But nah, time off is great, both from jobs and these types of more fun responsibilities. Did you all enjoy your time off? Did you use it to digest the approximately 450 albums from the previous 12 months held in very high esteem by all the zines and blogs and social media superfans? Of course you did. Otherwise you wouldn’t be ready for 2024, and we all know the turning of a calendar represents a hard reset in all aspects of life and that you’ll definitely stick to those exercise goals and cut out sugary sodas and everything else you promised yourself when you woke up on January 1st feeling like your head had been t-boned by a version of the Mustang from Bullitt souped up with a warp drive.

Regardless of whatever promises we all keep to ourselves, we hold out a ton of hope that bands and artists and movie directors and game makers and the like keep promises to us. We’re a little selfish like that, but we also need things to keep us looking happily forward when there are so many external factors creating what can generously be called a rather palpable sense of constant dread. So we’re spending the week looking forward with bright eyes, hoping not just for long-anticipated new albums from legends (and we mean long-anticipated in the case of one guy and his two bands) but also follow-ups from promising youngsters and everything in between. Part 1 is below, with Part 2 following on Wednesday and the finale on Friday. Please share the albums that have your Spidey Anticipations all lit up as well. There’s gonna be a lot of tunes this year.

Will these albums touch our souls? Are these visions of future dreams come true? Welcome to… 2024. [Zach Duvall]

SLUGDGE – TBD

TBD; Willowtip

So far, the only hope we have of a new Slugdge album coming our way is this very vague tweet (yes, tweet, I will not say xeet or whatever-the-fuck) from their label Willowtip listing “possible 2024 albums.” We were teased with similarly nebulous announcements last year for Slugdge to no avail. We have, however, written about King Diamond in these pieces every year for 37 years, so I think we can let Willowtip slide for one year of false hope.

After a killer run of putting four phenomenal slabs of weird death metal out in five brief years, Slugdge has been mostly silent for another six. That’s too long to go without fresh slug puns in song titles like “Transilvanian Fungus,” “Salters of Madness,” or “Spore Ensemble.” While the slug theme may seem silly on the surface, the music itself is anything but. The duo of Kev Pearson and Matt Moss craft from a bevy of death metal resources, creating a rather unique brand of modern heaviness. They crush, noodle, explore, hook, groove and so much more in their own space cadet way. The transition from the infectious, clean chorus of “The Spectral Burrows” into the absolutely crushing opening of “Slave Goo World” was one of the best moments in death metal in 2018. Moss, in particular, does not get enough credit for how impressively varied his vocals have been, particularly since he even includes the occasional monk-style throat singing.

Since the release of Esoteric Malacology, Slugdge has gone from being a two-man passion project to a full band, having recruited the likes of Matt “Moat” Lowe (Novena, ex-Bleeding Oath) on bass and Alan Cassidy (The Black Dahlia Murder) on drums. It will be interesting to see what influence those additions have on the next release. While we eagerly await our next communication from our slime-ridden overlords, don’t forget to always praise Mollusca! [SPENCER HOTZ]

Quality Confidence Factor: 90%

DEFEATED SANITY – TBD

TBD; Season Of Mist

Welp, 2024 is another presidential election year here in the U, S and A, and with that comes all the madcap cranial train derailments and carelessly hurled gloom grenades a person could ever expect to encounter when political empty-headedness slithers into the spotlight. And hey, what better way to face the literal defeat of all sanity than with a brand new Defeated Sanity! Defeat our insanity even more defeatedly, Defeated Sanity, because we’re all gonna need it. Defeat our sanity to the point where we show up to work one morning wearing nothing but the bottom portion of a gorilla suit. Or, if we feel like Winnie the Poohing our way out of a job, just the top portion of the gorilla suit. Just… please, please, please mince our gray matter with them endless riffs, twists and synaptic fire bombs.

The four years that have passed since 2020’s excellent The Sanguinary Impetus have been… interesting. You know, if you consider suffering grossly regressive biases around nearly every corner amidst a deadly pandemic “interesting.” I have no clue how much of that time has been spent carving out the details for Defeated Sanity album number seven—the band’s first dip with Season of Mist—but the inclusion of a new permanent second guitarist (a fellow named Vaughn Stoffey) makes it seem possible that things could return to heavier pastures? Not that Sanguinary could ever be considered “DS-lite,” but maybe the new record will find some way to force the modern face of the band that underscores an even more sorcerous form of tech to collide with the unmitigated thiccness of Disposal of the Dead. That prospect sounds as wonderful as it does… fatal, no? Which is perfect. One thing we know for sure, though: No matter what path Defeated Sanity ends up taking, chances are very good that the results will be great, because these guys have never actually missed the target.

So, yeah, get in our heads, new Defeated Sanity! And DIE, BRAIN! DIE! [CAPTAIN]

Quality Confidence Factor: BRUTALLY CONFIDENT

ANGEL SWORD – TBD

TBD; Underground Power

With the studio update at the beginning of this past December, it seems as though Finland’s Angel Sword will bring their rough steel cut oats to battle once more in 2024 with as-of-yet untitled third studio album. While recent years have shown an uptick in the general interest around traditional heavy metal, Angel Sword is one of those mighty few who stand apart for me. Hearty, burly, blue collar metal with a heart of gold and a thirst for all the glory hard rockin’ dive bars can bring.

As much as I appreciate the huskier, rebar and concrete production of 2019’s Neon City, I’d love a bit of a return to the warmer, open road tones found on 2016’s Rebels Beyond The Pale. Still though, the band have already proven their strengths at writing infectious and empowering tunes. A little 70s rock, a bit of the pub rock end of the NWOBHM, plenty of classic Nordic metal might ‘n melody go a long way for Angel Sword in crafting albums chock full of clever and earnest anthems regardless of how the music is presented. There’s an emphasis on the character of the music that isn’t so easily replicated–perhaps that’s part of the “X” factor.

Here’s to hoping for a killer album with enough reception for a Hells Heroes 2025 appearance followed by a U.S. tour that will make the tens of people here that can’t put down their prior works absolutely ecstatic. Count me among them, this is a preorder without having heard a note of music.  [RYAN TYSINGER]

Quality Confidence Factor: 1983%

WORMED – TBD

Release date TBD; Label TBD

Wormed has been not-so-quietly doing their cosmo-brutech death thing for over a quarter of a century now, and in all that time has managed… three full lengths. Note that this is not remotely a complaint; all three of those albums ‒ along with the various EPs, demos, and singles ‒ add up to a rather impeccable legacy to this point despite numerous lineup changes (including the tragic death of Krighsu drummer Guillermo Calero). In fact, no two Wormed albums feature the same lineup, and yet they’ve managed to retain their quality, sci-fi vibe, and immense heft (like taking a body splash from Sagittarius A*).

It’s now been nearly eight years since Krighsu and almost five since the Metaportal EP, and our favorite brutal Spaniards should have a new record about done, based on posts they were making last May about hitting the studio in Basque Country. Or as they put it, a “sonic metamorphosis into a celestial array of quantum disharmonies” that will paint “the very fabric of the cosmos.” Seems right. As usual, this album will bring with it some change, as guitarist Daniel “D-Kazar” Valcázar joined the group in 2021, and as usual, there’s little worry that they’re bringing in the perfect guy for the job. Wormed deserves every benefit of the doubt, as they’ve been basically free of mistakes to this point. Bring on the spaghettification. [ZACH DUVALL]

Quality Confidence Factor: 99%

RIOT V – MEAN STREETS

February 16; Atomic Fire

For nearly forty years, Mark Reale guided Riot through a lifetime of line-up changes, label changes, slight stylistic shifts… all the generally turbulent seas of making a living playing in a heavy metal band. When he passed away in January of 2012, Riot was coming off a stellar effort in Immortal Soul, a reunion of the Thundersteel era line-up, and one of the strongest records they’d made in a long time. Reale’s death was a tragedy in so many ways, and one of those was that it seemed like Riot would be lost without his guidance.

But, thank the seal-headed gods of battle, that has not been the case. In Reale’s honor, Riot shifted into Riot V (since that marked the fifth era of the band), substituting vocalist Todd Michael Hall in place of the again-departing Tony Moore, and re-adding drummer Frank Gilchrist to the throne he’d vacated for Thundersteel’s Bobby Jarzombek. Under the guidance of longtime guitarist Mike Flyntz and returning bassist Don van Stavern, Riot didn’t lose a bit of the spark they’d recaptured, releasing two strong efforts in Unleash The Fire and Armor Of Light, both of which hew far closer to Thundersteel’s speedy USPM-leaning side of the Riot sound, and to good result.

It’s been five years since Armor Of Light, but now, once again, Johnny’s back, and I’m excited. If lead single “High Noon” is any indicator, Riot V is still shining on and brightly, with Hall’s soaring vocals and the fire-dancing guitars of Nick Lee and Flyntz propelled by Gilchrist and van Stavern. The world is often a dark place, and the world of heavy metal can just as often be even darker, so bands that put a smile on your face should be cherished, bands like Riot (with or without the V). I’m guessing this will be one of my Feel-Good Albums Of The Year, and I’ll be very happy if that’s the case.

And seriously, how much does that album art rule? Johnny’s got himself a seal-headed ladyfriend… [ANDREW EDMUNDS]

Quality Confidence Factor: 85%

LUNAR CHAMBER – TBD

TBD; 20 Buck Spin (he assumes)

It’s 2024, and I’m sick of being unenlightened. In fact, someone selling mood rings at my local farmer’s market last summer told me I must become more in tune with my spirituality before I die. And I trusted them! At first, I was a little skeptical—mainly because I’m not so sure spirituality is my forte. But as I thought about that advice from my fellow Hoosier, I was reminded of the gnarly Lunar Chamber EP, Shambhallic Vibrations, that dropped just months prior.

The technical, progressive death metal outfit, comprised of Brandon Iacovella, Kyle Walburn, and Thomas Campbell, ascended from the unknown in 2023 thanks to backing from the revered 20 Buck Spin. Unapologetically influenced by bands like Blood Incantation, Chthe’ilist, Demilich, Gorguts, Lykathea Aflame, VoidCeremony, and Atramentus, Lunar Chamber released a work filled with technically crushing riffs, leads, solos, progressive bits, melodies, and a thick fretless bass tone. It was rumored that the EP had been in the works since 2018, but clearly, it didn’t see the light of day until last spring.

Upon its release, the EP was described as “a tale of a journey eastward in search of enlightenment and what may lie beyond,” with themes of self-analysis and, again, attaining enlightenment. And they nailed the atmosphere with the layering, clean guitars, and synths. These dudes created a super sick listening experience that—to this day—drags me back in for more listens. I would be remiss if I did not mention that Iacovella and Walburn and their project, Tómarúm, are responsible for one of my favorite releases from the last few years, the progressive black metal masterpiece Ash in Realms of Stone Icons. Considering that, and the high praises I alluded to, I fully expect the debut full-length album from Lunar
Chamber to be a stellar release. [JOSH HEATH]

Quality Confidence Factor: 95%
Will It Actually Release This Year Confidence Factor: 50%

The post Last Rites Presents: Our Most Anticipated Albums Of 2024, Part 1 appeared first on Last Rites.

* slap-fighting

Will we look back on this list in five years and still feel the same about all the entries? Heavens, no. I mean, of course we will! Probably. Yes, there’s a good chance we will feel the same. Then again… * *

* * we would like to re-do all the decade lists we’ve done prior to the 2010s

Time is fun, funny and capricious that way—something that passed under the radar mostly unnoticed can suddenly reveal itself to be a treasure years down the line, and that’s a beautiful thing. Without question, however, the 100 albums we’ve highlighted in this decade list all mean a great deal to the collective Last Rites team at this frozen moment in time, and their presence draws a pretty clear picture of who we are as a site today: old-school without being too stodgy or singleminded about it, and very appreciative and accepting of progression and variety. These are good traits for a metal site to have, and we will continue to operate under these straightforward guidelines as we move into the future.

That being said, we still have one wee chance to win your grace if any glaring omissions still stick in your craw after perusing the final ten. Next week we’ll really REALLY be finished following a stack of mulligans that participating crew members will offer up as a last ditch effort to save face. We each get one mulligan only, so take a guess as to how difficult that decision was to make. WOE IS US.

Also, we’ll be publishing a handy summary of the results for the sake of tidiness, which is probably something we should have done with previous decade lists as well.

Right, that’s it. Hope you fine folks have enjoyed catching up with the 2010s as much as we have. With a little luck, the population will last long enough for us to consider the next decade list as well. Will Last Rites still be here? Will we change our name again? WILL THE INTERNET STILL EXIST?

Ei! Ei! Oh!! In we go…

NILE – VILE NILOTIC RITES

It is probably too soon to be calling Nile’s Vile Nilotic Rites a “best of the decade.” Especially considering the decade included What Should Not Be Unearthed. But it IS fair to say that Nile’s 2019 output is so great that both At the Gates of Sethu and What Should Not Be Unearthed don’t quite shine like Rites. Why? Rites captures the fire of the aughts for Nile in a way that caught me off guard.

Maybe it’s the new blood in the string department. Maybe it’s Karl Sanders’ feeling like he had something to prove. Maybe it’s just the alignment of the spheres. But Vile Nilotic Rites is a fresh sounding, ferociously executed monster of an album. It pushes the legacy into the new millennium with so much verve and focus it sounds like a debut.

