THE 10TH ANNUAL ILM METAL POLL:2017 RESULTS THREAD

My number #1

The Nortt is my favorite thing discovered from the campaign thread. I didn't vote for it, because it only really hit me this last week. Never went crazy for previous work by them. This one feels mature and focused.

I couldn't ask for more in a black metal album: it scratches me right where I itch.

I think this is stronger than the previous Akvan record (which I also liked), unperson.

colotyphus is not my thing i don't think but i respect it

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, February 5, 2018 2:15 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait, nm, it's converting me

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, February 5, 2018 2:27 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mostly all of the guitar solos are really good

yeah it's a really great-sounding record, feels like the work of an established band

67 Flight Of Sleipnir - Skadi 144.0 Points, 5 Votes
http://www.nocleansinging.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/The-Flight-of-Sleipnir-Skadi-e1481519221317.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1pmCC3WVzkJSYzGg45zbyF?si=0xSc3_9rQ7O7xf_pzoY7EQ

For the unenlightened, I’d say it’s fair to summarize The Flight of Sleipnir’s sound as a stoner/doom version of Agalloch. Most of Agalloch’s elements are present – winding acoustic passages, folk sensibility, mildly mournful riffs, and buckets of atmosphere. The Flight of Sleipnir add some psychedelic elements and generally aren’t so despondent, but their overall approach is quite similar. Frankly though, I’ve never got the hype around Agalloch. Their compositions are naïve (not endearingly), the vocals annoy me, and they meander too much for their own good. They’ve improved on recent albums, but I can’t help but cringe on hearing The Mantle or Pale Folklore, despite some wonderful moments. The Flight of Sleipnir fortunately don’t succumb to these problems. The screamed vocals are powerful, while the clean singing is suitably soft and trippy, and the meandering, while occasionally problematic, is generally kept interesting enough.

damn that Nortt album is fuckin serious

Glorious psych doom! Tenebrous Haze was one of my most played tracks last year. It all unfolds in exactly the way my brain wants it to.

Meanwhile, I've never heard of Akvan before, but this is seriously beautiful! I love all the folk instrumentation and heavy reverb underneath the crunchy and discordant black metal. Probably second favourite find from today

yeah this is great

I'm enjoying Akvan as well!

next up is a personal favorite with exceptionally awful cover art

ooh I think I might know what this is

66 Pissed Jeans - Why Love Now 147.0 Points, 3 Votes, 1 #1 Vote
https://rocknuts.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PissedJeans_WhyLoveNow_cover_1500x1500_300.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/28DmrpnPDaAYBc0F5P6niZ?si=2coW-RL-SV66vhFxYBoO6A

Between their territorial growls and bludgeoning guitars, Pennsylvania sludge-punks Pissed Jeans have made a brand out of unfiltered male aggression; each of their four albums has played like an American Splendor comic reenacted by grizzly bears. Yet more so than frontmen who profess to be infinitely more political, Matt Korvette understands what he can contribute to the conversation about gender relations. His songs offer insight into the forces that drive men: the privileges, compulsions, indignities, entitlements, and double standards. He’s touched on this territory often—most notably on “Male Gaze,” his rubbernecking apology from 2013’s terrific Honeys—but he’s never run with the muse as righteously as he does on Why Love Now, the band’s deepest dive yet into the inglorious male psyche.

The record could almost pass for a concept album, if not for all of Korvette’s usual digressions. He balances out his social insights with asides about sugary snacks, laugh-tracked sitcoms, astrology, and the like, and those flashes of irreverence are more welcome than ever, since the core of the album couldn’t be more pointed. “The Bar Is Low” challenges the way society coddles men, rewarding them for the most modest demonstrations of decency, as if simply not being a violent monster entitles them to a medal. “Held down a job/Even snagged a raise,” Korvette sings, “Right there you’re due/For effusive praise.” On “It’s Your Knees,” he demonstrates how men neg women, picking at their insecurities to cut down their esteem.

