesh and Part III : The Supernal Clear Light Of The Void. Presented as a bold triple vinyl / triple gatefold limited ediition vinyl set and 3 separate cd albums presented in a slipcase with imagery realised by acclaimed photographer Ester Segarra and graphic designer Valnoir. Rarely is such a grand musical and aestethic feat accomplished within the bounds of extreme metal.

Located in Basel, Switzerland, Schammasch was formed in 2009.’Schammasch’ being Šamaš, the sun god from Akkadian / Babylonian mythology.)

With little attention to the question of genre from their inception, the band regarded their actual body of work as what is most artistically significant; although their roots can be found in forward-thinking black metal whilst balancing a razor sharp hybrid of dark atmospherics, doom and Hermetic mysticism.

After a year of carefully crafting their art, Schammasch released their first album „Sic Lvceat Lvx“ on an underground Swiss Black Metal label and unveiled their live show alongside international extreme metal acts like Jex Thoth, Temple of Baal, Vorkreist, Evoken and Forgotten Tomb. Their ambitious debut garnered considerable praise from many corners of the extreme music world, in print and online.

As the first Swiss band to join the Prosthetic roster, Schammasch release their second opus „Contradiction“ as a double album in 2014, which was recorded and produced by none other than Tripkyton / ex-Celtic Frost guitarist V. Santura. A sprawling, epic work over 85 minutes, presented with the majestic arkwork of artist Valnoir of the Metastazis Studio in Paris (Paradise Lost, Alcest, Ulver.) The album gets high attention from magazines like Metal Hammer UK, Terrorizer, RockHard GER and many more. Metal Hammer describes „Contradiction“ as "cerebral and utterly absorbing and one of the most overwhelming albums of the year".

Later this year the band’s first international tour starts off, supporting Dark Fortress and Secrets of the Moon, receiving great response from crowds all over Europe. At the same time their video clip „Golden Light“ is released, again including Valnoir as a co-producer and William Lacalmontie (Corrections House, Church of Ra, Godflesh) as main producer. Appearing on countless best of 2014-lists to the end of the year including RockHard’s best of sampler, „Contradiction“ turned out to be a truly commanding work of significant importance, both to extreme music in 2014 and to the rich heritage of forward thinking Swiss metal in general.

In 2015 Schammasch fully concentrate on the process of songwriting for their 3rd album, following and continuing their path with utter focus and fervour, to finally enter Woodshed studio again in summer, starting the first of many long recording sessions. In September the new album is finally mixed and mastered, this time also including Michael Zech as a co-producer, who is well known for his production work for Triptykon, Secrets of the Moon and Ascension.

The band’s third album is entitled „Triangle“, a monolith consisting of three LPs each 33:30 minutes in length, each differing in atmosphere and style, each standing for one of three stages of the album’s strong concept. This very unique concept is visually presented by a series of four photographs (one Box, three sleeves), each an incarnate statement of the concept’s stage, taken by Ester Segarra (Watain, Electric Wizard, Bloodbath) in London to the end of 2015.

„Triangle“ will be released in April 2016, shortly after followed by the band’s second video clip „Metanoia“, which will be produced in February, in the midst of Iceland’s astonishing landscapes. Now teamed up with the booking agency District 19 (Apshyx, Bölzer, Enthroned), Schammasch are eager to release their third opus, with highest expectations for the media‘s response and many possibilities to present their art on stage.
credits
released April 29, 2016
tags
tags: black metal metal schammasch avant-garde Switzerland

http://www.themonolith.com/music/review-schammasch-triangle/

Triangle
29th April, 2016 – Prosthetic Records
Disc I – The Process of Dying
01. Crepusculum
02. Father’s Breath
03. In Dialogue with Death
04. Diluculum
05. Consensus
06. Awakening from the Dream of Life
Disc II – Metaflesh
01. The World Destroyed by Water
02. Satori
03. Metanoia
04. Above the Stars of God
05. Conclusion
Disc III – The Supernal Clear Light of the Void
01. The Third Ray of Light
02. Cathartic Confession
03. Jacob’s Dream
04. Maelstrom
05. The Empyrean

The Baslerin’s 2010 debut Sic Lvceat Lux alone was good enough to get them signed to Prosthetic Records. The rather excellent Contradiction followed in 2014, and two years later they are bringing their third full length, Triangle, to the table. Triangle is a massive album, packed onto three discs, each representing a different side or sound. Ambitious? Yes, absolutely. The length should not daunt any potential listeners though. Each side is only about 30 minutes long, and the album actually moves by fairly quickly once you achieve total immersion. And there is a lot to immerse yourself in.
Part I: The Process of Dying

Triangle’s first part revels in sheer flame; slow-burning, acid-spewing fire. Containing the most orthodox black metal found on the record, it still has Schammasch’s signature ritualistic spin. It’s hard not to make the comparison to Behemoth; Chris’ vocals have a similar furnace-like quality, and the guitar riffs ring with an eerie occult power much like found on some of the Polish legends’ works. The comparisons are only mild however, as Schammasch have a much more developed talent for writing guitar melodies to wind their way around the riffs and vocals – and nor do the death metal elements that Behemoth have cultivated really exist within the torrent of grim fire spewed forth on The Process of Dying.

Furthermore, the songs on The Process of Dying have almost a hollow feeling to them; tension and terror lurks within them. “In Dialogue with Death” in particular is desperate and prophetic, flaying the mind of the listener in unholy fires of doomsday; the sound of Luciferian deities setting the mortal realm ablaze, and bringing an end to the age of man. What could possibly follow this?
Part II: Metaflesh

Triangle‘s second part, Metaflesh, reveals Schammasch’s occult side. Vastly more ambient, and feels more almost apocalyptic, dealing lyrically with the destruction of mankind and the world. It erupts into something akin to Part I’s burning fire at times, but maintains a methodical pace for the most part.

Songs like “Satori” and the transcendental “Above the Stars of God” are some of the finest black metal tracks written in recent memory; the latter with serving as the aftermath of the first disc, where fire has devastated the world, and so now fire comes for the eternal kingdom of Heaven. “Above the Stars of God” stands out particularly as one of the best tracks of the year, staring out slow with an almost David Gilmour-like guitar solo building up until the song slams into the listener with heavy chords and powerful vocals. The cries of “I will raise my throne!” are nothing short of awe-inspiring.

And then from there it drops into the brooding, acoustic “Conclusion”, which is the perfect transition into part the third…
Part III: The Supernal Clean Light of the Void

Final chapter The Supernal Clean Light of the Void throws the listener for a bit of a curveball. Rather than another fiery torrent of black metal or a menacing, lumbering beast of occultism, its minimalist, dark, ambient tendencies make it perhaps the one that is most easily left on as background music. Tranquil, yet with a strange malevolence, the drumming is often very simple and tribal, while the instrumentation ranges from ominous drones to acoustic guitars to pipes and saxophones.

Closing track “The Empyrean” is very fitting and almost seems to tie the sounds of all three parts together, marrying the pounding occult and fear from the first two with all the tense malice of the third.

As a whole, Triangle‘s musicianship is phenomenal. Boris’ drumming is especially noticeable on many tracks, providing a fantastic backdrop for the blistering and towering guitars. His work on songs like “Consensus” or “Above the Stars of God” is jaw-dropping; the rhythmic patterns are hypnotizing, and to his credit, the performance across all three party raises Schammasch above their peers.

Elsewhere, Chris S.R utilises a range of styles, from infernal growls to demonic rasping – and even clean vocals that sound like an ominous liturgical chant – while some fantastic little guitar leads make their presence felt all over the album. “Awakening from the Dream of Life” has one of the more memorable ones including a ferocious harmonized tapping section, as well as a the incredible “Above the Stars of God” has a truly incredible one that enhances the feeling of the vocals and then later the drumming.

Black metal is known for lo-fi and raw production values, but the trend lately with many bands is to go the opposite route. Schammasch are one such band; Triangle#s mix is pristine, with every element shining through. If a lead is buried, then it is meant to be buried. Nothing is drowned out, and the whole thing rings with power.

Triangle is just a fantastic record. The triple-disc format may be somewhat intimidating, but the overall run-time is not actually all that long, especially when one considers that the listener is getting essentially three different albums from it. Each part is a unique taste of Schammasch’s diverse flavour, and each has different strong points supporting the atmosphere of the album. Highly recommended for fans of black metal who are tired of worshipping Mayhem all the time.

ilxor Mark S gives this his seal of approval btw

enh

Love the Schammasch album. Am going to have to buy the CD I think (can't really justify spending £30+ on the vinyl).

Haven't heard the Jute Gyte but I can take or leave them.

The vinyl package is well worth it

I don't know why I find Schammasch's particular brand of self-seriousness so annoying, but I do

A few tracks from the Schammasch sounded good but this felt like gimmick over substance a bit (or at least, not half as revolutionary and insane as it thought it was) and I haven't returned to it in months. Might do today.

^^^ pretty much sums up how I feel about it. If it was a 40 minute album that hit the same notes with more though I might like it more. I still think their first album's their best stuff, even though it's much more straightforward.

I am really surprised it made it this high on the list BTW! Don't remember many people talking about it on Rolling Metal.

lurkers be lurkin

mark s seal of approval makes the difference

oh this is the 1000000 year long album cs wanted me to listen to. never got around to it

if it helps u can pretend the boring 3rd disc does not exist

that's many peoples fave disc

Ah, now I'm remembering some of the things that stood out about this Jute Gyte, especially the strong sense of groove and formal variety. Great bassline in "At the Limit of Fertile Land".

I liked Schammasch well enough on my one listen to throw it a vote.

8 Deathspell Omega - The Synarchy of Molten Bones 558 Points, 16 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/BeD8ii0.jpg
https://deathspellomega.bandcamp.com/album/the-synarchy-of-molten-bones

http://www.nocleansinging.com/2016/10/31/immediate-and-completely-needless-reactions-to-deathspell-omegas-new-album-the-synarchy-of-molten-bones/

As I rapidly reported a few hours ago after receiving a Bandcamp alert, Deathspell Omega jumped the gun on their previously announced November 8 release date for their new album and uncaged The Synarchy of Molten Bones on Samhein night, to the surprise and glee of hordes of costumed and un-costumed fans.

Everyone can listen to it now; vast numbers undoubtedly already have. There is probably no need for myself or anyone else to review it. But I’m sharing some thoughts anyway, because I’ve so eagerly anticipated its release and am now near-bursting with thoughts. Better to get them out than risk an aneurism. Plus, I thought some of you might want to share your own reactions in the Comments.

Upon finishing a first listen (and my only listen as I write this), I was — to quote the title of the second song — famished for breath. Every track is so breathtakingly energetic and so flooded with mind-bending intricacy that hearing them straight through risks completely overloading the capacity of the normal human brain to keep pace, or to manage even a modicum of comprehension. I thought my brain had been unceremoniously teleported into the clutches of a centrifuge that had developed a mind of its own — and then immediately lost its mind.

