THE 10TH ANNUAL ILM METAL POLL:2017 RESULTS THREAD

I think the cover is meant to be from the cut-off submarine of the album's concept - a sci-fi idea I came up with independently but which I couldn't have realised half as well as here, in the form of mad, mad metal

Seriously though I still don't really know what to say. It feels like a real achievement and is somehow even better than Regressions. Well worth the wait.

If the length is forbidding, btw...try Ifrit if you like King Crimson gone feral; try Resumption if you like the idea of The Mars Volta being tortured; try Triskaidekaphobe if you like Kayo Dot underwater (my personal favourite) and try Grey Lodge if you like John Zorn - like, the actual John Zorn. He's on it. In fact the whole thing is in some avant-jazz/prog-metalcore crossover, it's bonkers

The Lingua Ignota album is very moving. I wish I'd heard it earlier.

Yay Spirit Adrift! That was in my top three I believe, depending on if I counted Elder for metal poll or not. Probably I did.

I have a bit of metal fatigue

Following the year-end list rollouts, this happens with many people by the second week of December, and albums that I consider "palate cleansers" become more appealing, at least temporarily, such as Lingua Ignota's. Something so absurdly extreme and unique does help reset my brain. However it's not something I return to much later on.

Appropriately enough, our next album should come with a medical warning that anyone experiencing fatigue should probably stay away, especially if they're likely to be operating heavy machinery.

18 Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper 338.0 Points, 10 Votes 1 #1 Vote
https://imgur.com/a/a9S9G
https://open.spotify.com/album/64BDVizsgNdQ1CWeMrh4P7?si=EMS4AnlSSFipPCCAKclieA

Arranged as a single 83-minute track, Mirror Reaper steps back from the resplendent gestures that swept across Four Phantoms. Each beat of Jesse Shreibman’s drum kit, each throb of Dylan Desmond’s six-string bass sounds labored, as though they’ve had to drag the sounds out like lead hammers. Doom metal works with fewer notes at a time than thrash or death metal, so the key to its emotional power is to pour everything you’ve got into each one. Bell Witch do just that in Mirror Reaper’s quiet moments, which are more abundant than their previous albums, and also in its loud ones, where Shreibman lurches forward one kick of the bass drum at a time and Desmond carves mournful leads out of his extra wide fretboard.

Few bassists can make their instrument sing quite like Desmond. About 33 minutes into Mirror Reaper, he climbs a crescendo that, in its tone and its simplicity, sounds like a human voice singing a funeral hymn to itself. He exploits the upper range of his bass, digging out emotional extremes from the notes that could be mapped onto the low end of an electric guitar if they weren’t quite so rich with overtones. He’s newly joined by the sounds of Shreibman’s Hammond B3 organ, whose chords tangle with the distortion on the bass and the echo of the cymbals. Plenty of metal bands play impressively in step, but here, Desmond and Shreibman play as though they are clinging to each other.

(I love these guys, I own both Longing and Four Phantoms, but even I thought the length on this one was a wee bit much.)

It's obviously a very accomplished and complex work, but I couldn't in good faith put this into my ballot since my attention span has reduced it to about five minutes of skipping each time I've tried.

Never made it through the whole thing.

I made it through the whole thing but passed into such an attentionless trance that I got about ten minutes into the next thing on Spotify before noticing

Anyway, it wasn't bad

It does an excellent job of messing with your perception of time.

It's a challenge for sure -- if I were to see them live, I would want a beanbag chair and drugs.

Bell Witch was fine. Didn't ever want to go back to it but I guess I have to now.

I know Lingua Ignota isn't meant to be easy listening but this is really not for me at all.

I will say they've basically done everything they can with their unique brand of glacial, bass-led doom and I'd like to see them diversify a bit on their next one.

That said, I want a giant poster of that album art.

I think I wanted the clean vocals to be more operatic on my first listen to the first two tracks. Definitely deserves more time. xp re Lingua Ignota

going to give some of these a go the rest of this week, I didn't manage to post a ballot in the end (sorry Odysseus!) The Unsane record is sounding pretty great so far.

k3rr sez: TOO LOOOW!

