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

This Ulcerate album fucking rips. Neptunian Maximalism up next. I have a pointed stick ready should any demons come knocking.

Well you won't be too happy with the next one.

xp

#4
Sweven – The Eternal Resonance
534 points, 10 votes, 6 #1 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1511473876_10.jpg

https://sweven.bandcamp.com/album/the-eternal-resonance

When I found out Swedish weirdos Morbus Chron had called it quits after releasing one of the best albums of 2014, Sweven, it was disappointing news. Blending a smorgasbord of musical elements ranging from the throaty assault of Horrendous and the tempered patience of Opeth to ’70s psychedelia, Sweven showcased a band that was positioned to carve their own path through a saturated metallic universe.

Six years after Sweven’s release, that path has taken an unexpected detour. Morbus Chron frontman, guitarist, and songwriter Robert Andersson has unveiled The Eternal Resonance, the debut album from his newest band, Sweven.

It’s worth mentioning that Sweven, for those curious, is an old English word meaning “dream” or “vision.” Beyond paying obvious homage to Morbus Chron, it might be the perfect descriptor for Andersson’s newest project. And naturally, the comparisons to Morbus Chron will be inevitable. Admittedly, they’re not without merit. The Eternal Resonance contains all the same dynamics that made Sweven’s previous incarnation such a goddamn treasure trove for metalheads – Andersson’s unhinged snarl lurking underneath an old-school Swedish death metal backdrop infused with psychedelic grooves, long neoclassical-inspired passages, and enough subtlety to make every listen unveil something new.

https://www.nocleansinging.com/2020/04/30/sweven-the-eternal-resonance/

Some beautiful moments, but ultimately lacking in tension and I've got reservations about the vox. Seems to be an all-or-nothing type of record.

Amazing. I figured this was a bit of a sleeper after RYM downvoted it into oblivion.

I love this album so much.

Amazing. I figured this was a bit of a sleeper after RYM downvoted it into oblivion.

lol

yeah this feels like a Magic Eye album where you need to have some kind of gift to get it. I don't have the gift unfortunately, but wow at the diehard fanbase!

Really liked this one a lot! One of the metal albums I listened to most last year.

Xps

I mostly miss ATP for the chance to freak out to stuff like Neptunian Maximalism - I'd love it in that context. I just don't have the (literal/head) space for this stuff at the moment.

wow at the diehard fanbase!

Seriously. Nearly 20% of voters picked this as their #1.

I think I low-balled this a bit with a #19 vote, but just glad to see a DM record this high and a debut (technically) at that!

I'm one of the Chosen Ones, my album of the year. Beautiful record.

I love this album so much

my #1 by some distance

I recommend giving it time, for anyone curious. The songs have a way of sinking in.

Moody, dreamy, sorrowful, proggy, psychedelic. Gorgeously flowing guitar lines and beautiful, clear production. It's still rooted in death metal, but it's all about mood, melody, and emotion.

it is funny how the albums with the most #1s arent in the top 2.

same. an easy #1 choice. no album pulled me in quite like it

jmm super otm

I was also a #1 voter for Sweven, and I still haven't listened to Morbus Chron.

I've listened to it at least three times. I could feel it opening up for a spell then it would take a turn for the bland. Some day, perhaps.

My #1. I loved Morbus Chron and was all over this when it released. Probably listened to it every day for two months.

Imago is quiet

amazing album that was high on my list!

I should check out Morbus Chron, at least. Sweven was my introduction to Robert Andersson.

It's weird seeing the "fans also liked" for this on Spotify and not seeing Death or Atheist, which to me are the first bands I think of in comparison (Morbus Chron aside).

At this point I do think we should just end the poll and make
https://townsquare.media/site/846/files/2020/06/Entombed-LHP-Album-Cover.jpg
honorary winner of metal poll in memory of LG Petrov

Otherwise tr00 kvltists might get angry at the top 3

Oh do we have Double Finland :D

Might be too early to say this but Dismember > Entombed imo.

Next up: something I didn't expect to see this high since Brad didn't vote.

Black Foxxes!