That summation may be a slight exaggeration — it’s not a completely unceremonious plunge into a head-whipping spin: The album does begin (and end) with a spectral fanfare of symphonic horns. But otherwise, you may need a supplemental oxygen supply handy before pressing play. The album knows only two speeds — wildly careening, and flying like a rocket-assisted horde of bats.

It’s an intense, disorienting experience. In recent years, this kind of exuberant, head-spinning intricacy, kaleidoscopic explosiveness, and astonishing technical mastery would have brought to mind the kind of progressive and experimental death metal exemplified by the likes of Gorguts and Dysrhythmia. Here, it’s infiltrated by Deathspell Omega’s trademarked dissonance and a brand of vocal savagery that’s so demonic and deranged as to cloak the chaos in a mutilated mantle of ravenous horror.

Everything about the performances is jaw-dropping. The drumming is an ever-changing tour-de-force of light-speed blasting, somersaulting fills, and just enough propulsive hammering to give the helpless listener something to hold onto in these tumultuous storms of sound. The bounding, leaping, cavorting bass notes often seem to be off on a tangent of their own, and take center stage at just the right moments during subsidences in the drummer’s fireworks.

There’s a lot of high-speed riff tornados and related fret torture in play as well, veering and swarming so quickly and unpredictably that it seems there’s a kaleidoscope inside that crazed centrifuge along with your brain. Eerie, dissonant notes and warped chords come and go, along with a scattering of meandering arpeggios that don’t really slow things down — because as they sinuously twist like wraithlike serpents, the drummer usually picks those moments to pull out all the stops.

The combined effect of all this is electrifying. And I’m afraid that it is also like an addictive drug that somehow sharpens the senses just as it unmoors them from reality — I already feel a yearning to return to the music. And maybe once I collect myself enough to do so, I’ll comprehend something more of what just happened. Or not….

But either way, this album will be unforgettable.

I voted for this but I haven't come close to processing it yet

I love breathless metal-fan writing

that hyphen also works one space previous

It wouldn't be in my top 3 DO albums, but it's still p great.

7 Sumac - What One Becomes 559 Points, 15 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/qmYetXR.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/0s1U9VBobxvNn7Kctl5WN2
spotify:album:0s1U9VBobxvNn7Kctl5WN2

https://sumac.bandcamp.com/album/what-one-becomes

SUMAC (Aaron Turner on guitar and vocals, Nick Yacyshyn on drums, and Brian Cook on bass) invests in the recursive exercises of chaos and control, which manifest on the band’s second album What One Becomes. The trio’s debut The Deal (2015) revealed a new side of Turner’s combustible songwriting and guitar work, further expanding on his efforts in Isis and Old Man Gloom. On the new album, the trio has elevated the songs’ complexities with a greater entanglement of velocity, density, form, and function. The results are a testament to the tour-honed collective intuition and technical skills of drummer Yacyshyn (Baptists), bassist Cook (Russian Circles, These Arms Are Snakes, Botch) and Turner. The music of What One Becomes requires that each player be attuned to the dynamics and the tension within the multilateral structures.

On “Clutch Of Oblivion” the riff develops from a languid desert-rock melody and blossoms into a dense aggregate of rhythm, force, and vigor. A muscular hypno-rock aspiration burns out before reaching escape orbit, and the ensuing plummet of solitary guitar notes lead the band into the realm of introspection before another volley of motorik pummel. “Rigid Man” begins as a lurching epithet that finds the trio in a shadow boxing lockstep for the song’s first half of pugilistic rhythm and noise, only to smash itself on the ground amidst a diabolical feedback whorl from Turner’s guitar and to tear free from the rhythmic underbelly, tapping into the vein of unhinged expressionism howled by Les Rallizes Denudes and Caspar Brotzmann Massaker.

There is a profound anxiety that leaches through What One Becomes. SUMAC's choreographed structures parallel the internal and personal struggles with anxiety. They seek to identify the source, devise a course of action, and confront that condition at hand. Turner explains, “Much of it has to do with questioning fabricated structures of identity and what it means when those structures are destabilized by contact with the outside. That has been a unnerving process to undergo, but also fruitful in terms of discovering the path to individuation and realized connection with the self. Another facet of experience I’m working to convey is about living with the sustained presence of anxiety, and avoiding reliance on musical devices of cathartic release to provide escape from this condition.” Sumac channels psychic distress into their rigorously algebraic maneuvers and syllable-crack dissonance. These are an acts of honesty in the face of a particular conduction as well as acutely prescient designs of musical intensity that commands attention to all of this detail.
credits
released June 10, 2016

7.8

Sumac, Aaron Turner’s new trio, succeeds at making minimalist doom metal because they recall what fans of Isis loved without resembling his past work in the slightest. Sludgy heaviness and melody meet as before, but they clash instead of meld, and their fraught coexistence is drawn out. Turner attempted this with Split Cranium, a collaboration with Finnish experimental/metal linchpin Jussi Lehtisalo, but the space he affords himself in Sumac goes a long way. What One Becomes, Sumac’s follow-up to their debut The Deal, feels both more whole and more deconstructed, and that it arrived a little over a year after shows how focused they are on adapting as a unit.

They demand more patience of you here, leaning harder on slowness until it starts to feel like claustrophobia. There are fewer faster metal freakouts here than on Deal, which make them all the more jarring when they shatter the peace. Sumac unleash most of their fury on leadoff song “Image on Control,” filled with skronky guitar scrapes, blastbeats and doomy stomps. The closest that One gets to any melodic pleasantries is in “Clutch of Oblivion,” where Turner lets a melody flicker for four minutes, a carrot for those demanding a Panopticon revival, before blasting it into oblivion. He then takes one last stab at the hardcore prevalent in Split Cranium, meditating on a crunchy buildup before unleashing. Even if it’s more recognizable, Turner knows how to ride a riff out, boiling it down to its most base hypnosis.

Throughout One, the sound is so wide-open that it threatens to come apart, but drummer Nick Yacychyn, also of Vancouver hardcore group Baptists, keeps a solid grounding. His playing is the group's secret weapon, and his sensibility makes One sound like Khanate with groove on the brain. (Turner’s guitar tone also approaches the metallic drear that Stephen O’Malley channeled in that group.) His flexibility makes the 17-minute “Blackout” an exercise in indulgence that doesn’t exactly feel like one. His steady tom work carries the piece through plundering depths, ambient segues, and a halfway mark that’s equal parts speed metal and modern classical.

One feels more improvisatory than most of any of the members’ prior works (especially bassist Brian Cook, better known for his work in modern prog-metal heroes Russian Circles), and that makes it alien to most metal. Sumac are pushing metal in a direction so uncomfortable it may cease to be metal, into an openness that isn't about saying “FUCK YOU!” the loudest. The result is some of his most exciting work since Isis disbanded.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21889-what-one-becomes/

I liked the 1st album but this was a really huge step up

agreed!

and hey I got one dead-on!

long time lurker here - the sumac was in my top ten. Much better than the first album. Awesome live too

If the whole album had been as good as Rigid Man (I) then it'd have been one of the best metal albums of the...decade? But I'm a little resistant to the rest of the album's charms. It may well click one day though!

like Khanate with groove on the brain

Sold.

xp

the whole album is great.

I think I like it better than any Isis album tbh

Wouldn't go that far

3 Sumac - 7
4 Jute Gyte - 10
9 Schammasch - 9

I finally nailed an exact prediction with Schammasch for #9.

Not really sure it's worth doing a spotify results playlist as no one subscribes to it. Only 5 this year have

We don't have to bother with the rest, Krallice just released metal AOTY.

Seriously though, DsO is actually lower than I thought; I was the guy who voted it #1 - it may be short but not a single second is wasted.

(I don't use Spotify sorry CS)

My prediction for #6 is SubRosa.

what did everyone pick as #6 when they made their top 20 guesses earlier?

6 Cobalt - Slow Forever 563 Points, 14 Votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/o1BULAy.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5yOrSjOeKeOiyWEm34y3H4
spotify:album:5yOrSjOeKeOiyWEm34y3H4

https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/slow-forever

Colorado’s COBALT, over the years and since they began working with Profound Lore Records with 2007’s landmark “Eater Of Birds” album, have become recognized as one of the most singular and defining extreme American metal bands today. Their 2009 album “Gin” is recognized as a pillar in American extreme metal, a milestone album of literature-influenced progressive apocalyptic wasteland metal that took the American metal scene by storm and landed on pretty much all best-of year end lists the year it came out.

Now almost exactly seven years since the release of “Gin”, COBALT (now defined as the duo of multi-instrumentalist/mastermind Erik Wunder and new vocalist Charlie Fell, ex-LORD MANTIS) are poised to releases one of the most anticipated metal releases of 2016, their long-awaited new double album “Slow Forever”

“Slow Forever” sees COBALT, after years dealing with personal turbulence, tragedy, contemplation, and even confusion, return triumphant and focused as ever. With Wunder formulating their sound that naturally takes off where “Gin” left off and new vocalist Fell bringing a new character and sense of savagery and violence that’s synonymous with the COBALT sound, “Slow Forever” is another epic offering from the COBALT cannon destined to hammer down and make its notable impact as one of the most defining metal albums to be released in 2016.
credits
released March 25, 2016

Cobalt are:
Erik Wunder (all instruments)
Charlie Fell (vocals)

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Dave Otero at Flatline Audio in Denver, CO.

8.4

When do you last remember a respected band replacing a lead singer and actually getting better? This is the central anomaly of the brilliant and brave Slow Forever, the first album in seven years from the reborn metal duo Cobalt. For a decade, Cobalt made mad, warped dashes through black metal, summoning the spirit and language of hero Ernest Hemingway alongside the imagery and intensity of singer Phil McSorley’s stints in the U.S. Army. But without McSorley, Cobalt has opened its sound, fully embracing the blues, country, hardcore, and hard rock strains that have long been latent in its music. Slow Forever is as accessible as it is aggressive, with magnetic hooks, shout-along mantras, and sparkling riffs all anchoring this eighty-minute maelstrom. It is an electrifying, enthralling opus.

Two years ago, it seemed Cobalt would never make another record. Half a decade had passed since the pair’s landmark Gin, when, in March 2014, McSorley announced he was out; a month later, he was back in, set to work on new material with childhood friend and Cobalt co-founder Erik Wunder. But in December of that year, McSorley took a series of brutally misogynistic, homophobic online shots at other bands. Wunder cut him loose. In retrospect, it seems like serendipity, as Lord Mantis, Charlie Fell’s manic sludge band from Chicago, was publicly splitting at the seams, too. Wunder asked Fell—"the only guy that came to mind when I thought about somebody who could replace Phil," he has said—to enlist. They spent the third quarter of 2015 reinventing Cobalt in a Colorado recording studio.

