2020 Metal ’n’ Heavy Rock/Heavy Music Poll: RESULTS – Top 100 Countdown

I guess both give off an art brut (not the band) vibe. Jute Gyte is Adolf Wölfli to Jandek's Henri Rousseau, maybe.

I wasn't excited for the Easter Bunny demo, either. In fact, I was supposed to see one of Mr Bungle's anniversary shows in SF last year and ended up bailing on it because it was on like a Tuesday night and I heard that they were only doing the demo material (which I'd never heard), but man do I regret that after the album dropped. For me this album coupled with Charlie Benante's "Yo!" Youtube uploads were a rare highlight of the shittiest of years. Just pure joy at seeing these fellow old-timers still kicking ass. Patton doesn't seem to have the range he once did, but his performance on this is great, and by all counts the new Tomahawk is going to be a return to form as well. He's been on fire the last few years.

This Gezan album is a blast. Never heard of this before.

That seems more literal if anything but yeah, I guess I think first of the outsider art/anti-technique aspect when I think of Jandek. Tbf I never got into Jandek.xps

Enough of this pretentious bollocks! REAL METAL RETURNETH –

#51
Azarath – Saint Desecration
166 points, 4 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0223692688_10.jpg

https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/saint-desecration

I want to do my best to respect the awe-inspiring Grymm. I inherited Azarath as he was too busy with other things to tackle it.1 I want to do him justice, to approach the Polish blackened death metal collective with the respect and professionalism due. I would mention that the act began as a side-project of Behemoth drummer Inferno and Armagedon guitarist Bart, currently featuring Embrional vocalist Skullripper and former Lost Soul guitarist Peter on bass. So, given the formidability of the members and the solid catalog Azarath has amassed, I want to treat 2020’s Saint Desecration with the privilege and honor it is owed. Why not with Holdeneye-esque dad jokes? Does 2020 bring a fresh coat of saint to Azarath? Or does it fall into de-second-rate?

My experience with this Polish quartet began with 2011’s Blasphemers’ Maledictions, although their reign of terror has lasted over the course of six full-lengths since their formation in 1998. While groups like Behemoth or Maveth rely on plodding heaviness while sinister atmosphere convey blasphemous tones, Azarath has always been more in the camp of Akercocke or Goatwhore in their blasting thrashy sting outlined by vicious vocals, chaotic blastbeats, and wild drum and guitar work. If you were a fan of 2015’s In Extremis, 2020’s Saint Desecration brings more of the same. The most glaring difference, however, is found in the man behind the mic: while Necrosodom brought an unhinged versatility, Skullripper offers a far more sinister approach of deathier blackened roars more reminiscent of Veld or Lost Soul. Ultimately, while Saint Desecration differs little from its predecessors or other blackened death offerings for that matter, it’s nonetheless a stunningly solid album promising complexity and brutality in equal measure.

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/azarath-saint-desecration-review/

This is absolutely classic and anyone who disagrees is a poser.

(Yet I somehow forgot to vote for it, smh.)

That Gezan album was enjoyable, but that guy has the worst voice. I couldn't get past it.

Upon further thinking, I could see the early electronic JG albums being analogous to Jandek's studio albums (not sure if he knows what he's doing), and the black metal albums as being like the live Jandek albums (someone involved is highly trained, be it the professional improvising musicians backing The Representative, or the composer making careful decisions about what to do with microtones)

Have I overthought this enough yet? I mean, this is ILX.

This album absolutely whips

The Pallbearer rules, you all nuts. Incorporated more 80s goth influence in the hooks, still no less heavy.

