Originally written by Ramar Pittance
I started writing about albums for MetalReview in 2003, and since then my affinity for the genre has waxed and waned, but my appreciation of what this community offers has never wavered. Being a part of a group of people—staff and readers included—who care about music and thinking about music as much as we do here? It is a beautiful thing. All that is just my way of saying this: thanks for having me back and please take my list as nothing more than document from someone who has probably heard way less metal albums than you this year.
What I’m left feeling at the end of the year that saw me diving back into a style of music that’s always been a personal touchstone, is that I really want more time with it. I want to spend two weeks listening to nothing but the new Comorant album, trying to figure out why it’s not working and then having that moment where I get it. Rotten Sound put out a new album this year and I have not listened to it even once! I want to go live inside that thing for a while. I want to listen to albums that have nothing to do with 2011 for a few months. I just want to keep listening.
Here’s what worked.
1. EXHUMED –ALL GUTS, NO GLORY
Churning classic heavy metal and thrash influences through a rusty retro-gore grinder, Exhumed‘s latest is the sort of album that proves an affinity for classic styles doesn’t have to negate a band’s vitality. While Exhumed remains primarily a delivery system for modernized melodic and thrashy gore metal, band leader Matt Harvey’s musical voice is distinct, robust and omnipresent on All Guts, No Glory. That Harvey’s voice can be heard so loud and clear within the context of an album that unabashedly adores a rigidly defined style is a testament to his vision and All Guts, No Glory’s excellence.
2. TWISTED TOWER DIRE – MAKE IT DARK
No tribute to Twisted Tower Dire should start without commemorating the contributions former vocalist Tony Taylor, who died in a motorcycle accident in 2010. Tony was the voice of Twisted Tower Dire during the lean years for classic heavy metal—a style his band wielded with more riveting creativity than most of their peers. We miss him. So, I guess the best thing I can say about Make it Dark is that it is a fitting tribute to Taylor. It doesn’t mourn; it rocks. It rocks and it riffs fucking ceaselessly for the duration. Make it Dark is an album about carving a path, and leaving one behind you. It’s fun, but not flippant. Not unlike Exhumed, Twisted Tower Dire can exist within the confines of a traditional style because they write riffs you haven’t heard before, and play those riffs so you’ll never forget them.
3.KRALLICE – DIOTIMA
The most important thing to say about Krallice is this; I trust them. There’s a noble mathematics behind Diotima‘s imposing edifice and accessing that logic is a minor obsession for Krallicefans. The argument against Krallice since Dimesnional Bleedthrough is that the band’s merely chucking about esoteric piles of sound and daring the listener to call it anything but art. Diotima, though, reveals itself as a masterful exhibition in thematic development and resolution. At its best, this album is a reflection of the overwhelmingly data-rich 21st century experience. Kralliceunspools reams of information, and the acute and willing listener sifts through the ribbons for meaning. Such is life, now.
4.SUBROSA – NO HELP FOR THE MIGHTY ONES
Dan Obstkrieg’s review of No Help for the Mighty Ones is the best piece of critical writing on heavy metal I’ve ever read. It is the reason I began listening to metal with intent for the first time in three years. SubRosa‘s latest is an album blissfully deserving of Dan’s words. No Help‘s an album about the expanse and how we decide to keep putting one foot after another despite being overwhelmed and entirely diminished by it. There is no help, no God, no love—and yet here we remain with miles to go. By juxtaposing melodic electric cello against down-tuned and distorted guitars, SubRosa brings into sharp relief the senses of loss and grief and hope and determination that defines the lonely, wonderful trek we are on
5. DEAFHEAVEN – ROADS TO JUDAH
While Liturgy‘s Aesthethica is a more daring and rightfully more buzzed about experiment on the fringes of American Black Metal, Roads to Judah is just more consistently satisfying. Sounding like a confident merger of City of Caterpillar‘s self titled and Drudkh‘s Blood in Our Wells, Roads to Judah is a cirrus cloud wrapped in razor wire. While bands of this ilk have earned a reputation for neutering black metal’s aggression and coasting of empty artfulness, Deafheaven are able to able to eschew those characterizations by embracing the rich heavy/soft traditions of French and American screamo movements to create something this is both bloodthirsty and genuinely gorgeous.