Those fraught beginnings ripple through Slow Forever, where the songs stem from abject depravity, or from a mindset where nothing goes right and hope is only a useless four-letter word. Images of drug abuse, sexual frustration, emotional exhaustion, self-mutilation, wanton violence, and outright dejection flash by one by one, suggesting a Charles Bukowski biopic produced by David Cronenberg. "I am not a man/I am just a dog," Fell shrieks and repeats above clattering drums and bullying guitars within the first six minutes. "Condone the act of self-destruction," he roars much later, with militant drums and a clarion riff buttressing his pronouncement. "A ritual/And bury it, bury it in the veins of lovers." Fell paints a sort of cosmic portrait with these very human flaws and faults. These failures—the "pinnacle of the archetype," as he puts it at one point—are the natural order, the way it will always be. "The past in a pile of ash, forgotten in the cycle," he offers by way of summary.

Even during instrumental interludes and extended introductions, Cobalt seems to be preparing for conflict, for coming face-to face with the demons inside Fell’s words. "Beast Whip," a song about perpetual dissatisfaction, batters its subject with a series of blast beats and D-beats; Fell seems to be screaming at his own thoughts, demanding more from himself. When "Elephant Graveyard" takes up the cycle of addiction, the music illustrates the mania by inciting a circle pit before fading into a long, slow comedown.

Fell is more versatile and nuanced than McSorley, his predecessor. His work here even suggests a range and finesse that his time in Lord Mantis didn’t, firmly establishing him as one of metal’s great new vocalists. During "Cold Breaker," he launches from a hardcore yammer to a doom-metal roar, alternately summoning the Dead Kennedys and Eyehategod as the music shifts around him. When he emits pained, animalistic screams or haunting, ghostly yells, he’s horror-film terrifying. But he’s not averse to fists-up, muscles-clenched chants, either, and those are what make Slow Forever so unexpectedly approachable. For "King Rust," he returns to a credo—"Hoisting myself out of myself," shouted in a staccato clip and enunciated so that it sticks. It feels motivational, inspiring. "Ruiner" hinges on a duet between Fell’s voice and Wunder’s winding riff, the two trading lines like they’re in Thin Lizzy. Of all the things Cobalt or Lord Mantis ever were, "catchy" was never one of them. On Slow Forever, Wunder and Fell, gleefully grim, stumble into that territory.

Cobalt’s albums have always depended upon a sense of ultimate urgency—life or death, do or die, kill or be killed. Because of the circumstances around its creation, Slow Forever felt that way before it was finished; had Wunder bungled Cobalt’s restart without McSorley, he would have looked like the fool who just didn’t know when or how to stop. Slow Forever thrives in that existential anxiety, as though Wunder and Fell realized they had a lot to lose but even more to gain. As surprising as it may seem for an album where death, despair, and destruction linger in every word, Cobalt gambled on resurrection and, against the odds, advanced.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21685-cobalt-slow-forever/

wooo I'm on a roll!

I like this a lot even if they swapped one asshole vocalist for another

music is full of assholes but i dunno anything about the new guy

Okay so next is SubRosa? Or Furia, which was my #12 prediction.

I'm basing this solely on some of the more o_O Lord Mantis lyrics xp

I didn't think they could top Gin but they did.

Siegbran, what were your favourite dungeon synth/space metal/sleep-aid albums this year?

― illbient microtonal poetry Surbiton (imago)

Well Empty Space Meditations obviously! And the Cold Meat Industry tribute Ancient Meat Revived, all drone/space metal. What else, Basarabian Hills of couse, and pulling out all the stops in the prettiness department there's Skyforest Unity which features probably the least manly cover art ever to appear on a metal album: a white swan on a lake, wearing pink ribbons.

Sumac sounds good so far.

I realised why I didn't keep spinning the Jute Gyte after the summer. The compositions are great but I feel like he could use a mixing engineer. It would probably be an AOTY contender if, say, Colin Marston produced it.

5 Subrosa - For This We Fought The Battle of Ages 648 Points, 16 Votes, TWO #1's
http://i.imgur.com/yfW2dnv.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/3dsDScersy505OGCi0fIAl
spotify:album:3dsDScersy505OGCi0fIAl

https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/for-this-we-fought-the-battle-of-ages

With their anticipated new album “For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages”, Salt Lake City doom-chamber metal band SUBROSA have created their most triumphant and most enveloping album to date. Continuing the momentum with 2013’s highly acclaimed turning point album “No Help For The Mighty Ones”, which saw year end acclaim in all metal and mainstream music outlets respectively, said album brought a new awareness to SUBROSA as one of the most prominent doom-infused metal bands from America today through their singular crushing monolithic sound canvas which consists of a devastating mix of soul crushing doom metal, neo-classical chamber music (solidified by the band’s two electric violin players), and Appalachian murder balladry all filtered through the veil of American gothic tragedy.

“For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages” sees SUBROSA expanding their sound to a new plateau with their heaviest, darkest, and most dynamic-sounding album to date through bigger-sounding production value (the new album was fully engineered and mixed by drummer Andy Patterson). With the awareness brought onto the band with the new album’s predecessor, which also saw SUBROSA on their most active touring schedule yet, “For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages” will bring more demand and awareness to the band as they prepare to unveil their most important and crucial album in their repertoire.
credits
released August 26, 2016

Recorded and mixed by Andy Patterson
Mastered by Brad Boatright @ Audiosiege
Artwork & Design by Glyn Smyth @ Stag & Serpent

8.2

On their fourth full-length, the Salt Lake City doom band SubRosa take inspiration from a 100-year-old dystopian novel about a modern surveillance state. The resulting album is their best yet.

For This We Fought the Battle of the Ages—the fourth album by Salt Lake City doom-and-drama masters SubRosa—takes its inspiration from We, an almost 100-year-old dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin. We is a paralyzing, prescient portrait of a modern surveillance state, where a world made of glass prevents secrets and state policies curtail pleasurable sex. We predates George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 by two decades and helped shape a literary tradition where the chief concern is exactly how much state authority can overpower individual autonomy. It is a most relevant anxiety in 2016. But an hour-length album that lifts lines, themes, and arcs from an especially didactic framework? That may sound like a bit much.

During the last decade, though, SubRosa has steadily learned to make the obscure accessible, to open up the high-volume lurch and heavy-menace scowl of doom to an ever-widening audience. Founder and leader Rebecca Vernon has woven threads of bewitching folk and magnetic grunge into her metal, an approach epitomized by 2013’s More Constant Than the Gods. Backed by a fleet of violins and a rhythm section that could quickly sink from featherweight to heavyweight, Vernon’s anthems pulled you into their oversized gothic churn. And on Battle of Ages—yet again, the best work of SubRosa’s career—she doubles down on the ability to make the esoteric compelling. This is grand, unapologetic doom metal that should also fit fans of symphonies, post-rock bands, and alt-rock radio. And this is writing so rich that it raises deep, pressing questions about our very existence with richly written scenes and sharply posed worries. You may want to press “pause” just to ponder, but the brooding, booming music demands you move onward.

Four of Battle of Ages’ six songs break the 10-minute mark, with two lasting for a quarter-hour. These unabashed track lengths give SubRosa room to roam and the ability to fold a panoply of sounds and ideas into one space. “Black Majesty,” for instance, opens with Vernon singing a black widow’s lullaby (“Isn’t it good to be acquainted with darkness?” she begins) over crackling electronics. The song soon lunges forward, though: room-rattling drums cut beneath a low-slung riff before the whole band shifts into a double-time sprint, where screeching violins intensify the raw nerves of the rhythm section. There are strong hooks and soft harmonies, a section that feels like Cocteau Twins gauze and another that feels like Silver Mt. Zion-sized fury. And these are just accessories to lyrics where Vernon poignantly wonders about the redemption inherent in mortality and the error inevitable in myth. “We love the taste of false perfection/The more the lies, the more we laud,” she seethes amid a complicated bridge. The line pulls all her abstraction into a political moment where a reality television star sits near the brink of the presidency.

Elsewhere, Vernon softly sings folk music in Italian over a plucked lyre. The band pits death metal barks against seraphic harmonies during “Wound of the Warden,” a 13-minute sprawl where the midsection could be a rock radio classic unto itself. “Troubled Cells” conjures a loneliness and despair so exquisite it might as well be a murder ballad, while the shout-along coda reimagines the Arcade Fire’s mix of gang vocals and strings with more interest in dark than light. It’s no small wonder that SubRosa’s most ambitious work, where songs last as long as television shows, doubles as its most compulsory listen. Both qualities stem from SubRosa’s command of so many styles and ability to hide the seams that stitch them together.

Novelistic inspiration, turns out, suits SubRosa perfectly, as it matches the band’s scale, where big ideas about life, death, freedom, and love are emboldened by songs that pull in influences like a vortex. Sure, For This We Fought the Battle of the Ages shares themes and scenes with We, from which it, like Orwell did, lifts a worried vision for the future. More important, though, is that it shares the audacity to reimagine how the world looks or sounds. Zamyatin was an architect of what has become an idiom. And few doom bands operate with the urgency and inclusion of SubRosa, a group that’s made an album you can’t escape about a world you wish you could.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22251-for-this-we-fought-the-battle-of-ages/

always loved these guys, now when the hell am I gonna get to see 'em live

Cheers Siegbran! I liked what I heard of Urfaust. tt and I have already been charmed and bewitched by the Skyforest cover (she may have voted for it?) and (SPOILER) I voted for Basarabian Hills :D but yeah will check out that other one too

I've been a fan for a while but TBH those reviews are more compelling than the album

I think it is their best album. They just keep getting better and better every album.

its quiet today so I assume a lot of people are on holiday so lets try liven things up by guessing what is up next?

I have it as Aluk Todolo on my predictor ballot...so it'll probably be something else

Hoping that my late decision to chuck Furia on my ballot hasn't pushed it ahead of a certain Finnish trip into the oscillating void

Aluk Todolo surely next though

Maybe everyone decided Aluk Todolo were boring and it's Xoth

My ballot is turning out to be very hivemind-ish this year. 4 of my top 5 are in the top 5.

i love surprises and wrong predictions

I would die xxp

The SubRosa is impressive, but also kind of a dirge. I'd guess Furia, my #4 already showed.