I haven't seen the ballots yet sowe dont know that

True, true.

tied w Clandestine, and then Robert Andersson singing Stranger Aeons, yeah?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIfB8P732Tw

xps (if embed, sry)

we dont even know if LJ & TTs ballots are identical or not

#3
Poppy – I Disagree
537 points, 11 votes, 5 #1 votes

https://www.loudandquiet.com/files/2020/01/poppy-i-disagree-artwork-1024x1024.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/4LgpVx8efQT7SRXGRq5Tze

Since the very beginning, there has been a darkness buried in Poppy’s heart. It’s there in the earliest videos uploaded to her mysterious YouTube channel back in 2014, in which the character—portrayed by an actress and musician named Moriah Pereira—performed simple tasks against a white background, occasionally delivering surrealist monologues. Her very first video featured her eating cotton candy in a way that might feel familiar to fans of ASMR videos: Her lips smack, her throat rumbles, she makes satisfied “ahhs,” but something’s off about the whole thing. Audio and image are out of sync; nothing sounds quite like you expect it to.

It was an unsettling beginning, and in the ensuing years, she’s only plunged further into uncomfortable territory. One of her early popular videos, for example, features her staring into the camera as she teaches the viewer how to load a handgun. In another, she makes explicit reference to one of 4chan’s most notoriously noxious message boards. Unlike a lot of people who have set about parodying the strangeness of influencer culture, she and her collaborators—chief among them the director and producer Titanic Sinclair—have seemed uniquely attuned to the surreal perversity that lurks in the shadowy underbelly of YouTube culture. It’s no surprise, perhaps, that some of the platform’s more unsavory figures have been outspoken fans of hers. She’s fluent in the lingua franca of the internet’s darkest parts.

The music attributed to Poppy over the years hasn’t always mirrored this side of her work. Her first album was a collection of wheezy ambient compositions self-consciously designed to “help facilitate a full night of sleep” and made, she says, with guidance from doctors who study sleep at Washington University. She’s made several albums’ worth of sugary bangers for Diplo’s Mad Decent label and a sci-fi synth soundtrack to a graphic novel. But her new album I Disagree is her first to fully follow through on the upsetting qualities of her video works, adding the grim aesthetics and curdled riffing of nu-metal, grindcore, and industrial noise to the seasick melange of her music.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/poppy-i-disagree/

I don't hate this but ehhhh.

People itt have been really good about not dragging the stuff they dislike so, in that same spirit, I'll just say that I'm glad some folks found something they like in Poppy.

dammit, guess I'll have to actually listen to this to decide whether I should be mad right now.

I'm starting to think my #2 is not going to place. *sniff*

well, this is a surprise

I expected p4k to be into it more.

it made the general eoy poll didn't it?

Yep, #75.

I smell shenanigans

maybe it's just pepe again

Hah I didn't realize this was nominated I might have voted for it and bumped it up even more lol

Pom check yr email. Seandalai says we may have got a placing wrong

*heavy eyeroll*

Ok, the real #3 is…

#3
Poppy – I disagree
537 points, 11 votes, 5 #1 votes

https://www.loudandquiet.com/files/2020/01/poppy-i-disagree-artwork-1024x1024.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/4LgpVx8efQT7SRXGRq5Tze

Since the very beginning, there has been a darkness buried in Poppy’s heart. It’s there in the earliest videos uploaded to her mysterious YouTube channel back in 2014, in which the character—portrayed by an actress and musician named Moriah Pereira—performed simple tasks against a white background, occasionally delivering surrealist monologues. Her very first video featured her eating cotton candy in a way that might feel familiar to fans of ASMR videos: Her lips smack, her throat rumbles, she makes satisfied “ahhs,” but something’s off about the whole thing. Audio and image are out of sync; nothing sounds quite like you expect it to.

It was an unsettling beginning, and in the ensuing years, she’s only plunged further into uncomfortable territory. One of her early popular videos, for example, features her staring into the camera as she teaches the viewer how to load a handgun. In another, she makes explicit reference to one of 4chan’s most notoriously noxious message boards. Unlike a lot of people who have set about parodying the strangeness of influencer culture, she and her collaborators—chief among them the director and producer Titanic Sinclair—have seemed uniquely attuned to the surreal perversity that lurks in the shadowy underbelly of YouTube culture. It’s no surprise, perhaps, that some of the platform’s more unsavory figures have been outspoken fans of hers. She’s fluent in the lingua franca of the internet’s darkest parts.

The music attributed to Poppy over the years hasn’t always mirrored this side of her work. Her first album was a collection of wheezy ambient compositions self-consciously designed to “help facilitate a full night of sleep” and made, she says, with guidance from doctors who study sleep at Washington University. She’s made several albums’ worth of sugary bangers for Diplo’s Mad Decent label and a sci-fi synth soundtrack to a graphic novel. But her new album I Disagree is her first to fully follow through on the upsetting qualities of her video works, adding the grim aesthetics and curdled riffing of nu-metal, grindcore, and industrial noise to the seasick melange of her music.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/poppy-i-disagree/