Terrorizer Writer's Poll 2004 Results

Any other metal publications lists are welcome to be posted on this thread.

20) The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives
19) Ash - Meltdown
18) Head Automatica - Decadence
17) Atreyu - The Curse
16) Rammstein - Reise, Reise.
15) Pig Destroyer - Terrifyer
14) The Bled - Pass The Flask
13) The Bronx - The Bronx
12) Velvet Revolver - Contraband
11) isis - Panopticon
10) Jimmy Eat World - Futures
9) Slipknot - Vol 3 : (The Subliminal Verses)
8) Mark lanegan Band - Bubblegum
7) Lostprophets - Start Something
6) Biffy Clyro - Infinity land
5) The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine
4) Clutch - Blast Tyrant
3) My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge
2) Green day - American Idiot
1) Mastodon - Leviathan.

66) BLACK LABEL SOCIETY - Hangover Music Vol. VI (Spitfire)
65) TOC - Loss Angeles (InsideOut)
64) WOODS OF YPRES - Pursuit Of The Sun & Allure Of The Earth (Krankenhaus)
63) DISTANT THUNDER – Welcome The End (Massacre)
62) CRYONIC TEMPLE – Blood, Guts & Glory (LMP)
61) INTO ETERNITY - Buried In Oblivion (Century Media)
60) LEVIATHAN - Tentacles Of Whorror (Moribund)
59) RHAPSODY - Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II (SPV)
58) JIZZY PEARL - Just A Boy (www.jizzypearl.com)
57) DAMAGEPLAN - New Found Power (Elektra)
56) CHRIS CAFFERY - Faces/God Damn War (Black Lotus)
55) WITCHCRAFT - Witchcraft (Rise Above)
54) HEARSE - Armageddon, Mon Amour (Candlelight)
53) CANNIBAL CORPSE - The Wretched Spawn (Metal Blade)
52) MANITOU - The Mad Moon Rising (Rage Of Achilles)
51) DREAM EVIL - The Book Of Heavy Metal (Century Media)
50) DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm A Machine (Last Gang)
49) DIO - Master Of The Moon (Sanctuary)
48) DEAD SOUL TRIBE - The January Tree (Inside Out)
47) BRIDES OF DESTRUCTION - Here Come The Brides (Sanctuary)
46) BLOODBATH - Nightmares Made Flesh (Century Media)
45) MONSTER MAGNET - Monolithic Baby (SPV)
44) ISIS - Panopticon (Ipecac)
43) JAG PANZER - Casting The Stones (Century Media)
42) TESLA - Into The Now (Sanctuary)
41) SHADOWS FALL - The War Within (Century Media)
40) MADMEN & SINNERS - Madmen & Sinners (Frontiers)
39) GOD FORBID - Gone Forever (Century Media)
38) THE END - Within Dividia (Relapse)
37) ANGRA - Temple Of Shadows (SPV)
36) NEUROSIS - The Eye Of Every Storm (Neurot)
35) KATAKLYSM - Serenity in Fire (Nuclear Blast)
34) CONVERGE - You Fail Me (Epitaph)
33) FATES WARNING - FWX (Metal Blade)
32) EVERGREY - The Inner Circle (InsideOut)
31) METAL CHURCH - The Weight Of The World (SPV)
30) CULT OF LUNA - Salvation (Earache)
29) ABYDOS - Abydos (Inside Out)
28) PIG DESTROYER - Terrifyer (Relapse)
27) FEAR FACTORY - Archetype (Liquid 8)
26) UNLEASHED - Sworn Allegiance (Century Media)
25) ALL THAT REMAINS - This Darkened Heart (Prosthetic)
24) MELIAH RAGE - Barely Human (Screaming Ferret/Escapi)
23) DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN - Miss Machine (Relapse)
22) CLUTCH - Blast Tyrant (DRT/Clutch)
21) AYREON - The Human Equation (InsideOut)
20) TAD MOROSE - Modus Vivendi (Century Media)
19) SAXON - Lionheart (SPV)
18) JON OLIVA'S PAIN - Tage Mahal (SPV)
17) MOTORHEAD - Inferno (Sanctuary)
16) ENSLAVED - ISA (Tabu)
15) THE HAUNTED - rEVOLVEr (Century Media)
14) VELVET REVOLVER - Contraband (RCA)
13) PROBOT - Probot (Southern Lord)
12) NIGHTWISH - Once (Roadrunner)
11) LAMB OF GOD - Ashes Of The Wake (Sony)
10) EDGUY - The Hellfire Club (Nuclear Blast)
9) ICED EARTH - The Glorious Burden (SPV)
8) SUSPERIA - Unlimited (Tabu)
7) BEHEMOTH - Demigod (Regain)
6) WOLF - Evil Star (Prosthetic)
5) DISMEMBER - Where Ironcrosses Grow (Candlelight)
4) DEATH ANGEL - The Art Of Dying (Nuclear Blast)
3) MASTODON - Leviathan (Relapse)
2) CRADLE OF FILTH - Nymphetamine (Roadrunner)
1) MEGADETH - The System Has Failed (Sanctuary)

