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

This was my favourite funeral doom album of 2020, so I'm largely sad to see it place so low. I think it's structurally and timbrally less predictable than most of the usual fare, and Philippe Tougas is an eloquent cookie monster.

Also, having briefly lived in their home town Longueuil, a suburb of Montreal, I can attest to the accuracy and authenticity of the feelings expressed therein.

Good album, definitely not quite typical fun-doom, could never get into it that much though unfortunately

Whoa, surprised to see Primitive Man that low. It's my favorite of their albums so far. Meant to check out the Atramentus, but never got around to it.

the longueuil loungeur lads

After witnessing the death of the sun and thus all life on Earth perishing, he’s left with no choice but to travel the frozen lands alone, forcing him to recall painful memories of the loss of those he loved, forever trapped under miles upon miles of ice.

Winter in Quebec, amirite.

Literally so, yes!

It's -10°C out today ffs.

Someday we should poll the albums with Lewandowski covers. This was my 33.

Hah, I'd be up for that.

(This was my #10 btw.)

(xpost my 33 on my ballot, not my 33rd favorite Lewandowski cover)

I'm real hit-or-miss with funeral doom, but this was good. Late addition so it didn't get any higher than, say the Drown record.

A fun test of metal is how good it would sound with the distortion turned off. Primitive Man would be hilarious as plain indie rock. Here beginneth the dissing

Haha, now that's what I'm talking about.

#99
Undergang – Aldrig i livet
94 points, 4 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3030072133_10.jpg

https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/aldrig-i-livet

Back in 2011 when Indhentet Af Døden dropped, Undergang got onto my radar because they were described as a mix of Obituary and Demilich, which is obviously a winning combination. I couldn’t wait to get my grubby mitts on that record, and when I did, they got even grubbier because Undergang plays filthy, sewer-dwelling death metal exclusively. Since new Undergang is our focus and it’s not 3AM in the Big Apple, we’re not leaving the sewer; we’re going into its dirtiest depths and getting grimy with Aldrig i livet instead.

I liked that shorthand description I was given of Undergang nearly one decade ago, but upon reflection it’s somewhat incomplete. Undergang is indeed a celebration of sewage, taking a heaping scoop, throwing it at a wall, and keeping the grossest things which stick. Fans of classic death metal will hear early Obituary (the first two albums), early Autopsy (the first two albums), Rottrevore, and a bit of Symphonies of Sickness. The Finnish influence here comes largely from Abhorrence, as Undergang employ their own version of Vulgar Necrolatry’s peculiar Finnish melodicism to help capture the sound of an unknown…thing slithering by you in the opaque sewage, but also take the odd cue from Demilich here as well. After two increasingly lengthier and doom-focused records following their debut, Undergang released Misantropologi, their shortest LP to date, where they ratcheted the early Carcass influence up to eleven and streamlined their songwriting. It was an interesting approach, but it didn’t really stick to my ribs the way their first two did, but there was certainly potential in that musical direction.

I’ll get right to it: Aldrig i livet actualizes that potential and this new disgusting brew sticks something fierce. Songs are more compellingly composed than anything these guys have put out since their debut, and they’ve essentially recaptured that unbridled creativity from 2011 and brought it into 2020 with their various influences and compositional experiments in the intervening years intact. The anything-goes creative spirit of Mental Funeral is done in marvelous fashion, with “Spontan bakteriel selvantændelse” being a minute long and sounding like Undergang successfully writing something like “Bonesaw” in their own style (and with vocals). “Indtørret” has an “In the Grip of Winter” type break, but what comes after is an extended lead and disgusting vocals which sound like an extension of that indecipherable burbling about forty seconds into “Ruptured in Purulence.” What sounds like a sly reference to Obituary’s “Cause of Death” kicks off “Ufrivillig donation af vitale organer” and Undergang drags it deeper down into the murk via Autopsy, Disma, and Abhorrence. It’s murky, punishing stuff that never gets bogged down in mindless chuggery.

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/undergang-aldrig-i-livet-review/

TOO

FUCKING

LOW

Seriously, I thought this was one of last year's absolute best DM albums.

