Jan 24, 2018
This set is the conclusion of my Best of 2017 shows. At the end I announce my Best Album of the Year.
Best Black
Metal
NIGHTBRINGER (CO), album -
Terra Damnata
Song: Misrule (0:25-6:29)
— Night Bringer is chilling; guitar
and screeching vocalist hack away at the little humanity you
haven’t killed already.
Runners-Up:
Kafirun (CAN), album –
Eschaton — Vicious, so vicious, and the balance of melody
coupled with the relentless blasts is perfection. A debut album to
boot.
Der Weg Einer Freiheit (Germany),
album - Finisterre — You know how black metal boys do: They
cast a spell with shimmering, and then in this case, their fucking
immense drummer beats your face in. A incredible mix of sparse and
dense, cold and emotional. This is brutal and unrelenting mixed
with heartbreaking gorgeousness, a welcome intensity and meditation
out of my soul.
Wode (UK), album - Servants of the
Countercosmos — Guitar-heavy and explosively energetic with
a hardcore edge, with hella emphasis on riffs and a jaunt into
melody. Those headbanging-worthy fuckin’ riffs. The vocals are a
bit tedious, hence runner-up.
Belus (Brooklyn), album –
Apophenia — Dense, intense, and hella passionate shimmering
black metal with an incredible raspy singer.
Jordablod (Sweden), album - Upon My
Cremation Pyre — Crisp, shimmering mixed with prog and death
over a core of black. When psychedelic ad rock rear its beautiful
head, it isn’t necessarily a respite in the brutality, but pushes
your brain out further. I’m so glad that Finnish band Oranssi
Pazuzu has proven to be an influence, this sound has so many
different facets.
Woe (Brooklyn), album – Hope
Attrition — A blast of fury, relentlessness, with plaintive
melodies. Woe has created a masterpiece of Brooklyn-style metal,
the vocals is one of my favorites, extremely emotive and
escalating, heating your blood.
Best
Darkwave/Goth/Industrial
STATIQBLOOM (Brooklyn), album
- Blue Moon Blood
Song: Black Walks Eternal
(8:15-13:27)
— This is my second year Statiqbloom
wins in this category. Fade Kainer of Batillus is Statiqbloom, a
genius with dark electronics and production. He creates yet another
danceable industrial album, reminiscent of the best of Skinny
Puppy.
Runners-Up:
Clan of Xymox (Netherlands), album -
Days of Black — One of my favorite gothic synthwave bands of
all time, released 80's dark synth and goth perfection with some of
the best vocals of all time. This album will slam you into
nostalgia, that is, if you ever were a goth.
Godflesh (UK), album – Post
Self — Metallic industrial with harsh vocals, seething under
the surface, full on atmospheric, melodic and
rounded.
The following are excellent
goth, synth pop, deathrock, industrial bands that should not be
missed:
3Teeth (LA), album –
shutdown.exe
https://3teeth.bandcamp.com/album/shutdown-exe
Pawns (NYC), album - The
Gallows
https://massmediarecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-gallows
Ritual Veil (Portland), album - Wolf
In The Night
https://ritualveil.bandcamp.com/releases
Night Sins (Philly), album – Dancing
Chrome
https://funeralparty.bandcamp.com/album/dancing-chrome
Virgin in Veil (Finland), album –
Twisted Thrills
https://virgininveil.bandcamp.com/
Orion (Sydney), album - S/T
https://orionsydneyglam.bandcamp.com/releases
Best
Technical Death or Grind
PYRRHON (NY), album - What
Passes for Survival
Song: The Happy Victim's Creed
(14:12-19:14)
— Pyrrhon had to be perfect to win
this category over Buckshot Facelift and Gigan. And they
were.
Runners-Up:
Buckshot Facelift (NY), album - Ulcer
Island — Intelligent, angular grind, wildly different from
song to song. I like that this band is meaty on top of being
technical. They've got a ton of genres represented here, death and
grindcore and hardcore and punk and heavy as fuck fuck. The
absolute highlight of the entire album is the lead singer who is a
monster in the best possible way, and is also from Artificial
Brain.
Sunless (Minneapolis), album –
Urraca — Sunless has the hard, angular head-spinning
transitions, mixed with dissonance, but sprawls deliciously in
atmosphere.
Dying Fetus (MD), album - Wrong One
to Fuck With — You go into battle with Dying Fetus, and
their music is the anthem, goring enemies. They hit you between the
eyes with precision, tight, technical, brutality. The guitar work
is fucking insane, it speaks in tongues, and geezus the breakdowns.
They somehow make this a groove-filled viciousness, how does that
happen. Genius.
Gigan (Chicago), album - Undulating
Waves of Rainbiotic Iridescence — Totally the weirdest album
in the bunch. It is the manifestation of strange brains dreaming.
There is streaming psychedelic pulsating through veins of brutal
and master technical extreme. This is their 4th
album.
Full of Hell (PA/MD), album -
Trumpeting Ecstasy — Full of Hell was my favorite brutal
band to see live last year. They didn’t just hold their own with
Cattle Decapitation and Revocation, they blew me away. The lead
singer is in-fucking-sane.
Best
Psychedelic/Space
DRUG HONKEY (Chicago), album
- Cloak of Skies
Song: Sickening Wasteoid
(19:53-25:48)
— Drug Honkey isn’t your mom’s
psychedelic: Chicago grit, a very dark world of cold mechanical
structures, noise effects, versatile vocals and jazz
sax.