1. Woods Of Ypres – Pursuit Of The Sun & Allure Of The Earth (Krankenhaus)
2. Deathspell Omega - Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice (N.E.D.)
3. Mastodon – Leviathan (Relapse)
4. Xasthur - Telepathic With The Deceased (Moribund)
5. Neurosis - The Eye Of Every Storm (Neurot)
6. Isis - Panopticon (Ipecac)
7. Pig Destroyer-Terrifyer (Relapse)
8. Lilitu – The Delores Lesion (The End)
9. The Dillinger Escape Plan-Miss Machine (Relapse)
10. Cult Of Luna – Salvation (Earache)
11. Death In June & Boyd Rice - Alarm Agents (Neroz)
12. Anathema - A Natural Disaster (Koch/Music For Nations)
13. Leviathan - Tentacles Of Whorror (Moribund)
14. Sturmpercht - Stürm Ins Leben Wild Hinein! (Percht)
15. The Chasm - The Spell Of Retribution (Wicked World/Earache)
16. Behemoth ˆ Demigod (Century Media/Olympic)
17. Circle Takes The Square-As The Roots Undo (Robotic Empire)
18. My Dying Bride - Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light (Candlelight)
19. Enslaved - Isa (Tabu)
20. Clutch - Blast Tyrant (DRT Entertainment)

anyway, what are these??? they have latin titles, so they must be scary!

29 Deathspell Omega - si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice
22 Arkhon Infaustus - Perdition Insanabilis

The Passion of the Mustaine.

9 Anaal Nathrakh - Domine Non Es Dignus
8 Watain - Casus Luciferi
5 Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

i also like that terrorizer have wolf eyes and witchcraft, both of which almost made my pazz and jop ten, back to back on their list.

The Mastodon praise I just don't understand, Today is the Day do everything Mastodon does, and more, and better... Leviathan is good but not that good.

im glad Nasum is on the terrorizer list, that record is really great...its crazy that the lead singer was a tsunami victim.

Arkhon Infaustus are Symphonic BM
Deathspell Omega - seem to be underground extreme black metal faves.

Hrm?

*checks*

Dang.

Otherwise, lots of stuff that sure didn't sound all that great to me when I heard it (Motorhead, Clutch, Converge, yeah Dillinger Escape Plan, etc., and almost the entire Kerrang list, which is ridiculous), but maybe that's just me. The Isis album was fine. It's pretty.

I would probably hate the French black metal bands, but maybe not.

As friend of mine once said:"Most people are afraid of dying and going to Hell. Satan is afraid of dying and going to Steve Austin's house."

http://www.metaljudgment.com/albums/2004top10_frames2.html

1. Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake

2. Mastodon - Leviathan

3. Pig Destroyer - Terrifyer

4. Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

5. Shadows Fall - The War Within

6. Borknagar - Epic

7. My Dying Bride - Songs of Darkness, Words of Light

8. Decapitated - The Negation

9. Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine

10. (tie) Today is the Day - Kiss the Pig
10. (tie) Illdisposed - 1-800-Vindication

I agree...it made the top of my 2004 metal list. Easily the best heavy album of the year.