Again, between this and Unearthed, we are really picking nits. And I am of course listening to Rites more at the moment just because it is newer and I am not used to it yet. In ten years will I feel the same? I think I will. Especially if this is the harbinger of Nile conquests to come. [CHRIS SESSIONS]

• Released: November 1, 2019
• Label: Nuclear Blast
• Last Rites review
• Killing cut: “Snake Pit Mating Frenzy”

ELDER – REFLECTIONS OF A FLOATING WORLD

Elder’s been open and honest about their influences from the beginning. You can hear them clearly in the 2008 self-titled debut’s Sleep debt and in the heavy-eyed nods to Kyuss on follow-up Dead Roots Stirring. Reflections of those influences linger on the 2012 EP, but it’s clear by that point that the Boston stoner trio had begun stepping out and, by 2015’s Lore, was eager to explore new spaces with a keen third eye on vaster expanses. The unbridled enthusiasm of that adventurous spirit is evident in the warm, buoyant, energetic sounds of Lore, reaching out to embrace colorful psychedelia with a synesthetic feel for progressive technique, all of it tethered to those heaviest stoner roots and showing clearly that Elder had discovered the truest, most revelatory version of their voice. For that reason, Lore makes a compelling case that it should be Elder’s entry for this essentials list. And yet what Elder did next, on 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World, suggests a surer, wiser mettle. Founder Nick DiSalvo continued to push up against boundaries, but this time with the confidence to open up his own by letting in a wider array of instrumentation and, perhaps more importantly, new players to implement new sounds in filling out his musical vision. The presence of steel guitar, mandolin, theremin, and various other synthesizers (not all of it brand new, but certainly more prominent than ever on Reflections), meant DiSalvo had the means to further Elder’s ever-widening expanse, but his thoughtful arrangement of those elements within the band’s well-defined yet flexible framework is what resulted in commensurate depth and, ultimately, one of the richest, fullest heavy music experiences of the 2010s. [LONE WATIE]

• Released: June 2, 2017
• Label: Stickman Records / Armageddon Shop
• Killing cut: “Staving Off Truth”

INSOMNIUM – WINTER’S GATE

The one-track album: Who actually did it first within the land of the truly heavy that opts to forbid entrance to Jethro Tull? The Melvins with Lysol in 1992? Not really one track, despite what your CD might lead you to believe. In truth, it was probably Swedish extreme, um, “experimentalists” Abruptum and their 1994 release In Umbra Malitiae Ambulabo, in Aeternum in Triumpho Tenebraum, which predates the more popular pick of Edge of Sanity’s Crimson [April 1996] and Sabbat’s The Dwelling [June 1996]. Regardless of who took the plunge first and most successfully, few would argue that opting to go this particular route is a very gutsy move. Music, much like literature, is most commonly delivered in chapters, which gives the architect greater flexibility concerning shifts and turns, and it allows the consumer more room to breathe. This rings doubly true in the modern age, where, despite our fondness of doing nothing all weekend but streaming a show from season one to series finale, human attention spans have shrunk faster than a willy in the Arctic Ocean.

If you do it right, though—well, that’s a whole new ballgame altogether. And friend, Winter’s Gate does it about as right as it’s been done since 1996. At no point during this album’s stately 40-minutes does the concept ever deliver a moment of drag, and at virtually any stage along its storyline the mood is capable of bending from an apex of immaculate majesty into a pensive point of heartening respite with nary a hitch. The stark heaviness right around 7:15? Smashing. The wonderful addition of moog synth around 18:10? Fantastic. The stretched, melodic lead that floats in just before the 22-minute mark? Stunning. Triumphant, thrilling, captivating, brooding, sweeping, soaring, thundering, brilliant—you will crack the lexicon of adjectives when attempting to characterize Winter’s Gate, so it’s easiest to simply boil it down to one single descriptor in an effort to get to the point: Magnificent. Winter’s Gate is magnificent, and playing a card this strong seven albums into their career proves that Insomnium aren’t even close to reaching the twilight years. [CAPTAIN]

• Released: September 23, 2016
• Label: Century Media
• Last Rites review
• Killing cut: uhhh, “Winter’s Gate”

KRALLICE – YEARS PAST MATTER

The two Krallice albums prior to Years Past Matter showed the band increasingly spreading themselves thin; both were overlong and a touch undercooked, resulting in exhausting listens. While Years Past Matter didn’t so much reinvent the wheel—it still featured over an hour of expansive, spiraling, and technical black-ish progressive metal that felt closer in spirit to the West Coast thread than their native New York—it did show a massive return to form by both upping the riffcraft (with a touch of death metal at times) and greatly refocusing the long game nature of the songwriting with more concrete goals in mind. There might be a thoroughly dizzying path to get there, of course, as every track takes about 3,000 winding paths that intersect and weave in various ways, but even when an idea is introduced and (seemingly) quickly abandoned, it is always with a point. Typically, that idea comes up again later with greater purpose as a song is charging towards an intense and unforgettable conclusion. The album somehow stuffed in more ideas than its immediate predecessors but felt much quicker and efficient. Tight songwriting is a magical thing.

Years Past Matter reaffirmed Krallice’s status as one of the most daring and wild bands in the blackened and progressive realms. It was both the culmination of their first era and start of their second, in which they have continued to explore their particular form of blackened skronk in varying and unpredictable ways. [ZACH DUVALL]

• Released: August 25, 2012
• Label: Gilead Media / Avantgarde Music
• Last Rites review
• Killing cut: “IIIIIIIII”

JUDAS PRIEST – FIREPOWER

What is it they say about old dogs and new tricks? They can’t learn them? Well, why would they need to, if the old tricks still work perfectly?

One of the founding fathers of this beast called heavy metal, Judas Priest has guided the art form through five decades now, releasing an impressive run of classic records along the way. The Priest’s previous album, Redeemer Of Souls, was touted as a huge return to form, and stylistically, it was, even if they tried to return to all forms of their career at once, and the results were wickedly uneven.

Like every album since their reunion with scream-god Rob Halford, Redeemer was hailed as the band’s “best since Painkiller,” and maybe it was, but its reign didn’t last long, because it’s a ghostly pale in comparison to Firepower. This one is everything that one was declared to be: a true return to fiery form, the band’s undeniable best in over two decades, and most importantly, a great damned heavy metal album. It’s 100% Judas Priest classic metal, filled with driving riffs and piercing screams and epic chorus hooks and fiery solos and a crackling electricity from start to finish. Produced by Andy Sneap, Firepower sounds exactly as big and hits exactly as hard as a Judas Priest record should, through smashing tracks like “Lightning Strikes” and “Spectre” and the Sabbath-y stomp of “Children Of The Sun.”

New tricks? Ha. When you can rock like this, nearly fifty years into a first-tier career, why bother…  If it ain’t broke and all… [ANDREW EDMUNDS]

• Released: March 9, 2018
• Label: Columbia Records
• Last Rites review
• Killing cut: “Lightning Strike”

SLUGDGE – ESOTERIC MALACOLOGY

“Our first duty is to have fun.” — Matt Moss, ½ the main creative force behind Slugdge, and a wonderful human with his priorities straight. He and Kev Pearson didn’t choose the Slug Life, the Slug Life chose them. It also chose The Black Dahlia Murder’s drummer, Alan Cassidy, and nimble-fingered bassist Matt “Moat” Lowe. The Ooze has excellent taste, and Mucus Metal has a standard bearer. Let Esoteric Malacology be a beacon of fun yet serious musicianship amidst the dour trve masses.

Friends, this slimy slab of progressive, technical, deathy, blackened, heavy fucking metal will put a smile on your face. Irreverent lyrics, just chock-damn-full of puns, are growled and howled and triumphantly sung. Think of the cleans from Anaal Nathrakh or Akercocke (to stick to the As in our British extreme metal rolodex), but produced by a dapper slug in an ascot. Hell, you might as well imagine the entire band as fancy gastropods, blasting and shredding away for just under an hour of essential malacological music. There are hooks all over the place, from the massive chorus of “Slave Goo World” to the hypnotic, ever rising bass of “Crop Killer” to the omnipresent bitchin’ riffage. Hail Mollusca! [FETUSGHOST]

• Released: March 2, 2018
• Label: Willowtip Records
• Last Rites “review”
• Killing cut: “The Spectral Burrows”

NAPALM DEATH – APEX PREDATOR – EASY MEAT

It’s Napalm Death. The unfuckwithable Napalm Death. The decades of consistency, eternal hot streak Napalm Death. The always eloquently angry and distinctive Napalm Death. The Godfathers of Grindcore. We could (perhaps should) have selected Utilitarian. But what’s important, and undeniable, is that Napalm Death is essential. Like with a few other impossible, King Solomon baby-splitting decisions from legendary bands, there really is not a wrong answer, just a preference for one incredible album over another.

We Last (w)Riters love Napalm Death. Check out these glowing reviews, and know that time has only strengthened our feelings. Last year, Mr. Duvall dove back into their 1992 release, Utopia Banished with fanboy joy. Behind the scenes we quickly devoured their EP from February, which sadly only had one original track, but we eagerly await the potential for a new album to bring some joy to this shitty, shitty (seriously shitty) year.

Let’s all just take a moment to thank Napalm Death for being so unerringly awesome. As bold statements go, this one is no hyperbole: “Napalm Death may very well be the greatest extreme metal band of our time, perhaps of all time.” Enough said, now get to ragin’ with Napalm Death. [FETUSGHOST]

• Released: January 27, 2015
• Label: Century Media
• Last Rites review
• Killing cut: “Cesspits”

OVERKILL – IRONBOUND

Did you really think I could let this list go by without mentioning Overkill?

My Overkill fanboyism is well known, and Ironbound is yet another in a long string of reasons why. Coming off a fifteen-year flirtation with groove metal — none of which was bad, of course — Overkill re-commits fully to their thrash metal past and drops an absolute barn-burner of a record, handily their best since their first classic run ended with Horrorscope in the early 1990s.

From the introductory “The Green And Black” through fifty-seven minutes to “The SRC,” Ironbound is the sound of an Overkill re-ignited, full of even more supersonic hate and even more fast-junkie piss and vinegar. It’s the sound of a band that can’t stop and won’t stop, driven to the redline by the intensity of then-new drummer Ron Lipnicki and voiced, as always, by the supernaturally energetic Blitz Ellsworth. Ol’ Blitz is one of the metal’s most endearing and charismatic frontmen, regardless of your opinion of his gravelly searing snarl, and he’s as manic now as ever, screaming his way through the likes of “Bring Me The Night” and the title track and the relentless “In Vain.” From tip to toe, Ironbound is, simply stated and in eight words, the sound of the second coming of Overkill…

Since the turn of the millennium, no other first-wave thrashers have released anything that matches the strength of Overkill’s post-2010 run, and it all (re-)started here. Long live the Green & Black… [ANDREW EDMUNDS]

• Released: January 29, 2010
• Label: Nuclear Blast
• Last Rites review
• Killing cut: “The Green and Black”

MESHUGGAH – KOLOSS

Having taken certain aspects of their sound to their logical extreme on Catch Thirtythree, it was almost anyone’s guess where Sweden’s heaviest mathematicians in Meshuggah would go from there. If obZen saw the band pulling back on some of the headiest aspects of that progression in favor of reamping the brutality, Koloss crushes with the weight of ten thousand collapsing stars while also sporting the most organic sound on a Meshuggah album since Destroy Erase Improve. Not only is Koloss a stunning monument to the endless shades of nuance in this often misunderstood band’s arsenal, and not only is it a lock for one of the most essential albums of its decade, it also might be the band’s finest hour, full-stop.

As it thwarmps in (that’s a technical term) with “I Am Colossus,” all the hallmarks of Meshuggah’s inimitable style are in place: cripplingly heavy bass, cross meters in the drums and guitars that always sound almost normal, solos that sound like a drunk bumblebee mishearing a warped big band 78 from two rooms over. Business, as they say, as usual. But what sets Koloss apart is just how focused, relentless, and unforgettable its songs are, and how it crashes and swerves through the pulpy bits of your brain like something nearly human. 

By Meshuggah standards, “The Demon’s Name is Surveillance” is almost a straight-ahead, windmilling mosh piece, although whether it’s written in 3/4, a very fast 9/8, a very slow 6/8 or some other mutated meter is up to the listener who wishes to grow less and less sane and sure the closer she reaches for the core. Across the wildly engrossing 54 minutes of Koloss, the hits just keep on coming, from the roiling slow burn of “Behind the Sun” to the deadly, rubbery bounce of “Demiurge,” from the eerily spacious “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion” to the frantic pounding of “The Hurt that Finds You First,” and on and on. Special mention, though, goes to “Do Not Look Down,” which is without question the funkiest, sexiest song of Meshuggah’s career, built on a dangerously destructive sinuous riff that changes shape just as soon as you think you’ve traced it. It is an utterly perfect song on a damn-near perfect album, and occasionally it makes me almost furious at just how good it is.

However bad you think Meshuggah is, you’re wrong; however good you think they are, they’re better. All hail the new flesh. [DAN OBSTKRIEG]

• Released: March 23, 2012
• Label: Nuclear Blast
• Last Rites review
• Killing cut: “Do Not Look Down”

IHSAHN – AFTER

In my humble opinion you’d be hard pressed to find an album in the last decade, in whatever genre, that is better than this one. A true masterpiece in an unending career of soaring highs After successfully rebirthed what would be Ihsahn’s signature sound. The bright guitar tone combined with buzzsaw-like riffs and blistering lead lines lead to an exceedingly fast experience touching on experimental, progressive and theoretically jazzy song structures. With more than a few head chucks and guttural explosions thrown in After doesn’t forget to unleash the beast of black metal while simultaneously devouring your mind and soul with pure, unadulterated talent nearly unmatched in any of the sub-genres of this great cataclysm we call heavy metal. Ihsahn uses his harsh growls to frighten while his clean vocals are truly romantic inviting warm intimacy not common among metal. And yes, we can use this album as the shining example of why saxophone will forever have a home in heavy metal. More than that, Ihsahn deftly composes, produces and executes eight tracks (fifty-three minutes if you’re counting) of metal that can go up against heavy-hitters from any period in music history. Listen to this album in the mornings and in the afternoons and those evenings as the sun sinks below the horizon. Do so for the rest of your life as this timeless masterpiece will never go out of style (even if time machines are invented and people can travel backwards). There are many ways to say it but I will put it as simply as I know how: I absolutely love this album. [MANNY-O-WAR]

• Released: January 26, 2010
• Label: Candlelight Records
• Last Rites Review
• Killing cut: “After”

«»

The post 10s Essentials – Volume Ten appeared first on Last Rites.

Last year at this time I was angry. Constant anger starts to numb the spirit. You feel tired rather than restless. So you stop paying attention, focus back in on the minute garbage that makes up individual human life.

This morning I read that a 7 year old migrant girl died of dehydration while in our custody.

There are a lot of ways to die, and almost none of them are easy. But dehydration is something we may not really think about as being an awful way to go. Cancer, fire, drawn and quartered… Dehydration? Doesn’t feel like it stacks up.

