2014 POLL RESULTS COUNTDOWN - ILM Metal Albums of the Year

That Skull Fist was really good, really nailed the style without mocking it. If I'd made an EOY list larger than a top ten, it would've made the cut for sure.

I started reading a lot of chatter about Flight of Sleipnir late in the year thus haven't gotten around to hearing it. (Oh, I guess it just came out, now that I've checked its release date.. So that's why.)

edit: hi, Opeth. Sadly I'm one of those "old Opeth" grumps so I think I may have streamed a couple tracks from PC and that was that. MORNINGRISE FOREVER.

74 Mournful Congregation - Concrescence Of The Sophia 186 Points, 6 votes
http://i.imgur.com/8fEVmvj.jpg
http://listen.20buckspin.com/album/concrescence-of-the-sophia

Until further notice just consider my response to every result, "oh yeah I need to hear that."

I'm with Devilock, there's a ton of albums I apparently missed out on. And I completely forgot Mourthful Congregation made a new album.

Polls are weird bcz they tend to reward reach over devotion, if u get me...? Like, event albums that are highly publicized and build a buzz and get a lot of ppl to hear them tend to do well even if a majority of ppl don't really rate it that highly...if you hear a high profile album and don't hate it you almost feel like you ought to put it on yr ballot (or at least I do) even if it is somewhere down in the twenties or thirties, BUT it's precisely that ubiquity that allows it to do better than someone's #1 or #2 pick that only can get three or four others voters to care...

That's why I like the longer rollout' it just happens that ppl like me, Fastnbulbous, La Lechera, yournullfame, sund4r, and even EZ--all our pet albums tend to be the ones that wd be the first to be cut

― wonderful about a proletariat-Vorticist version of James Brown (Drugs A. Money),

That Skull Fist was really good, really nailed the style without mocking it. If I'd made an EOY list larger than a top ten, it would've made the cut for sure.

― tongues flowering (Devilock),

I wonder if it's because all magazine lists, P&J etc have a small amount of votes allowed.
In this poll you can have up to 50 votes so those big event albums that ppl dont think are that great but feel they got to include that george talks about could still get in a ballot but lower down and the lesser known albums they do like can get a boost.
All polls could benefit from that I think.

73 Petrychor - Makrokosmos 189 Points, 5 votes
http://i.imgur.com/lovYHS5.jpg
http://petrychor.bandcamp.com/album/makrokosmos

The intersection of cosmic and terrestrial influences, music of and from the stars and how we relate to them from our position on Earth. Rest well and travel far, for though you at times may feel that you are without company, hopefully these sounds will remind you that there are others scattered across the globe, who are on a similar journey. Share in it.
credits
released 10 July 2014

Everything: Tad Piecka

I bought this from bandcamp earlier this year thanks to ilm. Bandcamp thread I think by jeff

spacey black metal that la lechera and sund4r might like

Yeah, I voted for Petrychor. I need to be in the mood for it but it's pretty good in a unique way when I am. Myrkur is up my alley so far, as well.

Is it better than Darkspace III I y/n? Cuz I could not get into that album

I'm glad Petrychor got a showing, it's very enjoyable. Anyone who likes Spectral Lore or Mare Cognitum ought to give it a listen.

I don't think I've given the new Opeth much of a chance, but like others I'm surprised to see it that low, I thought it was pretty popular. I've always thought if Opeth could become more focussed they could be more than just fitfully brilliant and largely dull. Now they have more focus, idk, if I want to listen to ye olde progge I'll actually listen to an album made in the 70s rather someone emulating Camel and what have you.

xpost I find Darkspace incredibly boring, Petrychor are a lot brighter/optimistic sounding than them

I haven't really got into Darkspace III so far either fwiw. Petrychor is pretty different imo, not as harsh and undifferentiated. The ambient electronic passages are longer and more heavily emphasized. There are some longer stretches of cleaner proggy rock.

2xpost

72 Fallujah - The Flesh Prevails 190 Points, 6 votes
http://i.imgur.com/NJDxtrM.jpg
spotify:album:6OuJ8Sq6p9LxBG39PWXoFH

this record is a little much but pretty enjoyable

I remember thinking that album was pretty damned dazzling when I first heard it but didn't give it enough of a follow-up to determine if that was the fireworks effect. Maybe that I didn't come back to it answers the question.

xpost that's another way to put it

brad what metal publications do you read?

infact a question for everybody - what metal publications do you read? print and/or online

i don't read any actually. most of the stuff i listen to is derived from 1) the metal thread, where i mostly listen to people whose tastes align with mine but also occasionally everyone else, which is why i heard a few pretty decent black metal records this year 2) occasionally sift through metallum ratings 3) this one metal album art blog i follow 4)random bandcamps

i mean i should probably actually read more metal publications but i usually have to put a lot of effort into finding metal records i really like

you do seem to have different tastes to a lot of the rolling metal regulars and that is why i was wondering where you heard about stuff

the metal you like seems to be more brutal and technical and a bit different to the emo/pop rock i tend to see you post about. Maybe you like more produced stuff?