And Witchcraft -- just about everything I've heard is very good.

Nasum is tripe. It's hard to take seriously any "writer's poll" that would list it at #20, unless it's a clever joke or simple charity, the latter which also completely defines the career arc of Dillinger.

Someone should send me HEARSE. I always wanted to have a record by a band named Hearse.

1. Woods Of Ypres – Pursuit Of The Sun & Allure Of The Earth (Krankenhaus)

Sick House Records. This is another joke, right? I would have believed it if the album had been named "Mustard Gas."

YES, THIS ALBUM RULES!

6. Borknagar - Epic

7. My Dying Bride - Songs of Darkness, Words of Light

these are STINKERS

and Shadows Fall I thought was pretty meh.

Except for Velvet Revolver. #14? Yeesh.

And no way are Probot and The Haunted better than DEP and Pig Destroyer.

I got a kick out of the Shadows Fall cd. Safe, but fun.

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0431,tracker_writer.inc,55601,.html

nasum sound pretty darn generic, too, to be honest. (very sad about the singer though, i totally agree.)

The record still destroys tho.

Yep, yep. But it is more "listenable" when opposed to ... Pig Destroyer.

both were pretty killer, def. in my top 10.

Miss Machine makes a lot more sense after hearing the first record, then the EP with Patton then this one. I still didn't like it as much as the first one, it seemed a bit calculated to me.

"tripe" -- a definition from a collection. Must've taken about ten minutes, or however long it took to scribble down the words (whichever was shorter) to come up with:

2. Engine of Death
3. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Scar
4. No Paradise for the Damned
5. Wrath
8. High on Hate
9. Pathetic
10. Circle of Defeat
13. Smallest Man
14. Cornered
15. Strife
16. Clash
18. Closer to the End
19. Fury

Q.E.D.

the ep they did with him 2 years ago was better (probably because its actually patton rather than the new singer imitating him)!

Do tell.

I was about to listen to them the other day, but then I heard they were a math-rock band.

You really don't get the full DEP experience without seeing the stack of promotional text in which multiple "writers" burble on about the greatness of the singer defecating into a towel and hurling it at an audience.

Dream Evil. "The Book of Heavy Metal" and "Sledge of Rock" -- both of which are quite amusing and tuneful.

1. Decapitated are amazing. They should rule the world.
2. I put Necrophagist on my Pazz & Jop Top Ten this year.
3. Anaal Nathrakh's new album is good, but it's not nearly as good as their first album, The Codex Necro, which would make Steve Austin fill his jeans with hot wet poop.

The new Megadeth album is better than the Mastodon.
I don't know HOW, but it's true!
I wouldn't buy it, but there's a couple of really cool songs on there, even if one of them sounds like "Take No Prisoners, Pt. 2" (perhaps "even if" should be replaced with "because")

Plus, Chris Poland AND Vinnie Colaiuta? Next time around they'll have Michael Manring on bass and start playing old fusion songs or something. Shame Poland doesn't get much space and Mustaine fills the album up with his boring solos instead.

There's something so dreadfully boring about Mastodon, fun when you first hear them, but no real replay value. And that latest album was a step in the wrong direction, for me. I suck at being into metal, obviously.
My fave metal of 2004 is almost as embarrassing, it's the last freaking Mayhem album! Since Voivod dropped the ball on the last one, it's nice to see that Mayhem could do a little bit to fill that cyber-kingcrimsonmetal void. And with a bass tone that recalls Anacrusis at that! I haven't heard nearly enough metal albums from 2004 though. Mostly those old bands that you see in those lists etc, not much of the new stuff.

