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

What is a DR score?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's the Domain Rating, which is supposed to determine the 'authoritativeness' of a given website.

lol, from their FAQ:

Q: What is this “DR” thing you keep prattling on about?
A: DR stands for dynamic range which is the ratio of the softest to the loudest sounds occurring in a piece of music. Generally speaking, the greater the range, the deeper and more complex the music sounds to the human ear. Inversely, the lower the dynamic range the more everything sounds flat and uniform with little overall variation.

Haha, ok, that's even dumber.

Ha, that makes me curious to read the site.

Angry Steve Hoffman Guy

That was not my Merzbow pick, but I doubt the collab with Gareth Davis is going to place.

Love me some Gareth Davis, especially his Steven R. Smith and Frances-Marie Uitti collabs. Haven't heard the one you mention, however.

#67

Pyrrhon – Abscess Time

133 points, 5 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1103101609_10.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/2KrOZmblJxFecpw8eCmHvU?si=GBVZzmFQSOy-_xwse5ZPdQ
https://pyrrhonband.bandcamp.com/album/abscess-time

As has been stated numerous times by me and others on Echoes and Dust, as well as other recesses of the Internet, extreme metal is in a period of schism and flux, with inventive bands coming and going, establishing brain-melting new sounds, dizzying records and a delicious penchant for wild abandon and experimentation. If artists such as Krallice are leading the way for black metal, Pyrrhon are fearlessly at the frontier of modern death metal, pushing ever forwards, never settling, never compromising.

Abscess Time, Pyrrhon’s fourth album proper, is another landmark in their discography. That endless struggle, alluded to before, needs to be reflected upon. For all the endless invention and willingness to challenge, it would be fair to assume that Pyrrhon would have made missteps in their discography, and so it is no small tribute to the quartet that every single release – album or not – has built upon the foundations of the past. You know where this is going: Abscess Time is their best and most accomplished release to date.

https://echoesanddust.com/2020/06/pyrrhon-abscess-time/

I didn't even bother with this one because mathcore tends to leave me cold but maybe I'm missing out?

I love love that Pyrrhon, it hit the right spot for me. I wasn't a huge fan of the previous one, but this really scratched an itch.

Yeah, I mean, AMG is still a site I hit up pretty frequently, far too many other metal sites feature "reviews" that are just barely reworked PR releases.

AMG comments sections are pretty lively too, especially for the monthly roundups.

I find them to be tone-deaf when it comes to BM and overly enthusiastic towards prog/power/cheesy trad (my biases are showing).

This was my #23. Probably my favorite thing from them so far. Not really mathcore in any appreciable way imho, more just kinda experimental/discordant DM.

Then I'll have to check it out.

#66

Raspberry Bulbs – Before the Age of Mirrors

134 points, 4 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4279676239_10.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/7BSe2EAPUNskkzwCrVfVTp?si=If_5_yu4TYqkJUOjnJZmYg
https://raspberrybulbs.bandcamp.com/album/before-the-age-of-mirrors

Even after a long career making creeping heavy music in projects like Bone Awl and He Who Crushes Teeth, the music that Marco del Rio has made over the past decade as Raspberry Bulbs is uniquely unsettling. First on his own and then with a shifting cast of collaborators, he’s mined the most curdled corners of punk and metal to make both tortured no-fi efforts and more recent full-band recordings that feel cosmically off-balance. His songs are full of riffs that become more nauseating the longer you listen to them. At their best, the songs are autostereograms in reverse: They start out looking like something you’ve encountered before, then dissolve into unparsable, overwhelming noise.

Before the Age of Mirrors is the first Raspberry Bulbs full-length since 2014, but it picks up these threads right where the last, Privacy, left off. Across eight proper tracks and four shorter interludes, del Rio and his band—guitarist Nick Forte and drummer Jim Ning Nong—lead listeners to a world of sharp edges, sudden pitfalls, and hidden dangers. As devotees of raw punk and deathrock, they sometimes channel those familiar shuddering sounds, but there’s something even more sinister in pieces like “They’re After Me,” a burst of paranoid desperation scoured by feedback. As ever, del Rio tops the track with his distinctive vocals—which, scraped by distortion and noise, are the sort of sounds you might hear echoing from behind a dumpster in a David Lynch film. It all sounds wrong, in the most menacing possible way.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/raspberry-bulbs-before-the-age-of-mirrors/

Today is not me-day.

