No, We Aren't Making These Bands Up: ILM Metal Poll 2010 Results Thread

I saw Humanfly live the other week, haven't listened to the album yet tho, but I put it on my download list on the basis of the live show.

Who were they supporting?

Melt Banana

90
Angel Eyes - Midwestern (227 Points, 12 Votes)
http://www.decoymusic.com/images/album_covers/0013/0639/angel_eyes_-_midwestern_medium.jpg?1277179925
http://www.last.fm/music/Angel+Eyes
http://www.myspace.com/angeleyes

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/129983-angel-eyes-midwestern/

Angel Eyes is a five-piece sludge / post-metal band from Chicago, IL formed in the year 2003.

I have their 2 other albums which are really great, still need to pick this one up.

Oh cool it's available on vinyl

Wasn't hugely impressed by that Angel Eyes. I feel like lots of other bands are doing that kind of thing better.

gonna listen to loads of these! hadn't heard enough to vote but nice turnout!

btw references to Pink Floyd, whether by bands or critics, can fuck off. ohhhh they can fuck off. so bland.

like I'm sure Rosetta are awesome but that big stinking thing in the middle of that write-up makes me wanna barf

Interesting -- I haven't even heard of a lot of these.

I thought LJ loved Pink Floyd

not in this context

and really only up to Ummagumma in any context - they get more boring the more music I hear

89
U.S. Christmas - Run Thick in the Night (229 Points, 12 Votes)
http://www.roadburn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/USX-Run-Thick-The-Night.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/U.S.+Christmas
http://www.myspace.com/uschristmas

U.S. Christmas (USX) started playing together in 2002. They create very loud, loose and free music in a definite nasty psychedelic vein, but never jammy or amorphous. Everyone creates their own individual sound, and writes their own parts. And together they change things around a lot, probably because they don’t remember what they played the last time they played. The bandmates mention many bands that shaped their sound: classic psychedelic, blues, guitar slingers, modern metal, doom, and sludge, as well as old country artists - Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Hawkwind, Neurosis and Caustic Resin.

I wish the US Christmas was a little more consistent - the highs soar, but I felt there were too many clunkers. Should probably give it another go.

It was a new line-up wasn't it?

I have no idea. I didn't investigate them until after I heard the Hawkwind tribute, and didn't dig any further than this record because I found it such a mixed bag.

The first album was the one people REALLY raved about. It was terrific.

ILM (in general, not just this thread) seems dead today yet 80+ are online. Is there a clusterfuck thread on ILE or something where everyone is? ILM is ever so quiet today.

88
Black Tusk - Taste the Sin (229 Points, 14 Votes)
http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2010/05/Black-Tusk-Taste-The-Sin.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Black+Tusk
http://open.spotify.com/album/029dIinbUmPmtRyWxp5wz4

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14435-taste-the-sin/

Wow! Great run so far -- I especially like the Les Descetes album a lot!

Hey! An album I've heard!

really like that Black Tusk record, kind of surprised its so low

87
Howl - Full of Hell (230 Points, 9 Votes)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_atKrCdoiKZ4/TQ60NVOk3EI/AAAAAAAAF0Y/_8Gsp7oBdTE/s1600/Howl%252C_Full_of_Hell_rediculously_large_cover_image.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Howl

Howl is a sludge metal band from Providence, RI http://www.myspace.com/howlheavymetal

And according to their myspace, they're going to tour Europe with Black Tusk. How apropos.

There are so many metal bands I would like more if they didn't bother with vocals. Was digging the Howl tracks on myspace until generic growler man turned up.

I know I need to try harder, but I still find both screechers and growlers my biggest impediment in "extreme" music.

86
Sigh - Scenes From Hell (231 Points, 13 Votes)
http://www.metalunderground.com/images/covers/Sigh_-_Scenes_From_Hell_cover.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Sigh

http://open.spotify.com/album/3X7mQulD1ISW2EKXYGqie8

Sigh is regarded by many as Japan’s leading extreme metal export, having released numerous highly esteemed recordings throughout their twenty year existence. Although originally a black metal band, Sigh became recognizably eclectic, taking influence from Romantic era classical music, jazz, prog rock, dark electronica and more.

Where are all the Sigh fans?

discussing gun control probably...

Metal >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Guns

diminishing returns from sigh since (the fantastic) imaginary sonicscape but that's been on my list of 2010 records to check out since it was released. of course, I still haven't gotten around to it but dog latin had some interesting things to say about it somewhere on ilx and really should give it a listen sometime soon.

I was wondering where dog latin was actually

found the quote. it's from a thread for sigh.

Alan N, as with most albums after Imaginary Sonicscape, this is Sigh trying a slightly different tack. This time they've brought in a female growler (oo-er!) who doesn't sound all that different from the regular guy. There's no more country-n-western pastiches or cod-reggae middle-eighths on this one, but it is pure medieval machine music. The employment of evil-dextrous orchestration thankfully enforces the blow rather than softens it. It manages to be grindingly violent, horrifyingly majestic but still genuinely retaining the fun factor.

