Jan 23, 2019
Best Album
Covers
BLACK FAST
(St. Louis), album - Spectre of Ruin —
https://www.discogs.com/Black-Fast-Spectre-Of-Ruin/release/12239718#images/35108594
FUTURE CORPSE (Melbourne), album - Culture Ruins Everything Around
Me — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1191821332_10.jpg
PARIUS (PA), album - The Eldritch Realm — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3105691492_10.jpg
DEADBIRD (AR), album - III: The Forest Within The Tree — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2734892447_10.jpg
LURK (Finland), album - Fringe — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0798154700_10.jpg
GOURMAND (Kansas City), album - Blossoming from the Grave —
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1479235691_10.jpg
BLACK VIPER (Norway), album - Hellions of Fire — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3156453153_10.jpg
DEATHRITE (Germany), album – Nightmares Reign —
https://www.discogs.com/Deathrite-Nightmares-Reign/release/12773662#images/37027173
ULTHAR (Oakland), album – Cosmovore — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0007232483_10.jpg
CORPSESSED (Finland), album - Impetus of Death — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0079743140_10.jpg
GROSS MISCONDUCT (Vancouver), album – Equinox — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4070700797_10.jpg
CONVULSING (AU), album – Grievous — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2037270330_10.jpg
ANCST (Berlin), album – Abolitionist — https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1912435359_10.jpg
SULPHUR AEON (Germany), album - The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos —
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1151529218_10.jpg
Best
Traditional Black Metal
SPECTRAL WOUND (CAN), album -
Infernal Decadence
Song: Feral Gates Of Flesh
(0:25-5:51)
— Black metal split between Modern
(last week #2 album Convulsing), Traditional and
Melodic/Atmospheric. Spectral Wound stood out against an
unbelievable year of black metal, with a vocalist that stains your
brain.
Runners-Up:
HUMAN SERPENT (Greece), album - For
I,The Misanthropist — They are equipped with an epically
vicious vocalist, which is necessary for a 2-piece. The desperation
lined with the brilliant melancholy was just immense here, and then
punched in was a surprising amount of riffage and groove. Entirely
satisfying. I almost chose this over Spectral Wound. Recorded
2015-16, released January 2018.
ABIGOR (Austria), album - Hollenzwang
- Chronicles of Perdition — If you miss raw, well grab your
balls and listen to the raking grueling sharp jangled black metal
of Abigor. The evil oozes, and isn't that what black metal is all
about. Rasping, snarling, bubbling, demonic gargled
hell.
IMMORTAL (Norway), album - Northern
Chaos Gods — Norwegian black metal, that frosty wind of
high-pitched vocals in a whirlwind of blasts and head-spinning
guitar frenzy.
INEXORUM (MN), album - Lore of the
Lakes — I think one-person bands are really good within
black metal because s/he focuses on the distinction of instruments,
and it doesn't become muddled. Though muddled is also a welcome
style in black metal.
SARGEIST (Finland), album –
Unbound — Sargeist swings from vicious to melodic, bleak,
depressing, emotionally-laden and all of it has the suffocating
style we all know and love about black metal.
Best Pagan or
Folk-infused Metal
WINDFAERER (NJ), album -
Alma
Song: Becoming
(7:39-14:15)
— Another black metal album bubbling
with organic instruments, but somehow manages to fucking rip the
shred of the riff off your butt.
Runners-Up:
HORN, album – Retrograd — This
leans heavily into folk, with a vocalist singing to the heavens, a
chorus behind him.
KALMAH (Finland), album – Palo
— Strings threading through an immense cloud of melodic death, with
viking lord musicians at the helm, super groovy and a blast. They
sweeten their style of muscular power with folk.
PANOPTICON, album - The Scars of Man
on the Once Nameless Wilderness (I and II) — First of all,
this album is massive - 18 story-telling epic songs of acoustic,
folk, under-the-stars romantic diving into the ink of
black.
Best Melodic
or Proggy Death
SULPHUR AEON (Germany), album
- The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos
Song: Thou Shalt Not Speak His Name
(14:53-21:37)
— Another Lovecraft-influenced album
in art and lyric. One of the best death albums of the year,
thundering and haunting and deeply fist-in-the-airable. They won
Best Death in 2015.
Runners-Up:
HORRENDOUS (Philly), album -
Idol — Prog mixed with death; and all of it is super catchy
overall
OCEAN OF GRIEF (Greece), album -
Nightfall's Lament — Majestic melodic with overtly baritone
and masculine vocals is so hard to keep from being cheesy. These
Greeks do melodic to perfection, creating vivid gorgeous
spell-binding stories.
AT THE GATES (Sweden), album- To
Drink from the Night Itself — In the 90's I headbanged to
this band religiously in my car. Their new albums sound a lot like
Slaughter, but why the hell not. Again, with age comes
refinement.
