2015 POLL RESULTS COUNTDOWN - ILM Metal(ish) Albums of the Year

and ffs louis no it's not a tribute band

What was Henry's #1?

jingle cats, which is why i didnt allow him to submit a ballot

74 Melechesh - Enki 198 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/gocgmi6.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2pzxL1Bg8cAnpl5ckwjgA5
spotify:album:2pzxL1Bg8cAnpl5ckwjgA5

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/melechesh-enki-review-2/

am absolutely aware that many of you readers have been waiting with overflowing anticipation for a review of Melechesh‘s sixth opus, Enki. And who can blame you? 2010’s The Epigenesis was a solid, heavy, and above all enjoyable slab of Sumerian blackened thrash goodness that not only impressed The Big Boss himself, but also got yours truly to go searching through their back catalog to investigate their music further, discovering a treasure trove of incredible music from these Israeli wizards. So when Angry Metal Guy himself handed Enki off to me last week for review, I was frothing at the bit to deliver the goods to you. So what sonic magick have Ashmedi and cohorts delivered this fine eve for the readers of All Guys (and Madams) Metal and Angry?

When “Tempest Temper Enlil Enraged” truly kicks in at the :47 mark, you’re thrown into a sandstorm of brutality and melodic riffery. Ashmedi and fellow guitarist Moloch just shred and flail you alive with melody after crazed melody, with Lord Curse blasting his way like his very life depends on it. As the song progresses, it slows down just enough to keep from completely going off the rails but still keeps the intensity intact. Make no mistakes, you will windmill the ever-loving hell out of your neck and head to this, I promise you.

And while the first couple of tracks are just solid, perfect slabs of blackened thrash, you get some rather unpleasant sand kicked in your face once “Lost Tribes” plays, and this nagging problem is what keeps me from loving Enki more. Featuring one hell of a vocal duet with Max Cavalera (Soulfly), it’s a heavy, unforgiving scorcher of a track. Max hasn’t sounded this pissed off in ages, and Ashmedi plays off him very well, and when the duo hits their screams at 3:54, it’s such a perfect capstone to a great tune… but it continues on for another two minutes, and those two minutes aren’t nearly as captivating or intense as the previous almost-four. And it’s such a persistent problem throughout the majority of Enki: when a song has met its nadir and satisfied all hunger, it keeps feeding you with unnecessary calories. “Enki Divine Nature Awoken” features another duet, this time with Rotting Christ‘s Sakis Tolis, and would have been better shaved down to half its nearly-nine-minute runtime. The acoustic instrumental “Doorways to Irkala,” although incredibly peaceful, could have been left off the album entirely with no ill repercussions. The 12-plus-minute finale, “The Outsiders,” while picking things up a hair, still goes on for too long.

Another beef I have with the album is how squashed it is sonically. While George Bokos (ex-Rotting Christ) did a good job in capturing the richness of the guitars and the pummeling of Lord Curse’s drumming, Jonas Kjellgren’s mix compressed things way too much, with bassist Scorpios taking a major hit. This wouldn’t be too big a deal if their sound wasn’t so heavily based on their tuning their instruments to 432 MHz instead of the standard A440, which is perceived to leave deeper sonic vibrations within your psyche and make the listener more attuned with the universe. Of course, when you brickwall the music so much that Nergal is shaking his head at you, it becomes moot, and it’s such a bummer as there’s a ton of rich instrumentation to be had. Also, some edits have to be made. There’s about 40 minutes worth of captivating material on here, and this is an hour-and-two-minute long album. There’s obviously need for restraint there.

So while I’m happy that our Sumerian emissaries have returned from a five-year absence, I just wish Enki was condensed a bit more. There’s no denying that Melechesh deliver the goods quite well, but there’s also no denying that you can say a lot more with a bit less. It’s good, but it could have been a whole lot better.

mordy?

73 Thou & The Body - Released From Love / You, Whom I Have Always Hated 202 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/zNIpUdc.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/3F2bnlXxAVLznBQYkYwYyW
spotify:album:3F2bnlXxAVLznBQYkYwYyW

https://thebody.bandcamp.com/album/released-from-love-you-whom-i-have-always-hated

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19970-you-whom-i-have-always-hated/

7.6

The Body and Thou must get bored easily. During the last decade, both of these delirious doom metal squads have issued records at startling clips, the pace sometimes so speedy it’s as if they’re desperate to outrun the doomsdays of which they so often yell. Apart from a brief pause two years ago, New Orleans’ Thou have offered a few titles a year, many of them splits or EPs that rerouted their sludge through small new capillaries. Despite several dozen releases, they’ve managed but four (intriguing, at worst, and inescapable, at best) full-lengths.

