Jan 6, 2021
Best
(Livestream) Shows
Mr Bungle: Unbelievable
Obituary: Savage
Greg Dulli: Gorgeous
Deathgrave: Local Halloween
theatrical fun
Terry Gross: Trippy with a handsome
drummer
Behind my
Vocals:
Moaning (LA), album - Uneasy
Laughter
Fearing (CA), album -
Shadow
Pleasure Policy (Oakland), album -
Forever
Speed/Thrash-Influenced
KVAEN (Sweden), album - The
Funeral Pyre
Revenge by Fire
(0:25-6:40)
— Black metal with epic guitar
solos and truth-laying vocals creating chomping, rifftastic,
scrunch-face metal
HELLRIPPER (Scotland),
album - The Affair of the Poisons
The Affair of the Poisons
(8:47-13:35)
— Sniff up this line of pure
adrenalin that charges, blasts and rips up your evil
soul.
RUNNERS-UP:
Mr. Bungle (SF), album - The
Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny
Warbringer (CA), album - Weapons
of Tomorrow
Havok (Denver), album -
V
Carnosus (Sweden), album - Dogma
of the Deceased
Bütcher (Belgium), album - 666
Goats Carry My Chariot
Midnight (Cleveland), album -
Rebirth by Blasphemy
Folk
HAVUKRUUNU (Finland), album -
Uinuos Syömein Sota
Kunnes Varjot Saa
(14:08-19:02)
— Medieval ethnic Finnish Viking
folk bubbles in a cauldron for drunk warriors. Guitars strum as
witches dance to epic soaring intensity and indulgent guitar
solos.
Grind/Technical/Extreme
ANAAL NATHRAKH (UK), album –
Endarkenment
Libidinous (A Pig with Cocks in Its
Eyes) (19:54-24:07)
— Theatrical, operatic grind
playing with a range of serial killer vocals, riding atop a
mountain of structures. Not your grandfather’s grind.
RUNNERS-UP:
Spectrum of Delusion, album -
Neoconception
Xythlia (MN), album - Immortality
Through Quantum Suicide
Benighted (France), album -
Obscene Repressed
Split
SPECTRAL LORE AND MARE
COGNITUM (Portland, Greece), album - Wanderers: Astrology of the
Nine
Mars (The Warrior)
(24:43-33:10)
— The yin and yang achieved
between rage and peace, meditation and torture, vicious and still.
A thicket of dense sounds part for clear, majestic black metal
moments.
RUNNER-UP:
Krallice/Geryon (NYC), album-
Wolf/Astomatous
Black
Metal
VALDRIN (Ohio), album -
Effigy of Nightmares
Basilisk Of Light
(34:12-39:07)
— A pool of bloody, dense, monstrous
black metal from which no sweetness can emerge.
SNORLAX (AU), album -
II
Encapsulated Apocalypse
(39:38-44:30)
— Towering vocals within a
red-hot, blistering furnace of evil.
RUNNERS-UP:
Cult of Fire (Czech Rep), album -
Moksha
...And Oceans (Finland), album -
Cosmic World Mother
Naglfar (Sweden), album -
Cerecloth
Death
QUESTION (Mexico), album -
Reflections of the Void
A Fate Worse Than Death
(45:17-51:03)
— Thoughtful, moving death with
headbanger riffs. More than you expect.
SKELETAL REMAINS (CA),
album - The Entombment Of Chaos
Synthetic Impulse
(51:35-56:15)
— Old school death impact with
the violent joy of power in every song.
RUNNERS-UP:
Ulthar (CA), album -
Providence
Undergang (Denmark), album -
Aldrig i livet
Faceless Burial (AU), album -
Speciation
Puteraeon (Sweden), album - The
Cthulhian Pulse: Call FromThe Dead City
Melodic
Black
PANZERFAUST (CAN), album -
The Suns of Perdition – Chapter II: Render unto
Eden
The Snare of the Fowler
(57:44-1:07:29)
— Cathedral meditation in a
stormy, richly instrumented, epic black metal.
REGARDE LES HOMMES TOMBER
(France), album - Ascension
Stellar Cross
(1:07:55-1:15:51)
— Brooding, primal, anguished
black metal that flips over into something different.
AFSKY (Denmark), album -
Ascension Ofte Jeg Drømmer Mig Død
Tyende Sang
(1:16:40-1:24:39)
— Cold, shimmering soulful
slicing and soothing, powerful in the melancholy and sweet of
disappearing notes as much as the explosive wall of
sound.
#2 Album: GAEREA
(Portugal), album - Limbo
Null (1:25:19-END)
— Muscular vocals collapsing
into shrieks, guitars propelling each other, and multiple layers of
black metal giving way to death metal bold.
RUNNERS-UP:
Blaze Of Perdition (Poland),
album - The Harrowing of Hearts
Silver Knife (Belgium), album -
Unyielding/Unseeing
Liminal Shroud (CAN), album -
Through the False Narrows