2014 POLL RESULTS COUNTDOWN - ILM Metal Albums of the Year

Ooh!

Swedish blues-rockers. They're really good. I just heard them a few weeks ago.

cheers, playing in london this year - i'll check em out!

If we've reached Behemoth, we will not be reaching the other 7 of my 10. Stuff like Tortorum, Old Wainds, The Deathtrip, I can understand; I'm kinda flummoxed that Domains, Emptiness, even Overkill didn't make it.

I just listened to Sinister Ceremonies again last night for what I assume is the millionth time this year, and it still gets better with each listen, to the point where I'm sticking it next to stuff like Altars of Madness, Onward to Golgotha, Consuming Impulse, Leprosy -- ahistorically of course; I'm just speaking of pure musical enjoyment on my part. I don't think a single bar of music passes by without something really inspired/inspiring happening. I'm wondering if their main writer isn't classically trained because the level of songwriting and thematic development is among the best I've ever heard. Each time a musical idea appears, as great as it is at its starting point, it gets decorated, expanded, emphasized each time it returns so that you're practically cheering on every riff as it's brought back over the course of a song. I'm still noticing little details in the guitars and even the fleeting keys all this time later -- and this is not some kind of complex, layered, symphonic metal extravaganza. It's ... pretty straightforward blackened death metal. My initial assessment of the album was "Altars of Madness played with a black metal mindset" or something; this assessment hasn't changed at all. I thought it would be quite some time before my #1 of a year would compete with last year's Colored Sands but this Domains thing assuredly does.

Their album is free, even. Insane. Though their distribution presence kind of sucked; I got mine through Ajna. Maybe their lack of web presence was the problem.
http://domainsofdeath.bandcamp.com/

I have no idea why the listenable mp3's have been reduced to two. It doesn't matter, though: every song is the best song.

Blues Pills are wonderful. If anything from this poll was gonna crossover to ILM in general it would be them. She Has a great voice.

devilock and others who think stuff should be higher - that is why you need to campaign for albums. I say it every year but you ignore it!

what might be the last surprise coming of the poll?

BARGHEST?

Ya know, when I look at the albums I mention for the sake of imbuing a selection with metal cred, and then I scroll through most of the stuff making this year-end list, I have to wonder if I've not become one of those metal purists I loathe so much. Oh god. Get me a DFHVN stream, stat.

xpost: I think my Domains campaign expired, considering it really only consisted of my initial awe-struck post about it. Back in like April or something. I didn't think that one through.

hey, i voted for that, devilock, but it was down in the teens on my ranked ballot.

Liking the Domains right now, thanks for posting -- on first listen, it sounds like it fits in with "revival death metal". I can say that I've only gotten into the metal the last couple of years, but already I can tell my tastes are outside a lot of stuff in this poll. Like, it never occurred to me Stargazer or Thantifaxath wouldn't be super popular. I hate "campaigning", especially just to place something on a list, so I guess I can't complain but...

love that blues pills album.

Blues Pills I tried to listen to just now, but it reminded me of Sharon Jones.

(I actually like Sharon Jones, but not in metal mindframe)

Stargazer does seem to be pretty fantastic, yeah, but I heard it way too late to figure out how it would fit into my ten.

Still I've been turned on to quite a few things from this countdown, so it's all good. I'm expecting to be surprised by pretty much everything that comes between now and the end.

and I say this as a bug Autopsy fan. They should pack it in, their best days are behind them.

― Frobisher, Friday, December 12, 2014 5:05 PM (5 days ago)

going way back to the beginning of the thread, but tourniquets, hacksaws & graves deserves a more respectful send-off than this. not all-time great, maybe, but consistently entertaining, appealingly crude and more wildly energetic than you might expect. hell of a lot better than what cannibal corpse and obituary put out this year...

it was better than the cannibal corpse record. think the best of the old dudes this year was incantation though.

19 Jute Gyte - Vast Chains 599 Points, 15votes , THREE #1s
http://i.imgur.com/lXDwfJZ.jpg
spotify:album:6d6v23GFBa74XhHD9DgKMu
http://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/album/vast-chains

yaaaay!

woop!

rather it was higher but its all good

Envisioning that Autopsy criticism coming from protagonist of Kafka's Metamorphosis, antennas twitching, spindly legs scrabbling at the keyboard.

lol!