Much the same holds for Providence-to-Portland duo the Body. To date, they too have favored splits or collaborations with pals old and new, instead of records entirely dependent upon their spartan if seismic guitar-and-drums configuration. Since their 2010 breakthrough All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood, itself a close hybrid with a hometown choir, they’ve released a few good splits, a terrific EP and only one album, the strangely self-satisfied Christs, Redeemers. Instead, some of their best work has arrived through a full-length collaboration with noise sculptor the Haxan Cloak and now their second of two collaborations with Thou, You, Whom I Have Always Hated. It is a match made of mania and menace.

The six-song set is available as a limited-edition record through Thrill Jockey, the Body’s most recent and stable home. The 10-track CD and digital editions, however, warrant the most attention, especially if you missed last year’s Released from Love. That four-song EP captured the two bands holed away in a Louisiana studio at the beginning of 2013. The results are included here not as a prequel but as a necessary companion to the recent arrivals. Those Southern sessions made it clear that this is a painful and powerful fit for complementary brutes. Perhaps because of their economical configuration, the Body often affixes parts that aren’t noise, drums, guitars, or screams to the ends and beginnings of songs. The more versatile Thou, however, allow for more engrained subtlety. During opener "The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills", Thou’s Bryan Funck delivers imprecations in his deep, full scream. Behind him, the Body’s Chip King squeals like a wounded animal, his high pitch offering a sliver of contrast to the mid-range, mid-tempo melee. A later cover of Vic Chesnutt’s "Coward" seems as terrifying for the singers as it does for the listener. In his raspy falsetto, King yells the opening lines like a death cry. The band builds behind Funck as he bellows the chorus—"I, I, I, I, I, I am a coward"—until they collapse in exhaustion around the sound of that last word. A counter-riff adds drama to the stentorian march of "In Meetings Hearts Beat Closer", while mutated bridges afford misdirection to the aptly named "Manifest Alchemy". Thou and the Body could be wider and wilder together than separately.

The new material springboards from that same synthesis. Recorded in Providence during the middle of a shared July 2014 tour, the second batch hits hardest when these two bands land as one. There’s perhaps no better example than their reverent but explosive take on Nine Inch Nails’ "Terrible Lie". The crews reanimate the industrial architecture of the original, with guitars and bass turning the melody into a mess of forceful chords and corrosive feedback. And the beat gets massive, punched down as if both drummers were born wielding sledgehammers. The sound is as colossal as the Body’s but as sharp and severe as Thou’s—a combination that makes the 1989 template feel, by comparison, like little more than a stripped skeleton. Though "The Devils of Trust Steal the Souls of the Free" begins like the Body with more guitars or Thou with more drums, it captivates when King and Funck again split vocals. The song’s commandments, like "Reach out and find nothing," only get shocking when it seems as though the whole world were yelling them at once. The pair slips when the results are expected, as if you’re listening to two bands play the same song at once rather than finesse the parts as one unit. "Her Strongholds Unvanquishable" and "Lurking Free" both stumble toward that mire, if not in it altogether. Tricks that make the Body and Thou’s own records interesting can start to feel like unnecessary crutches when they overcrowd the same shared space.

But those are aberrations for this collusion. Taken as a full-length by two groups that treat the format with some suspicion, You, Whom I Have Always Hated is a remarkably cohesive and singular album. Though it shows signs of both responsible parties, it also proves their inherent restlessness, as they’re both willing to bend toward one another to create something richer than they might have rendered themselves. It’s important that You, Whom I Have Always Hated marks the shortest effective span between successive LPs from either the Body or Thou. Perhaps together, they can continue to avoid boredom.

http://thequietus.com/articles/16999-the-body-and-thou-you-whom-i-have-always-hated-review

"Other people write about the bling and the booty. I write about the pus and the gnats. To me, that's beautiful." – Vic Chesnutt

Taking the sentiment behind the above quote from singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt into account, it's easy to see why his powerful track 'Coward' (from his 2009 album At The Cut, released prior to his overdose on Christmas Day of the same year) is a complete fit for collaborators-in-sludge, The Body and Thou, who covered it for their 2014 vinyl-only EP Released From Love. As far as cover songs go, their performance of 'Coward' makes conceptual sense considering the kind of emotionally raw music both bands have released to date. It also heightens the pain implicit in the original: that recognisably stark guitar line piercing amplified chords like a knife through an exposed heart; screams of "I'm a coward!" lingering long after the song has finished.

