2014 POLL RESULTS COUNTDOWN - ILM Metal Albums of the Year

These guys had Dead Congregation in their top 10:
George Paul, Mutilation Rites
Lasse Pyykko, Hooded Menace 
Alan Averill,  Primordial
Patrick Alberts, Call of the Void 

For my money, Dead Congregation is way too low! I think I had it at #2 on my ballot. Also, I like Woods of Desolation quite a bit, but the production on the new one seemed like a huge step backward. I don't know why there was such a drop-off in their sound quality since the last record. Anyone know why?

the Dead Congregation record was terrific i thought, but not quite as good as their debut from 2008.

i probably would have rated it higher given more time, it didn't really grab me until late in the year.

54 Fen - Carrion Skies 274 Points, 8 votes
http://i.imgur.com/RsfE1Sn.jpg
spotify:album:5qNepiBgifVuuKIYGc5iBp

Fen and Saor are both a decent listen, they both do the whole post-black thing well but they weren't really striking enough for me to vote for.

Dead Congregation are pretty good from what I remember hearing.

haven't given that Fen album a listen yet since i've always found their brand of folky blackgaze to be a little bit wooden & precious. i'll definitely give it a chance though.

on the other hand, i voted Saor pretty high on my ballot

53 The Oath - The Oath 274 Points, 9 votes
http://i.imgur.com/Kog1TJ9.jpg
spotify:album:3famRI5ZxosCM9Tf7PBjtJ
http://theoath.bandcamp.com/

Not heard this but I've heard good things about it

52 Hail Spirit Noir - Oi Magoi 282 Points, 9 votes
http://i.imgur.com/S41BH2H.jpg
spotify:album:63Yx6ZmNT7cxRdhQCZsfRz
http://hsn666.bandcamp.com/album/oi-magoi

juggalo-affiliated?

hah, no

psychedelic black metal

it's great

yup

yayyy. Kinda busy today but paying attn and youtubing some of the stuff I've missed. HSN was amazing, yeah, it was my #5 (just ahead of Behemoth), though my list was only 10 long. Oi Magoi really clicked for me once I switched from headphones to speakers. It really pulls a room together.

And I was pleased to learn, according to the liner notes/credits, that the cover is an actual photo of an actual person with actual body paint, not a digital concoction.

ah, another one I meant to check out and had forgotten about - whoop whoop!

I guess I wasn't feeling the death metal too much this year. None of the big stuff -- Dead Congregation, Teitanblood, Impetuous Ritual, even Incantation -- really moved me. Last year had Grave Miasma, Suffo, Deeds of Flesh, Abyssal, Obliteration, so much bigness. My #1, however, is pretty much death metal (or blackened death or whatever) and I'll be sure to pipe up when we get there.

Oi Magoi is very much a black metal version of a 70's prog album. But less Darkthrone and more Arcturus re: "black metal." It's kind of light-hearted feeling, too, loose and animated. And choruses that will stick with you. I esp love "Hunters."

tbh i wish id placed it much higher in my ballot

Actually now that I listen to it with Darkthrone in mind, I can hear Darkthrone in the riffs. Weird. Chameleon of an album, I guess.

I don't think I ranked it, but it's a fun album. A lot of 70s prog has a particular kind of tasteless humour about it and this album replicates that nicely.

51 Midnight - No Mercy for Mayhem 290 Points, 8 votes
http://i.imgur.com/KF6bB17.jpg
spotify:album:3MNjrtJfGyBoxoEVjOKIA5
http://hellsheadbangers.bandcamp.com/album/no-mercy-for-mayhem

Another one I've been meaning to check out

As much as I love HH as a distro, their taste in label signings is ... not my thing. They manage to hit all the areas of the extreme metal subgenre venn diagram that shoo me away. Except for Zemial. That Nykta album from last year was great.

I was not super into this one. Too much on the raunch side.

Will you guys be here for the next 5 or will i leave it for the night?

i'll be here...

here - would love more roll-out!

ok then into the
TOP 50

Whoops yeah I'm here, mostly. Enjoying the countdown but you can pace it however you want.

50 Nachtmystium - The World We Left Behind 297 Points, 9 votes
http://i.imgur.com/elqu4i8.jpg
spotify:album:2ERVg9mdqy4VEVreGkAh8P

If there's chat on thread I'll post but if no one is around there is no point. It's the chat that makes these threads imo

so Nachtmystium aren't splitting up at all according to a Terrorizer interview

I'm surprised anyone wants to work with Blake Judd at this point tbh

Even thinking about Nachtmystium at this point makes me feel kind of icky. Everything I've heard about the circumstances of this newest album suggests zero creativity/passion/urgency went into it -- unless we're talking the urgency of paying debts, or of contributing to new ones.

That said, I will give it a listen. And then probably go back to pretending their career began and ended with Instinct:Decay, one of the greatest and most powerful and surprising USBM albums.

me too. surprised the album ranked so high too -it had some pretty terrible reviews.

I haven't heard it either, maybe it's not bad at all but the circumstances surrounding the record left a bad taste in people's mouths regardless of the music.

Well the first song (after the intro) is a lot more toe-tapping and upbeat than I'd been bracing for, even if it does have the expected cruise control element. Very post-punky. Enough to make me curious about the rest of the album so I guess this'll play until something else from the roll-out strikes my fancy.

Eh. On second thought, now that I'm well into the third track, this is ... click track music. Just waiting for it to end, already with a good idea of what's gonna happen.

Sorry Cos, I was replacing a kitchen faucet before I go out of town. I really don't like that Nachtmystium, but TBF it's not objectively horrible ;)

The Oath! Glad to see them acknowledged and not completely forgotten since they broke up before it was even released. Hope to see Johanna Sardonis' (the singer) new band Lucifer someday.

I saw some good reviews and all the bad reviews mentioned the circumstances. I thought it wa a decent album and somewhat in the middle of the reviews. 7/10 id say

maybe 6/10

people have already made the point, but looking at the first 50, it's such a varied list. I've listened to a lot of metal this year, but half this stuff is unfamiliar to me!

xpost to me: And since the next song is an 8 1/2 minute epic I think I'm ready for the next result. Fleeing.

49 Goat - Commune 301 Points, 9 votes
http://i.imgur.com/HXx3wqT.jpg
spotify:album:7uQp0QiuQzOblVPfNQhczi
http://rocketrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/commune

people have already made the point, but looking at the first 50, it's such a varied list. I've listened to a lot of metal this year, but half this stuff is unfamiliar to me!

― auto focus,

I always enjoy the lower part of polls for that reason (plus outside of metal poll that is where all the albums I vote forplace) it gives everyone an incentive to vote.

I know lots of you dont even vote in the big ilm poll because you think its pointless as your picks dont make it.
But get nominating
ILM's 2014 End of Year Albums & Tracks Poll / NOMINATIONS THREAD

and then vote

if everyone who votes here voted in the big poll we could easily get 10 albums in the top 77

A little less hype this time around as it's more of the same, but I think it's better than the first one, with a few nice heavy psych guitar solos.