DEP
converge
mastodon
mayhem
old man gloom
killswitch engage
psyOpus
isis
shadows fall
comets on fire
neurosis
pig destroyer
planes mistaken for stars
mare
the power and the glory
lickgoldensky
candiria
time in malta
wasteland
ludicra
mono
the haunted
motorhead
watain
terror
jesu
melvins+lustmord
noxagt
darkthrone
the blood brothers
the hidden hand
cult of luna
anata
premonitions of war
god forbid
hot cross
remembering never
lair of the minotaur
these arms are snakes
unearth

That's a good album. I'm surprised it didn't place higher on all the above lists.

I was also surprised nobody mentioned Mnemic's The Audio Injected Soul...that one really grew on me. "Sane vs. Normal" is incredible.

Also, not enough praise for Orphaned Land...I think their Mabool album is the best metal/world music combination since Sepultura's mid-90s stuff, and better than anything Soulfly has done.

Whether you're a fan death metal brutality, hardcore aggression, or grindcore's complete perversion of metal, this band will cause permanent brain damage after an album full of spazzes and convulsions.

Mixing the chaotic, mathcore spontenaity of Dillinger Escape Plan with the offtime chugs and jazz interludes of Candiria with added death metal grit, Florida's Into The Moat have musical chemistry and innovative sense far beyond their teenage years. Their Metal Blade debut, "The Design" will boast some of the year's most zany, colorful guitar lines and the year's most destructive, intricate breakdowns. They've even considering shitting in a towel.

They teased us all in 2004 with the 21 minute "I" opus, so what's the next "obvious" step? Release a full-length album with one 74-minute track, of course, called "I Shat In a Towel."

[Misery Index've] conquered both European and American markets.

Canada's Ion Dissonance embodies every advance to date in both technical wizardry and underground fusion, already having attained the same legendary status of progressive audacity and mind-boggling aggression as bands like ...

2004 was the year of Pig Destroyer, 2005 is all about Cephalic Carnage, the masters of crushing avant-garde grind. Fusing ambience, noise, disgusting vocal deliveries and frightening musical themes, their new album is sure to further progress everything we know about grindcore. If more metal bands were able to achieve the myriad of timbres and aesthetics Cephalic Carnage produce, metal music would be considered a terrorist threat under the joke that is the Patriot Act.

This band [Soylent Green] has legend written all over them.

their vocalist sounds more like a chorus of squeeling pigs and grunting bulls, shitting into towels, completely obliterating even death metal's most extreme grunts.

Behold... The Actopus - "Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning"
Troubleman Unlimited - March 8, 2005
The next "illogical" step in mindfuck music, New York City's Behold... The Arctopus is an instrumental 3-piece that will fry any brain that attempts to keep up with their tech wizardry. A lot of people just won't "get" this band, but those who do will bow before them when they do the shitting in a towel thing.

THEY made my pazz & jop top ten.

THEY made my pazz & jop top ten.

That's awesome. I could only squeeze DEP and Mastodon on my ballot, unfortunately.

Behold the Arctopus are indeed amazingly talented and good. There are a few mp3s on their websites for those interested. Colin who plays Warr guitar with them is Dysrythmia's new bass player.

actually, Orphaned Land got two votes!!

This so why it's so easy to turn the text of metal mags into lampoons. The writers of the originals do all the heavy lifting, erecting an absurd and elaborate infrastructure. Then it only takes addition of a couple extra phrases and ... voila, what was praise is better ridicule.

Now, I'd also be interested in seeing an actual reality-based writing on such bands. How many records do they sell within the narrow genre?
Mid three figures? Does Arctopus hope to sell 50-100 copies?

Will Into the Moat do an aggressive 1,000?

I know that the promotional writing for metal is mostly ridiculous, I have read enough promo material to tell you it gets really stupid. One band is eve more 'brutal' than the next one. Turns out Arctopus are extremely talented musicians that push the enveloppe of technical playing in a direction that is much more interesting than the repetitious crap most death metal bands do. All instrumental, their music is instrumental, they are very litterate musicians so they use structures, time signatures and transitions that are much more alike what you can see in some jazz circles as well as certain contemporary classical composers; all that within a metal shell. Not exactly what I would call middle of the road.