Lydia Lunch's (co-)production helps kick them to a new level; their best album, and I like 'em all.

that is kind of an amazing album cover

I wondered what happened to the barenakedladies

i thought it would be i************ o******* haha

Pissed Jeans will never not make me think of Hari btw

I've never understood the loathing this band inspires in select circles (though I do get a kick out of MRA types calling them cucks in YouTube comments)

65 Amenra - Mass VI 147.0 Points, 4 Votes
http://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cover_1506107995932995-500x500.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/03tCpZ9EP6CWO62yWKBTve?si=nife-_FqQ3K7ruvgOfdcmw

Sometimes life gets dark. For how selfish it may sound, sometimes things happen to you that make all the worldly issues scatter across the floor, like mercury from a broken thermometer. No matter how you try, you don’t give a shit about anything as you fall deeper and deeper into yourself. That’s the power of depression. And, the only person you’d rather avoid, rather not talk to, and rather not care for is the one that consumes you. For the last few months, these feelings have been fueled by Amenra‘s Mass VI. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear this album, it burns deeper each time and I can’t help but die a little more with each spin.

If you’ve ever heard Amenra, this comes as no surprise. This clergy of the Church of Ra, as well as members of fantastic Belgian acts like Oathbreaker and Wiegedood, have been preaching to me for over a decade. And Mass VI is one of their best sermons yet. Like all their albums, it’s one that should be “enjoyed” from beginning to end. Every song builds on the other, every intermission is a necessary chance to exhale, and the sermon’s punchline will leave you worse off than you were before you arrived. To enjoy Mass VI is to invite pain and darkness into your life. Yet, I can’t help but play it one more time.

Good band but not heard this album yet

Same; I only know them from seeing them open for Converge and Neurosis. They were pretty decent; singer stood with his (tattooed) back to the audience the entire time lol

Liked the song of theirs i heard last week

wow glad I managed to post while results were still coming out! some great records so far, lots of stuff I still haven't listened to.

You knew this was coming

64 Mesarthim - Presence 147.0 Points, 6 Votes
http://cdn.albumoftheyear.org/album/2017/97260-presence.jpg
https://mesarthim.bandcamp.com/album/presence-e-p

^_____^

title track is undoubtedly the most hardcore thing in this rollout

The melody in the title track is 'Return of the Mack', but I love it anyway

Maybe that's why I love it

lmao I'd forgotten how bonkers that track is

we're about due for another release, I'd wager

they've gone into hibernation, haven't they? who knows in what form they'll return

i hope this band puts out three albums/eps every year for the rest of my life

yes

important to note that the great filter/type iii was released as a compilation album last year, making it p much the best metal release of 2017

i thought it would be i************ o******* haha

funny you should mention...

TIE

62 Ingurgitating Oblivion - Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light 150.0 Points, 4 Votes
http://www.metal-observer.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/634062.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/0am4uDjnDNYarZSfsvRJZT?si=Inc4h_DmQY2ttsUFCC7u-Q

Ingurgiting Oblivion is a Berlin-based band who are revered in underground death metal circles, but who never really got their just deserved praise until 2014's Continuum Of Absence was released. Now they're back with a new album, Vision Wallows In Symphonies Of Light, it's definitely their strongest material to date, and we've got a full early stream of it below for you to check out. If you're new to the group, they combine dissonant tech-death like Ulcerate and Gorguts and fuse that with dissonant black metal and brutal death metal influences into a sound all its own. The songs they create from that framework are further developed around progressive and experimental tendencies that envelope Ingurgitating Oblivion's pummeling nature with an air of grandiose sophistication, broken up with quirky jazz elements, and dark atmospheric layers and interludes.

62 Ungfell - Tôtbringære 150.0 Points, 4 Votes
https://img.discogs.com/L9RnHBxCH1dTXYAZsFpU3gIivNY=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-9889416-1490124138-4275.jpeg.jpg
https://ungfell.bandcamp.com/album/t-tbring-re

I thought the Ingurgitating Oblivion album cover had the Alison Lapper statue on it from the thumbnail when I first saw it. I was disappointed to realise this wasn't the case.

The Ungfell was sounding perfectly lovely when I listened yesterday.

Ungfell sound like they live in a very nice cave

Since I gather much of the metal commentariat has gone to bed, I'll post the day's final two entries in short order.

Two?

You spoil us, dear Simon!