17 Pillorian - Obsidian Arc 386.0 Points 10 Votes 1 #1 Vote
https://www.metal-archives.com/images/6/2/7/3/627316.jpg?3424
https://open.spotify.com/album/6TU6SitNE1kA0ai313FAnD?si=w1Ei4hxpR-KOfaGIkQIxfw

To see the lineage of the past reborn so darkly, wander the enchanted ebony hallways of “A Stygian Pyre” or “Forged Iron Crucible,” where the melancholy of The Mantle has been charred into something far more scornful. The masterful blending of charged violence and acoustic calm that we know, love, and miss is quite present, but oh so much angrier. Rather than peering through every window into the past, Obsidian Arc forges a path ahead into the marrow of trve black metal’s spirit. While one can clearly hear aforetoomanytimesmentioned band’s influence, listeners will recognize this as something more sinister than anything by the heathen saints of serpents and spheres.

That said, the ghosts of Haughm’s musical past can’t help but rise from the flames, and nowhere is their haunting presence felt more strongly or perfectly than on closer “Dark is the River of Man.” An ominously mercurial and flowing clean intro, doleful rasps and haunting guitar melodies coalesce into the most beautifully dark song that Agalloch never wrote, their old voice of wisdom haunting the vale as a new age of rebirth darkens the dawn. I’m running out of references and allotted words, so suffice it to say that the song fucking rules. If you liked Agalloch, you’ll love this.

(personally I liked this fine but found it a bit on the safe side)

Yeah pretty much

(k3rr also says TOO LOOOOW re: the next one, incidentally...)

I did a terrible job of predicting the top 35.

Less than 25 correct?

way less, from 35-11 (which is all I've seen) I only guessed 12 correctly.

It has been a surprising mixture of things this high up, but I feel like I've got a good idea of what's on its way. I hope I'm wrong though in a way! It'd be nice to find something completely unheard of in the top 10.

There's some good stuff to come but yes I'm hoping for some interesting discoveries! I think only two albums on my entire ballot aren't going to place in the 100, which is mad tbh

can some of you pls get Brad to come back as well, at least to ILM

brad quit?

lmao not as far as I know

don't want to get into it but it seems so

Oh shit that sucks.

Just FYI, if anyone cares, I interviewed Matt Hollenberg of Cleric for the Burning Ambulance podcast back in December. Personally, I find Retrocausal to be kind of a throwback to early 2000s super-mathy avant-metal; it doesn't feel like it's moving anything forward. But it's good. I'm very interested to hear the album of Masada compositions they've got in the can.

16 Au champ des morts - Dans la joie 393.0 Points 11 Votes
http://arcticdrones.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/review-Au-Champ-Des-Morts-Dans-La-Joie-770x770.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/59mAeqeDQMTYo25AvYFxYF?si=7mPsGfXOSnqwnkkXxAkzbg

Au Champs De Morts (French for : In The Field Of The Dead") is one of the single best up and coming black metal bands I've listened to in years. Dans La Joie (In Joy) is a logical follow up on the bands stunning debut, 2014's Le Jour Se Leve (The Day Rises). The compositions have a unique sense of black metal brilliance and hint at the bold future of a band who have the potential to rapidly expand the sonic possibilities of a genre. Dans La Joie is an album that forces you to sit down and really sink about the power of the genre and the breadth of the work can't help but to captivate the listener. These are songs that craft potent melodies and hint at bold futures, they grow on you and encourage repeat listens but also pummel forward with an old school rage that you can't help but to admire. Au Champs De Morts represent a beautiful fusion of old and new, never getting lost in pretentious bullshit and always keeping it as fierce as possible.

