Jan 29, 2020
My Best of 2019 ends here with my #1 album, Witch Trail (Belgium)!
Album
Art
A lot of metal bands chose Mariusz
Lewandowski as their artist this year, and received the exact same
cover. He should not have done that. So I've skipped all of those
bands, even though technically the art is awesome (e.g. Fuming
Mouth).
Ad Patres (FR),
album - A Brief Introduction To Human Experiments: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0625848865_10.jpg
Critic (France),
album - Eveil De L'esprit: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0185422145_10.jpg
Damnation Defaced
(Germany), album - The Devourer: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0317751538_10.jpg
Disentomb (AU),
album - The Decaying Light: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2784689877_10.jpg
Feral (Sweden),
album- Flesh for Funerals Eternal: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3992260695_10.jpg
God Disease
(Finland), album - Drifting Towards Inevitable Death:
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3703540376_10.jpg
Guðveiki (Iceland),
album - Vængför: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1910583303_10.jpg
High on Fire
(Oakland), album - Bat Salad: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1834743777_10.jpg
Hornwood Fell
(Italy), album - Damno Lumina Nocte: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0987484078_10.jpg
Ogarya (France),
album – Inclination: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1079877534_10.jpg
Plaguebringer (CAN),
album - Diabolos: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1020675703_10.jpg
Pulchra Morte (USA),
album - Divina Autem Et Aniles: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0838456446_10.jpg
Relics Of Humanity
(Minsk), album - Obscuration: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4101279720_10.jpg
Seer (CAN), album -
Vol. 6: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1552924366_10.jpg
Skullpture (Chile),
album - Reborn In Decay: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1628348844_10.jpg
Triumvir Foul
(Portland), album - Urine of Abomination: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4279260030_10.jpg
Vader (Poland),
album - Thy Messenger: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0740756423_10.jpg
Vale Of Pnath
(Denver), album - Accursed: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0493728966_10.jpg
Venom Prison (UK),
album – Samsara: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2210657858_10.jpg
Vimur (GA), album -
Triumphant Master of Fates: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1633501463_10.jpg
Evil
Psychedelic Avant Garde
PHOBONOID (Italy), album - La
Caduta di Phobos
Song: CoRot-7b (0:25-5:57)
— Psychedelic takes you on a cerebral
journey: bending, decompressing, compressing. Phobonoid has a
massive album, dense, dystopian, alien and fully
immersive.
Runner Up:
Waste
of Space Orchestra (Finland), album – Syntheosis
— Waste of Space Orchestra builds
upon these peyote dreams of different textures and feels and
movements and effects, rumbling over your brain, erupting in your
brain, pulsating through your brain.
Grindcore
CLOUD RAT (MI), album –
Pollinator
Song: Last Leaf
(7:31-9:57)
— Grindcore pummels raw dissonance
within a short set of time. Cloud Rat creates yet another album
that is a vibrant furious rebellion, poetic and punk. Her vocals
are versatile enough to also front a dark ambient album, ALSO
released last year.
Runners Up:
Full
of hell (MD, PA), album – Weeping Choir
— I saw Full of Hell live, and it
was without a doubt one of the best live shows ever. The vocalist
is a god, just powerful and reining his wrath upon the
peons.
No
One Knows What The Dead Think (NJ), album - s/t
— Thriving New Jersey dynamic
grindcore with expressively insane vocals and brutal tempo. The
album is hella solid.
Goth/Deathrock/Industrial
RITUAL HOWLS (Detroit), album
– Rendered Armor
Song: I Can Hear Your Tears
(10:29-15:21)
— I love this vocalist so much.
Romantic, lush wave with a darker goth, deathrock and industrial
layer.
Runners Up:
Statiqbloom
(Brooklyn), album – Asphyxia
— I know it is really boring for
me to love Statiqbloom every time he releases an album, but he is
incredible. Experimental and strange, badass vocal effects,
nostalgic, all of it rolled into the perfect cold, creepy
industrial package. Statiqbloom has won my “Best of” multiple times
before.
Die
Sektor (GA), album - Death My Darling
— Catchy, melodic industrial and
electronic dance and synth with nods to their forefathers like
KMFDM and Skinny Puppy. Modern streaks of experimental break apart
the dance, keeping the compositions unique. The vocals are very
reminiscent of Ogre.
Hardcore/Crust/Influenced
KNOCKED LOOSE (KY),
album - A Different Shade of Blue
Song: Belleville
(15:53-19:09)
— Kentucky brings the inspirational,
anthemic passion and a lead singer that drives their fans crazy.
There is a metal edge, including a secondary gruff
vocalist.