Whether or not you try to sell 1000 or 10 million records, the goal is always the same: selling more records. The average metal demographic responds very well to every "broootal" and "will blow your head off" in a review/bio, while that won't work too well selling Michael Bolton's records.

There are plenty of good metal writing out there, only harder to find. Larger mags like Kerrang, Metal Hammer and Pit don't actually help in that department.

ha ha

Being dubbed an extremely talented musician is ... well, let's say observing it in promotional materials, maybe not here, but particularly as the the writings of others in genre micropublications, pegs the phlogiston-meter of anyone with sense. It says: We're trying way too hard to sell a bill of suspicious goods.

The average metal demographic responds very well to every "broootal" and "will blow your head off" in a review/bio, while that won't work too well selling Michael Bolton's records.

Practically speaking, does it? How does sales of a few hundred records pay off for everyone? It won't pay for itself and it can easily be made a matter of argument whether such small numbers are actually the building of a fanbase for future exploitation. You're operating at a loss, even if a small one because initial investment was miniscule, unless the band eats a significant piece of the cost in producing it. In which case the band operates at a loss which is OK, even fine for the glory of art. Consider or write it off as pro bono work, which has always been the case for much "popular," most semi-popular and all radically unpopular music.

But you can't make anyone in the real world actually believe that stretched-out and childish recommendations of things of intrinsically ridiculous nature -- and I like (!) the intrinsically ridiculous -- get a good response in terms of sales, creating a positive cash flow for everybody.

There are plenty of good metal writing out there, only harder to find.

I sure have difficulty seeing it. When people say good, it is always as opposed to ... what? Anything looks fine next to metal glossies. People can program small applications, and have, to imitate this level of journalism.

You just need to sample and duplicate a large enough dictionary of the favored styles, similes and adjectives from the idiot computer program to select from. Boy's Life magazine has/had more entertaining, less intelligence-insulting writing. And it's also produced for the young.

To get anything from the metal magazines, you have to completely suspend your natural sense of disbelief of patent bullshit. That's ridiculous. Why are fringe metal bands and their shouting cheerleaders to be spared from the criticism -- on the money or not, intelligently mean or humorous -- which you see dished out on TV and in newspapers every day to politicians, huge celebrities and media stars, or anything else?

What, the readership is deemed so childish it needs to have its fickle and fragile state-of-mind relentlessly propped up with make-believe?

Yes, I know the answer. That's the formula. And it's a formula that cannot, by definition, produce any good writing or even particularly fair, from a common sense viewpoint, style of journalism. Can't. Period. Understand, one of the higher purposes of journalists is to afflict many of the subjects of their attention. This is ruled out by unwritten decree in entire domains of music journalism, metal included.

And, therefore, criticism doesn't exist. Don't bum out, though. There are much worse things in journalism, like covering the sewer meetings of local boroughs.

And what if it is true that you are technically talented musician? What is the harm in that? Especially when it is part of your shtick. Bands like Meshuggah and Arctopus count on you going "wow! I have no idea how they do that. How they hell to they keep in time and stay tight?"

But you can't make anyone in the real world actually believe that stretched-out and childish recommendations of things of intrinsically ridiculous nature -- and I like (!) the intrinsically ridiculous -- get a good response in terms of sales, creating a positive cash flow for everybody.

Actually it does. Sucessful labels live on that kind of writing and promotional work. The average extreme metal fan is more into the music, at least at first, because he rebels from his parents/society/school/whatever and is able to listen to the most extreme music as possible. Death metal fans looks for the fastest, most brutal and most technically challenging music. Cannibal Corpse became a widely known name more because of Tipper Gore than the music they do (there are dozens of bands doing better or at least equivalent) and all she had to do is mention them in her crusade for musical morality. That equals record sales.