4 Vektor - Terminal Redux 657 Points, 17 Votes, THREE #1's
http://i.imgur.com/W0x78py.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/56ZRTTv25E2OO7FLuLokkX
spotify:album:56ZRTTv25E2OO7FLuLokkX

https://vektor.bandcamp.com/album/terminal-redux

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21645-vektor-terminal-redux/

8.2

It seemed like only a matter of time before Vektor made their first full-blown concept album. The Philadelphia four-piece has, since its inception, been compared endlessly to Voivod (thanks in no small part to their nearly identical logo, made even more conspicuous when placed side-by-side on a tour poster), but there’s always been more to their music than pure '80s revivalism. Of course, there’s plenty of that – particularly on their crushing debut Black Future. But, on their 2011 follow-up Outer Isolation, Vektor garnished their speedy, pummeling metal with proggier flirtations: lengthy, knotty compositions about space and alternate universes. Terminal Redux, their third and finest album, takes the band’s cerebral tendencies to the next level: over the course of the album’s ten songs, vocalist and guitarist David DiSanto tells the fairly elaborate story of a military general astronaut who rises to political power among the intergalactic Cygnus regime after finding an interstellar mineral that just might be the key to immortality. Even if you choose to ignore a few minor plot points, Terminal Redux stands as one of the most thrilling, forward-thinking metal albums of the year: one that should finally shed any remaining detractors who find the band’s music to be at all derivative.

In the first track alone, Vektor manages to invoke something like an entire discography's worth of ideas. Ranging from black metal riffage to harmonic chanting to an anthemic closing guitar solo straight out of Rush’s Hemispheres, "Charging the Void" showcases a revitalized band bursting with energy and creativity. "A sky that once brought hope and light," sings DiSanto, "now brings me desolation," as his screech reaches throat-shredding levels to convey his desperation. As the song progresses, the band is intent on matching the intensity of the lyrics: setting the stage for what’s to come like an overture before an opera. While the following tracks are not all quite as virtuosic and dazzling as that opener, there are hardly any dull moments.

With its seventy-plus minute runtime, Terminal Redux occasionally threatens to become Vektor’s Tales from Topographic Oceans – a moment where their pretensions reach a head and alienate all but the already initiated. Their intensity, however, makes even the headier moments feel like breakthroughs. Tracks like "Ultimate Artificer" and "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)" should appease fans of the band’s more straightforward thrash material, while much of the album’s second half seems aimed at breaking the band to a larger, non-metal audience. Indeed, with this release marking the band’s upgrade to Earache Records, there are a few moments that hint at modern rock radio and festival audiences, calling to mind Baroness’ similarly expansive Yellow & Green. In the album’s most divisive moments, DiSanto sings in a surprisingly pretty, shoegaze whisper. The crawling intro to "Collapse," for example, would not sound out of place on either of Red House Painter’s self-titled albums (that is, of course, until it launches into its galloping, duel-guitar-soaked second half).

And then there’s "Recharging the Void," a song that mimics the album opener both in title and ambition. In thirteen-and-a-half minutes, it is burdened with the task of closing the album and tying the loose ends of the story (incidentally, it also seems to be where 75% of the narrative takes place). In an almost ambient middle section, DiSanto sings as melodically and sweetly as he can, while psychedelic falsetto vocals swiped from a Pentangle record float in the background like bits of meteoric dust hurtling through the cosmos. "All we ask is our story to be told," DiSanto sings, "To young, beckoning, yearning worlds." You can practically see the intergalactic cast of characters returning to the stage, swaying back and forth in solidarity.

Like most prog albums – and, hell, a good deal of metal – it’s a lot to handle all at once, and maybe a bit silly, but Vektor plays it with the straight-faced intensity of a big-budget sci-fi movie. In that sense, the album calls to mind a few wider-scope metal breakthroughs from the genre’s golden era – the raising-the-stakes intensity of Death’s Human or the laser-beam focus of Kreator’s Pleasure to Kill. In fact, if there’s anything Vektor has prominently coopted from '80s metal, it’s that specific fearlessness: a devotion to their craft and an insistence on evolving clearly from album to album. Terminal Redux presents their most fully-formed evolution yet and offers more proof that they are beholden to no one’s artistic path but their own. In fact, more bands should be following their lead.

omg

this is even more shocking than Metallica at 29

but I'm not entirely sold on it, so I'm not complaining

goddamn!

I was one of the #1s. even bought the 2xLP new, something I NEVER do. Just a ludicrous bounty. We're not worthy.

I will probably end up liking this tbh, it's very much IN SPACE

some of its biggest fans on rolling thread didnt vote. I assumed before even nominations it would win easy but the Clinton vote just didn't get out

The Terminal is set... to self-destruct

This is just the best album. Easy #1 for me.

My #1 prediciton. Note to self, ILM is not RYM ;)

Nearly all of us had it in the top 2 lol

strangely noone campaigned for it in the noms thread so maybe that hurt it?

If the rolling thread folk vote in the 77 poll I wouldn't be surprised if it was the highest placed metal album because it clearly has crossover power

people were REALLY annoyed it didn't make the Decibel list.

I ended up liking this more than I could have possibly imagined - I mentioned elsewhere maybe it could have done with some trimming but I listened to it earlier and can't think of anything I'd want to get rid of.

My #1 - so good live. If Xoth and it's Seinfeldtastic bass and polka thrash drums beats this, I'll throw up on my keyboard.

even when I read the results I was still sure Vektor would be #1 because of the reaction on the rolling thread lol

I think everyone just assumed it would break the top 3 easy so didn't bother trying to boost it

you can trust the metal poll to have real shocks every single year

If Xoth and it's Seinfeldtastic bass and polka thrash drums beats this, I'll throw up on my keyboard.

so not gonna happen

It's basically a more guitarry Ayreon record though, isn't it?

I'm bummed I missed Vektor live, as the same night Horisont was in Chicago for the first time ever. Vektor shall return. So Furia, Aluk Todolo then #1 Oranssi Pazuzu?

Furia or maaaaybe Moonsorrow, yeah

I never even got around to hearing Terminal Redux. Kind of a latecomer to the band, I was burned out from their previous two by the time the new one came out. I'm sure it'll feature on one of my future lists of albums I would've voted for. Whoops.

My feeling on the length issue is that the main problem is the Pteropticon-Psychotropia hump. Those two songs together occupy 12 minutes and are a bit exhausting. The solution is to break the album in two and listen either from Charging the Void to Pteropticon or from Psychotropia to Recharging the Void. Now you have two #1-worthy albums with no length issues!

The whole album is exhausting but in a fun/exciting way imo. It's the Fury Road of metal albums.

except IN SPACE

Moonsorrow was #5 in RYM but I don't see that in top 3. What other upset could there be? I see that the #2 RYM, Insomnium - Winter's Gate didn't make the top 100 here, I wouldn't expect that for top 3 either.

Yeah I voted for the Insomnium but it ain't gonna happen I don't think

3 Furia - Księżyc milczy luty 751 Points, 20 Votes, TWO #1's
http://i.imgur.com/o7x3yk9.jpg
https://paganrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ksi-yc-milczy-luty

Following the monumental release of Nocel two years ago, Poland’s influential act Furia return with their fifth full-length, Księżyc milczy luty(roughly translates to “Moon Silent Severe”). The album is scheduled for release on 14 November 2016 via Pagan Records and contains six brand new tracks.

Those familiar with the sounds which Furia create will not be disappointed with Księżyc milczy luty. The album continues the band’s trademark “Nekrofolk” sound; however, the lyrical theme takes us to the moon this time. Anyone who claims that black metal may have lost its charm of originality should listen to Furia.
credits
released November 14, 2016

Recorded and mixed at Czyściec Studio by Nihil. Mastering by Bartłomiej Kuzniak at Studio 333.

Of all the different types of metal, black metal is probably the most prone to the pitfalls of cliché: a cold, nihilistic soundscape of blast beats, tremolo guitar riffs and distant, shrieking vocals, black metal is very vulnerable to sounding generic and repetitive. So thank the metal gods for bands like FURIA, whose take on black metal in their album Księżyc Milczy Luty captures the nihilism of its sound in a way that is anything but generic.

Creating fresh ideas within music often requires subverting genre tropes and marrying different sounds to create something new. Blackgaze forefathers ALCEST, progressive death metal legends OPETH and violin wielding extreme metallers NE OBLIVISCARIS are all wonderful examples of a base metal sound being built on with numerous other genres to create something stunning and original. But the way FURIA achieve uniqueness appears to be a subversion of what these bands did. In contrast, FURIA use a base of several different genres, ranging from jazz to prog to stoner, with traditional black metal laced sparingly over it, to create a sound that is unquestionably black metal in spirit. For example, there are thumping stoner riffs and swirling post-rock tremolos on Za ćmą, w dym, and Zwykłe czary wieją’s breakdown sounds weirdly like MASTODON. And yet throughout, FURIA somehow make their alchemical mix of sounds work in a way that is nothing short of masterful.

In metal, disturbing sounds and subject matter are like Samuel L. Jackson swearing a lot: its consistently entertaining and still fun, but the novelty is non-existent by this point and its easy to become jaded by it. So to create music that is genuinely unnerving, that really works at its audience on that unspoken, deeper level, in this genre takes real artistry, and that is what FURIA have done. A lot of Księżyc Milczy Luty is like a taster of SWANS scoring a Silent Hill game, and shows that FURIA, like both SWANS and Silent Hill, understand that genuinely disturbing art is about disorientation and destabilisation. A good example is it’s second track Ciało: the deceptive, atmospheric tranquillity of its opening disarms the listener whilst it slowly builds the tension with a single, sustained, wailing note to the point that it becomes unbearable. And then the sonic version of Hell breaks forth to assault and punish, with swirling guitars that genuinely sound like the wails of the damned. And then the bass re-appears, sounding vicious and predatory, and those haunting, accusatory vocals begin and for the rest of the song the music feels like it’s trying to chase you into a corner and murder you.

This is what Księżyc Milczy Luty often feels like: a psychological attack rather than a passive listening experience, and it gives you no other choice but to engage with and challenge it. It creates an underlying tension even through the more spacey, ambient sections, like the teasingly mellow first half of Tam Jest tu before it explodes out of nowhere, with buzzing guitars and a guttural growl nothing short of ungodly, briefly lulls back into ambience, and then explodes again. FURIA turn tonal shifts and pointed moments of silence (such as in the finale of Grezj, following what can only be described as the musical portrayal of being sucked into a black hole) into vicious psychological warfare. They tauntingly draw you in with soft, mesmerising passages, but you don’t want to let yourself relax because you know another unforgiving sonic assault could strike at any second. And when they do, they are relentless. The instruments sound like they are either in physical agony or embodying the apocalypse, with Sars’ incredible ability to hypnotise and horrify with his bass deserving special mention. And then there are Nihil’s powerful vocals. He roars, growls and snarls his way through the album like an angry goth colossus sent to punish you for the foolish crimes of hope and faith. Across the six tracks within this album, these four relentlessly brilliant musicians create an atmosphere that perfectly reflects its minimalist, haunting cover art: of being devoured by the hideous, overwhelming existential void, and what few rays of light there are will not save you from the darkness.