― village idiot (dog latin), Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:47 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

does sound pretty cool.

great cover too:

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/reviewpics/sighnew.jpg

I'm listening to it on spotify. It's as sufficiently as weird as you would expect it to be.

may listen tonight...

Next one is a tie so I'll post them together

These records are getting lots of votes but none of the voters are talking about them (me included, which I'll now rectify).

I voted for Les Discrets, as I found it the most impressive of the pretty shoegazey stuff I heard this year. I really love the mix; the drums are punchy, the cymbals pierce the fog of the guitars, and though I have no idea what he's singing about I like his voice. It isn't particularly heavy, but uses some of the tropes of the genre (like blast beats) to great effect. I think it effectively built on the sound of Amesoeurs and Souvenirs d'un autre Monde better than Neige did on the newest Alcest (which I like, though not as much as Septembre).

TIE
84
Menace Ruine - Union of Irreconcilables (232 Points, 11 Votes)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-zOD9_8LSFc/TAPvNhQuOkI/AAAAAAAAAtk/K5CWzCJ59tA/s320/1275317604_menace-ruine.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Menace+Ruine

Menace Ruine came together in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in autumn 2006, when they began composing the songs that would form their debut recording, In Vulva Infernum.

While the debut album Cult Of Ruins, took its starting point in fast black metal and noise, the follow-up, The Die is Cast stays true to the metal sound. The tempo has been slowed down, and could be described as heavy down-tempo drone with martial rhythms.

The original lineup:

Geneviève - vocals, instruments, lyrics;
S. de La Moth - vocals, instruments.

http://boomkat.com/cds/305649-menace-ruine-union-of-irreconcilables
http://www.myspace.com/menaceruine

84
Boris - Variations (232 Points, 11 Votes)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_npAibJ29jYc/TB63hwEdheI/AAAAAAAAAXQ/wd4_t6Bk550/s1600/14o7vyf%5B1%5D.jpg
http://www.last.fm/music/Boris

Quite a few bands with female musicians have made it so far. Something metal is usually accused of not enough of (perfectly true) but glad ILMis embracing it.

These records are getting lots of votes but none of the voters are talking about them (me included, which I'll now rectify).

Thanks!
but sadly that is par for the course for poll threads until the final stages. Would love to see more discussion though, so everyone feel free to pile in with thoughts!

The only one I've heard thus far is the Black Tusk record, which sounded very much like Georgia peers Kylesa to me. That post-hardcore sound is very popular at the moment, isn't it.

^^ voted for Boris (my first to appear). kinda serves as a greatest hits-style compilation w/ a handful of newly recorded parts (the new Kurihara guitar stuff is blistering) and pretty much everything on it is unfuckwithable.

It's interesting how many groups have made this list that weren't really discussed on the metal thread. Although probably the stuff that was discussed at length will be appearing further up. Crazy how good a year this was for metal.

Anyway, Black Tusk and Howl are both similar-sounding, quite good, and on Relapse. I suspect, however, that they've only gotten this much attention because the genre hasn't become glutted yet. There's a good chance that this particular style is going to become as strip mined as post-metal, though, and when that happens they'll probably fall through the cracks.

Listening to the Menace Ruin tracks on myspace and they're interesting. Worth further exploration, at least.

I listened to the Black Tusk but it didn't click with me like the Kylesa record. There is definitely something in the water down Georgia way.

Or Menace Ruine, even.

I haven't heard hardly any of this shit so far. My listening is much more mainstream, I guess...that, plus my tolerance for artsy crap has really diminished over the last couple of years. Gimme BROOTAL DEATH METAL or fuck off.

It's interesting how many groups have made this list that weren't really discussed on the metal thread.

Although probably the stuff that was discussed at length will be appearing further up.

Probably no point in saying that wont be the case because, to a high extent its true, but there are some surprises with high/low placings for known & not so well known albums.

Crazy how good a year this was for metal.

Damn right, maybe mainstream metal is creatively redundant and not selling that well but the underground with it's many subgenres is thriving! Maybe one will crossover?

The sigh was my #2, and although it def isn't the weirdest thing on my list, it's about as odd as would be expected from them. I think this time around there us def less weird for weirds sake going on, the whole album seems a little more gelled than many of the other ones to my ears, kind of a band hitting it's stride thing IMO. Would be more effusive but I am posting from iPhone so even being this longwinded is annoying as hell.

Kinda sounds like if a bunch of the good paganfest folkmetal dudes did a collab w/peste noire and recorded in a high $$$ studio instead of some dudes toolshed.

Henry wouldn't like it if it had high $$$ production though.

Henry ate a bunch of my mail this afternoon so his posting privs have been temporarily revoked.