I would diss Atramentus but it's sounding pretty good. I will always diss DM though

but its death metal

C'mon, you like plenty of DM, even if it comes with extra incongruous toppings.

xp

aw it's true. if it isn't too aimless and wibbly ;)

Atramentus is quite something isn't it

If imago is enjoying a record that is a slave to slow tempos you know it’s the shiznit.

The ending of the first track is some heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy organ-prog shit. It's like the true heir to VDGG or something

Atramentus are the Anton Bruckner of funeral doom and Stygian is their cathedral.

Anyway, I wonder who else voted for the Undergang. Did Fred surreptitiously cast a ballot for the sake of his fellow Danes? I sure hope so.

Next up: an excellent instrumental record that is TOTALLY NOT TRVE METAL!

#98
Dan Weiss/Starebaby – Natural Selection
95 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1400024447_10.jpg

https://danweiss.bandcamp.com/album/natural-selection

Dan Weiss is one of those drummers who could easily make a name for himself simply by being a very good drummer but is far from satisfied stopping there. He’s led ensembles all the way from a duet with guitarist Miles Okazaki to a sixteen-piece band. He’s thrived in straight-ahead jazz, modern jazz and even Indian-influenced jazz — he plays a mean tabla — but in 2018 he took his biggest artistic risk yet, an experimental, electronic/prog-metal turn called Starebaby.

For Starebaby, Weiss put together a murderer’s row of jazz talent: bassist Trevor Dunn (Nels Cline Singers), guitarist Ben Monder (David Bowie’s Blackstar band) and two of the most forward-thinking keyboardists on the scene today: Craig Taborn (Junk Magic) and Matt Mitchell (Snakeoil). Full of fuzz and feedback, rock bass lines, rock drums, a metal guitar and electronic adornments, this isn’t the stuff you wouldn’t expect top shelf jazz musicians to play. However, these are particularly adventurous jazz musicians and even those types like rock ‘n’ roll and other forms of contemporary music.

They do bring their improvisational chops to every composition, but these compositions often don’t follow the structure of either jazz or rock. You don’t have a song figured out in the first two minutes and sometimes, not even in the first five minutes, because even though these songs are meticulously composed one never knows what lurks around the corner

https://jazztimes.com/reviews/albums/dan-weiss-starebaby-natural-selection-pi/

Sund4r, stop checking the Québécois music thread instead of the metal rollout.

lol

Catching up now. Primitive Man and Atramentus were both albums I liked that didn't get past my second ballot cut of 80ish records, but that I am glad to see place. Undergang was somewhere in the 40s on my ballot and probably could have inched higher if I spent more time with it. This Dan Weiss thing is the rare entrant in these rollouts that I have never heard of at all.

As far as vox-free jazz-metal goes, Natural Selection is top notch.

Oh wow lol, glad it got other votes.

(I'm doing something that I can't listen to records while doing so I was waiting on checking this thread.)

This is :( though (and from a jazz publication!)

guitarist Ben Monder (David Bowie’s Blackstar band)

That might be worse than "Wilco sideman Nels Cline".

Fair enough, I just wanted to draw your attention to this as it's clearly your doing. ;)

xp oh lol

locating Trevor Dunn in the Nels Cline singers is the biggest crime of description there imo :P

Moving on, we've got nothing less than a THREE-WAY TIE!

(32 ballots will do that, heh.)

#95 TIE
Worm – Gloomlord
96 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0527932810_10.jpg

https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/worm-gloomlord

With the aptly titled Gloomlord, Worm has morphed into a mixture of various extreme forms of doom. The mark of bands as varied as Disembowelment, Mortuary Drape, Goatlord, Unholy, Disembowelment, and Thergothon all are present here but degraded into a shuddering mess of shambling, pounding rhythms and lurching chunk-action chords. They are as slow as you would expect though far from sparse; this sophomore’s sound is surprisingly busybodied in its songwriting, packed to the brim as a skull overflowing with maggots and running out flesh and innards for them all. Whereas most doom, extreme or not, is content to simply ring out a few chords and play a few woeful melodies then stretch either out ad nauseam, Worm attacks with an actively involved sort of aggression normally reserved for far more high tempo acts.