Meshuggah became more of a household name because Jack Osborne blasted their music to annoy the neighbors on the Osbornes, and they didn't do that because they make ear massaging music. Saying that your music is more punishing then Cannibal Corpse sells. The nature of the music is of the violent kind so the writing associated is of the same cliche. You don't sell Dawn of the Dead by showing the sexual tension between two characters, you sell it by showing people busting zombie heads.

You have to know your demographic and write accordingly.

I sure have difficulty seeing it. When people say good, it is always as opposed to ... what? Anything looks fine next to metal glossies. People can program small applications, and have, to imitate this level of journalism.

I could say the exact same thing about mainstream rock publications and glossies, just a lot easier to find good writing because of the critical mass of writer is not the same. Metal Maniacs has had, throughout the years, many talented writers that did no revert to cliches all the time. Jeff Wagner, that Martinyuk fella, Marco Barbieri, the founders of Unrestrained are good writers. Of course, it is not the kind of writing you will find in the New Yorker, but music publications rarely have.

I don't know but I feel that the metal scene has the exact same problems as all the rock scenes with "formulas" as you say. Bios in indie rock and mainstream rock are, in my experience, just as bad as in metal. Even more troubling is when you see mainstream/indie rick writers that never had any interest in metal that write review for mastodon or Dillinger Escape Plan and fail miserably in writing anything that would help fans.

Shtick, that's just it. Prog bands, the appeal of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. It's more worn out when it doesn't obviously work, as in, none of these acts are ever going to move units like ELP. And I'd be prepared to argue that Meshuggah is actually more listenable.

How they hell to they keep in time and stay tight?"

I miss the value of catering to the easily impressed.

Cannibal Corpse became a widely known name more because of Tipper Gore than the music they do (there are dozens of bands doing better or at least equivalent) and all she had to do is mention them in her crusade for musical morality

Then we can also say Tipper Gore's denouncements as "reviews" had more impact than a decade's worth of print in genre 'zines. Why? Because while inspiring fear and loathing, it appeared universally in mainstream sources. Now none of these labels or acts can actually count on anything functionally similar happening for them. When this happens, it's blind luck. Of course a celebrity or national figure declaiming loudly on something in the marketplace sells. Him that pickets sells more tickets, is the axiom.

The nature of the music is of the violent kind so the writing associated is of the same cliche.

See, that's what we're about here. The writing of cliches for an audience that expects it. However, it's not the only audience. And one can argue that if you wish to write with more permanence and impact, that is an audience that's not worth writing for.

Let me put it in practical terms. Once I was hired to write for daily newspaper interested in invigorating its music and features section. Because they were driven by local concerns, the desire to get news and comment with purely local hooks into the paper, it meant allocating much of the coverage to what traipsed through the region. That was metal, metro-New York/Jersey metalcore bands, thrash, bottom out of site emerging extreme acts, and the petty outragers, the GG Allins and Gwars of the scene.

Right away I argued that the majority of the fans who went to these shows, many of them all ages, too, just didn't read the newspaper and could not be enticed into doing so by catering to their surmised expectations and wishes. On the other hand, I argued that writing about these acts for the newspapers subscribers in a way that didn't insult their intelligence, even though they didn't care about any of it and would not buy the records or go to the shows, would stand a good chance of working.

That it is, you could apply journalistic practice to it and write about it so that it was interesting news, or entertainment as humor writing on the variances, perversities and vagaries of the human condition. And that worked. The approach to it quickly picked up a readership.

It was writing on the subject for adults in the context of a news operation, something that doesn't have to justify itself by catering to advertisers or a fickle fan base. Writing for the purpose of energizing people into buying CDs or going to shows was never a concern. Writing to furnish a "consumer guide" -- in the sense that "consumer guide" to young fans usually means listing the contents of the CD like the ingredients on the wrapper of a candy bar -- was run out of town.

You don't sell Dawn of the Dead by showing the sexual tension between two characters, you sell it by showing people busting zombie heads.