Rating: 10/10

http://distortedsoundmag.com/album-review-ksiezyc-milczy-luty-furia/

Nothing this year gives me more pleasure than the amazing closing of Recharging the Void. I still can hardly believe how good it is.

I need to give the Furia more listens (obviously)

Can't participate much today, but this is such an exciting countdown! The Furia was pretty great.

Wow, so it comes down to Aluk Todolo and Oranssi Pazuzu. I've had those two albums linked together in my head all year.

I feel like I'm still getting my head round this one.

This album still feels like such an obscurity to me, so despite being my #1 it's kind of odd to see it place this high. It hasn't gotten much attention at the other forums I visit.

Actually got a little fluttery feeling when I saw the album art pop up in the thread just now.

Wow, so it comes down to Aluk Todolo and Oranssi Pazuzu. I've had those two albums linked together in my head all year.

I've always had both bands linked in my head

but talk furia for another 20 mins since it placed at #3

the furia is a masterpiece

I happened to have just read a thing comparing it to Interpol in positive way.

Jute Gyte - my #4. I was just listening to it yesterday, and I feel like I'm just now starting to wrap my head around it. Esp. the polytempi, which for me create a disorienting "feedback effect" which causes the riffs and different sections (wow those songs are getting more and more labyrinthine) to bleed into each other. Also, "Consciousness is Nature's Nightmare" might be my new favorite JG song
Schammasch - my # 15? I kind of thought the first disc wasn't all that but it won me over with the other two discs.
Deathspell Omega - my #10. This is definitely some really smart extreme metal. You really can't fuck with it
Cobalt - man, there's no site like P4k to just turn me off with a positive review. At least for rock/metal.
Vektor - Legit shocked this didn't even make top 3

Also I think Sund4r is orob right about JG needung a mixing engineer: I think Perdurance potentially could've been an album full of microtonal black metal Hurricane Edwards, which would have made it #1 iny heart forever.

Also, want to take a moment to acknowledge that Brad's done really good work for P4k, and usually if I've read one of their reviews and I didnt feel like I wasted my time, it was either Brad or M4rc M4sters.

Lol @ me. Well we know why I dont write for Pitchfirk

Pitchferk

thanks drugs! i would also like to celebrate m4rc

microtonal black metal Hurricane Edwards

don't do this to me

The vocals on Furia are giving me fond flashbacks to Laibach.

2 Aluk Todolo - Voix 806 Points, 20 Votes, TWO #1's
http://i.imgur.com/6FKOQYp.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7jD9s09XGBfwhf3tct7DuQ
spotify:album:7jD9s09XGBfwhf3tct7DuQ

https://aluktodolo.bandcamp.com/album/voix

7.9

French power trio Aluk Todolo have used the basic instruments and fundamental techniques of hard rock and metal to pursue what may seem a musical unicorn—hyperkinetic, heavy instrumental music that’s meditative and absorbing. Voix feels meditative like Sunn O))) or Bardo Pond, Ash Ra Tempel or even Les Rallizes Dénudés. This is, as intended, music meant for submission.

During the last decade, the French power trio Aluk Todolo have used the basic instruments and fundamental techniques of hard rock and metal to pursue what may seem a musical unicorn—hyperkinetic, heavy instrumental music that’s meditative and absorbing. That is, they hope to produce a trance for the listener through sheer activity, with shifting rhythms and repeating riffs forming a sort of blanket of busyness.

In interviews and press releases, the former black metal dudes often speak about mysteries and mysticism, summonings and spirits, submitting to the music and sealing off the world. Maybe that sounds like mumbo jumbo or even sonic snake oil. But on Voix—the best and most incisive album the band has yet made—that last bit actually happens. Their carefully coordinated commotion becomes overwhelming and atmospheric somehow, a cocoon of activity. Not in nature but in effect, Voix feels meditative like Sunn O))) or Bardo Pond, Ash Ra Tempel or even Les Rallizes Dénudés. This is, as intended, music meant for submission.

The 43-minute Voix zigs and zags through six untitled, interlocking, and loud pieces. The songs are separated by, at most, a tension-ratcheting full rest, though many slide right into the next through beats that don’t shift and melodies that don’t stop. This maintains the athletic trio’s momentum but also the listener’s state of mind—you hang in this space with them, waiting for the next wave. Aluk Todolo achieve this fugue state by keeping up a sense of constant motion, even when they’re indulging in repetition. During the back half of the second piece, for instance, drummer Antoine Hadjioannou and bassist Matthieu Canaguier march dead ahead with the insistence of something like heavy metal krautrock. But some element is always morphing. Here, it is guitarist Shantidas Riedacker, dancing with his instrument and amplifier and sculpting several sheets of low-level feedback into a rainbow of musical grays.

More often, though, the trio slyly slips between disparate parts, webbing together separate elements with skills that suggest an interest in the symphony and perhaps the Grateful Dead. There is so much going on in these songs, with so many icons and influences distilled into each moment. But at their best, Aluk Todolo force you not to think about what they’ve heard in the past and what you may be hearing now. You notice the specific choices and changes less than the music’s overall embrace and intensity.

Voix will, no doubt, appeal to fans of Sannhet’s Revisionist, the 2015 album that best positioned itself at the restless, roiling intersection of heavy metal tenacity and post-rock sweep. Voix shares many of the same tones and feelings, and the French trio can be every bit as thrilling and heavy as their American counterparts. But there is an essential distinction: Where Sannhet’s music seems like a soundtrack to the city, where busily interconnecting parts score the machinations of some place that never sleeps, Aluk Todolo somehow offers a shield from much the same, a place to hide out while the band takes care of the busy work. How they do that, exactly, remains a little mysterious—maybe it’s those radiant, circular drones that sneak between the beats or the judicious repetition in certain parts. Either way, Aluk Todolo creeps closer to its goal of turning the combined swagger of rock and metal inside out without losing its essence than ever before on Voix. This band works hard so you don’t have to.

1 Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä 1372 Points, 33 Votes, FIVE #1's
http://i.imgur.com/wNCwCwI.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/252sRljXI2rVMvC1DCCtGN
spotify:album:252sRljXI2rVMvC1DCCtGN

https://oranssipazuzu.bandcamp.com/album/v-r-htelij

7.9

Four albums into their career, the Finnish quintet Oranssi Pazuzu may have at last sidestepped the confines of the tag “black metal." Their latest 69-minute opus folds in Krautrock, electric Miles Davs, stoner, thrash and more, finding the band lost—wonderfully, strangely—somewhere between heaven and hell.

Four albums into their career, the Finnish quintet Oranssi Pazuzu may have at last sidestepped the confines of the tag "black metal." During the last decade, the adventurous band has explored the astral infinity of extreme psychedelia and the grim oblivion of extreme metal. As the name Oranssi Pazuzu (essentially "orange demon") suggests, the band’s sound was often an even split, with the two pieces of their musical personality meant to fit like complementary puzzle pieces. Even so, they were often referred to as a metal band, albeit one with some extracurricular interests, Värähtelijä, a 69-minute escapist escapade, should finally, fundamentally correct that misperception.

Heavy metal hasn’t disappeared from their sound. "Havuluu," for instance, folds great, big, back-of-the-throat yells into its fuzz and, about halfway in, pivots on a blast beat and a ghastly scream that suggest Darkthrone. "Lahja" is powered by a Deep Purple proto-metal riff, and "Hypnotisoitu Viharukous" somehow fits stoner and thrash nods into the same five-minute span. More than ever, though, those roots lurk beneath the surface, acting as the foundation for a much more open-ended approach. Tilt your ears slightly, and the title track’s gray glow seems less like funeral doom with an accelerated pulse and more like narcotized Krautrock; imagine Harmonia succumbing to seasonal affective disorder. "Lahja" suggests a snippet of a grueling Swans marathon, with barked imprecations and martial drums pitted against sparkling vibraphone and guitars so free and bright they recall Sonny Sharrock. With Värähtelijä, Oranssi Pazuzu’s music has become a refraction of sorts, so that what you hear depends on your perspective—how you listen, what you bring to it, what you expect from it.

On 2013’s very good Valonielu, Oranssi Pazuzu seemed to strive to orchestrate its opposing impulses, to make them work together through relatively concise songs with discrete structures. You could almost imagine those tunes coming through the speakers of some large outdoor festival, like the aggressive Finnish answer to Sweden’s Dungen. Here, though, Oranssi Pazuzu show no such concern for restraint or expectation. The 17-minute "Vasemman Käden Hierarkia" feels like an album unto itself, brilliantly twisting between noise-rock outbursts and electric Miles allusions, distorted doom passages and sinister soundtrack references.

Typically, when bands dig themselves out of black metal pigeonholes (or, really, metal pigeonholes at large) and fold their ideas inside other, more accessible styles, worlds of possibility and popularity can open up. See, for instance, Tribulation’s own turn out of death metal basics during the last two years or Deafheaven’s climb toward the light across its own half-decade. Oranssi Pazuza’s step out of metal, though, finds them burrowing deeper into a world of their own creation. Värähtelijä is a weird, grotesque record, where genres are superimposed on one another and where eccentric choices are the rule and not the exception. Yes, Oranssi Pazuzu is out of the old black metal box and lost—wonderfully, strangely—somewhere between heaven and hell.

That's quite a blowout.

the right order I think

Cool. I got to see this set, which felt historic! Oranssi Pazuzu at Roadburn 2016 - https://youtu.be/kwgUBvyRAZ8

And rightly so :p

My #2, kept from first place only by my unaccountable hypnotism at the hands of Mr Gyte.

But if there's a more jawdropping, kickass, monstrous track than Vasemman Käden Hierarkia this year, I haven't heard it

Weird how I find Aluk Todolo so boring and Oranssi Pazuzu so awesome

me too but I'll work on it

Furia sort of sneaks up on you. The first couple minutes I wasn't sure what you guys were talking about. Now the bleak expressionist aspect is coming out.

One of the problems with the Furia album for me is that I took it as a chance to get acquainted with their older stuff and I tend to end up listening to their one from 2007 instead

Furia really builds. The last two songs are esp massive.

^that is true

Dunno if seandalai has any stats as ive not heard from him all week

but You can post your ballots here if you want

Cheers for this! Great results :p

"orange demon"

Fuck, he won this too?

I hereby announce that FASTNBULBOUS won the predictor sweepstakes fairly handily!

send yr mailing address to suckerblues (at) gmail (dot) com to claim yr prize

It will probably not be there in time for xmas but you never know

Will the official Manowar loincloth fit him?

I'm voting for Lemon Demon in the main poll too, lol xxp

Thanks! I didn't think I was doing that well when Nails (63) and Ulcerate (54) messed me up!

Oh congratulations Pazuzu! It was the right winner, it really was.

Thanks for a great rollout, CS!

Yes thanks for doing this.

