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

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

the taser track for the boris & merzbow record was pretty dreamy but I found the whole thing to be a bit of a slog

haven't heard most of these but the fuck the facts record is the one I'm most interested in from the last couple. interesting that it's 40-ish minutes -- grind double album!

2 more to go tonight then I hand you back to my lovely co-presenter for tomorrow

Turia are certainly anguished!

Just the way I like it.

😎

It is almost like you are racked with Romantic grief at our collective existential fate!

Me? Never!

Blues Pills makes me wish I'd nominated and voted for Wailin Storms (my trve scruples got in the way).

oh is THIS 2020's Reveal

It just might be. The punker side of metal is where it's at.

I decided that Geld weren't QUITE 2020's Reveal in the end, but they were pretty cool

#62

Kaatayra – Só quem viu o relâmpago à sua direita sabe

144 points, 4 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3070884902_10.jpg

Só Quem Viu o Relampago a Sua Direita Sabe is an obvious anomaly in the genre and takes a risk omitting the distortion and replacing it with acoustic guitars. Kaatayra’s two previous albums that were released just last year also had Brazillian-folk influences at the backbone of it but this album takes it to the next level. I was admittedly worried upon reading that this was going full acoustic because this has been attempted a couple of times by other bands and have fallen flat. This choice is anything but a gimmick, enhancing the aesthetic and themes that the band is at its core. It works surprisingly well and sounds quite inherent to the band's already established style. It is a gamble that pays off in more ways than one, as it doesn’t feel like a grand departure from the band’s previous work and it's their most accessible album yet.

Kaatayra’s last album, Nascido Sob o Signo Incivilizatório was vicious and angry. But this album is ‘softer’ and it’s not that way solely because of the obvious; the compositions soar more often utilizing clean vocals in the distant background with most songs materializing into cascading crescendos. The harsh vocals, the blast beats, and overall aggressive song structures are still present and come off as more vengeful rather than malicious. This is a band that revels in the beauty of the colors within a rainforest and the serene tranquility of it all. Picture this: the goddess Gaia appears in a great storm, laying down her thunderous wrath in response to an army that burnt down a large portion of a rainforest, killing most of its inhabitants. Melting the men with the sheer heat of the lightning she strikes them with; the meat and skin falling off their bones so quickly even if they could run away, their own bodily fluids and liquified muscle tendons would plaster them in place. Leaving their phosphorus skeletons left frozen in position, to just disintegrate into dust by the storm’s winds, thus becoming sedimentary nourishment for the forest mixing in with the ashes of the fire, divinely part of something they destroyed. The fire only sparing the young inhabitants of the forest to take up the responsibility of preservation and starting anew.

https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/81144/Kaatayra-Só-Quem-Viu-o-Relâmpago-à-Sua-Direita-Sabe/

Very good album, although I voted for its August follow-up.

This polls equivalent of Sault?

RYM rightly went gaga over Kaatayra last year but there are almost no echoes of this in the metal and/or indie press.

xp precisely!

Although Untitled (Rise) only made it to #70 on RYM.

And Kaatayra is much better (*ducks*).

Oh what the hell I totally forgot to vote for both of these. ;_; The other one takes the sound further though and would have been higher on my ballot. Hope that's represented here!

Need to catch up with this one. I liked their debut a lot when it came out 2 years ago, but haven't checked out any of the 3(!) albums they've released since then.

Finally getting around to the whole Melted Bodies album - Funny Commercials is perhaps the cutest song in the poll rollout so far. Regret sleeping on this, it's so so fun.

Oooh nice, all 4 Kaatayra albums are PWYW on their bandcamp.

Oops, I forgot to add the link when preparing that entry. Here it is:

https://kaatayra.bandcamp.com

#61

Drown – Subaqueous

147 points, 4 votes

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0205873920_10.jpg

https://open.spotify.com/album/3wrEBttssUrLtEhFBaja0A?si=jWmSrmQ7RQ61shNIszzWVA
https://markovsoroka.bandcamp.com/album/subaqueous

Funeral doom was never a genre I willingly embraced or ever truly “got,” but as I grow older I seem to be finding more and more affinity for it. Perhaps that’s because I’m getting closer to picking out caskets for my own funeral, or maybe age has slowed me to the point where I can better appreciate other slow things, like turtles and the US legal system. Whatever the case may be, Subaqueous, the second album by Drown, is helping bring me around on this most niche of genres. The solo product of Markov Soroka (Tchornobog, Aureole), Drown is charting its own unique path, incorporating a great deal of melodic elements to make the heavy, plodding style much more palatable to the casual funeral goer. Yet Subaqueous is a purebred funeral doom album through and through, composed of 2 songs, each running over 20 minutes in length. It has an interesting aquatic theme and actually manages to bring it across in the music. But what really sets Subaqueous apart from genre peers is the inclusion of a wealth of goth and dark wave elements which provide a melodic buoyancy to the heaviness, allowing the listener to appreciate the crushing depths as well as the beauty hidden within the swirling currents.

https://www.angrymetalguy.com/drown-subaqueous-review/

This should be my cup of oceanic tea 100% yet it didn't click somehow.

