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

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