Here's my ballot:

Deathspell Omega – The Synarchy of Molten Bones
Wormed - Krighsu
Oranssi Pazuzu – Värähtelijä
Virus – Memento Collider
Hail Spirit Noir – Mayhem in Blue
Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust
Ehnahre – Douve
Forgotten Spell - Epiphaneia Phosphorus (Angel, God or Insanity)
Krallice - Hyperion
Dysrhythmia – The Veil Of Control
Zealotry – The Last Witness
Sumac – What One Becomes
Glyptoglossio – GLYPTOGLO5510
Vektor – Terminal Redux
Three Trapped Tigers – Silent Earthling
Neurosis – Fires Within Fires
Ecferus – Pangaea
Temisto - Temisto
Nocte Obducta - Mogontiacum (Nachdem die Nacht herabgesunken)
Palace Of Worms – The Ladder
Ophidian Forest - Susurrus
Fyrnask – Fórn
Alcest – Kodama
Mare Cognitum – Luminiferous Aether
Geryon – The Wound and The Bow
In The Woods ... - Pure
Xoth – Invasion of the Tentacube
Helen Money – Become Zero
Entropia - Ufonaut
Shataan – Weigh Of The Wolf
Astronoid – Air
Withered – Grief Relic
Urfaust – Empty Space Meditation
Blood Incantation – Starspawn
Borknagar – Winter Thrice
Khthoniik Cerviiks - SeroLogiikal Scars (Vertex of Dementiia)
Polyptych – Defying the Metastasis
Furia - Księżyc milczy luty
Cadaveric Fumes – Dimensions Obscure
Temple Of Hallucinations - Mantis

Probably wouldn't have believed you if you told me I'd have a br00tal dm album at #2 and a thrash album in my top 20 before this year.

Most surprising omissions imo: Katatonia (I'm betting they're the ones that landed at #103), Moonsorrow, Destroyer 666