Ten years ago I was in an emergency room with a searing, unmanageable pain in my lower gut. The doctors didn’t know what was causing it, so they ran batteries of tests. I went in the ER at around 11:00 pm and the testing went from then to about 5:30 in the morning.

During this time I was not given any medication. The doctors were not sure how it would affect whatever I was suffering from. And if they needed to do exploratory surgery, I needed to be drug free for the anesthesia. I also needed an empty stomach. No food, no pills…no water.

Funny thing about excruciating pain. Dealing with it uses up resources very quickly. You sweat out and respirate a LOT of water in the first little while. You get very thirsty. If you can have a sip of water, no problem. If you can’t, your body gets in a drag race with agony. Which will make you more miserable: the insanely painful gut issue or the desperation for water?

Every time I thought to myself, “this pain cannot get worse. There is no worse to get,” the pain increased. It was astonishing. Fascinating. It hurt so much I kind of detached, mentally, like I was Spocking my own demise.

For all that, the thing that was consistently more important to me, suffering wise, was that I was thirsty. I was so fucking thirsty. I could detach from the pain, but not from the thirst. The thirst was always raking me, slicing me, scorching my throat. If you would have offered me morphine or water, but not both, at that moment I would gladly and greedily have taken the water. The thirst was a madness.

This lasted all of five hours. I was never in any danger of dying from dehydration. Not even close. So my imagination can only touch what the seven year old little girl went through. She died of something that made me more desperate than diverticulitis.

In my hands. She died in my hands.

See, I am the government. In a democracy we are the government. Every shitty thing the government does, I do. And I can think of few shittier things than forcing a seven. Year. OLD. Human being to dehydrate. TO DEATH.

I am angry again.

…

“Hey, Chris?”

Yeah?

“Could you, you know, just write the fucking list now?”

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I could, sure.

“OK, so will you? Now?”

Hhhhhhhhhhhyyyeaaahh I guess. I just get so…

“We don’t care, Chris. We just want to see your picks, OK?”

OK, OK. I am just a pick object, to you. A thing that picks records. Some trollop reviewer, dancing in the window in the red light district of the heav…

“THE LIST…please. Just the list.”

I am more than just a mind, goddammit! I have urges! I have a…

“Chris, that joke will never be funny.”

Fuck it won’t.

“It won’t. Drop it.”

You know, for a slightly different version of me, you are a fucking asshole.

“I’m not different at all.”

RECORDS THAT WERE JUST SLIGHTLY LESS FANTASTIC: 20-11

20. Outre-Tombe – Nécrovortex

Wow. Ugly, young Bolt Thrower worship is what I didn’t know I needed, but I needed.

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19. Sodom – Partisan EP

Two new songs from Sodom is like two new songs from Sodom. Which is to say, buy it.

• Last Rites review
• Spotify

18. Deceased – Ghostly White

GHOSTS? THERE ARE GHOSTS!!?? Get the hell out of the house! No, don’t try to get to the bottom of it. JUST GET OUT!!!

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• Bandcamp

17. Aseitas – Self Titled

What, you thought I wasn’t going to find a weird, recklessly heavy album to put on my list? Joke’s on you. This is blackdoomdeathpost with enough sheer gravity to suck the universe back into itself.

• Bandcamp

16. Judas Priest – Firepower

Any time a band with as many miles as Judas Priest puts out a record as fresh and energetic as Firepower, you idiots better give them your money.

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15. Needful Things – Deception

A destroying release from a veteran Czech grind crew, this will fill your weeping, gaping Nasum void easily…well, not easily. Nothing about this record is easily. But it hits the spot.

• Bandcamp

14. Obscura – Diluvium

Giving Horrendous a run for their money in both virtuosity and songcraft, this record has a slightly thrashier feel to it that helps it stand out in the crowd.

• Bandcamp

13. Moss upon the Skull – In Vengeful Reverence

So many of this year’s best records pay homage to death metals of yore. MutS does so with an almost insane amount of technical death prowess and inventive styling. Channeling the gooiest moments of greats like Iniquity, this is a keep-an-eye-on-it band.

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12. The Ocean – Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

A delight for a zoology major like me, just cuz. A story told by geological ages of life via prog and death metal? Coulda’ just called it “The Chris Sessions Explosion”. And, like the Cambrian, there are many fascinating results.

• Bandcamp

11. Terrorizer – Caustic Attack

Pete Sandoval belongs grinding. He belonged deathing, but he belongs grinding. Pete Sandoval just belongs.

• Spotify

RECORDS THAT WERE FANTASTIC 10-1

10. Horrendous – Idol

There is nothing new or revolutionary about technically magnificent musicianship in death metal. But Horrendous writes honest to fuck great music, both on a technical and a purely gut level. They play with ferocity and sublime deftness, by turns. Nothing is wasted, nothing is just noodling. It’s virtuosity with a vision. It drops your jaw, but it also feeds your id.

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9. Hooded Menace – Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed

Not quite doom, not quite death, Hooded Menace will be what they are without your labels, thanks. A step up from previous efforts, this record could almost be NWOBHM or even trad except that it wants to be whatever the hell it wants to be too much to worry about it. But whatever it wants to be, or you want it to be, it requires playing. A lot. If you are smart you will do just that.

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8. Extremity – Coffin Birth

As you will see, I found a lot of value in younger acts this year—but just as much in stalwarts. Extremity is a band of individual stalwarts in a young band, and that means I got the best of both worlds. A supergroup without being a supergroups, playing straight up ruthless death metal. It is expected of the musicians in question, but no less satisfying for that.

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7. Tomb Mold – Manor of Infinite Forms

As with Binah below, Tomb Mold is a newish band playing familiar death metal, but with a lot of value added in the form of songcraft. The unfolding riffs and battlefield drums alone are head turning, but the way they combine into masterful compositions, flipping and flaying, and always returning to some of the best straight head banging chugs you can find, make this a keeper.

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6. Binah – Phobiate

You will always get me racing with the Boss HM 2 sound, but Binah didn’t let that sound do all the work. They wrote SONGS for the sound to drape across. Moving and disturbing, crafty and layered, these songs stand on their own. The Boss sound is just the skin of the beast.

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5. Cripple Bastards – La Fine Cresca Da Dentro

So many grinders in my year’s end is a fine sign that the year in metal has been very good to me. Cripple Bastards write songs in a language I do not understand, but they make music in a language anyone with a temper can understand. The songs could be about cute little puppies, delightful cakes and how sweet little children are, as long as they sound like a fistfight in a street riot. And hooks! Grind is often full of hooks, but Cripple Bastards are hookier than your creepy uncle’s fishing cap.

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4. Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology

Somewhere, somehow, invertebrate biology became as metal a topic as zombies, war and beer. Which, hey—slimy, undulating amorphous horrors are ripe for the squishing, either receiving or delivering. Slugdge does more than just make a metal record about mollusks, though. They create a metal opera about them. And with some of the most compelling melodies, whatever-is-called-for vocals and gut turning riffs you are likely to hear. It’s absurd and delightful and disgusting. What the fuck else do you need?

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3. Abysmal Torment – The Misanthrope

Death Metal dominates my ears. I am that guy. It’s not going to change. I love it love it love it. And there is almost nothing in the universe I love more than when a death metal band makes a perfect record. Equal parts riff, emotion, hooks and depth, Abysmal Torment delivers on The Misanthrope. A brutal, veteran death band upping their game is not new, but these folks have not just upped, but Michael Jordaned their game.

Also, huge props for getting a picture of my head for their album cover.

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2. Hate Eternal – Upon Desolate Sands

Last year one of my top listens was Morbid Angel’s latest. It’s fitting that this year an artist I first heard on a classic Morbid Angel record should be at the top of my list. Eric Rutan started off Hate Eternal with a bit of a one-note problem. His songs didn’t stand apart or keep the attention. Song craft is a craft, though, and he and his fellows have crafted their craft into a monumental record. Vicious, demanding, and mesmerizing, Hate Eternal has become as crucial as its elder.

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1. Axis of Despair – Contempt for Man

In a year where death metal essentially dominated my playlist, it comes down to a grind band to break form. Axis of Despair was in my ears more than the rest, though, because it did what a great grind band should do: get to the fucking point, stay on fucking point and drop it when you finish. Grind is evolving, and there are a lot of exciting and disgusting acts out there, but for this year this band played it the way I needed to hear it: early aughts and filled with guts.

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Special Year End Mentions

Failure, as always, cannot release a bad record. In the Future Your Body Will Be the Furthest Thing from Your Mind  is still gestating in my brain, but history teaches that Failure titrates itself into your heart. The albums that stay with me are often the albums that, though I could not put down, I could not fully appreciate…at first.

Pig Destroyer did not release one of the best albums of the year. Or of their career. But the metal community either loved or hated this thing, which seems oddly hilarious. Head Cage is not nearly as bad as some people think, but not nearly as good as some others think. Maybe that is the real problem?

The Haunting of Hill House was not metal, but Deceased likes ghosts, and THoHH had ghosts. It also had two of the best episodes of television in the last several years. In fact, episode five was a perfect short story, told perfectly.

Regarding Cannibal Corpse guitarist Pat O’Brien’s recent troubles: sometimes we forget that metal people are people. Brains are exceedingly complex collections of neurons. Complexity can always fall prey to complication. I have watched my own brain steer me into ideas and behaviors that I think are fucking nuts. I will never come down on or speak lightly of anyone who’s mind seems to betray them. I hope he and anyone else struggling with mental illness comes out of it with peace and clarity.

Finally, a hearty “hail!” and horns in the air to the metal makers we lost this year. Gone, never forgotten, and leaving us richer: a hero’s end. 2018 RIPs

Extra Credit Essay

CHAPTER THE FIRST: Great Is Human Hubris—Greater Still Is Human Fellowship

I had a great idea.

All of my ideas are great, of course, but this idea was greater than the others: I would write an article about the lack of black people in metal. Where are they? Why do we see so few in the crowds and hear so few in our headphones? A few are represented—members of Suffocation, Living Color, the Detroit seminal metal/punk Death—but so very few. The ChicanX, Cetral and South American communities are well represented, and those of Middle and East Asian descent. The numbers of diverse peoples I see in metal have always seemed to mirror the general population—but not for black Americans. Do we the fans make POC feel unwelcome? Do they uniformly not enjoy the genre? Is it purely cultural or are there other, more esoteric reasons?

I did not write the article. I was not getting enough interest from people of color, and their voices are the voices that matter. After a few weeks, I had a new job and new college semester to deal with, so the project faded. I will still try to move it forward, but if there is no interest from metal fans and musicians who are black, then there is no article. I can tell you what I think, but I am merely pale with a touch of ruddy. My voice is irrelevant.

I did get one person to talk to me about it, though. The guitarist and vocalist from the band Stone Vengeance, Michael Coffey. We talked for quite a while, and planned on talking more, but life got in the way. Shame. See, Michael and I had one of those conversations. The kind you don’t know you are about to have and you hate to leave when time shuts things down. The kind upon which friendships are born. Had we been in a bar, I have no doubt we would have ended up pub-crawling all night.

We talked about metal. His journey into metal, specifically, but as a matter of fact, it was OUR journey. Somehow we lived separate lives in separate places and have had separate destinies, but the number of times I laughed and said “ME TOO!” during that long phone conversation would make you think we were lifelong buddies.

Music has not, in my experience, been a language we all speak in unison. If some country-western fan decided to drop a convo on me regarding the importance of The Outlaws to the genre, I would sort of nod my head and reply “if you say so.” I am not out here listening to Waylon and Willie and the boys. And, due I imagine to my arrested development (meant in the real way, not the hilarious series I never watched way), I was in my forties before I really stopped identifying aggressively as a metalhead. I AM one, but I can see it more clearly now. It doesn’t define me, exactly. It adorns me.

What defines me is that arrested development I talked about. Or the depression / PTSD that caused it. Or overcoming it. Or my 30 year marriage to the lady who had me giggling so hard last night I farted. Or the son we raised who is slowly making his way through the world. Or my blind eye, fat ass and bad back. Or my desire to help fellow students see the abject glory of the universe revealed through the scientific method.

Or everything or nothing. But Mr. Coffey and I shared a hell of a talk about metal. He’s a great guy, as far as an hour and a half phone conversation can make out, and I got to know him, just a bit, by being a metalhead. And by being curious ABOUT metal. By wanting to see connections between what I love and all the people that love it too.

CHAPTER THE SECOND: I Wandered Lonely As a Crab

Around that same time I was able to get to a small record store in a back alley in Salt Lake City to see Pyhrron. I got to meet these guys, a couple of whom I have been Facebook or writer friends with for some time. And we had great little conversations. There wasn’t time to sit for an hour and a half, but there were minutes and moments and laughs and metal. I met a fellow metal writer, the members of the sublimely terrifying Succumb, and again, had great, if brief conversations.

A woman working in the same office I do passed me in the hall the other day, and I made a silly quip and she made one back, as we often do. I don’t know her at all except to pass her in the hall and trade that silly quip. I mentioned something about metal and, yep, suddenly we were thick as thieves. I dropped the obvious bands—Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation—she lit up. I dug deeper—Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation—she lit up brighter. Her husband’s fave, Morbid Angel, the fantastic new Hate Eternal and Abysmal Torment albums… just like that, we were old friends.

The only thing I had in common with any of these folks was metal. Metal took us straight past the “so what do you do?” shit and made us instantly relate. Humans need communities. We can’t fight bears one-on-one. We can’t bring down Woolly Rhinos in pairs. We need a team. A group. A community. Heavy metal, as ridiculous as it is, provides me with that community. I’ll never really fit in any of the traditional communities. That ship sailed long ago. But I have never been to a show where I could not walk up to any stranger and just start talking metal.

I am not a shut in, but I am not exactly a party animal either. I tend to let the day exhaust me and spend the night recharging. I am not one of these corny Luddites who loves / hates the internet and will post a bunch of bullshit—online—about how no one looks up from their phones anymore. Fact is, if I had had a phone to stare at when I was a kid instead of engaging with the adults in my family, I might be a lot healthier and happier today. So none of that revisionist bullshit for me, thanks. The Internet is swell. I love it outright. Google scholar, comedy clips, streaming records and snarky writers. And my metal community lives within it.