Which is somewhat odd when I think about it because I've always enjoyed the punk classics and when I was a teenager I had little to no interest in metal per se.

You always know what you are going to get from Raspberry Bulbs

I don't know why I waited so long to listen to this, considering how much I enjoyed Privacy. It was a last-minute addition to my ballot. I get some rudimentary art punk vibes from this, maybe something like Swell Maps or Hanatarash.

#65

Azusa – Loop of Yesterdays

135 points, 3 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2604838269_10.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1fn6KVJWB6tA7Crb5QdSwz?si=sOD86lxxS8GeANFzC5QAqw
https://azusaband.bandcamp.com/album/loop-of-yesterdays

Bassist Liam Wilson, formerly of The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Extol luminaries Christer Espevoll (drums) and David Husvik (guitar) had already put Azusa over with prog metal fans. But then you hear Eleni Zafiriadou’s voice, which bridges the gap between old-school screamo and Kate-Bush-style melody, effectively pushing this band to the elite of Solid State Records. It goes without saying that Azusa’s debut, Heavy Yoke enjoyed critical acclaim. Loop of Yesterdays continues that winning streak. This sophomore album elevates Azusa from an interesting one-off to an established force in forward thinking aggressive music.

Loop of Yesterday often manages to be heavier than Heavy Yoke without losing Zafiriadou’s unique singing voice. Opener “Memories of an Old Emotion” crashes with a frenzied assault of technical riffing and feral screaming. Until, that is, ‘90s dream-pop vibes suddenly take over. Azusa not only contrasts these two extremes, but synthesizes them into a true hybridization. It’s why the concussive groove of single “Monument” so easily coexists with its dissonant guitar strains, gothic spoken-word delivery and haunting soundscapes. It’s not about genre crossovers, but about writing good songs.

https://riffmagazine.com/album-reviews/azusa-loop-of-yesterdays/

This absolutely slays

My #8. Sick, sick pop-hardcore-doom ditties. Last two tracks especially beautiful

Another one that slipped under my radar due to insurmountable bias.

(Not really insurmountable.)

Oh wow! This was my #5. The riffs are so proggy and memorable and almost every track comes in so hard. Yeah, Golden Words is a great sampler track if you are not sure whether this is for you.

I also really quite like that Raspberry Bulbs record - it nearly made it on my ballot, but I didn't really return to it after a 2/3s listen. Not as strong as their previous offering imo.

Screamo vox are usually a dealbreaker for me but there's no denying Eleni Zafiriadou is damn good at them.

Some of the heavy bits of this Azusa remind me of Anata, which is about the highest praise I can give any techy metal, but it's def gonna need some revisits for me to get through the genre whiplash. Interesting, to say the least.

Pyrrhon is the first on the list that I actually disliked. I tried to get into it....my reaction was similar to Simon's. I'm into abrasive, dissonant, avantgarde death metal, but this just left me cold.

#64

Fuck the Facts – Pleine noirceur

137 points, 5 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4033250053_10.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/1xYIL1XIodBfdYTGfPCZ4W?si=g-EJX02JQJG1JQ3Uo24HPg
https://fuckthefacts.bandcamp.com/album/pleine-noirceur

Frankly, I’m not the kind of person to go around and brand every living thing as ‘legendary’, as that experience tends to be subjective at best, and the sentiment loses value when thrown around carelessly. On some more niche genres however, that status can be reached so that it doesn’t evade all reason, and on that note, I’m going to dare myself today. Fuck the Facts are a prolific Canadian grindcore unit and, while being loyal to that description, refuse to be limited by it, as they venture outside those bounds quite frequently (although keeping their core sound firmly rooted somewhere within that particular orientation). Even if it sounds cocky, I’m confident that everyone familiar with that genre or its related branches have heard of this band, and most of those people are inclined to agree with me, when I say that Fuck the Facts are legendary.