Runners-Up
Ufomammut (Italy), album – 8 —
Ufommamut has become massive in the spacey psychedelic metal genre.
The new album have infiltrated the doom sound, but still retain
their unique fuzzed-out distorted spacey effects. It feels like a
70's acid trip in a hella stellar production.
Ecstatic Vision (Philly), album – Raw
Rock Fury — These guys bring in a lot of 70's psychedelic
groove and love to dissolve into the layers that make up their very
complex compositions.
Best
Hardcore
CONVERGE (MA), album – The
Dusk in Us
Song: The Dusk in Us
(26:33-33:36)
— These guys slaughter on their 9th
album; how the fuck is that possible. Legendary band that brings an
emotional depth that adds yet another facet to their
sound.
Runners-Up:
Foreseen (Finland), album - Grave
Danger — Also a contender for Best Thrash. Finnish band
Foreseen does a crossover style of thrash, blending in the energy
of hardcore into their dirty as hell gritty thrash with tons of
ripping groove that you just tighten your hand into a fist to punch
the air. Blows Iron Reagan's new album out of the water in terms of
crossover perfection.
All Pigs Must Die (MA), album –
Hostage Animal — The ferocious intensity of a hardcore and
crust band that dives headfirst into brutal death metal. Sounds
like they took a good vacation for the last 4 years, pouring out
all their pent-up energy, and adding Trap Them's guitarist. Their
slowest moments were wicked and pulverizing.
Best
Epic/Crushing/Massive
AMENRA (Belgium), album –
Mass VI
Song: Children of the Eye
(34:10-43:10)
— Bold, crushing
devastation.
Runner-Up
Elder (MA), album – Reflections of a
Floating World — Their 4th album that builds tension and
expands to groove and riff, and an eventual expansive dreamy
melodic structure weaved with kraut and psychedelic, filled with
piano and keyboard and vocals.
Best Male
Warm Vocals
PAGAN ALTAR (UK), album – The
Room of Shadows
Song: Dance of the Vampires
(44:21-50:47)
— Pagan Altar are old dudes, around
since 1978, and about 20 years actively making music. The original
singer and guitarist are father and son. In 2014 they were set to
release Never Quite Dead, and then Terry Jones, the singer, died of
cancer. His son and some original members spent time touching up
the album, the sound melancholy and nostalgic, and finally released
it. There is a touch of folk, the vocalist spinning stories with a
lilting vocal. The sound is reminiscent of their sound 40 years
ago, and that is just badass.
Runners-Up
Demon Head (Denmark), album - Thunder
on the Fields — Sexy psychedelic groove, emotional epic
vocals accompanied by moody melodies.
Kadavar (Germany), album - Rough
Times —Won Best Retro/Retro Doom
Best Male
Cold Vocals
BELUS (Brooklyn), album –
Apophenia
Song: Avarice
(51:03-57:07)
— High pitched to rasp to screech to
pure evil to throaty guttural, employing so many creepy styles.
This is a band is one to watch, shimmering and passionate black
metal. The vocalist is also in Woe.
Runners-Up
Full of Hell (PA/MD), album -
Trumpeting Ecstasy — Full of Hell was my favorite brutal
band to see live last year. They didn’t just hold their own with
Cattle Decapitation and Revocation, they blew me away. The lead
singer is in-fucking-sane.
Primitive Man (CO), album –
Caustic — This vocalist is fucking unearthly. Growls and
acidic-toned. This album is just a wall.
Saturday
Album
SPECTRAL VOICE (CO), album -
Visions Of Psychic Dismemberment
Song: Thresholds Beyond
(57:45-1:05:04)
— Saturday album is the album I
played the most at home. Bloodied vocals and the harshness of
death mixed with sweetness and pummeling badassery. I couldn’t help
myself spinning this almost every week.
Runner-Up
Vampire (Sweden), album - With
Primeval Force — Vampire does this incredible job of
capturing a retro style, with bite. Totally Swedish death metal
with melodic mixed with heavy thrash. It is a fucking versatile
album within each song, it hella swings. There is so much to
headbang to here, but also a bit of folk and ballad creating a
fully-rounded and thoughtful album. And they just let loose, this
shit would be wild live. This is their second, more polished album,
after a hiatus of 3 years.
Best Female
Vocals/#1 Album of the Year!!
COUCH SLUT (Brooklyn), album
- Contempt
Song: Company Picnic With Dust Off
(1:05:46-END)
— The lead singer’s bleak angry
screech is weaved with Tormented raw emotional aggro noise; the
emphasis on lyrics perhaps show a woman’s touch: “I will fuck
you”. We are angry, abused and we’re not going to take it.
We’re not going to apologize for the anger. She touches on mental
illness, drug abuse, anger, loss, the spectrum of human emotions
living in such a fucked-up reality. This is my soundtrack, and once
I thought about it, it was easy.
Runner-Up
Satan's Hollow (Chicago), album –
S/T — Debut album with a powerhouse of a female vocalist
leading a rifftastic classic heavy metal band with speed and
power.
Myrkur (Denmark), album –
Serpent — Her voice is ethereal until it's demonic, floating
above dense, and playing with soft, light and dark.
Maggot Heart (Sweden), album - City
Girls — Melodic pop and guitar is at the forefront; Linnea
Olsson’s voice is sharp and sexy croons. This band is just going to
get bigger.
Behind My
Vocals
Alma Mater, Wolfsheim Kein Zurück,
The Frozen Autumn, Page, Human Puppets, Metro Decay, The
Chameleons, Chromagain, Aroma Di Amore