The point to all this is several.

One, a community is just a collection of interdependent individual organisms. Online metalheads qualify. We learn from each other, we teach each other, we share and we take and we give. We need no introductions. We all love something to the degree we can all accept each other. All we ask is that we are cool to one another, and we all bang our heads to “Victim of Changes.”

Two, curiosity, no matter what it is about, is never wasted. I can recite to you facts about evolution, cosmology, rock music and World War Two fighter airplanes because these things fascinate me, but I can also tell you stories and myths and ideas that have osmosed or congealed from curiosity about all these things, but have little to do with them. I have just described a new friend I met because of curiosity about metal. If, when learning anything, you find yourself asking “what the hell good is this?”, the answer is that there is nothing else but learning. Never kill your curiosity. Always follow it. You can make or lose a dollar, a friend, a lover, but you can only make experiences and ideas. That’s all you really have that is YOURS.

Three, stop belittling the internet and people who use it. You sound like buffoons who say “if god had meant for man to fly he would have given him wings.” Is that what you want to sound like? Is it? Fucking, NO. You hate those people. You want to hit them. You don’t, because it is against the law, and also would make you feel like a dick. And you are probably not a dick. Not really. Maybe a little, but who isn’t? So knock it off. If you do it, I mean.

Four, go listen to “Victim of Changes.” Preferably from Unleashed in the East. You know you have wanted to ever since reading it earlier.

Five… can we all work together this year to stop children dying of thirst in our facilities? Can we all start fucking demanding that this shit ends? Can we all agree that it might be something worth fighting over? Or are we really that far gone? Think it over.

See you next year, unless something awful happens and I turn into a Deceased song.

The post Best Of 2018 – Chris Sessions: Are You Slimy Enough For 2018? appeared first on Last Rites.

Sure, humans that communicate – including those that write on a certain webzine together or communicate over social media – tend to gravitate towards certain albums because people discuss things they like, which causes other humans to experience these things and sometimes like them, with the cycle repeating. Add to that how labels push certain albums hard, and you do tend to have a collection that shows up lots of places. But consensus? Leave it for public discourse and board meetings. The idea of consensus is insulting to the nature of how we experience art. (Confession: I like a lot of popular albums, as you’ll see below.)

We all approach music with vastly different experiences and expectations, and different set of ears connected to different minds, so even though we’re all singing in unison to “Aces High” doesn’t mean that every mind in that arena isn’t its own little concert venue. More than that, our circumstances are always changing, so we shouldn’t necessarily put pressure on ourselves to like everything we expect to like or get into every album by bands we’ve traditionally been into. In 2014, Clearing the Path to Ascend was one of my favorite records, but I’m not nuts about Yob’s latest. The band changed, understandably going further down the vulnerable path in the wake of Mike Scheidt’s extreme brush with mortality, and I changed in that I’m feeling less into the “Marrow” vibe. But just because a lot of people are clearly enamored with Our Raw Heart didn’t mean I was going to binge it like crazy to try to “get it” or appreciate the supposed consensus. That isn’t fair to me or the album. Maybe a time will come when I want or need that version of Yob again, maybe it won’t.

Getting to this point when you’re comfortable just letting go is liberating. A lot of supposed experts are going to tell you what is important and crucial, but time gives albums importance, not critics or press cycles. Beware the fan or critic who loudly disagrees and claims clairvoyance, for he or she is likely overcompensating for ignorance. (Confession: I used to be this kind of critic; I was an idiot.)

The point: there is no consensus, and there are very few actual experts. Lists like the one below are just the preferences of individual humans at one point in one year during one life. I personally find this much more comforting (not to mention interesting) than thinking there’s some hive mind consensus to glean from all of the countless opinions. (Confession: big fan of Rotten Tomatoes.) Our blogger opinions matter no more than the opinions of any random fan. Are our opinions more informed? Sometimes, maybe, but I’ve read enough reviews over the years to know that a lot of people writing them aren’t the most learned of music fans. (Confession: there are and will always be a ton of gaps in my knowledge.)

You don’t know much. I don’t know much. We don’t know much.

So what do I know? I know that Iron Maiden is the greatest metal band in history, that some bands (*cough* Thou) are undeservedly given awards just for existing, that Lars Ulrich has been unfairly vilified by metal history, and that freshly harvested corn-on-the-cob is one of the greatest foods on the planet.

I also know that all the music listed below got me hotter than Cornballer oil in 2018. We’ll start with the honorable mentions, numbers 50 through 21, as always in logo cloud form:

Get that popcorn. There’s a whole lot more.

SOME REAL CREAMED CORN: 20-11

20. Hooded Menace – Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed

The death and funeral styles of doom had a great 2018. Ossuarium continues Hooded Menace’s habit of getting better with each album, and their layered, semi-progressive take on doom/death’s roots is sorrowful, gorgeous, crushing, and irresistible.

• Last Rites review
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19. Deceased – Ghostly White

Another long wait, another album that was more than worth waiting for. Ghostly White‘s rawer production ups the spooky vibes and gives yet another stellar set of deathrashtrad tunes a unique aura in which all the great leads can play and King Fowley can weave his ghost stories.

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18. Owl – Nights In Distortion

Owl’s latest continues the Zeitgeister family’s crazily good recent run. It’s simultaneously a masterwork of doom/death metal and darkwave, riding massive riffs and tense synths over one complete journey, all hinging on the centerpiece/fulcrum of “Anamnesis.”

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17. Portal – ION

Portal’s labyrinth of dizzyingly technical riffs and suffocating noise is as fitting for staring the decaying postmodern world right in its decaying heart as it is for imagining unspeakable Lovecraftian horrors. Perhaps to them, these things are one in the same. Spiral into the second half of “Phreqs” and experience this nightmarish duality.

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16. Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology

Kev Pearson and Matt Moss continue their prodigious run, finally getting a deserved label partner in Willowtip and delivering their best and deepest album to date. They continue to honor their godly influences while carving out a unique identity. Being massive is Mollusca’s business, and business is good.

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15. Aorlhac – L’esprit des vents

Aorlhac falls somewhere between the icy, blue-cover melodic black metal of 90s Sweden and the windswept and harrowing work that often comes out of Québec. It threads a pretty thin line between violence and unabashed beauty, and L’esprit des vents is almost constantly stunning for its near-hour length.

• Bandcamp

14. Judas Priest – Firepower

Calling Firepower the best Priest album since Painkiller sells it short, as you could combine the best songs from the rest of the interim and this might still win. Richie Faulkner has breathed new life into a legend and Halford’s voice is as ageless as it is timeless.

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• Official website

13. Madder Mortem – Marrow

Agnete Kirkevaag is one of the most talented, charismatic, and commanding vocalists in metal. She’s so great that she often overshadows the sneaky versatility of her bandmates and their ability to transition from Katatonia goth to Devin Townsend prog to (yes) chugga chugga aggro-nu seamlessly. A stunning, deep record.

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12. Immortal – Northern Chaos Gods

Demonaz has to earn the Comeback Player of the Year award. Not only is Northern Chaos Gods a frosty bit of black metal goodness that manages to call to mind all eras of Immortal’s past, but it absolutely kicks the tar out of that solo Abbath record.

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• Official website

11. Abysmal Torment – The Misanthrope

Brutal death metal is ridiculous and preposterous, so it’s fun when bands know how to be ridiculous and preposterous in really sneakily smart ways. Abysmal Torment nails it on their latest, annihilating the listener for 31 minutes of megaton riffs, squeals, and slams, even tossing in the slightest hint of an album arc for good measure.

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FRESH CORN ON THE COB: 10-1

10. MOSS UPON THE SKULL – IN VENGEFUL REVERENCE

“Hey, you got Gorguts in my Ved Buens Ende!” Hey, you got Ved Buens Ende in my Gorguts!”

In the tradition of two-great-tastes-tasting-great-together musical sounds, Moss Upon the Skull is here to show you how weird and wonderful you can be when you combine two of metal’s most legendarily experimental and influential bands. There’s always a risk looking to really exploratory bands as inspiration, as the fuel that kept the fires of such acts going was often as much a mentality as it was an distinctive musical goal, but Moss Upon the Skull sounds seamless beyond their years while adding a few extra flairs of their own. There’s a lot of twitchy semi-tech-death riffs, shimmery and dissonant VBE/Virus-isms, oddball clean vocals, and super catchy parts that seem to come out of nowhere. Mostly, it’s a spry, music nerd type of record that should appeal to everyone from tech-heads to fans of the 90s’ particularly wackadoodle avant-garde acts.

• Last Rites review
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9. HATE ETERNAL – UPON DESOLATE SANDS

In my review of Upon Desolate Sands, I talked about how Erik Rutan had become one of the most dependable figures in all of death metal, releasing now seven records over nearly 20 years with each being some degree of excellent. Like all the others, Sands carries that uniquely muscular and blasting sound, but also like those, it maintains and even enhances Rutan’s tendencies towards melody and just a bit of exploration. Hate Eternal has long had a reputation as one of the more brutal and technical bands in death metal, but they’ve also secretly always been one of the smartest. Rutan has never written a single bad song, and with new tracks such as “All Hope Destroyed” and “Portal of Myriad” still bringing new form to classic sounds, there’s a good chance he won’t produce a clunker for many years to come.

Plus, the cover art is yet another reason why Eliran Kantor is the current MVP.

• Last Rites review
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8. HORRENDOUS – IDOL

Horrendous was getting a lot of buzz on their first two albums (Ecdysis was our team album of the year in 2014), but it wasn’t until I’d had time to really get to know Anareta that I was fully on board. Their increasing use of the 90s progressive death metal of Death, Atheist, Pestilence and the like was right up my alley, but that added layer of filth from their roots imitating classic Swedeath made it extra sweet. Idol might not quite be the leap from Anareta that that album was from Ecdysis in terms of quality, but that’s only because its predecessor was so great to begin with. Luckily, these boys from Philly didn’t stand pat stylistically, adding even more progressive and atmospheric elements to their sound and making one of the most downright dynamic death(ish) metal records around, with each song serving as its own epic journey. It’s a harrowing, thrashy, melodic, nasty, and complex record. Most of all, it still manages to be really damn fun.

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7. OUTRE-TOMBE – NÉCROVORTEX

Listen, I’m one of the first people to make fun of a list that is nothing but faceless old school death metal, and I take a lot of crap for that around the Last Rites offices, but a guy wants variety and freshness. Sitting up in Québec, ready to make me contradict myself, sat Outre-Tombe, because this record riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiips. At its most basic, it’s like a glorious mash-up of Bolt Thrower (when it lurches) Dismember (when it bounces, plus that tone and meanness), and even speedier death metal. It also helps that vocalist Crachat brings a whole heap of personality with him, spitting out hoarse, throaty vocals that communicate more emotion and vitriol than 90 percent of the monotone bottom-growlers of today. A brutally efficient, super heavy, and cutthroat death metal record that proves you don’t need an inkling of innovation to spread wanton destruction. En spirale dans le Nécrovortex, perdants.

MORE HERE

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6. SOLSTICE – WHITE HORSE HILL

I was initially a bit bummed that I had heard a good amount of the material on White Horse Hill on the To Sole a Thane demo a couple years back. But given time, it was clear how much more life these songs had within a full album (plus re-recorded and actually finished), with the intro/interlude tracks going beyond being merely window dressing to being crucial parts of the total journey. More than that, however, is that White Horse Hill is so good, so stunning, so overwhelmingly emotionally powerful as to make it easy to forget that I had heard some of these songs before. To put it bluntly, this is one of the finest epic doom records made in years, with vocalist Paul Kearns again proving that he’s the best voice Richard Walker has ever brought in to sing for Solstice. The record has the feel of something that was meticulously crafted at every level, but loses none of the grandiose Candlemass / Hammerheart /”The Coffin Ships” emotional heft. It just soars, and as soon as it’s over you just want to hit play again, knowing that little else in recent recorded memory can be simultaneously so draining and rejuvenating. Magical stuff.

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• Bandcamp

5. URFAUST – THE CONSTELLATORY PRACTICE

The Constellatory Practice is the type of record that you play for a friend that is largely uninitiated to the achievements and breadth of underground heavy metal (or underground music as a whole). It is, after all, still a metal record at its roots, but like most of Urfaust’s records has moved so far into their unique realm as to feel independent of the scene. This is black metal, but it doesn’t have raw production or icy riffs. It is doom metal but its lumbering and towering riffs are more beacons through the mist than they are immovable objects. It’s a near-perfect expression of how slowness and space in music leave room for the listener to fill the void with individual memories, visions, and imaginative expressions. It’s as dark, sad, uplifting, cathartic, and/or escapist as you want it to be, but it isn’t a blank canvas. Rather, The Constellatory Practice is the type of lush minimalism that takes years to master, and a really great example of how heaviness comes in many, many forms.

• Last Rites review
• Bandcamp

4. MONOLITHE – NEBULA SEPTEM

I was about halfway through my first listen of Nebula Septem when I came to a very basic but very appealing conclusion: Monolithe had made Slow Crimson II. While that’s a simplification of an album that is extremely deep both musically and thematically (read about all those sevens), there’s no escaping the feeling that these previous funeral doomsters pulled a Swanö. There’s a ton of interplay between colossal riffs and particularly spaced-out synths, and the whole thing moves forward as a single composition despite being seven unique tracks. But the way in which it moves through this journey is wholly unique. The band’s funereal past is still evident, as Nebula Septem often remains far more oppressive in nature than a lot of doom/death, and there’s a feeling that this corner of space is filled with a lot of slow moving threats. In this way, it doesn’t just call back to Crimson II, but feels a bit like a companion to the Owl record discussed above. Both are synth-heavy doom/death records that have a cohesive arc, but where Nights in Distortion maintains a feeling of comfort no matter how heavy it gets, Nebula Septem leaves the listener with the impression that there is no escape, even in its most beautiful moments. Escape from what – inevitable doom, fear of inevitable doom, the Agony Booth – isn’t as clear, but you’re trapped, and it sounds so good.