So what is it exactly that grants this band the access to that partly shady and controversial nook of existence, you may ask? Well, if you would’ve asked that prior to this moment, I could’ve offered you examples from their career – spanning over two decades – during which they haven’t really taken a single misstep, or even talked about their unyielding approach to their own, indisputably unique craft. But when you ask that from me now, on the brink of the release of their new album Pleine Noirceur, I can simply give you twelve damn good reasons why.

Pleine Noirceur is a shiver-inducing, unrelenting aural assault that is as solid as it is vivacious, throwing punches constantly, and most importantly, grooving like a moose. Throughout its 40-ish minute duration, we’re met with rage and a rampart of cacophony, at times mounted by soothing melancholy. The contrasts are great and far apart, but everything’s cohesive and kept together in a seamless fashion. On the album, Fuck the Facts bring in fresh angles and unexpected turns, keeping the listener in their clutches effortlessly throughout, with the individual track lengths fluctuating from 38 seconds to nearly seven minutes. And even though you can pick a single song from here and another one from there for quick relief, Pleine Noirceur is best enjoyed exactly as it is served – as an entirety.

https://everythingisnoise.net/reviews/fuck-the-facts-pleine-noirceur/

yay! Loved this one

Very good album, proof that Ottawa is metal af.

Catching up, just reminding myself how great the Dola album is. Love that spoken word shrieking.

Yeah, they really nail it. Furia's latest LP, which treads similar ground, is put to shame by their less well-known countrymen.

It is possible that I am always confusing Furia and Turia.

Furia = Polish four-piece

Turia = Dutch three-piece

Haha why did I think Fuck the Facts were Torontonian?? I saw them live (in Toronto) in 2013 and they were great but I never kept up. I recall now that one of them even works at a local club.

xp Thank you! I may or may not remember that.

'Box in My Head' is nice, but it is also 'The Greatest Love of All'.

not quite as great as Desire Will Rot imo, but a more than worthy return

"The Greatest Love of All" is "If You Could Read My Mind".

#63

Blues Pills – Holy Moly!

139 points, 4 votes

https://static.metacritic.com/images/products/music/9/a4082760ba275ab8d1dd3170ba497f56.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/5q42nCZVvcbvSLIX2zxvkQ?si=_igiAaAtRgWyjgpsh1-jLA

Sometimes, it’s not about where you are, but where you’re at. Even if, in the case of Swedish retro-rockers Blues Pills, where you are is already rather covetable. To record the follow-up to 2016’s magnificent Lady In Gold – an album which took them to Number One in Germany – Elin Larsson and her be-flared band headed to Närke, far out in the Swedish countryside, where they could freak out in (relative) peace, in their own analogue studio, with no distractions, recorded by guitarist Zack Anderson. But as idyllic as this sounds, on Holy Moly!, Blues Pills are actually miles and decades away from where it was created. This is actually the super-swinging sound of 1960s California, a sunny delight that invokes the golden age of psychedelia, the Playboy Mansion party from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. There’s even a song called California that rivals Red Hot Chili Peppers for invoking their home state’s hot spirit.

What Blues Pills serve up, like The White Stripes or Rival Sons before them, is a perfect transmission of warm rock’n’roll from a time gone by that effortlessly slinks along with natural swagger, without ever feeling studied. The opening stomp of Proud Woman and the fuzzy heft of Low Road immediately open the door on a place where rock’n’roll is full of soul, the riffs are from that sweet spot where the blues was getting faster and louder, and the best occasion in which to have a good time is all of the time.

https://www.kerrang.com/reviews/album-review-blues-pills-holy-moly/

Based on that description, I'm gonna carpe diem the other way.

Yeah, I was about to say. Fantastic artwork though.

Fair, it's an acquired taste, though I have no idea why they'd namecheck the White Stripes, of all bands. Larsson has a killer voice though, which automatically elevates this above lots of the dreck in this vein.

Tbf "If You Could Read My Mind" is the best song ever written and the rest of popular music is trying to catch up (although usually not in as lawsuit-worthy ways as "The Greatest Love of All").xps

the blues pills album is great and I voted for it

I'll give it a shot.

I had never heard about that! I don't think I even know the song. Added to post-metal listening. xp

*after-metal