Actually, you know what? You're right. Only going to 61 makes divvying up the remaining days neater. Good looking out imago

MAH BOYS

61 Tomb Mold - Primordial Malignity 151.0 Points, 5 Votes
http://www.cvltnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/TMa0329422211_10-700x700.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/4fOMUmQ1NpOKW7g2SVEPeM?si=9S8R7M8wT5GCbXZA9PpZNQ

You’re initially greeted by throbbing and ominous ambient noise until “They Grow Inside” violently births itself across the floor in a gory explosion of blastbeats, guttural death bleats and unusually twangy, discordant riffs. It coalesces into a d-beaty stomper with more than a little early Carcass influence, but the whacked out guitar tone never stops bouncing and prancing atop the maelstrom in a way you need to hear to fully appreciate.

That unusual tone is the reason Tomb Mold‘s music stands out and every song is like a unsolvable conflict between the traditional death metal instrumentation and the off-kilter riffing. It makes for quite the quirky listening experience on cuts like “Bereavement of Flesh,” a reworked demo track, and fresh monstrosities like “Clockwise Metamorphosis.” It’s almost like the jazz-fusion death made famous by Pestilence, but without the jazz. In its place is minimalist weirdness that falls somewhere between brilliant and deranged. Riffs corkscrew here and there, always impossible to ignore because of the weird sound and the mix which puts them dead center in your attention zone.

As long as 61's a good'un ;)

(Kidding - they're ALL good'uns obv)

oh never heard of this!

amazing album cover

Love Tomb Mold. The demo comp they did recently is well worth checking out, too, might be a little less... like... soul-annihilating.

ingurgitating oblivion was high on my list. that album is staggering

A pretty great first day! Favourite discoveries were: Cloud Rat, Akvan, Wiegedood, Dreadnought, and Grails.

the standings so far

100 Cloud Rat / Disrotted - Split LP 99.0 3 0
98 Contrarian - To Perceive Is To Suffer 99.0 4 0
98 Bathsheba - Servus 99.0 4 0
97 Code Orange - Forever 100.0 4 0
95 Tau Cross - Pillar of Fire 101.0 3 0
95 Necrot - Blood Offerings 101.0 3 0
94 White Ward - Futility Report 101.0 4 0
93 Colotyphus - Spiritual Journey of a Forlorn Soul 102.0 3 0
92 Big|Brave - Ardor 102.0 4 0
91 Cannibal Corpse - Red Before Black 104.0 3 0
90 Akercocke - Renaissance In Extremis 104.0 4 0
89 Zeal & Ardor - Devil Is Fine 105.0 3 0
88 The Body & Full of Hell - Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light 106.0 4
87 Anakim - Monuments to Departed Worlds 107.0 2 1
86 Dodecahdron - Kwintessens 108.0 4 0
85 Nokturnal Mortum - Veria 113.0 3 0
84 Wiegedood - De Doden Hebben Het Goed II 114.0 3 0
82 Obituary - Obituary 116.0 4 0
82 Dreadnought - A Wake in Sacred Waves 116.0 4 0
81 Forgotten Spell - The Necromancer 117.0 4 0
80 Succumb - Succumb 118.0 4 0
79 Creeper - Eternity, In Your Arms 119.0 3 0
78 Gnod - Just Say No to the Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine 120.0 4
76 Usnea - Portals Into Futility 120.0 5 0
76 Progenie Terrestre Pura - oltreLuna 120.0 5 0
75 Wode - Servants of the Countercosmos 121.0 4 0
74 Grails - Chalice Hymnal 121.0 5 0
73 Oranssi Pazuzu - Kevät / Värimyrsky 126.0 5 0
72 Violet Cold - Anomie 127.0 4 0
71 Queens Of The Stone Age - Villains 131.0 3 0
70 Brutus - Burst 133.0 5 0
69 Akvan - Forgotten Glory 135.0 5 0
68 Nortt - Endeligt 140.0 4 1
67 Flight Of Sleipnir - Skadi 144.0 5 0
66 Pissed Jeans - Why Love Now 147.0 3 1
65 Amenra - Mass VI 147.0 4 0
64 Mesarthim - Presence 147.0 6 0
62 Ungfell - Tôtbringære 150.0 4 0
62 Ingurgitating Oblivion - Vision Wallows in Symphonies of Light 150.0 4 0
61 Tomb Mold - Primordial Malignity 151.0 5 0