• Last Rites review
• Bandcamp

3. W.A.I.L. –
WISDOM THROUGH AGONY INTO ILLUMINATION AND LUNACY VOL. II

I’m not going to sit here and try to interpret the lyrics of W.A.I.L. II; you’re more than willing to head on over to Metal-Archives and take a stab at that maze yourself. But musically, this record heads in several unique directions without ever feeling even the slightest bit disjointed or failing to excel at every single sound. At its loudest it is a maelstrom of riffs that manage to be as melodic and hooky as they are determined and dark, and at its quietest… it is bleak. The hefty parts include a lot of The Ruins of Beverast-ish blackened doom, stretches of atmospheric black metal, and some legit death metal that even nears progressive terrain. The soft parts include sounds similar to Deathspell Omega’s most terrifying quiet moments and a stretch of piano and violin that would seem tacked on and overlong on most any other album. This passage is particularly striking, and might just define what makes the album special to me. That’s right, the distinctly not metal (or even rock) part of this hour-long record is what pushes it from something that is merely extremely good into truly unforgettable territory. It calls to mind the long quiet in “Blackwater Park” in that it is the least aggressive part of a long song (however, at over 34 minutes, “Reawakening through Anguish into Gestalt of Absolute” is quite a bit longer than that Opeth classic) but manages to be the most tense part of the whole track, if not the whole album. It holds you in ghostly stasis, unsure if the tension will ever be released. Anyone can play loud metal, but the ability to weave such tension out of the softest moments and have that tension lead to a truly earned resolution is rare. The ability to do this and have every single second be made of solid gold elements is even rarer. A special record, opus, whatever you want to call it.

• Last Rites review
• Bandcamp

2. VOIVOD – THE WAKE

Voivod’s renaissance defies rules about age, output after the loss of a long time creative force, expectations for journeymen musicians, and really what it means to be a veteran classic band. For nearly every other band, the loss of someone as unique as Denis “Piggy” D’Amour would have been the end, and with the band releasing no fewer than three Piggy records posthumously, they were obviously reluctant to move on. But when the Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain era finally put out a studio record in Target Earth, it showed that there was not just a ton of energy left in the Vodtank, but that Mongrain was the perfect guitarist to drive it forward. While Target Earth was great and the ensuing Post Society EP material was better, The Wake eclipses both. Despite already playing on a Gorguts classic and Martyr’s killer records, The Wake feels like Mongrain’s big moment in the sun. He channels Piggy and the Voivod tradition while understanding that he’s allowed to be himself. Chewy, along with Snake (who gives a great performance and even sings quite often), bassist Rocky (who is good enough to make us miss Blackie a little less this time) and of course drummer extraordinaire Away, made an album as detailed as it is immediate and technical as it is loose and free of its own bounds. It’s a sometimes startlingly theatrical record (touches of Brian May in the soloing) that stands strongly next to the band’s main trio of classics – Killing Technology, Dimension Hatröss, and Nothingface, obviously – while not being directly indebted to any of them.

No one is out there putting an asterisk on Voivod in 2018 because of the lineup. At least, no one with a functional set of ears. This is again one of metal’s most brilliant and exciting bands, and The Wake is the freshest thing they’ve done in over a quarter of a century.

• Last Rites review
• Official website

1. AMORPHIS – THE QUEEN OF TIME

Amorphis deserves the world. Their colossal talents, impossible hooks, and infectious nature should all be granting them one of the largest fan bases in the world, but this isn’t meant to be another bitter rant about the lack of popularity of heavy metal bands (Amorphis is already really popular by the standards of bands with growling vocals). Rather, this is meant as yet another celebration of their achievements over nearly three decades despite seeming settled, if not a bit lost at a couple moments. It’s impossible to overstate where this band has come since Tomi Joutsen took the microphone 14 years ago, or just what they have done recently. The Queen of Time is their second straight masterwork, and like its predecessor Under the Red Cloud is capable of standing up to the band’s watershed achievement Tales from the Thousand Lakes.

At its most fundamental, Queen is simply one of their greatest sets of songs, but there’s more to it than that. The record can be unabashedly beautiful just a few seconds before getting borderline brutal. This is nothing new for Amorphis, but there’s something extra powerful on certain passages – the symphonic peak of “Heart of the Giant,” the aggression/escapism of “We Accursed,” the Anneke van Giersbergen guest spot in “Amongst Stars” – as if they’re still finding a way to grow in confidence. And then there’s Joutsen. Although he didn’t come on board until the band was a decade removed from their most iconic album, he has long since been the voice of Amorphis. More than that, by having not just one of the best growls in the business but also one of the most powerful and nuanced singing voices, he has fully ascended to the true hall of fame for metal vocalists, and Queen is probably his greatest performance yet.

This is larger-than-life music being played by people that find true joy in bringing it to your ears, and you can hear that joy in every note, every unforgettable chorus, every drum hit, and every playful keyboard part. For me, it’s impossible to feel bad while I share in that joy. That’s the magic of great music.

• Last Rites review
• Official website

BABY CORN: TOP EPS

5. Owl – Orion Fenix

Prior to releasing one of the coolest doom/death-ish albums of the year, Owl put out another captivating, single-song EP that works as a great companion piece to Nights in Distortion. This EP is as towering and intimidating as it is gorgeously haunting and cathartic.

• Bandcamp

4. Progenie Terrestre Pura – starCross

I’ll admit that starCross felt like a bit of a letdown after the mastery of oltreLuna, but that likely says more about the full length than the EP. This is still another infectious, weird, and spaced-out bit of spacey industrial blackened space metal. Keep ’em coming.

• Last Rites review
• Bandcamp

3. Sodom – Partisan

Only two new songs? Who cares. The best Sodom was 80s Sodom, and this not just brings back a core 80s member in Frank Blackfire, but it sounds like those old classics. The way Tom Angelripper screams the title of “Conflagration” creates a whole lot of anticipation for their upcoming 2019 full length.

• Last Rites review
• Official website

2. Aeviterne – Sireless

Again… only two songs? And again, who cares. Aeviterne reintroduces two thirds of the great, unheralded Flourishing to the metal world through music that does their former band’s death/prog/post-hardcore/noise hybrid but with even more of that prog-skronk whirlwind. Castevet drummer Ian Jacyszyn is a perfect fit, and this will be another of my most anticipated albums of 2019.

• Last Rites review
• Bandcamp

1. Abhorrence – Megalohydrothalassophobic

This was perfect timing for me personally. Being the forever-behind pose(u)r that I am, I needed a crash course in Finnish death metal, and some of the other idiots that write at this site were willing to oblige. Part of that was being insta-hooked on those beastly early Abhorrence releases. This isn’t as dirty in tone as those (which I had to convince myself wasn’t a bad thing), but it’s just as mean where it counts: the riffs. This thing is HEH-VEE and about as catchy as you can get with that many irons on the barbells. The only question that remains is… why the hell aren’t these guys playing MDF next year?

• Last Rites review
• Bandcamp

ADDITIONAL KERNELS

• Heavy metal as a global phenomenon continues to be extremely strong, with 19 different countries (including Malta and the Faroe Islands!) represented in my top 50 albums.

• With Amorphis, Abhorrence, W.A.I.L., Hooded Menace, and several albums on other folks’ lists… Finland really stood out.

• Some great splits this year. Starkweather and Concealment released one that managed to have probably the best material ever by the former band while the latter more than held up their side. Squalus and Shadow Limb, meanwhile, both took on oceanic fiction themes with their rollicking, spry progressive sludge.

• Getting to see Frank Mullen’s final hometown show in NYC was beyond fun. The man has lost none of his charisma or vocal prowess over 30 years, so while it’s sad to see him leaving the band permanently, it was awesome to see him go out on top. Death chops for eternity.

• Lordy, I sure did listen to a lot of Cannibal Corpse this year.

• I really enjoyed writing a primer about Edge of Sanity.

• Biggest disappointments of the year: Clutch and Pig Destroyer. Both bands sound tired, and neither is a band that can afford to sound tired.

• The world is rotten and yes, there are bands loaded with garbage humans that have garbage views and do garbage things. But propping up bad bands just because they make liberal politics into a gimmick isn’t making political activism better, it’s just making heavy metal worse. There are heaps of great bands with progressive views.

Apologies to albums I just didn’t spend enough time with prior to list-making, especially the new Veilburner.

HE WAS A SHARK

It was with great sadness that we bid farewell to Mark “The Shark” Shelton of Manilla Road in 2018. Shark was perhaps the ultimate warrior for underground heavy metal, keeping his band mostly active for over 40 years while releasing countless great records. The 80s quartet of Crystal Logic, Open the Gates, The Deluge, and Mystification was especially masterful, and as good a run for epic heavy metal as has ever been written. His output was so great that even in 2018 a lost demo by the short-lived Shelton-Chastain project was released (the other person was David T. Chastain of… Chastain). The Edge of Sanity isn’t just a neat curiosity for hardcore fans, but a really great set of epic 80s metal. Chastain’s riffs were colossal, and Shark’s vocal prowess was at its peak.

But more than just his music, Shelton’s warmth and huge smile made him incredibly approachable. His band never experienced great financial success, but his enthusiasm for the life of heavy metal never waned, giving any fan time with a hand shake or huge pat on the back. In the summer of 2012, a few of us Last Ritesers went to a festival in rural Ohio to see Manilla Road headline. During power outages caused by some really crazy storms, people and bands were all just hanging around talking, and we got to meet Shark and have a little chat with him and his bandmates. I talked to him for all of 15 minutes, but he remembered who I was when we saw Road again at Maryland Death Fest the following year, running up to say hey and even watching the Melvins set with us. Laughing, rocking, and most of all smiling endlessly.

This unfaltering exuberance for fans, friends, family, and music is more than just admirable—it’s all too rare in an industry as cannibalistic as music. I’d like to think that Shark lasted 40 years in the business not just because he never lost his passion for the music, but because he never lost his passion for the people.

Shark was the rarest of souls. He leaves us with a glorious musical legacy, but also a hole in the world of heavy metal that can never be filled again.

Shark and a quintet of Last Rites hooligans.

Finally, as Captain so lovingly stated in his personal article, Last Rites really is a family. Our meetups are the best times of the times, and I really can’t overstate how much these goons mean to me. I even met my soon-to-be-wife on the old MetalReview Forums Ov Yore. I’d say that’s a pretty big something, eh? Not sure where I’d be today had I not listened to a college pal that said I should be spending times on those forums to learn about music, make friends, and generally act the fool. Some place not nearly as cool, I imagine.

Thanks for reading, everybody. Talk to you in 2019. Up the hammers.

The post Best Of 2018 – Zach Duvall: Confessions Of A Cornfed Crackpot appeared first on Last Rites.

I started the year with an intracranial hemorrhage (I’m fully recovered now, thanks) and ended the year with a marriage (she may never fully recover, thanks). Through it all, through the ups and downs and in-betweens, there’s always Last Rites because there’s always metal. I’ve been listening to heavy metal now for thirty years, give or take, and this last year was my tenth one as a writer at Last Rites, so those twin bastions of metallic greatness have proven to be among the constants in the private Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride that is my life. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, even if it means I have to put up with this mötley crüe of goofballs and idjits for another year or so.

This time of year, I usually spend the next few weeks scouring everyone else’s year-end lists for everything I missed. So though there are still countless dozens of albums I never got around to in 2018, there were at least three dozen that clogged my earholes perfectly for these 12 months. I spent about five or so minutes culling that 36 down to 20-ish for you, faithful reader, and the results of that thoroughly scientific process are conveniently listed below.

CLEVER TITLE FOR NUMBERS 20-11

20. Monstrosity – The Passage Of Existence

Even as I sit here and type the words “Monstrosity is one of those bands that will never get the credit they’re due,” I know deep down that I also have a tendency to forget about Monstrosity. These Floridians have been churning out quality death metal for decades, since the first wave was a ripple, and The Passage Of Existence is another (ahem) monster, just tech-y enough, just thrashy enough, all old-school and ripping, and therefore, all good.

Don’t believe me?  Well, you’ll have to—we didn’t cover this album. (I told you that Monstrosity doesn’t get enough love.)

19. Extremity – Coffin Birth

And speaking of “old school,” new old-schoolers Extremity school us all in the fine art of classic death metal with their debut, which is equal parts filth and finesse. Of course, with members in (or having been in) Khorada, Vhol, Ludicra, Agalloch, Cretin, Repulsion, Vastum, Exhumed, and Ulthar, we expected nothing short of awesomeness. And we got it.

Don’t believe me? Ask Professor Sessions.

18. Visigoth – Conquerer’s Oath

Everything old can indeed feel new again — Visigoth is proof enough of that. There’s been no shortage of retro-minded traditional metal acts in the past however many years, many decent and some occasionally rising above the mire. What’s refreshing about Visigoth is that they get traditional metal right, not just the sounds and the subject matter, but the intangible spirit, the feel, the power. And what’s best about Conquerer’s Oath is that it improves upon the already winning formula of The Revenant King, so not only is Visigoth damned good, they’re only getting better.

Don’t believe me. Ask an idiot.

17. Horrendous – Icon

Horrendous’ Ecdysis topped our staff-wide 2014 list, and Anareta placed within the top ten the following year, despite being a better album (that one was a tougher year, I reckon), so it’s safe to say we tend to enjoy our Horrendous around here. With a markedly greater focus on the progressive death side of their formula, Icon shows Horrendous continuing to expand and explore, finding new footing along the way. Another feather in the cap of one of modern death metal’s most consistently strong outfits.

Don’t believe me? Ask a giraffe.

16. Tomb Mold – Manor Of Infinite Forms

Death metal has had a hell of last few years, and 2018 thankfully continued that trend, with greatness from the old guard and the new kids alike. Toronto’s Tomb Mold dropped their second record almost square in the middle of it, and Manor Of Infinite Forms (them forms just go on and on and on…) is both a continuation of and an improvement upon last year’s debut Primordial Malignity, which is to say that it’s more murky and riffy death metal that manages to sound both vintage and fresh at once.

Don’t believe me?  Ask Dr. Tysinger.