Also yay for the Triptykon. I want to make love to Tom G Warrior

I loved the Azarath. I still haven't played it the amount it deserves. It's just a frenzied ball of hyperkinetic evil energy

It was high on my ballot I think

a frenzied ball of hyperkinetic evil energy

Indeed.

whips >>> rips >>>>>> slams

azarath was my #2, so killer

IT'S TOP FIFTY TIME

That's right! Let us open it with The Guardian (Graun for the Brits) metal –

#50
Sightless Pit – Grave of a Dog
177 points, 5 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0214365868_10.jpg

https://sightlesspit.bandcamp.com/album/grave-of-a-dog

‘When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning or in rain?” That’s what you can imagine this decidedly witchy trio saying to each other after finishing this study in brutality. They are an underground supergroup of Kristin Hayter (AKA doom-laden torch singer Lingua Ignota), Lee Buford (drummer from the utterly brilliant outsider metal duo the Body) and Dylan Walker (vocalist from the equally brilliant grindcore band Full of Hell).

The trio subvert expectations by doing away with guitars and live drums altogether, instead using drum machines, samples and more obscure means to scorch the earth. As ever, Hayter sound like she’s delivering a benediction in a church on fire, and she’s trying nobly to withstand the flames. When the group’s productions pare back to quivering ambient drift and pulsations from far below, on Violent Rain and Love Is Dead, All Love Is Dead, she seems to regard the wreckage around her sadly. Walker, meanwhile, is the sound of the violence that got us here, his unhinged howl often fed through a mesh of static.

Hayter brilliantly conjures atmosphere, but could perhaps hone some more arresting melodic progressions like her lament on Kingscorpse. It is Walker’s voice, blasted beyond melody into pure ranting expression, that seals the record’s strongest moments: pairing it with minimal techno grooves and explosions of noise on Kingscorpse, Immersion Dispersal and Drunk on Marrow, the group create the sound of the lid being removed from a coven’s cauldron, and all hell breaking loose.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/21/sightless-pit-grave-of-a-dog-review-lingua-ignota-lee-buford-dylan-walker

I worship Lingua Ignota but this didn't entirely do it for me. Def one of her better collabs, however.

Azarath record is great. I threw a bunch of carrots at it and it julienned them for me.

Shame that the best 2020 album she's on won't place tbh

Azeroth is great. Why didn't I listen to this more and vote for it?

Sightless Pit started out on my year's best list and just kind of slid down until it fell off.

(oops, -e, o + -a x2 -- my World of Warcraft knowledge betrays me.)

A+ typo.

I haven't gone back to the Sightless Pit record either. I think I listened to it 3 times? I remember liking it, but that's about it right this second. I bet if I listened again I'd be into it.

same boat here

yeah, the Azarath is good as hell, but I didn't vote for it for some reason (probably cause it came out so late in the year that I only gave it a couple spins).

The Sightless Pit sounded good the one time I listened to it way back in Feb. 2020, but I never returned to it, even though Caligula was my #1 last year.

It's more like a set of rough sketches compared with the wild ambition of the Lingua Ignota albums, but I really liked it.

gonna work out my entire personal cosmology of metal verbs

bangs >>>> fucks >>> slays = kills >> whips >>> rips >>>>>> slams

#49
Machine Girl – U-Void Synthesizer
182 points, 5 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1542473049_10.jpg

https://machinegirl.bandcamp.com/album/u-void-synthesizer

Since their inception, the Pittsburgh duo Machine Girl have put upsetting images of dogs at the heart of their symbology. Some of their album covers are straightforwardly terrifying—their 2014 album WLFGRL features a blown-out image of a snarling beast, fangs bared, poised for attack. Others are more surreal, like ...BECAUSE IM YOUNG ARROGANT AND HATE EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR, which trains a video-game firearm on the face of a canine. For the cover of 2018’s The Ugly Art, vocalist and producer Matt Stephenson said he wanted to make “a fucked up Deep Dream sort of image but with dogs,” and so he stitched together a bunch of pictures of gnarled beasts to make a dizzying collage in the shape of an even bigger dog. U-Void Synthesizer, the duo’s newest album, continues this tradition, editing a regal image of a pup into a demonoid monster wearing a spiked collar that reads “GOODBOY.”