Best
Melodic/Post/Atmospheric/Depressive Black Metal
DISCIPLES OF THE VOID
(Finland), album - S/T
Song: The Heirs Of Wormwood
(22:39-28:59)
— Torment-leaning, anonymous 2-piece
creating symphonic black metal and shriek-infused melody. The duo
creates so much fucking epicness that will defy your preconceived
notions of atmospheric.
Runners-up:
SUMMONING (Vienna), album - With Doom
We Come — A strange, strange mood with ethnic
instrumentation and horns blowing across the frostbitten
land.
KARG, (Austria) album –
Dornenvögel — The vocals are the tool for fierceness in this
band, with the emphasis on organic acoustic guitars strummed in
gorgeous landscapes. Dude is from Harakiri for the
Sky.
OMNIPOTENCE (Vancouver), album –
Praecipitium — A late release in the year, a debut, and
powerful impact. Thrash and riffs mixed with the pure melodic black
modernizes the sound.
AVAST (Norway), album - Mother
Culture — Who knew black metal could be influenced by
shoegaze so successfully.
Best Bay Area
Local Albums
Bay area dude. Fucking bay
area.
THESE BASTARDS (SF), album -
Old and Pissed
Song: Our Prayer
(29:58-32:03)
– I just caught These Bastards, and
they are fucking hilarious as you would expect from old farts
who’ve been around forever. Their wit, technical prowess and
chemistry is something to see live, punchy as fuck
album.
PRIMAL RITE (Oakland),
album - Dirge of Escapism
Song: Antivenom
(32:04-34:15)
— I haven’t seen Primal Rite yet, not
sure yet since I see their name everywhere, opening up for pretty
big acts and they’ve been around for a handful of years. They are
everything you expect from a crossover band: unbelievably catchy
and frenzied. They play with tempos, slowing down unexpectedly,
building upon each other.
Runners-Up:
BRAINOIL (Oakland), album -
Singularity to Extinction — Sludge gods Brainoil were one of
the forefathers of the downtuned thick bass and groove, led by
profoundly deep vocals that made a girlfriend of mine pass out at a
show.
ULTHAR (Oakland), album –
Cosmovore — Oakland debut offers chompy speedy-thrash with
bloody death and evil black.
Best Modern
Death (mixed genre)
VEILBURNER (PA), album - A
Sire To The Ghouls Of Lunacy
Song: Introvertoid
(34:50-42:00)
— Veilburner swallowed Oranssi Pazuzu
and burped out weird and synthy and theatrical within guttural
death and a mix of black. So surprising.
Runners-Up:
RIVERS OF NIHIL (PA), album - Where
Owls Know My Name — This band created one of the best videos
for sure, technical death mixed with organic instrumentation like
saxophone; dynamic, diverse and textured death
OUTRE-TOMBE (Quebec), album -
Nécrovortex — Death and thrash and punk, refreshing a brutal
mix
HISSING (Seattle), album - Permanent
Destitution — Death noise, aggressive, seething, dissonant
insanity with no patterns that somehow makes sense.
Best Modern
Doom (mixed genre)
HOODED MENACE (Finland),
album - Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed
Song: In Eerie Deliverance
(42:58-49:35)
— Unafraid is the doom, and it
swallows whole the death riffs and aggression. Finnish alien brain
keeps ya guessing.
Runners-Up:
Thou (Baton Rouge), album-
Magus — The released their 5th full-length in a flurry of
releases last year, including multiple EPs. Thou is what you would
expect: depressive sludge, ambient, melancholy melodic doom with a
explosive spectrum of vocals that plead not to look at him. Well,
I'm looking.
Khemmis (Denver), album –
Desolation — Khemmis' vocalist soars in front of the sound,
a blend of majestic doom, paced by a thick sludge. It erupts into
catchy melodies, a lot like GypsyHawk, a spinoff of the original
Skeletonwitch.
Deadbird (AR), album - III: The
Forest Within The Tree — When I heard Deadbird nearly 15
years ago, the vocals did me in. Heart-wrenching. The incredible
album art is by John Santos.
Saturday
Album
SLUGDGE (UK), album -
Esoteric Malacology
Song: Slave Goo World
(50:27-56:52)
— An intense dense sweet funny creepy
desolate clean filthy brutal challenging complex album. It is pure
talent, and can fit any mood for any Saturday. Unbelievable from a
duo.
Best Avant
Garde/Experimental/#1 Album
IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT (NY),
album - Vile Luxury
Song: Gotham Luxe
(57:57-END)
— Conceptually capturing all aspects
of NYC - beauty, grit, decay, sophistication with 2 trombones, 2
trumpets, a tuba, bass, and raving lunatic vocalists. As with all
the best albums, you have to listen multiple times and each time is
a different experience.
Runner-Up:
Gura (Belgium), album –
Caligura — Gura is a crazed 2 piece of jazz saxaphone often
following the singer off a ledge, a thick bass and drums that punch
holes into each other, experimental to say the least, you have no
idea where it starts and ends. All of it makes
sense.