In addition to the aforementioned EP, which arrived unexpectedly, The Body and Thou shook the collective psyche of underground metal fans the world over with their respective 2014 full-length releases, I Shall Die Here and Heathen. Both albums were met favorably by fans and highly regarded by critics, and arguments could be made that The Body and Thou released their best work last year. While touring together in support of their individual albums, the chemistry between The Body and Thou was explored further, and the result of their creative kinship is heard on their full-length debut, titled You, Whom I Have Always Hated.

Both bands and their label are keen to stress that this is not a split release. Instead, it's a meeting of the twisted minds of two sludge acts currently at the top of their game. The release of You, Whom I Have Always Hated also comes with the first release of their EP in those formats, which spans the first four songs, culminating in the above-mentioned 'Coward' as track four. The preceding three songs are exactly what you would expect of a face-to-face meeting of The Body and Thou: The tongue-tying 'The Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills', the slow, dense and noisy 'Manifest Alchemy', and the Burning Witch-isms of 'In Meetings Hearts Beat Closer' are borne of the same deep, wretched chords played through the unmistakably polluted tones we've come to love from these two acts. Thou take more of a lead role for those four songs, however, as their signature low-slung guitars scrape against the ground and release deafening feedback while singer Bryan Funck's acrid scream collides with The Body's Chip King's desperate howl (King constantly sounds like a man engulfed by flames, begging to have his misery quenched).

The previously unreleased songs on You, Whom I Have Always Hated take a slightly more industrial slant; possibly a result of The Body's recent relationship with British dark ambient/drone artist Haxan Cloak for I Shall Die Here. 'Her Strongholds Unvanquishable' marches to the same nihilistic beat as Godflesh; it's tangibly oppressive and shows both bands' strength as co-composers. 'The Devils Of Trust Steal The Soul Of The Free' may be over by the time you read its title aloud, but its violent forward thrust is a welcome addition – unlike the misstep inclusion of the bands' cover of the Nine Inch Nails classic 'Terrible Lie', which by all accounts went down a storm when they performed it together live at Gilead Festival in 2014. On record, though, the song is nothing more than a curiosity, and it makes an interesting yet already fragmented release that more uneven – the effect of its inclusion being in complete contrast with the successful integration of their version of 'Coward'.

While split releases and side projects have always been a part of metal (a showcase of talent – or a lack there of – if nothing else), collaborations have been less prevalent. It seems though that the internet has opened up this as an increasingly viable creative alternative for likeminded musicians, and the results have generally been positive. For instance, two of 2014's best heavy albums came from collaborations – Sunn O))) providing the dark space for Scott Walker's genius, and Full Of Hell's white-hot grind grating up against Merzbow's peerless command of noise. The Body and Thou's collaboration, though at times coalescing into a perfect rumble (See: 'Lurking Free'), with its reverberations capable of rattling chest cavities (See: the pretentiously titled 'Beyond The Realms Of Dreams, That Fleeting Shade Under The Corpus Of Vanity'), lacks the desired cohesion from beginning to end to impart the feeling of a complete album. However, this is understandable, given the fact that some of the songs were recorded at different times and how the songs from the EP have been subsumed here.

At its best, this release highlights the bleak force that these bands can channel and how impactful it is when united as one. While other times, the music sways more into either The Body's artsy, feedback-frazzled creepy-crawl or Thou's more traditional sludge; which is no bad thing, it's just not as interesting as when they form a hive mind intent on making your eardrums explode. Hopefully this will not be the last we hear from the prolific pairing of Thou and The Body, because there's definitely plenty of space in sound to explore this project further.

clearly all these albums are boring and not worth commenting on!!! :D

Don't look at me. None of my votes have placed so far today. The trve heads need to get typing!

Same here, I havent had one place since I think Black Cilice

72 Akhlys - The Dreaming I 203 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/xUQK8TQ.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1w79KGZRlN89OFwtQcu9b3
spotify:album:1w79KGZRlN89OFwtQcu9b3

https://dmp666.bandcamp.com/album/the-dreaming-i

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/akhlys-dreaming-review/

I’ve been known to have some very vivid, fucked up dreams. One involved my closest friends and I at a pirate-themed amusement park. A gunshot rang out, and my best friend hit the ground, bullet between the eyes, and people scattered to avoid getting pinged off by a crazed gunman with a sniper rifle. One by one, my friends were felled by this mysterious masked man, and as I was cornered by the rum barrels of the pirate ship, both scared shitless and seasick, the masked man inched towards me, stuffed parrot squawking on his shoulder, and he slowly began to remove his ski-mask, revealing himself as American talk-show host/eternal paternity test-giver Maury Povich, letting me know, once and for all, that I was not the father before he pulled the trigger and I woke up. And with that, Akhlys! Conceived by Nightbringer and Bestia Arcana mainman Naas Alcameth, his newest excursion into esoteric blackened realms focuses on the power of dreams and their connection to spirituality, with only one 37-minute song, “Supplication,” released beforehand. Does their full-length debut, The Dreaming I, carry you to the darker spirit realms, or are you better off just taking some melatonin and valerian root and hoping for the best?