The music has changed a lot over the years—from Stephenson’s solo experiments in the early days of the project to the crushing noise and shredded EBM punk he started making once drummer Sean Kelly joined the band—but the dogs on the covers hint at the spirit that’s united all of Machine Girl’s mutations. No matter the style, their music is designed to be unpredictable and dangerous, full of animalistic rage and uncontrollable energy. You’re meant to be afraid of its bite.

Even with volatility as one of the band’s core values, however, they’ve rarely felt as wonderfully feral as on U-Void Synthesizer. The music that Stephenson and Kelly make together has always been chaotic, but they try out more sounds and styles across these 11 tracks than seems possible. Take the immense first track, “The Fortress [The Blood Inside]”: In just under four minutes, Stephenson and Kelly squeeze in ecstatic trance synths, grinding noise-punk passages, open-hearted sacred-music harmonies, gargly grindcore vocals, half-stuttered rapping, and, yes, the sound of a barking dog.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/machine-girl-u-void-synthesizer/

I KNEW IT'D BE THIS

this album.......fucks

🤐

my #6. MG has taken digital hardcore by the scruff of the neck and made it dangerous again. pitchfork otm about that opening track but it's all insane. 'fully in it' is a grotesquely brilliant deep cut

this is the "too hot for me" to melted bodies' "just right", if you catch my drift

so much false metal

otm

if it's hardcore, it's metal ;)

its neither

its false

I first found out about Pissed Jeans because of this poll back in 2009. ILM has always had a rich history of false metal

Well, unless we ban Imago, it will continue!

We need a proper metal bandname up next

I like all the false and flat out not metal in these roll-outs, because it's cool to see what else all you metal loving nerds listen to and it usually doesn't overlap with the main ilm countdown anyway.

I'm way behind today's rollout, but just popping up to say glad to see Gulch here. Heavy hardcore but not exactly metal, admittedly, and more of an EP, but has a very satisfying ratio of ideas to running-length.

and it usually doesn't overlap with the main ilm countdown anyway.

True. Marnie Stern, Zombi et al dont tend to get near the general poll

we did get uncle acid & the deadbeats in the top 10 once

The days of Boris getting in the big poll are long gone too. Did Earth ever get in the main poll? I think they must have

#48
Esoctrilihum – Eternity of Shaog
183 points, 6 votes, 1 #1 vote

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3230531509_10.jpg

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/eternity-of-shaog

Esoctrilihum is a French avant garde black metal project signed to I, Voidhanger Records. This project has been making waves for a few years now. The unique mix of rich songwriting and epic concepts has made Esoctrilihum one of a kind. This is perfectly showcased in their new record, Eternity Of Shaog. Asthagul, the man behind the project, has gone above and beyond even the levels he's set for this project. He has created his most fully realized work yet. Eternity of Shaog acts as part of a diptych with his last album The Telluric Ashes of the Ö Vrth Immemorial Gods. This record is a part of a much broader overarching journey that explores demonic possession and insane deities. There is simply so much to unpack from a project that has fascinated underground metallers across the globe.

Many bands attempt to conjure up hellish sounds. However, few succeed the way Esoctrilihum does. Some tracks like "Exh-Enî Söph (1st Passage – Exiled From Sanity)" impress with their black metal intensity. Others such as "hayr-Thàs (6th Passage – Walk The Oracular Way)" dazzle with psychedelic violins. The violins are in fact showcased throughout the album. They really add to the magic of what they are creating. As a rule, the band thrives on off kilter songwriting, weird harmonic approaches, and unholy testaments to gods gone mad. There is such power to the production though that makes it all possible. For years Asthagul has been working at pulling it all together, but it is on this record that it finally has started to click. Eternity Of Shaog is perhaps the first Esoctrilihum record that really showcases Asthagul’s potential at its fullest.

https://metalinjection.net/reviews/esoctrilihum-eternity-of-shaog

His best tracks so far, some of the finest of 2020, but his previous LPs were more consistent.