Runners Up:
Portrayal of
Guilt (Austin), album - Suffering Is A Gift
— 2018’s Best Hardcore with a
sophomoric album that is darker, bleaker and more
chaotic.
Oozing Wound
(Chicago), album - High Anxiety
— This trio has always made me so
fucking happy. Fans of Karp and Big Black, and produced by Steve
Albini, and it shows. Thrashcore, noise, angular, prog-crust with
smokey vocals.
Fuming Mouth
(MA), album - The Grand Descent
— Filthy crust layered death with
down-tuned breakdowns.
Warm Male
Vocals
MAGIC CIRCLE (MA), album -
Departed Souls
Song: Valley Of The Lepers
(19:36-26:40)
— Lead singer is a powerful, groovy
70's FIERCE with an emotional level that was unique.
Runners Up:
Spirit Adrift
(AR), album - Divided by Darkness
Temple of the
Fuzz Witch, album - S/T (stoner)
Cult
Of Luna (Sweden), album – A Dawn to Fear
Bask
(NC), album – III
Blackened
Death (2 Winners!)
XOTH (Seattle), album -
Interdimensional Invocations
Song: Mountain Machines
(27:32-31:20)
— Chomping technical metal and
turbulent tempos with a venom-pitched vocalist.
WORMWITCH (Vancouver), album
- Heaven That Dwells Within
Song: Dancing in the Ashes
(31:53-36:27)
— Fighting for #1 album of the year
and WAY different from Xoth. Unafraid to blend gorgeous guitar
instrumentals and groove to create a vivid texture.
Runners Up:
Vacivus (UK),
album – Annihilism
— Fire-breathing demonic beast
with technical harmonizing guitar monsters, interweaving to create
ripping riffs. The vocalist is a massive spread of guttural and
screech.
Bölzer
(Switzerland), album - Lese Majesty
— Raw animalistic predatory metal
with experiments in tempo creating more chaos.
Haunter (TX),
album - Sacramental Death Qualia
— Technical shards of
dissonant-shaped death that pummel, mastered by one of my favorite
musicians, the dude from Convulsing, hearts.
American
Black Metal (2 Winners!)
VIMUR (GA), album -
Triumphant Master of Fates
Song: Adversarial Impetus Ignition
(37:17-44:47)
— There are black metal forests in
Georgia. The southern side warms this otherwise cold and dramatic
structure to chomping and catchy. A blast.
AORATOS (CO), album - Gods
Without Name
Song: Holy Mother of Terror
(45:43-49:57)
— Witches breathe through the
instruments creating dense weird creepy effects and wicked
forms.
Runners Up:
Vale
(Oakland), album – Burden of Sight
—Raw pummeling aggression, filthy
punk grit, and massive female vocalist.
Yellow Eyes
(NYC), album – Rare Field Ceiling
One of my favorite black metal
bands, Yellow Eyes always release albums that require time to
unpack. Raw American black metal, Yellow Eyes has mind-melding
tempo changes, sinister and buzzing creeping atmosphere, hella
riffs and a desperate vocal that hides within a shroud. It’s dense
spectacularly strange story-telling, providing more insights with
each listen.
Mizmor
(Portland), album – Cairn
Horror upon horrors upon ash upon
death upon dead until you are gone.
Death (2
Winners!)
VALE OF PNATH (Denver), album
– Accursed
Song: Accursed
(50:54-55:34)
— Sinister concoctions of evil,
progressive, horror death in the script of a snake-hissing
vocalist.
BLOOD INCANTATION
(Denver), album - Hidden History of the Human
Race
Song: Slave Species of the Gods
(55:55-1:01:20)
— Guitars build-up within an insane
wall of strange compositions that drop into mesmerizing pools of
psychedelic.
Runners Up:
Soulmass (FL),
album – The Weakness of Virtue
— Crisp production and strangling
gurgling vocals with head churning explosions built within sinister
doom. And the doom really infiltrates, bringing in unique
compositions and time to stretch.
Hath
(NJ), album – Of Rot and Ruin
— Melodic funk and harmonizing
gorgeous guitars were an added texture to neck-chomping tempos and
a scorched vocalist. Stylish font and album cover added
bonus.
Ossuarium
(Portland), Living Tomb
— Portland is the coolest city in
the country. Truly fire and hell death, a vocalist barely breathing
above ground.
Saturday
Album and #1 Album of 2019
WITCH TRAIL (Belgium), album
– S/T
Song: Afloat (1:02:17-END)
— Saturday album is the one I listen
to the most. Witch Trail blends alternative, metal and noise rock,
but what makes it erupt is their vicious singer. It is the
juxtaposition of light and dark without tight
boundaries.