15. Sulaco – The Prize

“The spazzy grinders in Sulaco came loaded for war. The Prize is state of the badass art technical grindcore. It’s got independently targeting particle beam phalanx riffs; you could fry half a city with these puppies. It’s got tactical smart missile riffs; it’s got phased plasma pulse rifle riffs; it’s got rhythms that hit like RPGs; it’s got a stout production and an appropriately gnarly tone, a sonic electronic ball-breaker. It’s got the power of nukes, the cutting edges of knives, and all the subtlety of sharp sticks.”

Don’t believe me? Ask… me, and you can read that quote again.

14. Human Cull – Revenant

England’s Human Cull returns after four years off with a sharpened attack — Revenant is still grinding, raw, ugly, but it’s also more focused, more refined, just better. Earlier Cull efforts were strong, but this one’s simply stronger. No books are being rewritten, no horizons broadened. No ground is broken, but yet the horizon and the ground are leveled, scorched, devastated, and that’s the point.

Don’t believe me?  Ask… well, it’s also me.

13. Scorched – Ecliptic Butchery

Yet another relatively young death metal band that gets the old school vibe just right without sounding slavish or rehashed, Scorched pummels with an organic, stout, and positively destructive take on the classic formula, as beautifully retro as that “Amazing Tales Of Horror And Weirdness #57” album art. Rarely do album covers perfectly sum up the music within, but Ecliptic Butchery does just that — a little rough, a lot macabre, very classic and yet clearly showing some disparate influences. A thing of gloriously ugly beauty, within and without.

Don’t believe me? Ask another thing of gloriously ugly beauty.

12. Six Brew Bantha – Blight

Canadian three-piece grindcore unit Six Brew Bantha make up for their goofball name through the time-honored tradition of riffs. Riffs and riffs. Riffs and riffs and riffs. And also screaming. And blastbeats. And grooves. And riffs. Riffs that go this way, and then that way, and then the tempo changes from super-fast to just kind of fast, and then there’s a riff and there’s another riff, and a lot more yelling and screaming (with some profoundly poetic lyrics, I might add), and then also a riff. All of these things are good, and together, they’re damned great.

Don’t believe me? Ask a fine fellow, and also some other people about some other albums.

11. Binah – Phobiate

Britain’s Binah takes the Swedish death metal sound, the HM2 buzzsaw bite, and uses it not to merely recreate Sunlight Studios’ signature sonics, but as a building block to grow a new branch on death metal’s evolutionary tree. Both atmospheric and vicious, Phobiate is an absolutely killer collection of well-constructed and brilliantly composed death metal, an album that shows this relatively young outfit is clearly cut out for the big leagues.

Don’t believe me?  Ask the Professor about this one, too.

A DIFFERENT CLEVER TITLE FOR TOP 10

10. HOODED MENACE – OSSUARIUM SILHOUETTES UNHALLOWED

New vocalist Harri Kuokkanen arrives for this one, and though it wasn’t as if the previous Hooded Menace efforts were shabby in any regard, heretofore unimagined improvements were made; the whole got stronger at the same time that the approach remained largely the same. The death / doom remains deathy and doomy, and Lasse Pyykko’s guitar melodies weave amidst those subterranean-sounding, bone-crushing riffs, and now it’s all turned up to 11. No one knew Hooded Menace needed improvement, but damned if it didn’t work out.

Don’t believe me?  Ask a genius.

9. SLUGDGE – ESOTERIC MALACOLOGY

On the surface, Slugdge would seem to be among the silliest bands around — and maybe they are, but then when you scrape off the slime, well, there’s a deadly serious wealth of killer tech-ish, melo-esque, somewhat black-y death metal beneath, all perfectly polished and filled to the brim with riffs… and also bad slug puns. What more could we mere dim and slime-ridden mortals ever ask from the Greatfather Mollusca?

Don’t believe me? Ask our team of expert archaeologists.

8. SATAN – CRUEL MAGIC

Three albums back now, Satan’s return was one of the strongest comebacks in quite awhile, and these re-energized NWOBHMers show no signs of slowing down now. Speedy and melodic, with some killer riffs and catchy hooks, Cruel Magic isn’t outside the box, of course — no one would expect otherwise. Sometimes you just want a new take on an old sound, and who better to bring it than the same old dogs that brought you Court In The Act about 4000 years ago?

Don’t believe me?  Ask that Tysinger boy again.

7. AMORPHIS – QUEEN OF TIME

Coming off one of their strongest albums… well, ever… Amorphis lands on their feet with one of their strongest albums… well, ever. Again, this one’s also not particularly outside the box, mind you — it’s more of the same epic, sometimes gothic, folk-influenced, occasionally doomy, somewhat death-y, and overall excellent brand of greatness they’ve been perfecting for ages, but it’s just that they… well, they’ve perfected it, improving up on the already great by simply becoming greater. That’s a lot of italics for emphasis, I know, but dammit, this album deserves them.

Don’t believe me? Ask the first idiot.

6. CRIPPLE BASTARDS – LA FINE CRESCA DA DENTRO

Nero In Metastasi showed Cripple Bastards at the top of a new direction, sharper and more polished than their earlier efforts, but still possessing that fiery fury that defines them. This latest effort is a step back towards the raw, punky, crusty violence that characterized the days of Variente alle morte and Desperately Insensitive, but most importantly, La fine cresca da dentro is packed full of those killer grind/death/punk/thrash riffs that the Bastards are just ever so good at composing. A damn fine grinder from Italy’s angriest.

Don’t believe me? Ask a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.

5. JUDAS PRIEST – FIREPOWER

Redeemer Of Souls was… not as good as many people believed. But hey, Firepower IS that good. It’s the return to form that we’ve all been waiting for, and it’s easily the best Priest album since Painkiller, nearly 30 years ago. Halford sounds great; the songs are strong, memorable, filled with all the hallmarks of classic Priest-y greatness; the tandem of Faulkner and Tipton are jelling well, and… well, there’s that whole “Glenn Tipton having Parkinson’s and then retiring” thing to put a little damper on the matter, but if he can’t tour for now, hopefully he can still keep writing, and if nothing else, at least he’s bowing out after releasing one more barn-burner.

Don’t believe me?  Ask the new boss, same as the old boss.

4. GHOST – PREQUELLE

Ghost’s conversion into arena rock superstars takes a huge leap here, with hooks guaranteed to earworm their way into your brain, with the Satanism scaled back to meet the masses halfway, with a batch of Tobias Forge’s greatest tunes, with a weirdly progressive instrumental number with soaring saxophone played by a new Pope…  It’s silly; it’s fun; it’s theater; it’s “heavy metal” that is mostly just rock ‘n’ roll.  It’s also very damned good, no matter what the haters will tell you.

Don’t believe me?  Ask the shining and the light.

3. DECEASED – GHOSTLY WHITE

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Deceased is just goddamned fun. Like the kind of fun you can only get from the electric riff, the pounding drums, the instantly hooky chorus, sing/shout/scream-ing along in the front row while a great band rips through great songs in front of you. Blurring the lines between the death, thrash, and traditional streams of metal, Deceased has carved out a wonderful spot at the crossroads, and though they aren’t the most prolific band around (it took them seven years to make this one), Ghostly White is nevertheless another pile of greatness in a decades-long run of successes. Deceased is just goddamned fun.

Don’t believe me?  Ask this yo-yo.

2. VOIVOD – THE WAKE

The curiously brain-melting cover art fits perfectly the expectedly brain-melting music within. Voivod is one of the all-time greats, one of metal’s finest and brightest for decades now, and The Wake is another knockout punch delivered with precision and panache. Guitarist Chewy fits right in, composing perfectly Piggy-ish riffs and leads, alongside the original tandem of Snake and Away. The fact that a band is making music this great this far into their career is impressive, but then again, it’s Voivod, so it’s always been impressive, and may it always be.

Don’t believe me?  Ask the Native American fellow from The Outlaw Josie Wales.

1. WAKE – MISERY RITES

Lots of waking going on up here at the top of this list. The Calgary-based grinders in Wake released a monster of an album a few years back in Sowing The Seeds Of A Worthless Tomorrow, and they topped it wholly with this one, improving in every capacity over what was already a damned fine start. A conceptual song-cycle about addiction and relapse, Misery Rites is a smart, sharp, caustic, and utterly brutal attack, filled with rage and riff, and by gum, doesn’t that just sound perfect?  Why, yes.  Yes, it does.

Don’t believe me? Ask God.

DO YOU HAVE MORE TO LIST?

Yes, I do. Thanks for asking.

PERHAPS A LIST OF EPs?

Oh, that’s a grand idea. Here, look at these:

  

Abhorrence – Megalohydrothalassophobic
Short record, long title, great Finnish death metal. ‘Nuff said.

Rotten Sound – Suffer To Abuse
Shorter record, inverse title from the previous full-length and yet just more of that sweet killer Swedeath-inflected grindcore from a band that never disappoints. You know what you’re getting into, and you like it.

No/Mas – Raíz Del Mal
Technically, I think this is a full-length, but it’s like ten minutes long, so does it go here, or does it go after the next header? Who cares? It rips. Crusty grindy hardcore-punky goodness that you need in your ears.

PERHAPS A LIST OF HONORABLE MENTIONS?

Well, funny that you bring it up, because I’d like to give a shout-out to a few records by old favorites that narrowly missed my list for different reasons. These are they:

Metal Church – Damned If You Do
The gods of wrath are still going mostly strong — Damned isn’t as consistent as XI, but it’s still better than it should be, this far into their career.  This one was a late entry that may not have found a spot in the above, but never had time to really grow on me, and regardless, Metal Church rules and I like talking about them only slightly less than I like listening to them.

Napalm Death – Coded Smears And More Uncommon Slurs
When a compilation of nearly twenty years of leftovers and left-behinds is better than most bands’ best work… well, that’s when you’ve achieved total godhood. Though I initially included it in the list above because it works incredibly well as an album in its own right– it placed in the lower 10, for the record — I decided that it was better to feature down here and allow another entry on the main list. Either way, Coded Smears is a monster, filled with modern Napalm-y goodness, and you should hear it. Long live Napalm Death.

PERHAPS A NOD TO ABSENT FRIENDS?

As it goes every year, tragedies occur, and people we love and respect depart this mortal coil for whatever lies beyond. As our beloved art form ages, we’ve all endured our share of dying heroes in the past decade or so, but this year hit a little closer to home because this year cost me a hero I actually knew. I had the honor of meeting Mark “The Shark” Shelton on multiple occasions — in a tornado-stricken field in Ohio, where he joked about bringing the weather with him from Kansas; in the crowd at Maryland Deathfest, where he watched The Melvins with the Last Rites crew; in a strange basement bar in Indiana, just before Manilla Road laid waste to the place with killer riffs, epic songs, and those sweet, sweet Shark guitar solos. I won’t say I knew him well, but he was always happy to chat, to laugh, to call you “brother,” to wish you a Happy Birthday via social media from wherever he was. We all know he rocked like, but aside from that, in person, he was as nice a guy as we could’ve ever asked him to be. Manilla Road’s legacy is cemented forever; their catalog of great heavy metal speaks for itself. Shark leaves that behind for all of us to enjoy, and the world is a better place because of it.

Additional thank yous and RIPs to these fallen brethren whom I never had the pleasure of meeting: Killjoy, Tim Calvert, Bret Hoffmann, Randy Rampage, Ralph Santolla, Pat Torpey, Todd Youth, Fast Eddie Clarke, and anyone else I may have forgotten. Death sucks, but it’s inevitable. Live while you can.

PERHAPS A CLOSING STATEMENT?

Nah, I’m done.  Thanks for reading.  Here’s to 2019.

The post Best Of 2018 – Andrew Edmunds: Clever Title?! I Barely KNOW Her Title! appeared first on Last Rites.

So, how was the flight? Wait, what? You walked here? All the way from January 1st? You walked here all the way from January 1st. Wow. How long did it take? Eleven months and seven days. I see. Of course. And you didn’t fly or drive because? Right… Because you might miss some wonderful things if you speed through life. That’s true. That’s true.

You, uh… You saw that the northern white rhinoceros went extinct this year, yes? And yeah, awful violence and terrorism and racism and unending unrest and persecution and death and destruction and pain and misery and the Warriors winning the NBA championship again. You noticed all of that. Check. Good for you. Good to stay on top of things, even if it’s difficult to face.

We found a lake on Mars! That’s pretty cool. Evidence of a lake on Mars, actually. It’s not much of a lake these days, really. Has anyone thought about the possibility that the human race was already on Mars and left it because we basically pounded it into dust? Then we figured out how to get to Earth to save the population and scientists then created this “Forget Everything” storm that wiped out all memories of Mars so humans could have a fresh start without living with the guilt of having ruined an entire planet. I’m sure it’s already a sci-fi series on Hulu. Regardless, hails to Mars Lake. Oh, and we’re there again! On Mars! Using robots. Robots driving around Mars and enjoying its evidence of lakes.

Metal happened, too. Did you… Did you enjoy some metal? Great. That’s just great. Where is who on our list? Ahhh, those guys. Yep, they didn’t make the cut. We tried it and failed. I’m sure our ears are broken.

Metal worked harder than ever this year to clean up some of its messes. That’s a good thing—cleaning up messes. It’s a messy world we live in, isn’t it? Not just in metal, of course. Unfortunately, being vigilant about cleaning up messes sometimes has a way of making those around you messier, so then you’re just cleaning up more messes. Shit ouroboros, Randers.

Great news, though: 2018 provided enough good-to-great metal that we were able to cobble together yet another Super Amazing Fantastic Incontestable Top 25 Heavy Metal Albums of 2018 Combined Staff List, and no one on the crew died in the process. In fact, there was very little arguing behind the scenes this year. Well, with regard to our combined year-end list, that is. We love bickering. The Last Rites staff argued a lot about olives in 2018.

Anyway, this year’s top 25 is, once again, an ideal cross-section of who we are as a collective. A little too old and too cold, sure, and what youth we have is admittedly old-souled, but we’re not completely stuck in the past, even if some of our list suggests otherwise. Ultimately, we remain loyal to the root essence of metal while still being accepting of trends and progression, and we continue to approach records where style outweighs substance with torches gleaming. You gotta pass the smell test, baby!

Thanks again for making it this far alongside us, readers. You guys are the absolute best.