Keeping with the ethereal vibe of dreams and spiritual awakenings, “Breath and Levitation” crawls in with creepy whooshes, what sounds like wood knocking, and some simple chugs of guitar and bass with a snare hit every now and then. And when I say “crawls in,” I mean “for the first two and a half minutes.” After that, it’s full-on blasting, blaring, blackened fury. Alcameth’s screams are witch-like and furious, yet somewhat discernible, which for black metal is no mean feat. Also witch-like and furious are his multi-layered guitars, with incredible tremolo melodies draped over each other, melding together like a symbiotic skin over drummer Ain’s vice-grip drums. And just before the 8:00 mark, a moment of silence comes out of nowhere before a breakdown hits that would make Blut Aus Nord give a serious glance or two. Quite incredible.

And it’s this amalgamation of Hierophany of the Open Grave-era Nightbringer and heady ambience that helps The Dreaming I punctuate your cranium long after the 45-minute runtime ends. Despite the 16-minute length (with four of those minutes being ambient sound effects), “Consummation” is the best Memoria Vetusta song Blut Aus Nord neglected to write, with yet another silence-and-then-BOOM! moment at 9:22, leaving one hell of a demonic grin on my face. However, if there’s a case for Alcameth’s standing among the American black metal pantheon, it’s the second track, “Tides of Oneiric Darkness.” This is just sheer ferocity, with some of the best tremolo melodies I’ve heard this year, elevating things to cold, atmospheric heights. And at only five minutes and thirty-three seconds, it does the job quite well without overstaying its welcome.

There are nits to pick, however. For as punishing as this album is, the production is even more so. Everything is cranked to 11, and although you can hear the drums just fine, the guitars can become a muddled mess. And bass? PFFFFFFFT!!! Also, even though it’s five songs at 45 minutes, it can be a bit of a difficult listen at times (with final song “Into the Indigo Abyss” being just ambient noise), and patience, as well as your attention, is demanded here.

Still, this is just behind Imperial Triumphant as my favorite black metal album this year. This is some pretty impressive stuff, and if you enjoy Alcameth’s work with Nightbringer, than The Dreaming I is a no-brainer. So consume, slip away, and remember that you are NOT the father.

tr00 heads are t00 c00l to p0st

its funny how there's so much death and black metal in the poll this year but the voters aren't commenting. Next year we should ban the extreme stuff ;)

Liked what I heard of this. Believe that mysterious user tangenttangent voted for it so I might check it out in more detail later

I tried to persuade Brad to do an emo/hardcore/mallrock/alt-rock poll this year but he said next year instead.

ahhh so tangenttangent is erm known to you imago?

it will have been speculated

anyone else want to sell me akhlys too?

Akhlys!

obviously too low

71 Sulphur Aeon - Gateway to the Antisphere 210 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/IYmyTby.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2KAUwiIyXLV8nrQtZJ9gk8
spotify:album:2KAUwiIyXLV8nrQtZJ9gk8

https://sulphuraeon-vanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gateway-to-the-antisphere

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/sulphur-aeon-gateway-antisphere-review/

MG’s Law of Diminishing Recordings is a cruel mistress. She delivers a cold left hook to the smiling face of over-optimism, reminding us time and time again that in no way does a great record necessitate a great follow-up. Through this we learn the value of cautious optimism, reasonable expectations, and keeping a cool head when looking forward to an upcoming release. In most cases, that’s how I approach new music from a band I’m already excited about. Sulphur Aeon releasing a new record is decidedly not “most cases,” and I was beyond excited when Gateway to the Antisphere was announced. After many spins of this 51 minute beast, my excitement disappeared.

…Only to be replaced with absolute fucking exhilaration. The band’s 2013 full-length debut Swallowed by the Ocean’s Tide stood head-and-shoulders above the vast majority of metal released that year with a crushing sound that brought together the best qualities of Behemoth, early Hypocrisy, Immolation, and orthodox black metal (Watain, Ascension) for good measure. They haven’t changed their sound in 2015, and still bring melodies on par with Hypocrisy’s best and punishing riffs that crush with brute force, writhe with sinister slithering tremolo patterns, and combine to form a sound incorporating the best material of those three bands above. If Demigod-onward Behemoth was better at death metal yet still incorporated quality black metal, their rhythm guitars would sound a good bit like Sulphur Aeon.