Drumming in particular plays an unusually prominent role to the extent it’s almost counterpointing the guitar work, answering every staggering step through the muddy depths with crashing cymbal attacks, and rolls tumble and fall forth like flesh sloughing off a reanimated carcass. Very rarely does it play “normal” rhythms, always finding some sort of accent or fill to add an added weightiness to the proceedings, almost answering the riffs whenever it can. While I can’t say this is necessarily incredibly technical drumming, it is by and far the most aggressive instrument on this album which is almost unheard of for any of these styles amalgamated onto this album.

https://toiletovhell.com/worm-gloomlord/

#95 TIE
Ulthar – Providence
96 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3012301573_10.jpg

https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/providence

The work of H.P. Lovecraft looms large within the extreme-metal imagination, and the Oakland trio Ulthar—who take their name from one of the author’s short stories—is far from the first band to fall under its spell. The band’s sophomore LP, Providence, which is named for Lovecraft’s hometown, features album art studded with skulls and plague buboes, resembling one of those cursed Victorian mourning wreaths woven from human hair. Those surface-level clues immediately alert the listener that they’re in for an unsettling ride (and is, artistically, par for the course for Ulthar). There is a certain ghastly air to the proceedings, as though the trio had discovered a nest of eldritch tentacles in the cellar while recording and decided to keep on playing. With Lovecraft himself, the true horror was what a racist, anti-Semitic shitbag he was, but here, that wyrd atmosphere is conjured in good faith, and conducted with blackened grandiosity.

The people involved have decades of experience between them in the study and execution of extremity, from drummer Justin Ennis’s tenure in NYC black metallers Mutilation Rites and current project Void Omnia to vocalist and guitarist Shelby Lermo’s experience with Bay Area death cult Vastum and bassist and vocalist Steve Peacock’s time in off-kilter blasphemers Pale Chalice and Mastery. It is unsurprising that Ulthar is a good band, but Providence is not just a good record, it is a great one, and the reasons for that go far beyond its creators’ resumes.

They couch their devotion to old-school death metal orthodoxy within a modern context; there's no mud, or murk, or self-conscious efforts to sound lo-fi, and the technical aspects are presented plainly, without apology or artifice. Providence allows no time for niceties on its short, brutish opening track, “Churn,” from which “Undying Spear” offers a brief respite before the rippling melody is torn to shreds by an imperious blast. Ulthar’s sound mingles black metal, death metal, doom, and thrash, and they skitter between genres in the leaps of a scale. But Providence owes a particular debt to Finish masters like Demigod, Convulsed, and Demilich, an earlier cohort who innately understood the importance of tempering technical flights with grounded riffs and headbanging tempos.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ulthar-providence/

#95 TIE
Vile Creature – Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
96 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4014851458_10.jpg

https://vilecreature.bandcamp.com/album/glory-glory-apathy-took-helm

A couple of years ago, I saddled myself with the record Cast of Static and Smoke by Ontarian duo Vile Creature. It turned out to be perhaps the most memorable 3.0 I have reviewed these past 4 years. Despite its flaws, it was an ambitious record that thrived on hideous, grimy textures, hypnotic repetition and glacial progression, rather than hooks or energy. A bit over 2 years hence, and its follow-up graces my inbox, with a disturbing, Midsommar-esque cover and featuring the unwieldy title of Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!.

Vile Creature’s sound has remained intact since Cast. From drummer Vic’s hellish opening scream of “WE DIE!” it’s immediately clear the sort of experience he and guitarist KW envision. Glory, Glory is a grimy, nasty, suffocating record. The riffs move at a slow, deliberate, battering clip, millstones grinding your teeth to meal, at a pace too slow to be called energetic but too steady to be called funeralean. They come at us like ocean waves, each movement a rise to a crashing crescendo that washes over us and drowns us. Vic’s drums are tone-setting, the percussion almost melodic against the wall of distorted guitars, accentuating the peaks and valleys of the crushing, churning riffs, while their vocals shriek and wail like an anti-siren, filling the salty air with throat-ripping desperation.