No, you sell it by getting mainstream television ads into primetime, an operation that is easily planned for, executed and reasonably guaranteed to be of some measure of result. Niche extreme metal bands only rarely, maybe mostly never, have that option. Anyway, it's advertising and if one's expectation is that music writing is to primarily be about selling something, that's advertising, too.

You have to know your demographic and write accordingly.

Like I said, depending on what you want to do with writing, maybe not worth writing for. Now, in the context of a publication that must survive solely on the whims of its advertisers, then the people writing must be selected so as not to push over the applecart. But that's not journalism. It's a different form of trade publication.

It is possible to be entertaining within this infrastructure and you've maybe pointed out a few writers who are.

I don't know but I feel that the metal scene has the exact same problems as all the rock scenes with "formulas" as you say.

Yeah, agreed. Other scenes just tend to dress it up more.

Anyway, here's a tip - Keith Bergman's writing in Metal Maniacs.

No comment on Iced Earth, because they're completely fucking retarded.

You're right. Try reading the feature on The Postal Service in today's LA Times for caricatures in music journalism.

Various Metal webzines

METAL REIGNS: TOP 25 Of 2004
http://www.metalreigns.com/top2004.html

The Metal Crypt: Metal Crypt Staff Top Picks of 2004
http://www.metalcrypt.com/pages/editorialsframe.php?editorialid=17

DigitalMetal.com Ten Albums of 2004

1. Necrophagist “Epitaph”
(Relapse)

2. Disillusion “Back to Times of Splendor”
(Metal Blade)

3. Mastodon “Leviathan”
(Relapse)

4. Into Eternity “Buried in Oblivion”
(Century Media)

5. Susperia “Unlimited”
(Tabu/Candlelight)

6. Insomnium “The Day it All Came Down”
(Candlelight)

7. Arsis “A Celebration of Guilt”
(Willowtip)

8. (tie) The Amenta “Occasus”
(Listenable)

(tie) Pig Destroyer “Terrifyer”
(Relapse)

9. Leviathan “Tentacles of Whorror”
(Moribund Cult)

10. The Dillinger Escape Plan “Miss Machine”
(Relapse)

Honorable Mentions:

Unearth “The Oncoming Storm”
Enslaved “Isa”
The Chasm “The Spell of Retribution”
Borknagor “Epic”
Dismember “Where Iron Crosses Grow”

EP

Misery Index “Dissent”

METAL REVIEWS 2004 AWARDS !!! Thumbs Up !
http://www.metalreviews.com/awards/awards.php
Many Individual Lists, also I discovered an astonishing album from this list. I will unveil the info soon !

TARTAREAN DESIRE BEST ALBUMS OF 2004
http://www.tartareandesire.com/topalbums_2004.html

Dammit John I read this as "Blord Anus" initially, which made me squirm.

Well I could mention more than a few high selling acts with schticks that work. Why one schtick is more valuable over the other in your opinion baffles me. Or maybe I just don't understand what you are saying (please remember that I am not a native english speaker/writer)

See, that's what we're about here. The writing of cliches for an audience that expects it. However, it's not the only audience. And one can argue that if you wish to write with more permanence and impact, that is an audience that's not worth writing for.

I agree, it is not however how the majority of the industry works in my experience. I have had reviews edited because I was throwing around references that were not "in style". In my very first edition of my first fanzine (it was a metal oriented publication) I reviewed a Zappa record.

It was writing on the subject for adults in the context of a news operation, something that doesn't have to justify itself by catering to advertisers or a fickle fan base. Writing for the purpose of energizing people into buying CDs or going to shows was never a concern.

If I understand you correctly you are saying that in the event that you are asked to give your opinion about a certain product, that you happen to love, you would not adhere to a certain language so that fans of a similar product, that you loathe, would change providers?

In the end, I think we agree on the core of the issue, we just have different ways of looking at it.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/b/behold-the-arctopus/nano-nucleonic-cyborg-summoning.shtml