Could have been higher if lj had voted

I remember trying to get into Jute Gyte, not just this year's stuff but his whole discography (mistake to take that all on at once) and getting so confused by the alternating wonderment and boredom that I sort of gave up. I probably need to go back and pace myself.

Trouble fan not in house but on the road taking a break from driving. Oly wanted to rock ha ha. Such surprisingly great songs.

I like how Blues Pills had this French teen prodigy guitarist and took their time over a couple years to put out the album. Perhaps he had to finish school? They've gotten great responses at festivals

JUTE GYTE

I also hear lots of Graveyard's influence same producer

I'm kinda flummoxed that Domains, Emptiness, even Overkill didn't make it.

I just listened to Sinister Ceremonies again last night for what I assume is the millionth time this year, and it still gets better with each listen...

listening for the first time, and yeah, it's awesome. figure most voters either never heard it or just aren't into the vibe (and more likely the former). thanks for the tips, btw. looking forward to the emptiness album, too.

Jute Gyte - Vast Chains

\m/

I believe that Michael and I were two of the #1 voters. Who was the third?

i didn't like the emptiness album at all but i get what y'all see in it, and i am verrry surprised it isn't here (...yet?)

woah, I just realized that Overkill didn't make the poll. It's a sad day for Legacy Thrash.

18 Blut aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry 609 Points, 17 votes
http://i.imgur.com/acg4BDd.jpg
http://dmp666.bandcamp.com/album/memoria-vetusta-iii-saturnian-poetry

super bored by that overkill album, but maybe it just hit me wrong. also, like devilock, intrigued by and struggled with jute gyte (discontinuities and vast chains), but ultimately didn't much out of the experience.

ahh! A big one for me w/ Blut Aus Nord. For me they deliver the goods every time. Even though their album naming is tedious.... Yeah it's like some big Saga, WE GET IT!

It's time for the high-class BM portion of the list.

I think BAN does the serializing thing because of the vast differences in their albums' sounds. They have those Liber and 777 trilogies as well.

and fuck yeah, memoria vetusta iii is gorgeous. up there with and just a notch above spectral lore's iii for my favorite black metal this year. get so so much more out of this side of the project than the work which transforms god and similar.

I still haven't heard MV3 which is absurd because MV2 is one of the pinnacles of 21st C metal. Or maybe that's why I haven't listened yet.

this is an album I think you can safely label as "expansive"

memoria vetusta ii is a masterpiece. memoria vetusta iii is very, very good.

I couldn't get into the emptiness album at all either but I'll try a bit more. I do love the cover.

voted for jute gyte but I kinda respect it more than I listen to it. could see it really clicking one day. respect this dude's dedication his niche subgenre.

behemoth album sounded great when I first heard it but I never really went back to it. never do with them for some reason. didn't end up listening enough to have anything interesting to say but voted bc it felt right anyway.

babymetal album has some real junk on it (one track is basically limp bizkit) but the good tracks are super fun ("gimmie chocloate" duh, the more overtly power metal ones, and that one produced by the coaltar of the deepers guy that sounds like rob zombie) and the live show is a blast. NO MORE BULLYING FOREVER.

having spent a lot of time with it in the last few weeks.... mv3 >mv2

just slightly

I can take it down to 16 tonight as planned or I can take it down to ELEVEN if all of you will still be around posting.
If lots keep posting and say they will be around I can keep going til #11

17 Alcest - Shelter 612 Points, 18 votes, One #1
http://i.imgur.com/nH1Hxam.jpg
spotify:album:7gy7foOitAK66NYaitOZLz
http://alcest.bandcamp.com/album/shelter

that's a cool looking cover

really thought mviii would be in the top ten, a really beautiful album, and yeah, better than their other trilogies.

thought it was a bit wimpy tbh. its basically Ride

I think he prefers the Slowdive comparison

another surprise, i gave this a quick listen and nothing grabbed me. Not hugely metal (IMHO) either, but yeah, i get why it belongs in this poll.

couldn't get into the emptiness album at all either

Weird thing about Emptiness is that despite being my second favorite of the year it doesn't come off as something I can "get into" either. Hard to explain. It's fascinating but has almost zero emotional resonance. I don't find myself relating to it (like Domains or The Deathrip, both signatures of styles I love); I just sort of sit mesmerized by it and assume that one day it will unravel and make sense for me yet I know it won't. And thus the charm.

It puts the volume to 11...

we should do a poll for metal albums with the least metally covers.