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/vile-creature-glory-glory-apathy-took-helm-review/

Forgot about Ulthar. Good stuff

xxp great Ian Miller cover art for the Ulthar record

I quite liked the Worm, but not enough to vote for it, I'm afraid.

The Ulthar put me off for purely subjective and somewhat indefensible reasons: I'm not a huge fan of metal bands with dual vocalists, it just sounds too music hall-y for my tastes. Def a Me Problem.

I forgot to check out the Vile Creature, so I'll be making up for that pronto.

Oh yay!! The Vile Creature album is lovely. Such mantric intricacy despite the crushing heaviness. I really liked this - my #23.

And that's the first thing I've heard of these so far. That Worm artwork is delicious.

Vile Creature TOO LOW, my #3. Killer record. I missed their livestreamed set around the release of the album, unfortunately.

Listening to it now. Right off the bat, I'm hooked.

Spotify playlist btw https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6BISg6zJeLzumnfHfMfcbG?si=ccns5k-JQbKz96exWkLLKQ

I voted for Undergang, but it was in the bottom half of my ballot. I found it a bit disappointing after Misantropologi, which was one of my favorite albums of 2017. The songs didn't seem to be there for me this time. The Worm, otoh, placed very high in my ballot. One of my favorite discoveries of the nomination/campaigning process. I also voted for Ulthar, again in the lower part of my ballot. Dan Weiss sounds interesting and I've admired many of the musicians in that line-up, but didn't get to it in time to consider voting for it.

Primitive Man album hitting the spot right now

We've got another tie coming up btw. A 'mere' two-way.

Hadn't heard any of the last three, though that Vile Creature is definitely on my list now.

#93 TIE
VoidCeremony – Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel
96 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3337286041_10.jpg

https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/entropic-reflections-continuum-dimensional-unravel

Their name may look unfamiliar to many readers, but some of us have anticipated the arrival of the debut full-length from Voidceremony since the California prog-death four-piece released their Dystheism demo in 2014. Forming from the ashes of their high school band the year before, Voidceremony have put out EPs only up until now. Three of them, in fact, and to witness the band’s growth from one to the next was truly a thing to behold—although nothing compares to the growth spurt they had before recording the album in question. But as the death metal trendscape shifted from death-doom to death-thrash and now to something like brutal death metal, Voidceremony remained dedicated to honing their not-quite-technical-but-definitely-progressive sound into something formidable and memorable.

Reunited with West Coast drummernaut Charlie Koryn, Voidceremony absolutely reign over their contemporaries on this debut. However clunky the title may be, Entropic Reflections Continuum occupies a new level of modern death metal power. From the very first part in opener “Desiccated Whispers,” which hits like a lost Death or Atheist moment, to the slow unraveling of the record’s tightly wound aggression that occurs at the end of closer “Solemn Reflections of the Void,” this album reeks of perfection. Okay, occasionally session bassist Damon Good (Mournful Congregation, StarGazer) goes a little overboard with his fretless soloing, but as always with Voidceremony, no one part gets too much spotlight before it’s quickly pulled back down into the ever-shifting tumult. When you hear the guitar solo at the end of the third track, you’ll be a confirmed believer. This isn’t just Voidceremony at the top of their game; this is the pinnacle of death metal in the year 2020.

https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2020/06/29/album-review-voidceremony-entropic-reflections-continuum-dimensional-unravel/

I kinda don't get Oranssi Pazuzu at all. Nor Elder. I mean, it's fine, but it kinda just sounds like psych to me, whereas there is so many fucked up avant soundscapes elsewhere on the list. Neptunian Maximalism! Passage d'Hiver! 26 minute death metal about a spacefarer or something? Black metal covers of Messiaen? It's amazing, so much of it. And I look forward to delving deeper into the results. Thanks to the poll runners!