71 Inter Arma - The Cavern 190 Points, 7 votes
http://i.imgur.com/ZnryF0Z.jpg
spotify:album:09OwyDCl593yc0blzg6AAk
http://interarma.bandcamp.com/album/the-cavern

I read Terrorizer for a few years but I can't afford it anymore... I mostly go to blogs and get recommendations from friends. Been pretty into slow-tempo "depressive" black metal recently.

70 Towers - II 193 Points, 7 votes
http://i.imgur.com/KKyCZLc.jpg
http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2014/02/11/towers-ii-full-stream/

Most of my metal reading comes from message boards, either metal-archives, NWN, the SomethingAwful metal threads in the music subforum, and here obviously. When they existed, I read Metal Maniacs and random zines like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Worm Gear, uh ... Pit, and of course Terrorizer, which as mentioned above had to be cut for financial reasons.

I realize zines I used to read migrated to the internet but for some reason I didn't follow them. I'm guessing the internet allowed me to shift my listening to/reading about ratio way in favor of the former. Not sure if that's a good thing but eh.

I really miss Erebus and Teufel's Tomb, two online-only zines I did in fact read.

Er, no, not Teufel's Tomb, that was a zine zine that had an online counterpart, I think. I mean I did like it but that's not what I was thinking of. At some point in the early to mid 00's I lost all my browser bookmarks to a hard drive crash and apparently lost the brain cells required to remember all the stuff I read, as well.

the metal you like seems to be more brutal and technical and a bit different to the emo/pop rock i tend to see you post about. Maybe you like more produced stuff?

oh i listen to everything, man, emo just happens to be the one thing i have a lot of specialized knowledge about. i do like good production! and i tend to gravitate toward brutal, technical death metal yeah, i like the uneven groove that bands in that mode tend to create, like they're building a whirlpool.

Oh yeah and when I remember I check out Stoner Hive.

i've heard nothing but good things about that inter arma record but i haven't listened to it myself

listening to it now, it seems a lot more memorable than Sky Burial, which didn't grab me at all. It's quite mathy in large chunks (Don Caballero a little bit perhaps?), and I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

I liked Sky Burial a lot

I probably need to give it another spin

xpost to myself but Maelstrom was the other zine I used to read religiously and had presumed defunct but I just looked and apparently it's still going -- so I am the one who is defunct. Though they seem only to have put out two issues this year.

And yeah, I'd thought Pyrrhon would end up on my list but as the year went on it got nudged ever downward. I should give it another spin.

69 Comet Control - s/t 194 Points, 5 votes , One #1
http://i.imgur.com/Clmqkig.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/3O0VAkL5J0yzVWPRtyyYgD
http://cometcontrol.bandcamp.com/

haha the Pyrrhon mention I was responding to was in the rolling thread, not here. Jesus.

Enjoying this Saor album. Not the kinda thing I usually listen to but the folk elements are great

damn, been meaning to check out petrychor and saor for a while, my bandcamp wish list is out of control.

inter arma don't quite grab me on record, i think they make more sense live.

I like the parts of that Saor that don't sound like pavilion concerts you'd see on PBS during a fund drive.

Naor, faor, whaoreeeever you aor.

I think I'm the reverse, I don't really like the vocal style but am enjoying the instrumental sections.

hey if we use Nightwish as a baseline, it's pretty heavy shit man.

Oooh Comet Control! I love that album, they're like a hypnagogic Uncle Acid almost

o rilly? that sounds very appealing.

they're great, a successor band to the also-excellent Quest for Frire

Tie
67 AEvangelist - Writhes in the Murk 205 Points, 6 votes
http://i.imgur.com/9tZdr1w.jpg
spotify:album:5yqMoDpbp7OhXfEMGq4U9F
http://dmp666.bandcamp.com/album/writhes-in-the-murk

67 Shooting Guns - Street Rock 205.0 6 votes
http://i.imgur.com/S0lnxMX.jpg

I wonder where the Electric Wizard album will place, it seems pretty divisive.

Also, I wonder if I'm the only person who should be the type to like Shooting Guns but find them boring.

Has anyone started the spotify album playlist? Usually Mordy does that but I can get it started if need be.

http://open.spotify.com/user/pfunkboy/playlist/4DzhT7xPiDI3oy9tWVMGos
spotify:user:pfunkboy:playlist:4DzhT7xPiDI3oy9tWVMGos

Comet Control was my #1