Also, we miss you, Shark. The Last Rites collective spent a fair bit of time talking about the loss of Mark Shelton earlier this year—both at the site and on social media—but we’d like to dedicate this year’s List Season to his memory. May the Lords of Light forever be with you, old friend. See you on the other side. [CAPTAIN]

25. OUTRE-TOMBE – NÉCROVORTEX

“Did I mention that the riffs were good? They are, and there are shit-loads of them. Need a little melodically induced madness? Check out the second riff in “Aberration.” Searching for a some dirge-y doom-death? The mid-section of “Concile Cadavérique”, has just what the doctor ordered. Sublimely evil tremolo-riffs? “Vengeance Spectrale” has you covered. Grooves, you say? Those are friggin’ everywhere.” [JEREMY MORSE]

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24. HORRENDOUS – IDOL

“On the surface, Idol largely repeats [the Horrendous] mold, making it initially appear like their smallest jump in terms of band evolution, but dig a little and it’s clear that the band’s “proggier” tendencies have taken even deeper root, as has their knack for melody. They also added even more atmosphere and a touch of theatricality to yet another stellar, often gripping set of songs, while passages of clean vocals and softer progressive rock make it blatantly obvious that future stops on the Horrendous train plan to keep the evolution moving.” [ZACH DUVALL]

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23. BINAH – PHOBIATE

“Right off the bat Binah delivers an epic grinder with “The Silent Static”, a twelve minute pummeling that extravagantly displays their mastery of the form while pushing the limits of what you can say in a Sunlight track. And it gets…well, not better, but as-gooder from there. “Dream Paralysis” waltzes the death waltz with so much intensity and emotion you want to find a renaissance corpse and start swinging it around the room. “Waves of Defacement” is a straight homage to the elders, while “Transmissions from Beneath” has a strangely 80’s style riff that devolves into a chaotic tentacle-porn of runs and chords before waxing almost Morbid Angel-ic, all bookended with simple picking melodies.” [CHRIS SESSIONS]

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22. CRIPPLE BASTARDS –
LA FINE CRESCA DA DENTRO

“But really, even beyond the riffs and the signature fury, what keeps the Bastards among grindcore’s more engaging purveyors is their ability to create memorable songs within a swirling maelstrom of blastbeats and thrash riffs and unintelligible screaming. Nearly every track has some kind of well-crafted hook, if such a term can be applied to a record like this — the twisted riffing and Slayer-esque solo of “Non Coinvolto”; the techy midsection of “Due Metà In Un Errore”; the entirety of “Chiusura Forzata,” which at five minutes is the album’s longest and most developed class in death-grind mastery; the thrashing drive of “Narcolessia Emotiva” and the hardcore punk of “Nervi in Guerra”; the “three songs in sixteen seconds” punch of “Equilibrio Ansiogeno,” “Interrato Vivo,” and “Quali Sentieri,”… All forms of extremity are welcome in the Bastards’ relentless barrage.” [ANDREW EDMUNDS]

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21. OKSENNUS – KOLME TOISTA

Most things – from plates of food to articles of clothing – that are sold as “deconstructed” have a tendency to be poorly thought out and downright lazy. Joensuu, Finland’s Oksennus, since its standout ЖЖЖ demo, has never marketed its music as such, but this particular brand of Finnish death metal still comes across as very strange, lo-fi, experimental music that’s been taken apart and given to the listener to put back together. That is, at least, what it feels like on the surface. If listeners are willing to dig a bit deeper into the concept of Kolme toista, they will find a remarkably clever, well put-together concept that is as rewarding as it is perfectly timed. Deconstructed? Sure, but just as fun as playing with a new Lego set, only this is like… if the Legos were made out of carrots. [KONRAD KANTOR]

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20. SLUGDGE – ESOTERIC MALACOLOGY

“Lo, bring us this day our timely slime, the fourth such offering from Your celestial emissaries, the kingly Slugdge, and let it be filled with riff after holy riff, o Greatfather: let it be technical but not too technical, and let it be melodic but not too melodic; And lo, may it be called Esoteric Malacology, and may it be even better, even godlier, even greater than the slimes that slimed before it, a more refined sliming, with a greater emphasis on excellent clean vocal work from the one named Matt and – we must repeat – riff after holy riff from the one named Kev.” [ANDREW EDMUNDS]

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19. VARATHRON – PATRIARCHS OF EVIL

“The album’s dynamics are also aided by the band’s restraint, as they only occasionally put the blasting into overdrive. “Orgasmic Nightmares of the Arch Desecrator,” for example, starts out as big and blasty as the album gets, but finds time to return to the band’s signature melodicism and distant chants (A+ for that song title, by the way). But it’s “Luciferian Mystical Awakening” that really shows off this trait. It starts with a soft, mournful feel, dives full into a 6/8 Viking drive, and ups the bombast and theatricality throughout. After a second use of the softer parts, a small solo grows to be a huge tremolo lead that is then accompanied by a lower, equally huge tremolo harmony before an explosion of blasting and Necroabyssious’s massive presence overtake the song. It’s a deft bit of songwriting, and possibly the best song on an album loaded with great, instantly catchy tunes.” [ZACH DUVALL]

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18. SKULMAGOT – SKULLED TO DEATH

“It’s hard to even name a single highlight (or lowlight) on Skulled To Death; not only are there no bad tracks, but every song carries its own weight. The entire album has been expertly carved to remove any fat or filler, providing a concise, focused album that never loses momentum in its brief 27-minute runtime. In an age where almost any music a fan could want is easily available online, Skulmagot have created the modern equivalent of a gem by hiding some fantastic old skool deth metl in plain sight–a reminder to rip past the flesh and judge the music by the guts.” [RYAN TYSINGER]

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17. URFAUST – THE CONSTELLATORY PRACTICE

“Every part of The Constellatory Practice is connected as part of a whole, as if each represents a different location along some strange journey. Opener “Doctrine of Spirit Obsession,” for example, is like waking up feeling groggy and out of place in a small boat, drifting down some unknown river. The huge vocal moments represent openings into grand vistas, while the subdued passages are like floating through a ravine, with much of the world’s din muted. Each is a result of and respite from the other. “False Sensorial Impressions” and “Behind The Veil Of The Trance Sleep,” meanwhile, truly make the most out of the album’s structural minimalism. The former is a pulsating, heavy nightmare constantly approaching but never quite reaching you, while the latter perfectly executes a constant, deliberate crescendo of a single irresistible motif.” [ZACH DUVALL]

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16. SLEEP – THE SCIENCES

“If the first half of the album is a demonstration of all the styles the band members have mastered over the years, side B is truly where the band hones in on its refreshed songwriting ability by piecing together all of said styles cohesively. “Antarcticans Thawed” is a great representation of Sleep’s knack for riding out long, drawn out riffs that give Roeder the chance to really solidify his still-new position in the band. The song is about Matterhorn’s children being set free by melting or some shit. Who fucking knows, but the lyrics paint a pretty fantastic visual picture of Antarcticans doing some gnarly things. Oh, I lost track of what I was actually doing during the solo, but hot damn at around 11:35 those pounding riffs and that head-bobbing rhythm snapped me out of it.” [KONRAD KANTOR]

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15. A FOREST OF STARS –
GRAVE MOUNDS AND GRAVE MISTAKES

“Perhaps now is a good time to also credit the band for something that should have been highlighted much earlier: the strength of the vocal department. There is something oddly soothing about the British accent that, even when chaotically shouting from the black rooftops of Leeds with a throat spitting tar and coal from a mind amped up on amphetamines, sounds totally in control and comforting. As if after screaming about death and destruction and utter chaos, Kettleburner and Curse slide down the chimney to have tea and crumpets after washing their hands and brushing their rotting teeth.” [KONRAD KANTOR]

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14. MÖRKÖ – ULVOVA TYHJYYS

“Ineffectual babble thrown against a wall in an attempt to define something intended for an infinitesimal segment of an already modest population is an admittedly foolish pursuit. You want a dirty definition of Mörkö that skirts useless hyperbole? They’re fucked. Not because you run the risk of getting doused in pig’s blood from witnessing them in the flesh, but because they consent to Earthly estrangement after having witnessed 3 million souls lost to the Tüüka-wüürm virus on Heliox.5 Prime during a recent 5-week holiday. The great and sacred cockerel scrapes mortal wounds on the Earth and ruin awaits us all.” [CAPTAIN]

• Last Rites review
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13. HATE ETERNAL – ON DESOLATE SANDS

“And yet, Hate Eternal has always seemed a mite underappreciated compared to other brutal and/or technical peers. One explanation for this is that they are neither as cheaply brutal (“ignant”) as some bands nor as overtly technical (masturbatory) as others, preferring to write real songs over pushing some extreme. But this is only true if you look at typical genre tropes. Hate Eternal doesn’t spend half of their albums doing Cryptopsy slams or delivering torrents of sweep picking, but they’ve long been among the most intricate, blasty, and downright heavy bands in death metal, while their brutality comes through in sheer muscular force.” [ZACH DUVALL]

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12. SATAN – CRUEL MAGIC

“Satan expands on their flirtation with more progressive elements in their structures, as further evidenced by the equally excellent track “My Prophetic Soul.” In classic Satan fashion, melodies are delivered at breakneck speeds, and it’s just riff after riff. While still working in the confines of an overall verse/chorus structure, its the sections in between that really shine. The bridges are expertly crafted to carry the weight of what is a catchy tune to begin with and expand it into more of a journey without meandering too far from what really makes the band so great: their songwriting. Though Cruel Magic may not be quite as speedy as their previous material, it is without any sacrifice to the electricity of the music itself (which isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of fast-paced burners that glide the record forward).” [RYAN TYSINGER]

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11. SEAR BLISS – LETTERS FROM THE EDGE

“Now in their 25th year of existence and on their eighth (!) album, Sear Bliss plays with the confidence of a band that knows its precise strengths but still revels in finding new ways to outstrip past heights. On Letters from the Edge, the horn’s tone (apparently the horn “section” at the moment is only Zoltán Pál’s trombone) is rich and full, but it’s often mixed so seamlessly against the guitars that they blend in much more than they jut out. The Windir influence is occasionally more pronounced here than on previous albums. The main tremolo melody of early album highlight “Seven Springs” is both acrobatic and uplifting, all the more so when buttressed by the powerful chorus (backed by both horns and keys in a rich splash of sound).” [DAN OBSTKRIEG]

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10. MESSA – FEAST FOR WATER

“One of the most interesting tensions throughout the album is the contrast between the relative sharpness of Sara’s vocals and the reverbed, almost aquatically diffuse sound of the instruments. Although Sara’s vocal lines are often being belted out with significant power, they’re set back a ways in the mix. This production choice serves to highlight the laser-focus purity of her tone while not overpowering the intricate interplay between the rest of the instrumentation. The guitars and bass are warm, bordering on fuzzed-out, and the thump and crack of the drums are slightly muffled in such a way that the resonant wash of the cymbals blends in with the rounded edges of the guitars. It’s a beguiling sound that allows the band to appear sneakily unified even when each of the instruments is doing something different.” [DAN OBSTKRIEG]

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9. MOURNFUL CONGREGATION – THE INCUBUS OF KARMA

“If there was ever a divine spark hidden in the subconscious realms of human nature, this fine example of funeral doom has always been on the brink of bringing that to light in the realms of its listeners’ minds. If the “primal matter” is meant to serve as substance in the unconscious mind that is needed for the incarnation of a deity, then perhaps we humans will always be blind. Perhaps this very album is meant to signify the primal matter? Perhaps we are dejected because of primal matter? (Thank God I only have the time and ability to write about the music.)” [KONRAD KANTOR]

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8. MADDER MORTEM – MARROW

“Stylistically, Madder Mortem’s sound is very eclectic, but they unite each disparate thread such that nothing feels cluttered or haphazard. Marrow is full of cleverly meandering songs that still hit the listener squarely in the gut with their emotional directness. This eclecticism means that Madder Mortem should be an easy sell to fans of a diverse range of bands, from Leprous and Devin Townsend to The Gathering and Anathema, and from Tool and Katatonia to Burst and The Third and the Mortal. The left and right channel guitar interplay of the first post-chorus on “Far From Home” displays the progressive spirit of a band that, like many of those peers, never needs to beat you over the head with obvious progressive signifiers.” [DAN OBSTKRIEG]

• Last Rites review
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7. W.A.I.L. –
WISDOM THROUGH AGONY INTO ILLUMINATION AND LUNACY VOL. II

“Wisdom Through Agony Into Illumination And Lunacy Vol. II condenses the over-arching theme of the band’s purpose into a simply stated yet unfathomably deep concept: The dualistic nature of humans and the universe. This concept goes quite deep down the rabbit hole as the listener contemplates the exquisite lyrics and liner notes, but remains easy enough to comprehend so as to never seem overly pretentious or above the average drunkard kicking back to listen to a black/death/doom metal record.” [KONRAD KANTOR]

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6. SOLSTICE – WHITE HORSE HILL

“The record itself is a huge achievement—the closest thing to a natural 10/10 slab from the epic realm we’ve heard since Scald’s Will of Gods is a Great Power, and something that raises the bar previously set by the likes of While Heaven Wept’s pivotal Vast Oceans Lachrymose or The White Goddess by Atlantean Kodex. Of course, Solstice is hardly a stranger to virtue; musically they’ve been world-class for ages. But the addition of Paul Kerns (ex-Arcane Sun) behind the mic beginning with 2013’s Death’s Crown is Victory EP was crucial for vaulting things to another level. Kerns sounds fantastic here—a Länquist level of spirit when measures are meant to galvanize, and a brawny approach to sensitivity throughout the record’s lighter fare.” [CAPTAIN]

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5. VISIGOTH – THE CONQUEROR’S OATH

“…Conqueror’s Oath features an explosive abundance of infectious choruses and bridges that are at times startlingly invigorating, so be sure to pound the album into your ears before that dreadful 3:30pm numbers meeting if you like the idea of envisioning someone running an impressive glaive through old man Bottomburp while he drones on and on about deferred revenue reports.” [CAPTAIN]

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4. VOIVOD – THE WAKE

“The songwriting is progressive, constantly shifting time and tempo, tone and tenor in order to keep that storyline compelling both within and between songs. And somehow everything remains connected to those early roots even as it reaches to remember all the branches and blossoms of the band’s experience since, so that the feel of The Wake is at once fresh and familiar; the Voivod you’ve always known doing the thing you know so well even better than you could have hoped.” [LONE WATIE]

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3. JUDAS PRIEST – FIREPOWER

“Firepower is the best Judas Priest album since Painkiller, and more importantly, the first since then that could fit comfortably after that record without being too far in the shadows. It’s a damned good metal record from an absolutely great metal band, older now and far removed from the classic days, but proving once again that they’ve still got both the fire and the power.” [ANDREW EDMUNDS]

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2. DECEASED – GHOSTLY WHITE

“The bring it chorus in “Thoughts from a Leaking Brain”; the irresistibly classic metal riffs and huge “The devil is real! The devil is real!” passage in “To Serve the Insane”; the sudden riff-and-rhythm call-to-arms moment in “Pale Surroundings”; such signature spots are a, well, signature of the band, and seem to come totally naturally. Fowley’s vocals are the most recognizable element, but everything about the Deceased sound is based on personality, charisma, and fun, straight down to the spooooooooky samples.” [ZACH DUVALL]

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1. AMORPHIS – THE QUEEN OF TIME

“Queen of Time picks up where Under the Red Cloud left off in that regard, but with perhaps an additional achievement unlocked for delivering even more moments that make the heart swell to the point of eruption—moments that make a strong case for generating the following absurd statement: just how much you’re going to love this record matters less than how much it’s going to love you, and buddy, Queen of Time is gonna wrap itself around you tighter than a pet reticulated python that knows you have chickens in your pants. Or…something a lot more snuggly and sentimental than that.” [CAPTAIN]

• Last Rites review
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The post Best Of 2018 – Last Rites Combined Staff Top 25 appeared first on Last Rites.