That being said, don't think that Au Champs De Morts aren't afraid to get lost in the magic of the genre and create some of the most ethereal musical moments in French black metal history. One need look no further than the intro of a track like 'Le Sang, La Mort, La Chute' (loosely translated: Blood, Death, The Fall) to see the influence of frontman Stephane Bayle's previous band, the quasi-legendary Anorexia Nervosa. The mix between almost tortured sounding cleans that sometimes come out feeling shouted and harsh growls creates a sort of antediluvian aura which adds to the sheer transcendence of the mix. This entire thing seems strangely rooted in the works of bands like Bathory or even Darkthrone. The band is wholly aware of their own epic leanings but they are also fond of diving into the more punk rock sides of things and driving the nails in, one bloody step at a time.

by far my favorite title + cover juxtaposition of the countdown so far

i listened to that podcast and can vouch for it. and yeah it's not the 'moving things forward' i love so much about it so much as the intense, open-minded and excellent composition, which of course owes a lot to jazz, mathcore etc

the masada thing is gonna be quite the event

xps

oh look! pomenitul can rejoice. and i'll check it out!

Nice! Vague reminiscences of Noir Désir in French black metal always do it for me.

yeah I'm enjoying this

Belatedly listening to 'Ifrit' off Retrocausal (both titles are up my alley btw). Another one that would've likely made my ballot had I kept up with new metal releases last year.

such a great album. never cared for his far more famous band but this album is majestic

15 Spectral Voice - Eroded Corridors Of Unbeing 401.0 Points 11 Votes
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/76/1f/db761f69d461927d6bff1513bfe161bd.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/4hWRz8Cvr1OSgikycop9fE?si=my8hsZBlRrKmsjA4tdT8Xw

Spectral Voice’s Eroded Corridors of Unbeing is like a ghostly cry in the dark. It’s the first thing that springs to mind in every song. No matter how brutal or how atmospheric, its haunted halls are brimming with unspeakable horrors. And, of course, that’s the allure. While Spectral Voice have been releasing grim, A-grade death/doom for years now, Eroded Corridors of Unbeing proves they’re at their darkest yet.

You probably already knew, but Spectral Voice is 3/4 Blood Incantation. And in a way (if you’ve never heard them before), Spectral Voice is like Blood Incantation distilled through diSEMBOWELMENT (or Inverloch). The band has felt, to me, more skewed towards doom than death metal, but always willing to dabble in both. However, it’s the ghoulish, haunted atmosphere of this one that really cements it as a modern classic.

threw this on the bottom of my ballot after listening and admiring. top campaigning dominique!

Another one I'm glad to see in the top 20.

forgot to mention - weirdly huge points jump between 16 and 17!

Too low!

I didn't vote for this because I only listened to this once before the voting deadline but it sounded really satisfying and I'm already really enjoying it again.

the second track is a wonderful monster

personal fave coming up

14 The Ruins of Beverast - Exuvia 405.0 Points 11 Votes 1 #1 Vote
http://www.nuclearblast.de/static/articles/260/260764.jpg/1000x1000.jpg
https://open.spotify.com/album/1cwDxz56RMKHDmgHHADDQX?si=j17Wrq8yS46osLQg8Bd8dA

The Ruins of Beverast is one of those bands whose every release feels like a deliberate exercise in the unpredictable. Its like a black and doom metal gumball machine. You know in general what you’re going to get, but you won’t fully understand the specific flavor, color, and texture of each release until you’ve got the thing in your possession. Candy analogies aside, Alexander von Meilenwald’s career over the past decade as the creator of and solo performer in The Ruins of Beverast, while varied in tone and sonic direction, has been nothing short of exemplary. From the lo-fi catacombs of Rain Upon the Impure to the doom-laden heaviness of Blood Vaults, each release has painted consistently mesmerizing portraits of death, suffering, and mysticism through a unique amalgamation of black and doom metal. While each release by the band has been unique in comparison to its predecessors, it’s been four years since The Ruins of Beverast released a full-length, and 2016’s puzzling EP Takitum Tootem! was a sonic curveball of epic proportions. Equally championed and reviled by fans, the EP not only added confusion as to which sonic direction the band would take with its latest record, Exuvia, but trepidation in some as to whether it would be any good. If you were worried that The Ruins of Beverast is losing its edge, may your fears be assuaged. This is some premium metal.

This is absolutely brilliant and although it was my #7 I probably put it too low? It sustains its mood wonderfully throughout such intense narratives - menacing and cosmic. Maybe the first TOO LOW afaic