It’s tough to pick one or two songs from Gateway to the Antisphere as standouts, as each of the eleven songs is nigh-on masterful. “He Is the Gate” is monstrous throughout, but the three minute mark is just ridiculous, and I’m almost inclined to call T.’s guitar interplay here beautiful. My only reservation is the decidedly un-metal connotations of that word, as I’d be selling Sulphur Aeon short if I said these melodies aren’t pummeling in addition to being affective. “Into the Courts of Azathoth” has all of the crushing majesty one would expect from a song about the highest god in the Cthulu mythos, and a recurring reverb-drenched melody is bolstered by varied and consistently great rhythm guitar parts being played underneath it. It’s a simple touch, but a classic case of little things making big differences.

Sulphur Aeon - Gateway to the Antisphere 02

For a band releasing their sophomore record, Sulphur Aeon are incredibly advanced and mature songwriters and performers. D.’s drums are simply phenomenal, and they make the already great riffs from T. truly shine, with the dense churning in unison of drums and guitar at the end of “Devotion to the Cosmic Chaos” being a prime example among a myriad others. The vocals of M. are a huge asset and his powerful straight-from-the-diaphragm growling and shrieking is a touch more varied than on the excellent debut, adding more points of interest to the already captivating music. His vocals are so convincing that the screams of “Yog-Sothoth!” in “He Is the Gate” come across awesome instead of silly, and I’d wager that’s an accomplishment. I’ve mentioned T.’s guitars already, but these riffs and melodies are top-tier stuff that death metal bands should aspire to, and the consistent excellence on display here is staggering. I rip on intro and outro tracks all the time here, but Sulphur Aeon managed to craft one of each that are both beneficial to the overall experience and enjoyable a la carte.

I had high expectations for Gateway to the Antisphere, but Sulphur Aeon managed to exceed them in an effort even stronger than their outstanding debut. The master is a bit squashed, but as much as I cherish high DR scores, the production here suits Sulphur Aeon’s music to a tee, approximating what being crushed under the weighty pressure of the deepest chasms of the ocean would sound like run through a death metal filter. Gateway to the Antisphere is a brilliant record that has set the already high bar for 2015 a little bit higher. Any record that can be as simultaneously emotional, melodic, punishing, and memorable as this deserves everyone’s attention, and it will take something truly monumental to knock this out of the top spot of 2015.

probably should have voted for this

a little Behemoth definitely comes to mind

Harking back to Imperial Triumph...why the fuck is the main guy called Goddessraper? Put my gf and right off giving it a proper go, and it seemed so promising otherwise

*and I

pretty shit as far as tough guy metal pseudonyms go

OOH I'M CONTROVERSIAL!!

Albini had the sense to drop that schtick 30 years ago

70 False - Untitled 212 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/rePfNlM.jpg

https://gileadmedia.bandcamp.com/album/untitled-2015

At long last, we have the new album from the Minneapolis black metal project, False. After an Untitled EP in 2011, and a split LP with Barghest in 2012, they now return with their first proper full-length album, once again an untitled release.

Throughout the sixty-minute run time of the album, False dive deeper into the realm of visceral and relentless black metal for which they’ve become well-known. Their live sound and ferocity is finally captured here, revealing a whole new depth and darkness that has only been hinted at on previous recordings. This album is far from a simple exercise in listening, and more akin to a journey to be experienced. The works contained therein are incredibly bleak and emotionally powerful, with a long lasting impact.

This Untitled album was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Adam Tucker at Signaturetone Recording, with artwork by Nicole Sara Simpkins. It will be presented as a gatefold CD and gatefold 2LP, each pressed in a quantity of 1000. It will be available in stores on June 16, 2015, with direct pre-orders available Thursday, April 9th.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20699-untitled/

8.0

The Minnesota sextet False have gained an impressive amount of attention from a deceptively sparse catalog. They only have two prior releases, an EP from 2012 and a 2013 split with Gilead Media labelmates Barghest, but they've impressed extreme music fans and critics alike, meaning their full-length debut Untitled arrives to uncommon anticipation. That full-length resembles other bands that fall into the category of "USBM"—there is a sense of magnitude to False's music, which is enriched with atmospheric orchestration. But they don't fall into a "more is less" problem, bogging down and overextending their tracks with unmemorable passages. With Untitled, False expand on their sound without diluting it, proving they are worthy of their promise and making good on the tantalizing glimpses of their earlier works.