Lol as if there's just a cover of 'The Rat' on the Melted Bodies album

I liked it but forgot to vote for it

I liked the Subaqueous record, but I was never in the mood to go back to it. Just missed my ballot.

This cracked my top 20. Def my favorite funeral doom thing this year. Hopefully, we'll also get a Tchornobog follow-up one of these days.

Recap as of today:

101. Primitive Man – Immersion

100. Atramentus – Stygian

99. Undergang – Aldrig i livet

98. Dan Weiss/Starebaby – Natural Selection

95 TIE. Worm – Gloomlord

95 TIE. Ulthar – Providence

95 TIE. Vile Creature – Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!

93 TIE. VoidCeremony – Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel

93 TIE. Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough Volume I

92. Lamp of Murmuur – Heir of Ecliptical Romanticism

91. Okkultokrati – La ilden lyse

90. Horisont – Sudden Death

89. Skeletal Remains – The Entombment of Chaos

87 TIE. Spirit Adrift – Enlightened in Eternity

87 TIE. Biesy – Transsatanizm

86. Ripped to Shreds – Luan

85. Cirith Ungol – Forever Black

84. Turia – Degen van licht

82 TIE. Regarde les hommes tomber – Ascension

82 TIE. Angel Morgue – In the Morgue of Angels

81. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Viscerals
80. Khthoniik Cerviiks – Æequiizoiikum
79. Vladislav Delay – Rakka
78. Eternal Rot – Putridarium
76 TIE. Ocrilim – Plvence Abrost R Msitloun
76 TIE. Dola – Dola
75. Blue Öyster Cult – The Symbol Remains
74. Malokarpatan – Krupinské ohne
73. Defeated Sanity – The Sanguinary Impetus
72. Geld – Beyond the Floor
71. Melted Bodies – Enjoy Yourself
70. Envy – The Fallen Crimson
69. Svalbard – When I Die, Will I Get Better?
68. Boris & Merzbow – 2R0I2P0
67. Pyrrhon – Abscess Time
66. Raspberry Bulbs – Before the Age of Mirrors
65. Azusa – Loop of Yesterdays
64. Fuck the Facts – Pleine noirceur
63. Blues Pills – Holy Moly!
62. Kaatayra – Só quem viu o relâmpago à sua direita sabe
61. Drown – Subaqueous

Thanks to Neechy for taking over!

Thanks pom & Neechy, great roll-out so far!

I decided that Geld weren't QUITE 2020's Reveal in the end, but they were pretty cool

― imago, Tuesday, 9 March 2021 21:55 (fifty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

however I am now listening to the last two tracks, which are absolutely where it's at

Yeah, really enjoying the rollout - great work! :)

I really liked the electric Kaatayra album. The idea in this one was interesting and there were some v pretty moments, and ofc I'm all for more nylon-string guitars (I think that's what he used?) in rock and metal, but I think they would require a different approach. It mostly sounds like he played the exact same lines that would normally be played on distorted electric guitars which have much more sustain, harmonic saturation, and presence. There's loads of more accomplished classical guitar ensemble music out there tbh imo, lots of which has prog or metal influences. (Idk about music for classical guitars with metal drums and vocals, admittedly.)

I Have Opinions.

Incidentally, this was a v good classical guitar duo album w a lot of contemporary pieces that were influenced by metal or prog, if anyone's interested: https://www.analekta.com/en/albums/contemporary-music-guitar-duo/

I couldn't be around today so I must bellow TOOOO LOOOOOOW at Khthoniik Cerviiks

Surprised to see Ocrilim on here, I had to listen a bunch of Mick Barr stuff for a RYM project and a lot of it's pretty much inscrutable to me, he has some gems outside of Krallice though (Annwn as Tom Violence mentioned is really good). Haven't heard this one, though.

I lost interest in Boris when it became obvious they weren't going to do any more cheesy J-rock albums

Pyrrhon are more tech-death than mathcore to my ears, I didn't get into this one as much as their previous but they're one of the best "angular" metal bands around.

Kaatayra will doubtless appear again, I'm probably the only one who prefers 'So quem...' to the later one, oh well

That album looks interesting sund4r, I'll check it out at some point!

I listened to one and a half Melted Bodies songs and absolutely did not Enjoy Myself

Oh, cool, ultros. Hope you enjoy.

I Have Opinions.

I Agree With Said Opinions.

And I second Sund4r's repping for Adam Cicchillitti & Steve Cowan.

This Kaatayra is really lovely. Don't think I'd heard this one before.

9:30 into "Stygian III" from the Atramentus album, the album is good but this track is amazing so far. The vocals are a little reminiscent of Tibetan throat singing at moments.

It reminds me a little of the Mournful Congregation album I own and should listen to more often.

Canadian metal rules.