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

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