The secret to the album's power is in large part to their understated approach to melody. Juxtaposing harmony and dissonance is old hat in extreme music, and especially so with the more recent successes of bands like Deafheaven or Alcest, but False presents that same contrast as a kind of musical photo negative, where melody and harmony lead naturally into entropy. Opener "Saturnalia" builds with a slow burning ferocity before exploding into a storm of discordant wails and growls, while both "The Deluge" and closer "Hedgecraft" venture close to what would undoubtedly be an easily accessible melodic hook, if they followed the impulse all the way. As it turns out, that subdued and suggestive approach to a payoff gives the record another one of its most formidable strengths.

For all the winding orchestration of Untitled (remember: there are six members in this band), moments of needless filler are rare-to-nonexistent. Considering the fact that only one of the album's five tracks falls shy of the 10-minute mark, that is a remarkable achievement. Black metal, as a subgenre, is both steeped in musical complexity and devoted to the simplicity of its form. That is, regardless of how far the music itself may spiral outside the self-imposed bounds of black metal, its fulcrum remains the straightforward blast-beat, the tremolo-driven guitars, and the interpretation of its thrash and death metal forbearers. With Untitled, False have not reinvented any forms or introduced some unchartered territory for black metal. There is plenty of wanton ugliness here, both in the scrape of the vocals and the murk of the production. But the songs also find intriguing divergent paths before returning every track to its chaotic source.

One of extreme music's most divisive and yet at once magnetic subgenres, black metal is as musically steeped in complexity as it is in the simplicity of its form. False reckon brilliantly with both halves of this equation. They have simply offered a new perspective on the shadow and light, the ugliness and beauty, that define their genre. For that reason, every outstanding minute of Untitled shines with brilliant darkness.

I bought this on bandcamp the other day because of this poll

They were amazing live.

everyone seems too busy on the other ilm poll nomination thread.

Will have to run this poll earlier next year

pitchfork's tracklist was sans metal, which has enraged everyone too much to post here obv

wouldn't expect any metal in a tracklist tbh

I'm trying to not be negative this year so only posting when I have something nice to say.

do Decibel even do one? I think Kerrang did (but obviously that was sans metal too)

lol ez i wondered why you were so quiet ;)

Also I haven't heard a lot of what's come up. Should have posted my "Hurrah for Dead to a Dying World" but I missed it at the time. But I'm glad to see my friends get some love.

missed nothing. anyone can comment on anything in the poll at any time they like.

tom usually catches up with 100-80 hen everyones on the top 20 and he still comments

plus large #s 100-81 catch-up type posts are an ilx tradition

69 Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud 214 Points, 6 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/k5OhMJB.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/483FjIrPjCZ7UFJ8Ey2MaV
spotify:album:483FjIrPjCZ7UFJ8Ey2MaV

http://www.angrymetalguy.com/amorphis-under-the-red-cloud-review/

Under the Red Cloud marks the 12th studio album from Finland’s grandfathers of extreme metal, the band’s sixth LP with Tomi Joutsen as vocalist and his 10th year in the band. The string of Tomi’s six records started with 2006’s Eclipse and had an absolutely epic beginning. Eclipse, Silent Waters and Skyforger showed the band’s new found drive and energy, reclaiming some of their death metal heritage, while veering further into what Nuclear Blast has fittingly labeled ‘melancholy rock.’ Unfortunately, Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™ is a fickle mistress, and The Beginning of Times and Circle were both records that were good, but lacked the urgency of that initial trilogy. These records saw the band pushing into newer territory—heavy Jethro Tull influences bled through on the former, while Circle developed some of the band’s folky elements in cool ways. Neither album gripped me. But when Amorphis releases an album, it’s hard for me not to get excited, and upon seeing the cover art for Under the Red Cloud, all that warm anticipation came back. And fortunately, they didn’t disappoint.

Under the Red Cloud is a return to form for Amorphis, and the most cohesive album the band has released since 2009’s Skyforger. Clocking in at 50 minutes, it’s made of ten thematically cohesive tracks. The album isn’t a story though. Instead, the lyrics (written, as always, by Pekka Kainulainen) are conceptually foreboding; about living under a red cloud in troubled times. The music matches this feel, and while I wouldn’t say the album is necessarily so much heavier than previous records, it may have been influenced by the 20th Anniversary of Tales from the Thousand Lakes, because the band has certainly produced the most growl-heavy material of the Joutsen-era.