My ranked top twenty. Bold didn't place:

Sightless Pit – Grave of a Dog
Feminazgûl – No Dawn for Men
Paysage d'Hiver – Im Wald
Pyrrhon – Abscess Time
Touché Amoré – Lament
Liturgy – Origin of the Alimonies
Imperial Triumphant – Alphaville
Septage - Septic Decadence
Senyawa & Stephen O'Malley – Bima Sakti
Vladislav Delay – Rakka
Cryptic Shift – Visitations from Enceladus
Eternal Champion – Ravening Iron
Sumac – May You Be Held
Orm – Mit blod
Afsky – Ofte jeg drømmer mig død
Fluisteraars – Bloem
Zeal and Ardor – Wake of a Nation
Behold… the Arctopus – Hapeleptic Overtrove
Black Curse – Endless Wound
Pallbearer - Forgotten Days

I want more Danish bands on the list next year! Though I guess none of you like BAEST?

Bæst is good but why didn't you vote for Sunken? :(

Or Chaotian? I suppose Festering Excarnation is technically a compilation, but that didn't stop me.

Because I don't know them... I still just stumble around in this genre.

Fair enough. Do check out Sunken's Livslede at least, I think you'd really enjoy it.

I didn't vote for the Afsky but I thought it was very good btw. I'll look into the Orm – that one slipped under my radar.

The Orm ep has brass! Still waiting for an album.

The bass-player from Afsky released a solo album last month as Udånde. It's called Life of a Purist, and, well, it doesn't exactly invent a new genre. But it's ok.

Thanks for the tip. Solbrud are also going to release a new album a couple of weeks from now.

Oh! Didn't know that! Yay!

150 Nechochwen / Panopticon – Nechochwen / Panopticon
9 Liturgy - Origin of the Alimonies
95 Vile Creature - Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
6 Elder - Omens
182 Body Void / Keeper – Body Void / Keeper
187 Bernelius - Grave Dancer
192 Yuri Gagarin (SWE) – The Outskirts of Reality
30 Mare Cognitum & Spectral Lore – Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine
205 Limalla – ¿Ké futuro? Directo
61 Drown - Subaqueous
29 Victory Over the Sun - A Tessitura of Transfiguration
218 Gareth Davis and Merzbow - Broken Landscapes
50 Sightless Pit - Grave of a Dog
11 Slift - Ummon
80 Khthoniik Cerviiks – Æequiizoiikum
147 Ensiferum - Thalassic
247 Thee Arcadians - Current Events
257 Barishi - Old Smoke
264 Terminal Nation - Holocene Extinction
93 Bell Witch / Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough Vol. I
21 Krallice - Mass Cathexis
8 Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville
234 Serment – Chante, ô flamme de la liberté
7 Paysage d'Hiver – Im Wald
130 Senyawa & Stephen O'Malley – Bima Sakti
307 Bong Wizard - Left Hand Pass
18 Lowrider - Refractions
320 Faron - Interloper
53 Pallbearer - Forgotten Days
332 Modarin – In the Distance…
335 Fuzzriders – Fuzzriders
342 Bring Me the Axe - Bring Me the Axe
100 Atramentus - Stygian
69 Svalbard - When I Die, Will I Get Better?
64 Fuck the Facts - Plene noirceur
363 Adzes - No One Wants to Speak About It
101 Primitive Man - Immersion
32 Couch Slut – Take a Chance on Rock 'n' Roll
207 Stephen O'Malley – Auflösung der Zeit
382 Desolate Entity - Deconstruction
124 Caustic Wound - Death Posture
1 Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi
43 Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou – May Our Chambers Be Full
24 Necrot - Mortal
400 Nawaharjan - Lokabrenna
12 Ulcerate - Stare Into Death and Be Still
191 Escuela Grind - Ppoowweerrvviioolleennccee
38 Boris - No
381 Anaal Nathrakh - Endarkenment
127 Cosmic Putrefaction - The Horizons Towards Which Splendour Withers

I really can't believe nobody else voted for the Nechochwen/Panopticon split, "Rune's Heart" is such an incredible song.