thanks for the rollout/effort Slop/sendai - much appreciated

Full Results -

1 Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä 1372.0 33 5
2 Aluk Todolo - Voix 806.0 20 2
3 Furia - Księżyc milczy luty 751.0 20 2
4 Vektor - Terminal Redux 657.0 17 3
5 Subrosa - For This We Fought The Battle of Ages 648.0 16 2
6 Cobalt - Slow Forever 563.0 14 1
7 Sumac - What One Becomes 559.0 15 1
8 Deathspell Omega - The Synarchy of Molten Bones 558.0 16 1
9 Schammasch - Triangle 543.0 15 1
10 Jute Gyte - Perdurance 539.0 14 2
11 Bölzer - Hero 511.0 13 0
12 Alcest - Kodama 482.0 14 0
13 Hail Spirit Noir - Mayhem in Blue 473.0 12 1
14 Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust 464.0 13 0
15 Neurosis - Fires Within Fires 444.0 11 0
16 Thy Catafalque - Meta 424.0 10 1
17 Forgotten Spell - Epiphaneia Phosphorus (Angel, God or Insanity) 413.0 9 3
18 Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolutions 408.0 12 0
19 Horse Lords - Interventions 384.0 11 0
20 Virus - Memento Collider 371.0 12 0
21 Dysrhythmia - The Veil Of Control 341.0 10 0
22 Gojira - Magma 337.0 9 1
23 Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows 319.0 10 0
24 Kvelertak - Nattesferd 316.0 8 0
25 Khemmis - Hunted 307.0 8 1
26 Völur - Disir 302.0 8 0
27 Entropia - Ufonaut 298.0 9 0
28 40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky 284.0 7 0
29 Metallica - Hardwired...To Self Destruct 270.0 9 0
30 Mesarthim - Isolate 266.0 7 0
31 Opeth - Sorceress 265.0 7 0
32 Cultes des Ghoules - Coven, or Evil Ways Instead of Love 263.0 7 0
33 Oathbreaker - Rheia 262.0 7 1
34 Darkthrone - Arctic Thunder 259.0 8 0
35 Krallice - Hyperion 246.0 8 0
35 Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep of Reason 246.0 8 0
37 Comet Control - Center of the Maze 235.0 6 0
38 Wormed - Krighsu 231.0 6 0
39 Ulver - ATGCLVLSSCAP 228.0 9 0
40 Mesarthim - .- -... ... . -. -.-. . 228.0 7 0
41 Ophidian Forest - Susurrus 222.0 6 0
42 Moon Tooth - Chromaparagon 219.0 5 1
43 Blood Incantation - Starspawn 216.0 7 0
44 Deftones - Gore 215.0 5 1
45 Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Y Proffwyd Dwell 209.0 6 0
46 Astronoid - Air 201.0 6 0
47 Russian Circles - Guidance 200.0 6 0
48 Megadeth - Dystopia 200.0 5 1
49 Blues Pills - Lady In Gold 200.0 4 1
50 Inquisition - Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith 198.0 7 0
51 The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation 196.0 6 0
52 Skáphe - Skáphe² 195.0 6 0
53 Sabaton - The Last Stand 190.0 5 0
54 Ulcerate - Shrines Of Paralysis 187.0 5 0
55 Lotus Thief - Gramarye 186.0 6 0
56 Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas - Mariner 185.0 5 0
57 Mesarthim - Pillars [EP] 180.0 5 0
58 Chthe'ilist - Le dernier crépuscule 177.0 6 0
59 Amon Amarth - Jomsviking 174.0 5 0
60 Anaal Nathrakh - The Whole Of The Law 166.0 5 0
61 Woman is the Earth - Torch of Our Final Night 166.0 4 1
62 The Body - No One Deserves Happiness 165.0 6 0
63 Cadaveric Fumes - Dimensions Obscure EP 164.0 5 0
63 Nails - You Will Never Be One of Us 164.0 5 0
65 Anicon - Exegeses 160.0 4 0
66 Eight Bells - Landless 156.0 5 0
67 Sumerlands - s/t 154.0 6 0
68 Howls of Ebb - Cursus Impasse: The Pendlomic Vows 148.0 5 0
69 Horse Latitudes - Primal Gnosis 143.0 4 0
70 Occult Burial - Hideous Obscure 142.0 4 0
70 Testament - Brotherhood Of The Snake 142.0 4 0
72 Inverloch - Distance | Collapsed 141.0 4 0
73 High Spirits - Motivator 140.0 4 0
74 The Body, Full of Hell - One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache 139.0 5 0
75 Asphyx - Incoming Death 139.0 3 0
76 Saor - Guardians 138.0 6 0
77 Wormrot - Voices 138.0 4 0
78 Anciients - Voice of the Void 137.0 4 0
79 Car Bomb - Meta 134.0 3 0
80 Void Meditation Cult - Utter the Tongue of the Dead 131.0 4 0
81 ColdWorld - Autumn 129.0 3 0
82 Mare Cognitum - Luminiferous Aether 128.0 6 0
83 Urfaust - Empty Space Meditation 128.0 4 1
84 Wretch - Wretch 128.0 4 0
85 Bloodiest - Bloodiest 128.0 3 0
86 Batushka - Litourgiya 127.0 3 0
87 Melvins - Basses Loaded 126.0 4 0
88 Wrong - Wrong 124.0 3 0
89 Rotting Christ - Rituals 123.0 4 0
90 Grand Magus - Sword Songs 122.0 3 0
91 Wo Fat - Midnight Cometh 121.0 4 0
92 Atomikylä - Keräily 118.0 3 0
93 Truckfighters - V 116.0 4 0
94 Sunwatchers - Sunwatchers 112.0 3 0
95 Madder Mortem - Red In Tooth and Claw 110.0 4 0
95 Wardruna - Runaljod - Ragnarok 110.0 4 0
97 Dawnwalker - In Rooms 109.0 4 0
98 Abbath - Abbath 109.0 3 0
98 Blood Ceremony - Lord Of Misrule 109.0 3 0
98 Lord Vicar - Gates of Flesh 109.0 3 0
101 Khthoniik Cerviiks - SeroLogiikal Scars (Vertex of Dementiia) 108.0 4 1
102 Voivod - Post Society EP 108.0 3 1
103 Babymetal - Metal Resistance 108.0 3 0
104 Sorcier Des Glaces - North 107.0 3 0
105 Sinistro - Semente 105.0 3 0
106 Xoth - Invasion of the Tentacube 101.0 4 0
107 In The Woods ... - Pure 99.0 3 0
108 Goatess - Purgatory Under New Management 98.0 3 0
109 Kurushimi - Kurushimi 98.0 2 0
110 Witchery - In His Infernal Majesty's Service 97.0 4 0
111 Borknagar - Winter Thrice 97.0 3 0
112 Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika 94.0 4 0
113 Ghoulgotha - To Starve the Cross 93.0 3 0
114 Horseback - Dead Ringers 92.0 3 0
114 Uada - Devoid of Light 92.0 3 0
116 Geryon - The Wound and The Bow 89.0 3 0
117 Cough - Still They Pray 89.0 2 0
117 Head of the Demon - Sathanas Trismegistos 89.0 2 0
119 Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik - Skuggsjá 88.0 3 0
120 Every Time I Die - Low Teens 87.0 2 0
121 Sun Worship - Pale Dawn 85.0 2 0
122 Basarabian Hills - Attraction 83.0 3 0
122 Temisto - Temisto 83.0 3 0
122 The Cosmic Dead - Rainbowhead 83.0 3 0
122 Winterfylleth - The Dark Hereafter 83.0 3 0
126 Destroyer 666 - Wildfire 83.0 2 0
126 Ghost B.C. - Popestar 83.0 2 0
128 Helen Money - Become Zero 82.0 3 0
128 Insomnium - Winter's Gate 82.0 3 0
130 Blut aus Nord/Ævangelist - Codex Obscura Nomina 81.0 3 0
131 Baby Woodrose - Freedom 80.0 2 0
132 Zealotry - The Last Witness 79.0 2 0
133 Ripper - Experiment Of Existence 77.0 3 0
134 Wakedead Gathering - Fuscus: Strings of the Black Lyre 77.0 2 0
135 Imperial Triumphant - Inceste 76.0 3 0
135 Zao - The Well-Intentioned Virus 76.0 3 0
137 Fuath - I 76.0 2 0
138 Spirit Adrift - Chained to Oblivion 75.0 3 0
139 Desaster - The Oath Of An Iron Ritual 75.0 2 0
140 Katatonia - The Fall of Hearts 74.0 3 0
141 Wrekmeister Harmonies - Light Falls 74.0 2 0
142 Downfall of Gaia - Atrophy 73.0 2 0
142 Drudkh - One Who Talks with the Fog 73.0 2 0
142 Panphage - Drengskapr 73.0 2 0
145 LLNN - Loss 72.0 3 0
146 Khanus - Rites of Fire EP 72.0 2 0
146 Krypts - Remnants of Expansion 72.0 2 0
146 Sxuperion - Cosmic Void 72.0 2 0
149 Eternal Champion - The Armor Of Ire 71.0 3 0
150 Electric Citizen - Higher Time 71.0 2 0
151 Norma Jean - Polar Similar 70.0 2 0
151 Vircolac - The Cursed Travails of the Demeter 70.0 2 0
153 Mutterlein - Orphans of the Black Sun* 68.0 2 0
154 Mithras - On Strange Loops 67.0 3 0
155 Black Mountain - IV 67.0 2 0
155 Goatpenis - Apocalypse War 67.0 2 0
157 Ecferus - Pangaea 66.0 2 0
157 Virvum - Illuminance 66.0 2 0
159 Dunbarrow - Dunbarrow 64.0 2 0
159 Motorpsycho - Here Be Monsters 64.0 2 0
159 Waldgefluster - Ruinen 64.0 2 0
162 Castle - Welcome To The Graveyard 63.0 2 0
162 Mars Red Sky - Apex III (Praise For The Burning Soul) 63.0 2 0
162 Spellcaster - Night Hides The World 63.0 2 0
162 Terra Tenebrosa - The Reverses 63.0 2 0
166 Bloody Hammers - Lovely Sort Of Death 62.0 2 0
166 Oceans of Slumber - Winter 62.0 2 0
166 Zhrine - Unortheta 62.0 2 0
169 Absolute Power - Absolute Power 61.0 2 0
169 Uskumgallu - Rotten Limbs in Dreams of Blood 61.0 2 0
171 Anagnorisis - Peripeteia 60.0 1 1
172 Sahg - Memento Mori 59.0 2 0
173 Ahpdegma - Seolfkwyllem 58.0 2 0
173 Oozing Wound - Whatever Forever 58.0 2 0
175 Vader - The Empire 57.0 3 0
176 Caïna - Christ Clad In White Phosphorus 57.0 2 0
176 Deviant Process - Paroxysm 57.0 2 0
176 Kayo Dot - Plastic House on Base of Sky 57.0 2 0
176 Qrixkuor - Three Devils Dance 57.0 2 0
176 Whores. - Gold 57.0 2 0
181 Goat - Requiem 56.0 4 0
182 Palace of Worms - The Ladder 56.0 2 0
183 Waldgefluster/Panopticon - Split 55.0 2 0
184 Ash Borer - Irrepassable Gate 54.0 2 0
185 Eerie - Eerie 53.0 2 0
185 Witchcraft - Nucleus 53.0 2 0
187 Graves at Sea - the curse that is 52.0 2 0
187 Lycus - Chasms 52.0 2 0
189 Arizmenda ‎ - Beneath This Reality Of Flesh 50.0 2 0
189 Bekëth Nexëhmü ‎ - De Dunklas Återkomst 50.0 2 0
191 Crowbar - The Serpent Only Lies 49.0 2 0
192 Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - Wake to a New Dawn of Another Astro Era 49.0 1 0
192 Interment - Scent of the Buried 49.0 1 0
194 Jambinai - A Hermitage 48.0 2 0
195 Agatus - The Eternalist 48.0 1 0
195 Mourning Sun - Último Exhalario 48.0 1 0
197 Be'lakor - Vessels 47.0 1 0
197 Child Bite - Negative Noise 47.0 1 0
199 Shataan - Weigh Of The Wolf 46.0 2 0
200 Asteroid - III 46.0 1 0
200 Warm - The Human Exemplar 46.0 1 0
202 Death Angel - The Evil Divide 45.0 2 0
203 Begrime Exemious - The Enslavement Conquest 44.0 2 0
203 Withered - Grief Relic 44.0 2 0
205 Ehnnahre - Douve 44.0 1 0
205 Wytch Hazel - Prelude 44.0 1 0
207 Magrudergrind - II 43.0 2 0
207 Mizmor - Yodh 43.0 2 0
209 Holy Grail - Times Of Pride And Peril 43.0 1 0
209 Lucifer’s Hammer - Beyond The Omens 43.0 1 0
211 An Autumn for Crippled Children - Eternal 42.0 1 0
211 Blizaro - Cornucopia Della Morte 42.0 1 0
211 Hostium - The Bloodwine of Satan 42.0 1 0
211 Spiritus Mortis - The Year Is One 42.0 1 0
215 Soulburn - Earthless Pagan Spirit 41.0 2 0
216 Brimstone Coven - Black Magic 41.0 1 0
216 Dark Forest - Beyond The Veil 41.0 1 0
216 Spell - For None and All 41.0 1 0
216 Teleport - Ascendance 41.0 1 0
216 Void Omnia - Dying Light 41.0 1 0
221 Nokturnal Mortum/Graveland - The Spirit Never Dies (split) 39.0 1 0
221 Oneida & Rhys Chatham - What’s Your Sign? 39.0 1 0
221 Rangda - The Heretic's Bargain 39.0 1 0
221 Suma - The Order Of Things 39.0 1 0
221 Venomous Concept - Kick Me Silly VC III 39.0 1 0
226 Glyptoglossio - GLYPTOGLO5510 38.0 1 0
226 Predatory Light - Predatory light 38.0 1 0
226 Vindland - Hanter Savet 38.0 1 0
229 Fleshgod Apocalypse - King 37.0 2 0
230 Abnormality - Mechanisms of Omniscience 37.0 1 0
230 Psychonaut 4 - Neurasthenia 37.0 1 0
232 Mike & the Melvins - Three Men and a Baby 36.0 2 0
233 Ghold - PYR 36.0 1 0
233 In Mourning - Afterglow 36.0 1 0
233 Nucleus - Sentient 36.0 1 0
233 Obake - Mutations 36.0 1 0
233 Obed Marsh - Innsmouth 36.0 1 0
233 Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley 36.0 1 0
233 The Well - Pagan Science 36.0 1 0
233 Three Trapped Tigers - Silent Earthling 36.0 1 0
241 Ihsahn - Arktis 35.0 1 0
241 Plebeian Grandstand - False Highs, True Lows 35.0 1 0
243 Bestial Raids ‎ - Master Satan's Witchery 34.0 1 0
243 Harakiri for the Sky - III: Trauma 34.0 1 0
245 Conan - Revengeance 33.0 1 0
245 Mortem - Deinos Nekromantis 33.0 1 0
245 Obscura - Akroasis 33.0 1 0
248 Forteresse - Thèmes Pour La Rébellion 32.0 2 0
249 Fallujah - Dreamless 32.0 1 0
249 Gjendod - 2016 demo 32.0 1 0
249 Nocte Obducta - Mogontiacum (Nachdem die Nacht herabgesunken) 32.0 1 0
249 Spidergawd - III 32.0 1 0
253 Gehennah - Too Loud To Live Too Drunk To Die 31.0 2 0
254 Armory - World Peace ... Cosmic War 31.0 1 0
254 Greenleaf - Rise Above the Meadow 31.0 1 0
254 Marsh Dweller - The Weight of Sunlight 31.0 1 0
254 Obscure Sphinx - Epitaphs 31.0 1 0
254 Vermin Womb - Decline 31.0 1 0
259 Okkultokrati - Raspberry Dawn 30.0 2 0
260 Crippled Black Phoenix - Bronze 30.0 1 0
260 Monomyth - Exo 30.0 1 0
262 Horseburner - Dead Seeds, Barren Soi 29.0 2 0
262 Nordjevel - Nordjevel 29.0 2 0
264 Diamond Head - Diamond Head 29.0 1 0
264 Fyrnask - Fórn 29.0 1 0
264 Gevurah - Hallelujah! 29.0 1 0
264 King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity 29.0 1 0
268 Helms Alee - Stillicide 28.0 2 0
268 Violet Cold - Magic Night 28.0 2 0
270 Bat - Wings of Chains 28.0 1 0
270 Hemelbestormer - Aether 28.0 1 0
272 Troll - Troll 27.0 1 0
273 Book of Sand - Occult Anarchist Propaganda 26.0 1 0
274 Amphisbaena - Amphisbaena 25.0 1 0
274 Caverne ‎ - Aux Frontières du Monde 25.0 1 0
274 Church of Misery - And Then There Were None 25.0 1 0
274 Coffin Lust - Manifestation of Inner Darkness 25.0 1 0
274 Cvinger - Embodied in Incense 25.0 1 0
274 Dagger Moon - Citadel 25.0 1 0
274 Dark Tranqillity - Atoma 25.0 1 0
274 Deiquisitor - Deiquisitor 25.0 1 0
274 Demontage - Fire of Iniquity 25.0 1 0
274 Distant Sun - Into The Nebula 25.0 1 0
274 Djevel - Norske ritualer 25.0 1 0
274 Dreamtime - Strange Pleasures 25.0 1 0
274 DÉMONOS - From Sacred to Profane 25.0 1 0
274 Grave Miasma - Endless Pilgrimage 25.0 1 0
274 Haken - Affinity 25.0 1 0
274 Irkallian Oracle ‎ - Apollyon 25.0 1 0
274 Morphinist - Giants 25.0 1 0
274 Mourning Beloveth - Rust & Bone 25.0 1 0
274 Mystik ‎ - Dunkla Klangor... (Kapitel I) 25.0 1 0
274 Nox Formulae - The Hidden Paths to Black Ecstacy 25.0 1 0
274 Nécropole ‎ - Nécropole 25.0 1 0
274 Phobocosm - Bringer of Drought 25.0 1 0
274 Revocation - Great Is Our Sin 25.0 1 0
274 Ride For Revenge - Thy Horrendous Yearning 25.0 1 0
274 Ritual Chamber - Obscurations (To Feast on the Seraphim) 25.0 1 0
274 Sapaudia - Sainte Nuit 25.0 1 0
274 Skyforest - Unity 25.0 1 0
274 Svlfvr - Shamanic Lvnar Cvlt 25.0 1 0
274 Trap Them - Crown Feral 25.0 1 0
274 Ur Draugr - With Hunger Undying 25.0 1 0
274 Usurpress - The Regal Tribe 25.0 1 0
274 Vile Creature - A Pessimistic Doomsayer 25.0 1 0
306 Cardinals Folly - Holocaust Of Ecstacy And Freedom 24.0 1 0
307 Sorrow Plagues - Sorrow Plagues 23.0 1 0
308 Countess - Fires Of Destiny 22.0 1 0
309 Latitudes - Old Sunlight 21.0 1 0
310 Melankoli - Fallen 18.0 1 0
310 Messa - Belfry 18.0 1 0
310 Monolord - Lord of Suffering / Die in Haze 18.0 1 0
313 Is - Glimpses Of Sorrow 17.0 1 0
313 The Hazytones - The Hazytones 17.0 1 0
315 Earthless/Harsh Toke - Acid Crusher/Mount Swan split 15.0 1 0
315 The Rare Breed - Looking For Today 15.0 1 0
317 11Paranoias - Reliquary For A Dreamed Of World 14.0 2 0
318 Pensées Nocturnes - À Boire Et À Manger 14.0 1 0
318 Polyptych - Defying the Metastasis 14.0 1 0
320 Capra Informis - Womb of the Wild 13.0 1 0
320 Shadow Witch - Sun Killer 13.0 1 0
322 Autumn, Leaves, Scars/Dreams Of Nature/Lumnos - A Desolate Landscape (split) 11.0 1 0
322 Eternity's End - The Fire Within 11.0 1 0
322 Kandodo/McBain - Lost Chants/Last Chance 11.0 1 0
322 Temple Of Hallucinations - Mantis 11.0 1 0
326 Exmortus - Ride Forth 10.0 1 0
326 Lethargic Euphoria - Standstill 10.0 1 0
326 Vokonis - Olde One Ascending 10.0 1 0
329 Bright Curse - Before The Shore 9.0 1 0
329 Brutus - Murwgebeukt 9.0 1 0
331 Trna - Lose Yourself To Find Peace 8.0 1 0
332 Black Tomb - Black Tomb 6.0 1 0
333 Beastmaker - Lusus Naturae 5.0 1 0
333 Nonsun - Black Snow Desert 5.0 1 0
335 Gygax - Critical Hit 4.0 1 0
335 The Re-Stoned - Reptiles Return 4.0 1 0
337 Mistur - In Memoriam 2.0 1 0
338 Black Shape Of Nexus - Carrier 1.0 1 0