You wouldn’t notice that on the opening title track, however. “Under the Red Cloud” starts with an atmospheric piano bolstered by throbbing bass and a clean guitar in harmonic minor before merging into prime Amorphis territory: a chunky, groovy riff with Tomi’s cleans augmenting the sound perfectly. This format—the classic hard rock song-writing—is the stamp with which the band’s newer material has largely been pressed. “Sacrifice” is similar, breaking in with a “House of Sleep” intro, and a heavy, syncopated verse before giving way to a hooky chorus and a slick guitar melody. “Bad Blood” features Tomi’s growl in the verse, but it’s heavy on the groove and light on the melody before giving way to an epic chorus and beautiful bridge.

Amorphis isn’t afraid of their death metal side here. Between “The Four Wise Ones” and “Death of a King,” every single track starts with growls, and the former doesn’t feature any clean vocals from Joutsen at all—instead there’s a short bridge with a haunting, effected vocal line that evokes Elegy. “The Four Wise Ones” and “The Dark Path” both feature crescendos with a ’90s black metal feel—wet with keys and a trem-picked melodies—only undermined by Rechberger’s refusal to use blast beats and Tomi’s growls. The death-laden material works well, though moments like the verse in “Bad Blood” or “Death of a King,” which is one of the singles from Under the Red Cloud, are places where I would have chosen clean vocals rather than growls.

There is a danger, however, in Amorphis‘s modern sound, in that it’s pretty easy to fall into a rut. A fairly close listen to Under the Red Cloud reveals that the songs pretty much all follow the same structure, which when the band isn’t producing their sharpest writing can become repetitive. When the album hits its stride, though, it’s an extremely well-crafted record. From “Sacrifice” to “White Night” is a stretch of pure enjoyment—each song flowing into the next, while peaking on the final two tracks. “Tree of Ages” features a folky Celtic theme that has been stuck in my head since the first time I heard it, and “White Night” is a moody track that closes the album out with a surge.

Under the Red Cloud is a very good album and a return to form. The record simply sounds like Amorphis; the band has developed a sound that bridges the gap between their old material and the new—with plenty of moments on here that remind me of Elegy and Tuonela with sitar (“Death of a King”) or bong water keyboard solos (“Enemy at the Gates”). And it’s incredible how the band’s riffing can still be so idiosyncratic. “The Skull” and “Enemy at the Gate” have riffs you only hear in Amorphis and Barren Earth; and after 12 records they still pull them off without feeling like they’re ripping themselves off. Consistency is a virtue for big bands if they’re any good, but I think there are hints on UtRC that Amorphis could get more adventurous going forward, and I hope they do. Until that time, though, I’ll be sitting here enjoying these tunes under the red clouds.

there seem a disproportionately high number of semi-interesting BM rackets this year

not necc this

they are one of the bigger extreme metal bands, imago

not obscure enough for you to try?

68 Shining - International Blackjazz Society 214 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/XyOqSSn.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5rvlfsiQskxsiRmct4xZ9H
spotify:album:5rvlfsiQskxsiRmct4xZ9H

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21106-international-blackjazz-society/

By Brad Nelson; October 22, 2015
7.0

On their 2010 album Blackjazz, the Norwegian jazz/prog collective Shining absorbed metal into their aesthetic, and it seemed to focus them. On earlier records the band, organized around multi-instrumentalist Jørgen Munkeby, were more elusive, but Blackjazz was an album made entirely of jagged shapes, like the irregular, violent architecture of a cliffside. It feels aggressively assembled, as if its ideas of metal and jazz were less harmonized than magnetized together. The follow-up, 2013’s One One One, reduced them into an atomically unstable industrial rock band. While thrilling, the album could have the remoteness of a formal exercise.

International Blackjazz Society sounds like a compression of these two approaches, but it evolves into something distinct as you listen. Unlike One One One, the songs here don’t simply accelerate until they expire. There’s more space in the arrangements, and the songs expand into the room they’re afforded. Some of this shift can be credited to new drummer Tobias Ørnes Andersen, who plays industrial music with more patience and tension than previous drummer and founding Shining member Torstein Lofthus. "Thousand Eyes" feels like stoner metal, of all things; the riff is a little more drunk than the band usually allows. "House of Warship" is free jazz, which is actually new territory for Shining; even their freest moments on previous records seemed premeditated, a kind of organized collapse. Whenever Munkeby plays saxophone on International Blackjazz Society the songs sound as if they’re sprouting fractals.