methanietanner as expected, your ballot was the closet to mine of anybody's

including the Ingested album, lol

forgot to bold my list, but at a quick pass, this is the stuff that didn't place in the top 100, I think -

Bog Body / Primitive Warfare – The Gate of Grief / Undulating Torment
Oksennus – Työn orjat sorron yöstä nouskaa
200 Stab Wounds – Piles of Festering Decomposition
Yoth Iria – Under His Sway
Deliquesce – Engineered Frailty
Kryptamok – Verisaarna
Undeath – Lesions of a Different Kind
Thaetas – Shrines to Absurdity
Torture Tomb – Killing to See How It Feels
Denunciation – California Commando
Crushing the Scepter – Echoing Screams of Madness and Delusion
Serration – Shrine of Consciousness
Kommand – Terrorscape
Striges – Verum veterum
Gravesend – Preparations for Human Disposal
Dkharmakhaoz – Proclamation ov the Black Suns
Terrestrial Hospice – Indian Summer Brought Mushroom Clouds
Isengard – Vårjevndøgn
Internal Rot – Grieving Birth
Vassafor – To the Death
Moldé Volhal – Into the Cave of Ordeals…
Aethyrick – Gnosis
Lustre – The Ashes of Light
Exhumation – Eleventh Formulae
GreVlaR – Cloud of Death
Ifernach – The Green Enchanted Forest of the Druid Wizard
Onirik – The Fire Cult Beyond Eternity
Left Cross – Prophecy of Conquest
Chasmdweller – Bacterial Lotus
Herxheim – Incised Arrival
Rat King – Vicious Inhumanity
Vader – Solitude in Madness
Aborted – La grande mascarade
Ventr – Numinous Negativity
Faustian Pact – Outojen tornien varjoissa

gonna rep for a few that really stood out to me...

bog body / undulating torment split:
https://stygianblackhand.bandcamp.com/album/the-gate-of-grief-undulating-torment

the bog body side is just really in my sweet spot. slow and heavy bass/drums duo that is also pretty propulsive. not unlike ride for revenge and has me primed for more from them.

undulating torment side is messy grind, also cool.

oksennus:
https://necrolatryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ty-n-orjat-paholaisten-y-st-nouskaa

nothing like the other oksennus material I've heard, which was more like gorguts. loose and jammy but great vibe. feels a bit like something corrupted might have put out on a split.

200 stab wounds:
https://200stabwounds-maggotstomp.bandcamp.com/album/piles-of-festering-decomposition

this was pretty hyped I thought but only one other person voted for it so... death metal that grooves pretty hard for its brief runtime. "she was already dead" is my fav cut.

crushing the scepter:
https://crushingthescepter.bandcamp.com/album/echoing-screams-of-madness-and-delusion

very sparse and atmospheric, feels a bit like disembowlment gone black metal.

deliquesce:
https://deliquesceau.bandcamp.com/album/engineered-frailty

another short and sweet death metal release. love the twangy bass work. it's like 6mins long, just give it a shot!

kryptamok:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhg2YAHibPU

could mostly be the similarities between the covers but I always think of emperor's nightside eclipse when I play this one. obv, it isn't as good as that but... it's pretty damn good.

I was wondering who else on here was brootal enough to vote for the Ingested, Neanderthal. Were you also the other voter for Putrid Pile perchance?

As I noted wayyyyy upthread so maybe it has yet to get dealt with, I accidentally double-voted for Ulthar and the proof is in the c & p below: if a re-count is in order then I bellow 'mea culpa' hellward in the OSDMiest of manners:

1) Void Rot - Descending Pillars
2) Of Feather and Bone – Sulfuric Disintegration
3) Necrot – Mortal
4) Faceless Burial – Speciation
5) Ocrilim – Plvence Abrost R Msitloun
6) Voidceremony – Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel
7) Shezmu – À travers les lambeaux
8) Ulthar – Providence
9) Undeath – Lesions of a Different Kind
10) Omegavortex – Black Abomination Spawn
11) Ulthar – Providence
12) Black Curse – Endless Wound
13) Cryptic Shift – Visitations from Enceladus
14) Cosmovore – Into the Necrosphere
15) Azath – Through a Warren of Shadow
16) Angel Morgue – In the Morgue of Angels
17) Ceremonial Bloodbath – The Tides of Blood
18) Cosmic Putrefaction – The Horizons Towards Which Splendour Withers
19) Ulcerate – Stare Into Death and Be Still
20) Witches Hammer – Damnation Is My Salvation
21) Coagulate – The Art of Cryptosis
22) Xibalba – Años en infierno
23) Azarath – Saint Desecration
24) Skelethal – Unveiling the Threshold
25) Siege Column – Darkside Legions
26) Nimbifer – Demo II
27) Primitive Man – Immersion
28) Dødskvad – Krønike I
29) Horna – Kuoleman kirjo
30) Afsky – Ofte jeg drømmer mig død

I didn't even know there was a new Oksennus last year. Thanks for the tip. This is why I look forward to ilm metal poll every year.

Xpost I was! Love the Pile!

Thank you pom and Neechy for running the poll! Also thanks to NYCNative for recommending Serpent Omega in one of the threads, it's the best metal album I heard last year.

Yea thx so much to the pollrunners. Lots of good stuff in this thread.

Don't be so afraid of the hardcore-adjacent bands. I'm pretty sure Gulch was my #1.

Thanks folks!

I don't actually dislike hardcore per se, but it helps to set up a few artificial fences lest the process of exploring new music become even more overwhelming.

whoa at the 200 Stab Wounds. get in my ears!!!! \m/

yeah, it's slam, but there are actual riffs instead of "chug 5 power chords really slow for 45 minutes while kids windmill in the pit"

ie like Dying Fetus

(the actual riffs part, not Dying Fetus being the latter. i will shut up)

Yeah, this is great. Thanks for the tip.

only thing I didn't like was the Ruptured in Purulence cover. it's pretty weak and it's one of my favorite Carcass songs and if you aren't gonna go balls out on that song you might as well just not.

but everything else on the EP is dope.

Do you guys want the poll run at the same time next year or earlier?

I feel like waiting until the ilm main polls die down is a good idea, so I'd say roughly the same timeframe.

bold dnp

Sweven – The Eternal Resonance
Hum – Inlet
Slift – Ummon
Behold… the Arctopus – Hapeleptic Overtrove
Touché Amoré – Lament
Gulch – Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress
Bindrune Recordings – OVERGROW TO OVERTHROW
Couch Slut – Take a Chance on Rock 'n' Roll
Vladislav Delay – Rakka
Infant Island – Beneath
Krallice – Mass Cathexis
Stabscotch – Twilight Dawn
Oranssi Pazuzu – Mestarin kynsi
Sightless Pit – Grave of a Dog
Liturgy – Origin of the Alimonies
Boris & Merzbow – 2R0I2P0
Mr. Bungle – The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo
Serpent Column – Endless Detainment
Deafheaven – 10 Years Gone
Thy Catafalque – Naiv
Ocrilim – Plvence Abrost R Msitloun
Plague Organ – Orphan
Black Curse – Endless Wound
Envy – The Fallen Crimson
Triptykon – Requiem (Live at Roadburn 2019)
Imperial Triumphant – Alphaville
Machine Girl – U–Void Synthesizer
殞煞 Vengeful Spectre – 殞煞 Vengeful Spectre
Deftones – Ohms
Serpent Column – Kathodos
Vile Creature – Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!
Skáphe – Skáphe³
Uniform – Shame
Old Man Gloom – Darkness of Being/Light of Meaning
Infant Island – Sepulcher

Sorry to be a pain in the arse but I didn't save my ballot, could someone fish it out the bin and post it please?

just put Sweven on top of my ballot and jiggle the order about a bit

& throw in some more colin marston

there we've rebuilt ultros

Yeah pretty much lol

I dont have access to ballots

Just bumping this to say that I finally got my copies of both #4 (Sweven) and #11 (Slift) this week and they are both absolutely incredible. Wish I'd have gotten to them sooner, they both would have gotten another high vote for sure.