I was the other No.1 for Jute Gyte. This hit me on a level his other albums weren't able to. Maybe it's because its a bit more accessible than the others but every track on Perdurance floors me completely. I'm a sucker for Branca-ish metal and no other avant release this year warped my brain quite like this.

Thank you as always for this poll. So far, Skáphe and Forgotten Spell are blowing me away. Very much appriciate you all putting this together every year.

oh cool there were two other LLNN voters!

Yes, all hail CS and seandalai!

if jeff had voted Babymetal woulda made it

this is prob my favorite metal poll i've ever participated in good work everyone

Lol otm. This poll just keeps getting better and better imo

That was ace, thank you. Not heard the vast majority of this stuff so lots to catch up on. Fwiw I've not subscribed to the playlist cos it's too damn intimidating and YUGE to navigate.

I gotta do more campaigning next year

My ballot.

Vektor - Terminal Redux
Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolution
SubRosa - For This We Fought The Battle of Ages
Aluk Todolo - Voix
Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas - Mariner
High Spirits - Motivator
Moon Tooth - Chromaparagon
Oceans of Slumber - Winter
Dark Forest – Beyond The Veil

My favourite discoveries during the rollout have been Entropia, Blood Incantation, and Furia.

I'd forgotten about that Voivod EP until after I voted.

What were the top two sources for the reviews posted here? That Pitchfork was an anomoly because they normally have nothing to offer the metal audience.

whatever google results through up

My ballot

Schammasch - Triangle
Thy Catafalque - Meta
Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
Aluk Todolo - Voix
Blues Pills - Lady In Gold
Mesarthim - Isolate
Subrosa - For This We Fought The Battle of Ages.
40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky
Sumac - What One Becomes
Cobalt - Slow Forever
Bölzer - Hero
Alcest - Kodama
Neurosis - Fires Within Fires
Entropia - Ufonaut
Wrong - Wrong
Dysrhythmia - The Veil Of Control
Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolutions
Hail Spirit Noir - Mayhem in Blue
Cultes des Ghoules - Coven, or Evil Ways Instead of Love
Furia - Księżyc milczy luty
Inverloch - Distance | Collapsed
Jute Gyte - Perdurance
Khemmis - Hunted
Lycus - Chasms
Book of Sand - Occult Anarchist Propaganda
Church of Misery - And Then There Were None
Blood Ceremony - Lord Of Misrule
Horseback - Dead Ringers
Mesarthim - Pillars [EP]
Mesarthim - .- -... ... . -. -.-. .
Caïna - Christ Clad In White Phosphorus
Eight Bells - Landless
Helms Alee - Stillicide
Wretch - Wretch
Witchcraft - Nucleus
Virus - Memento Collider
Ulver - ATGCLVLSSCAP
Mare Cognitum - Luminiferous Aether
Ash Borer - Irrepassable Gate
Kandodo/McBain - Lost Chants/Last Chance
Krallice - Hyperion
Truckfighters - V
Wo Fat - Midnight Cometh
The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
The Body, Full of Hell - One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache
The Cosmic Dead - Rainbowhead
Horse Lords - Interventions
Graves at Sea - the curse that is
Goat - Requiem
Black Shape Of Nexus – Carrier

Fuck I forgot to vote for Helms Alee. Ah well.

Jute Gyte - Perdurance
Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
Forgotten Spell - Epiphaneia Phosphorus (Angel, God or Insanity)
Car Bomb - Meta
Comet Control - Center of the Maze
Virus - Memento Collider
Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard - Y Proffwyd Dwell
Moon Tooth - Chromaparagon
Hail Spirit Noir - Mayhem in Blue
Dawnwalker - In Rooms
Jute Gyte - The Sparrow (write-in lmao)
Mesarthim - Pillars EP
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation
Wormed - Krighsu
Völur - Disir
Entropia - Ufonaut
Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust
Basarabian Hills - Attraction
Ophidian Forest - Susurrus
Ulver - ATGCLVLSSCAP
Sinistro - Semente
Wormrot - Voices
Deathspell Omega - The Synarchy of Molten Bones
Furia - Księżyc milczy luty

Louis, you are so hivemind

tastemaker m8

I just remembered that I actually *saw* Volur open for The Body. Don't mix yr drugs, kids.

haha wow

Spotify Playlist of the 101

I want to go to that gig under those conditions. All the metal gigs we went to this year were cordial gatherings of about 25 people slowly sipping cans of Red Stripe.

I've been listening to Astronoid on repeat all week.

London is not very metal, despite Dawnwalker's best efforts

It was actually not very fun, I just have huge chunks of that night I don't remember. I woke up at work, in my new No One Deserves Happiness shirt. xp

lol

cheers for doing this, loads of stuff on here i need to check out. my top 2 - anagnorisis and graves at sea were nowhere to be seen....

If I read the results correctly, Anagnorisis are the only band to get a #1 vote and no other votes!

That's always a mandatory listen

333 Nonsun - Black Snow Desert 5.0 1 0

I@n W@tkins joins Mansun?

Simon, what was your ballot?

Ohhhh, Anagnorisis were founded by that beer guy

lol I didn't save my ballot, I can only tell you there were 50 albums on it and Vektor was my #1

Austin Lunn from panopticon was in anagnorisis early on

hence

indeed

xps ah okay. I will just imagine it.

Mine had Forgotten Spell, Jute Gyte and 48 others

including megadeth

j/k <3

CS kindly emailed me my ballot! Bold dnp, asterisked sole voter

Vektor - Terminal Redux
Xoth - Invasion of the Tentacube
40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky
Subrosa - For This We Fought The Battle of Ages
Hail Spirit Noir - Mayhem in Blue
Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolutions
Deftones - Gore
Every Time I Die - Low Teens
Astronoid - Air
Spell - For None and All
Wormed - Krighsu
Kvelertak - Nattesferd
Jute Gyte - Perdurance
Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows
*In Mourning - Afterglow*
Anaal Nathrakh - The Whole Of The Law
Harakiri for the Sky - III: Trauma
Dysrhythmia - The Veil Of Control
Krallice - Hyperion
Katatonia - The Fall of Hearts
Anicon - Exegeses
Oozing Wound - Whatever Forever
Sinistro - Semente
Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
Sumac - What One Becomes
Zao - The Well-Intentioned Virus
Wormrot - Voices
Cobalt - Slow Forever
Vader - The Empire
*Latitudes - Old Sunlight*
Khemmis - Hunted
Deathspell Omega - The Synarchy of Molten Bones
*Messa - Belfry*
Insomnium - Winter's Gate
Anciients - Voice of the Void
Lotus Thief - Gramarye
Madder Mortem - Red In Tooth and Claw
LLNN - Loss
Nails - You Will Never Be One of Us
Sumerlands - s/t
*Exmortus - Ride Forth*
Virus - Memento Collider
Metallica - Hardwired...To Self Destruct
Dawnwalker - In Rooms
The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
Forteresse - Thèmes Pour La Rébellion
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation
Violet Cold - Magic Night
*Mistur - In Memoriam*
Gehennah - Too Loud To Live Too Drunk To Die

email me my ballot cs

Pretty sure in the 8th track of the forgotten spell album - Metamorphosis In A Spiritual Spectral Sphere about 4 mins 5 secs in the 'singer' goes for a long guttural roar and you can hear him fart.

Fartgotten Spell

He might've been playing some dubstep in the background.

First time that ILM's #1 is also my #1. CS if you have my ballot could you post it?

Moon Tooth - Chromaparagon
Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik - Skuggsjá
Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas - Mariner
Child Bite - Negative Noise
Warm - The Human Exemplar
Inquisition - Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar (etc)
Wo Fat - Midnight Cometh
Deathspell Omega - The Synarchy of Molten Bones
Borknagar - Winter Thrice
Russian Circles - Guidance
Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
Venomous Concept - Kick Me Silly VC III
Testament - Brotherhood Of The Snake
Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust
Deftones - Gore
Drudkh - One Who Talks with the Fog
Subrosa - For This We Fought The Battle of Ages.
Conan - Revengeance
Fallujah - Dreamless
Uskumgallu - Rotten Limbs in Dreams of Blood
Aluk Todolo - Voix
Norma Jean - Polar Similar
Mizmor - Yodh
Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows
Zao - The Well-Intentioned Virus
Furia - Ksiezyc milczy luty
Imperial Triumphant - Inceste
Truckfighters - V
Jute Gyte - Perdurance
Qrixkuor - Three Devils Dance
31 Howls of Ebb - Cursus Impasse: The Pendlomic Vows
Begrime Exemious - The Enslavement Conquest
Waldgefluster/Panopticon - Split
Chthe'ilist - Le dernier crépuscule
Virus - Memento Collider
Earthless/Harsh Toke - Acid Crusher/Mount Swan split
Fleshgod Apocalypse - King
Absolute Power - Absolute Power
Khthoniik Cerviiks - SeroLogiikal Scars (Vertex of Dementiia)
Melvins - Basses Loaded
Mike & the Melvins - Three Men and a Baby
Schammasch - Triangle
Hammers of Misfortune - Dead Revolutions

I can't fucking believe Skuggsjá didn't make it, that record is incredible.

Also I thought Warm had about the same odds of making it as Moon Tooth, I saw them both at the same show. Guess that's the power of campaigning!