6. RWAKE – REST
Since If You Walk Before You Crawl, You’ll Crawl Before You Die, Rwake have married spidery melodic guitar interplay with nightmarish sludge metal in the kind of way that makes smoking your own methamphetamine scabs and setting your firstborn’s head on fire seem like a noble undertaking. Rest continues Rwake‘s tradition of preparing for the end whilst grandly embracing the god damnable horror of everything.
7. THE ATLAS MOTH – AN ACHE FOR THE DISTANCE
There’s a few things working in favor of An Ache for the Distance. The guitar tone is perfect, for starters, which means there’s no part of this album where you can disregard what the rhythm section is doing. The riffs matter throughout. Second, this album never lags. There’s not a skip-worthy track. “Coffin Varnish” is about as strong an opening track as you’ll hear on this sort of modern, sludgy yet still melodic and catchy kind of album, but then things never really never slow down. Sometimes heavy metal is pretty elementary, if you’ve got the riffs and melodies you’re going make a great album. The Atlas Moth has those riffs and melodies, and they stack them up just right.
8. PRIMORDIAL – REDEMPTION AT THE PURITAN’S HAND
There’s a time during every Primordial album where I ask myself if A.A. Nemtheanga is really doing it again. Really, he’s still exuding all that pathos—just fucking dying on the wax? Yes. A billion times yes. Primordial have a few moves; they still primarily operate within the same melodically evocative Celtic heavy metal oeuvre. And yet, it never stops working and that’s because there is blood all over everything. This band still has questions to ask, stories to tell, triumphs and failures to share—it still works. As long as that’s the case, Primordial albums will always be required listening.
9. YOB – ATMA
Atma is guitarist/vocalist Mike Scheidt realized; an album that swells and shatters with the man’s artistic consciousness. More directly, Atma is the sound of Mike Scheidt and his guitar ending the world. Just listen to the meteoric cascade of “Prepare the Ground”–which Scheidt brilliantly adorns with trademark disharmonic death squelches–for evidence. Atma is the product of a musician knowing his craft, knowing himself and synthesizing both with once in a lifetime precision.
10. REVOCATION – CHAOS OF FORMS
Dave Davidson said the following to MetalReview back in 2009: “Well, musically we always want to push ourselves. Not in the way…I get so tired of reading press releases from bands that are like, ‘this new album is more extreme, more brutal!’ We’re kind of over the more extreme, more brutal part. We just want to write great records and have them be unique and diverse with something to say.” With Chaos of Forms, Revocation push that ethic forward–not toward a technical endzone, but rather inward in search of voice. This is a fun record, but far from disposable. It’s got character, soul and a lot of times it still really shreds. It’s the album that Revocation were born to make.
11. NIGHTBRINGER – HIEROPHANY OF AN OPEN GRAVE
12. ULCERATE – THE DESTROYERS OF ALL
13. LOSS – DESPOND
14. LEVIATHAN – TRUE TRAITOR, TRUE WHORE
15. MASTODON – THE HUNTER
16. DECEASED – SURREAL OVERDOSE
17. BATILLUS – FURNACE
18.LITURGY – AESTHETHICA
19. WORLD UNDER BLOOD – TACTICAL
20. BLUT AUS NORD – 777: SECT(S)
11 FOR ’11: METAL MIXTAPE
For metal fans, albums are the thing. We’ll forgive a lack anthems in exchange for execution on a broader scale. This is one of our winning characteristics; it denotes probity and a willingness to appreciate art in its proper context. Transpose the metal fans’ mentality to the fight game, and we’d be rooting for the technicians. We’ll take James (Lights Out) Toney, and revel in 12 rounds of masterfully deployed counter-rights.
But only a masochist fails to let himself be captivated by the knockout artist, those bone-throwers who appeal to our more base instincts, which privately yearn for ruin. Here are 11 tracks that dismissed with the formalities.
REVOCATION – “CRADLE ROBBER”
HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE – “THE GRAIN”
EXHUMED – “THROUGH CADAVER EYES”
TWISTED TOWER DIRE – “THE STONE”
NIGHTBRINGER – “LUCIFER TRISMEGISTUS”
SUBROSA – “THE INHERITANCE”
LITURGY – “RETURNER”
BATILLUS – “AND THE WORLD IS AS NIGHT TO THEM”
ALARIC – “ALONE”
PRIMORDIAL – “LAIN WITH THE WOLF”
LEVIATHAN FEAT. RIC FLAIR – “HER CIRCLE IS THE NOOSE”
BONUS TRACK
GHOUL – “METALLICUS EX MORTUS”