Still, even as the band relaxes into new atmospheres there’s an extreme, ascetic discipline on display. The architecture of their music is modernist, a series of inelastic and inorganic shapes colliding with the velocity of a distant level of "Tetris". On International Blackjazz Society’s final track, "Need", you can feel this refined performance begin to rupture. It’s as unhinged as it is straightforward; as it acquires mass in the choruses it seems to list off the ground into some new, uncertain gravity. For all the blur and motion of their music, this hint of deeper chaos might be the album's most exciting moment.

this record is good but i wanted more from it. miss old shining

also not to pretend i know anything about drumming but i like their new drummer way less than their old drummer

that sulphur aeon record is the shit though

I too miss old Shining

I remember when Shining placing used to get you lot excited

67 Tyranny - Aeons in Tectonic Interment 220 Points, 7 Votes
http://i.imgur.com/6NiVfTi.jpg

https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/aeons-in-tectonic-interment
TYRANNY -- featuring within its ranks current and former members of Corpsessed and Wormphlegm among others -- will unleash their first new studio offering in a decade this Fall via Dark Descent Records. Titled Aeons In Tectonic Interment, the record offers up five diseased psalms of slow, tortured, epically bowel-rupturing grimness. Composed, performed and tracked by members Matti Mäkelä and Lauri Lindqvist with additional percussion by Jussi-Pekka Manner and mastered by D. Lowndes at Resonance Sound Studio (Absu, Pallbearer, Profetus, Sigh, Wodensthrone etc.), Aeons In Tectonic Interment is at once spiritual and ill-omened; a fifty-one-minute soul-searing sound apocalypse where misanthropy, suffering and imminent ruin become one achieving purification through sonic decay.

http://www.metalinjection.net/reviews/album-review-tyranny-aeons-in-tectonic-interment

I once heard funeral doom as a genre that can be measured in beats per hour. I don't disagree, for the most part. The down trodden, doomy slowdown the last few years have seen has been something of a breath of fresh air. But one that also crowds the lungs and verges on breaking the rib cage. Tyranny, however, come from a time when doom wasn't all the slow pitched, stoned out rage it is today.

With track record of playing about as fast as they release albums, Tyranny don't have much to answer to in terms of a discography (specifically, an EP and an LP). It's been ten years since the Lahti, Finland duo broke ashore with Tides of Awakening. And their crushing, slow-as-hell approach hasn't changed much as they've moved, albeit slowly, into Aeons in Tectonic Interment.

Aeons in Tectonic Interment as a title certainly represents the album well. For one, it has been, again, ten years. And ten years ago I was twenty and in college. That does seem like at least fucking aeon ago. Concerning tectonics, Tyranny are heavy, crushing bastards when they play. And not dispensing with the Lovecrafian feel that the band has carried, this is a release that solidifies what Tides of Awakening set up. Though the production has been significantly cleaned up, much of everything else remains the same.

If you're new or a bit unfamiliar with funeral doom here's a tidbit: the genre is far more focused around mood and slow tempos. And if a band can't nail mood then there's likely little the album has to offer. Tyranny are, luckily, the kind of band that can hold a mood most of the time. Aeons in Tectonic Interment isn't just a heavy record, it's something that broods and bleeds as it puts one heavy foot in front of the other. When “Sunless Deluge” starts you'll notice Tyranny getting down to business a lot faster than they had last time. The song gets noisey, then gets heavy and drones. The vocals are still dig straight down to the pits of Hell, or the shores of Rh'leyah. Take your pick.

There's a lot of bands that shoot for the H.P. Lovecraft theme these days (e.g.: Electric Wizard, Portal, Coffinfish, Temple of Dagon, etc.) but Tyranny feel like they're really pulling off a summoning ritual. Like some Eldritch horror is about to come crawling out of the speakers and break your mind. The thing is, Tyranny have a tendency to fall out of the loop, and in turn fall too harshly on drone. Don't get me wrong, the album can be plenty moody, and when it pulls it off, the band is a force of otherworldly nature. But there's points where the piece simply over-cook their moods and burn out too quickly.

Aeons in Tectonic Interment is a good album. It has some killer vibes and manages to bring a real bleak feel to some of their songs. Is it the kind of album a funeral doom fence sitter would wanna walk in to? Not so much. Tyranny has a good thing going on but casual listeners might find themselves wondering if the album is ever going to pick up steam. The answer is here and there, but not enough that it's going to drag a lot of new fans into its watery, crushing clutches. Funeral doom fans, well, you're probably already on this (as you should be). Aeons in Tectonic Interment is a good representation of how the genre can crush stones underneath its hopeless, heavy, grim sound.

been a great year for some of the original funeral doom bands

probably the least known and lowest selling subgenre in metal , yet somehow more popular than it ever was yet stil the least known etc

Too brutal for those who only want fast guitars

oh hey i definitely want to hear this tyranny record