[Andrew Edmunds]

———

If you haven’t had your head squarely inside your own ass for the last few weeks you might have noticed that the internet is aflutter lavishing praise on Slugdge’s 2018 effort Esoteric Malacology. That album has catapulted Slugdge from something of a cult favorite squarely into the forefront of the death metal scene.

After hearing Esoteric Malacology it was clear that we needed to sit down with Matt Moss to chat about lyrical themes, nazism in metal and, of course, Ice-T.

Starting off light, people are always pretty psyched about your song titles. Is that something that you always enjoyed in other works? How much effort do you put into making your song titles have such depth?

They are usually the working titles that we didn’t change, unless they were completely ridiculous, and as you can probably tell, that bar is set very low indeed.  Really, though, they are just our way of paying homage to other bands, most of the time anyway.

In particular, “Crop Killer,” is one hell of a title given the lyrical content. Can you dive a bit deeper into what you’re going for here? There’s plenty about hive theory and power dynamics, what’s your take on the direction of human life on earth? What can we, as regular people, do to deter the inevitable collapse?

I feel like I should preface this response by saying that if you came for the riffs and the slugs, you needn’t read too much into my opinions expressed in the lyrics. Our first duty is to have fun.  I’m not really into the habit of foisting my political ideas onto people through our music. Having said that, no art is apolitical, and our final destination as a civilisation is relevant to the themes of the lyrics.

The title really has nothing to do with the actual subject matter at hand, to be honest; I’m just a fan of Ice-T.  “Crop Killer” was more to do with your typical Slug MO rather than relating directly to the controversial song by Body Count.  The lyrics are a pretty broad subject in that one, particularly focused on the current trend we’re seeing in the world: a belief that we can somehow “go backwards”.  I’m just an entertainer, not a political theorist, but I have quite strong opinions when it comes to the survival of our species irrespective of our national identities, creed, or the idea of a ‘clash of civilisations’

I believe we all want the same thing: a unified, peaceful, ordered world, but when it comes to how we get there, we all have very different ideas.  The trends I see are political vs economic vs religious, but I am very dubious of the idea we can dismantle the political system that, for all it’s flaws, we’ve spent a great deal of time trying to “tame” to benefit us, in favour of a corporate model which to me seems even more beyond the ken of regular people.  It’s effectively trading one master for another in my view. The concept of global theocracy, despite the whole theme of our band, is anathema to me.

There is another, more personal part of this though, which is this idea that things were somehow better in the past; they weren’t.  I see this meme flying around occasionally about how the Spartans and Vikings weren’t “snowflakes like people today,” or how young men in WW2 were somehow tougher back then because they were forced to fight for their survival.  My Grandfather fought in WW2, and the things that happened to him — seeing his friends killed, seeing death on that scale — these things haunted him for the rest of his days. An entire generation paid the price for the choices of the few.  Never again. You don’t want your children killed for perceived weakness, or sent to the agoge to have compassion beaten out of them. The Norsemen were a desperate people trying to escape geographical challenges in Scandinavia when they decided to invade England a thousand years ago.  The point is, you can’t compare what is with what was, but some parts of our history are cyclical. We can learn those lessons vicariously; the current refugee crisis is a good modern example. I don’t know the answer — I just have a good idea from history of what the incorrect response is.

Themes of selfishness pop up throughout the lyrics on the album, is that something you’re experiencing on a macrocosmic level or something that’s affecting your day-to-day life?

Both.  I’m as a much a product of my environment as anyone else, and very distrustful because of it.  I spend a lot of time thinking about what I’m going to do now before I do it, because i’ve been somewhat “impulsive” in the past: cruel, selfish and stupid.  I’m all for forgiving people’s transgressions because I’ve made plenty, but as stated earlier, there are some macrocosmic instances of selfishness that will destroy us unless we get our shit together now.  They say our economic system isn’t a zero sum game, but when you take from the world, transform nature into shit, then dump shit back into nature, well, that’s going to have consequences. As we get rich the rest of life on Earth is denuded and life is pushed to the brink of extinction.  So we can talk all we want about how it’s the best system tried thus far; it might be, and it’s a phase we may have needed in our development, but it’s also literally killing us. Maybe all of them will though. We can’t die out either so we have to try our best collectively. I’m 100% for taking our place among the stars, but we have to get our house in order first.  This planet is an oasis in a seemingly endless expanse of nothingness, let’s get our priorities in order. There is a great filter (see the fermi paradox) which we may have passed, or may lie before us. Mollusca may be a font of endless knowledge, the form of our destructor, or we ourselves may be the god in waiting; the first of our kind. Let’s see, shall we?

This is your first release on Willowtip, and really your first LP released via an actual label. Did that change the way you went into the album? What’s the experience been like with a label versus working independently?

There has certainly been more to do, but Willowtip are easy going, they let you be you and don’t encroach on our process.  I’ve said before that, in the past, I could release an album the day we finished it and start work on a new one the day after when we were independent.  Can’t do that now. However, the business side to music — vinyls, cds, merch — that’s all far less of a chore now Willowtip is handling things. When it comes to music, I was never very business-minded anyway; it’s a labour of love for us.

You were pretty open on social media about the whole Taake tour being canceled. I’m wondering if you can expand on that a bit and talk about what you see as going wrong in the insular metal scene and, maybe, what you see actually going well.

It baffles me how a grown man thought wearing a swastika on stage was going to go well in the current climate.  Yes, lots of people have done it in the past, either to poke fun or to be edgy and make some kind of “statement” (not sure what), but tensions are running high at the moment concerning a resurgence in some of the ideas related to fascism.

Do I think he is a nazi?  Probably not, no. As with Phil Anselmo’s “white wine” fueled debacle, it just makes me roll my eyes and think “That was very misguided”.  He was almost certainly trying to drum up publicity, and it blew up in his face. Seeking publicity by adopting controversial icons you then publicly denounce doesn’t seem “trve” to me, but I might be missing his overall point. I’m willing to give anyone a second chance.  Poking at religion is a fairly established part of heavy metal, and I’ve no problem with it. We have to be quite careful with that though. Attacking ideas? Fine. Persecuting people for them? No. Again, this theme of the cyclical nature of history is worth considering. If the belief system is sufficiently violent, then, yes, we must confront that, but I think what a lot of people would be surprised to find is people within those religious traditions who hold the same opinion as them, and fight constantly within them for reform, be they believers or apostates.

That being said, I’ve heard (can’t verify because I wasn’t there) that threats were made, and it resulted in shows being shut down.  I don’t believe we should do that, either. Subject matter in metal and punk has also been fairly shocking, be it Cannibal Corpse, Mayhem, GG Allin or whoever.  Some of my favourite bands have espoused stuff straight out of the Satanic Bible, which I view as Ayn Rand for people who like goats and chalices, but I would never attempt to shut them down.  Even our lyrics have parts you could mistake for my opinions, but they are often being told from the perspective of an alien/nature itself. “Don’t ban it; just don’t buy it,” is what I would say.  I’m influenced/informed by Norwegian black metal, but there are members of that scene that will never get a penny from me, even if I think their music is good. No one is perfect, I get it, but there is a line.   

The new album is just remarkable, not to say your previous releases haven’t been excellent in their own right. What are your expectations for this one and did you feel like something “special” was happening while you were writing it?

I had no expectations, really. I never do; we just write, and if we enjoy it, cool. If we don’t, we scrap it and start again.  We are constantly blown away by the response we get. It didn’t hit home until the other day when someone from one of my favourite bands was telling me how much he loved it.  That made it more real to me, because previously most of what I’d seen was online, and the online world has this weird unreality to it. I know some of the reasons why people like us, and they are the reasons I personally like making this music, which is lucky!  Still, the response is much more than I anticipated, and I think we have the fans and certain journalists (also fans themselves) to thank for that, really. In the early days, it felt like it was just being passed from friend to friend, like the old days, and that’s a good feeling.  They are part of Slugdge, too, which is something that is reflected in many of the themes, and something I hope continues.

You close out the record with some serious Latin. Did you study Latin in school or are those things you’re pulling from biblical texts? It seems to me that you’re really creating your own universe or galaxy within which to frame your ideas. What’s the relationship between what you’re doing and religion?

I’m not a religious person, but I was raised Catholic, and in Catholicism, there is this strain of fire and brimstone kind of preaching I always found quite amusing.  Hell and damnation is a given, but I never disagreed with that sentiment either. Life is pain; it’s struggle, and through struggle, we are born anew. You get similar things in Islam with the concept of Jihad, and the Hebrew Bible is extremely heavy going, too, in regards to the wrath of God.  It’s not just the Abrahamic religions that I draw inspiration from — there are interesting parts of others, particularly Zoroastrian beliefs, Hinduism and my personal favourite, the Mayan pantheon, the Popol Vuh being one of those holy texts that just leaves you thinking “what the Xibalba is going on?”.  Then there’s the work of Lovecraft. In terms of mythology, that was a game-changer for me, but I’ve said a lot about that before.

The Latin thing just felt suitable, and it’s something that crops up a lot in black metal, so it’s a nod to that/taking the piss, because when it’s put together, in reality, it won’t make much sense, and it rarely does when other bands do it either.  I’m not a student of Latin; I have a baseline understanding of it, though. There are bits like “Numquam non Paratus” etc that do have personal meaning to me, though: It’s the motto of my father’s family. He was an artist, probably responsible for much of who I’ve become, despite our differences, but he died before he could see me really explore my artistic side.  I think that despite everything, he would have been proud. Although, he was trained in classical Latin and Greek, so he’d probably go to great lengths to correct my grammar. That was him, though.

In a society based entirely on internet interactions, where words are typed out rather than spoken, do you care if people pronounce the band name properly?

No.  I made a short clip where I was correcting people’s pronunciation, but I’m not really bothered.  We toyed with the idea of making all the letters silent, but discussing us would have become too difficult.  Some people have expressed their hatred for the spelling, but once again, it’s not to be taken too seriously.  I saw someone complaining about how i’d written Transylvanian on the song “Transilvanian Fungus”, but I think they might have missed the point of that, too.  Being able to type things out and consider what you’re saying has its plus points, but context is often lost. I’d hope people take that into consideration with both formats. I think some of the tongue-in-cheek nature of what we do can be misinterpreted, but for the purposes of interviews, it’s usually better for me, as in person, I tend to waffle endlessly and forget what the question was.  Anyway, I’m starting to waffle.

The post Slug Life: An Interview With Matt Moss Of Slugdge appeared first on Last Rites.

Be sure to evince your own excellent taste in music by sharing your own playlist in the comments, and while your’re at it, share with us your favorite concept album as well. Until next month, take care of yourselves.

• Captain
  Old Man’s Child – Born of the Flickering
  Vomitor – Pestilent Death
  John Coltrane – Interstellar Space
  Messa – Feast for Water
  Knelt Rote – Alterity
  Chevalier – Chapitre II & Split with Legionnaire
• Ryan Tysinger
  Death Fortress – Deathless March Of The Unyielding
  GraveCoven – Coughing Blood EP
  Lunar Shadow – Far From Light
  Esoctrilihum – Pandaemorthium (Forbidden Formulas To Awaken The Blind Sovereigns Of Nothingness)
  Abhorer – Cenotaphical Tri-Memoriumyths
  Kawir – Exilasmos
• Andrew Edmunds
  Testament – The New Order
  Wake – Misery Rites
  Phobia – Decades Of Blastphemy
  Lycanthrophy – Lycanthrophy
  Incantation – Mortal Throne Of Nazarene
  Saxon – Thunderbolt
• Zach Duvall
  Starkweather – Croatoan
  Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele
  Master’s Hammer – Fascinator
  Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique
  Slugdge – Esoteric – Malacology
  Solstice – White Horse Hill
• Konrad Kantor
  Mournful Congregation – The Incubus of Karma
  Mournful Congregation – The Monad of Creation
  The Debonaires – The Debonaires
  Nathan Haines – Squire for Hire
  The Scorpions – In Trance
  Agnostic Front – Victim in Pain
• Matthew Cooper
  Apostle of Solitude – From Gold to Ash
  Armored Saint – Raising Fear
  The Cure – Seventeen Seconds
  Pestilence – Hadeon
  Ufomammut – 8
  W.A.S.P. – Re-Idolized: The Soundtrack to The Crimson Idol
• Dan Obstkrieg
  Mournful Congregation – The Incubus of Karma
  Messa – Feast for Water
  Pharoah Sanders – Live at the East
  Dimmu Borgir – Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia
  Peter Brotzmann & Sonny Sharrock – Whatthefuckdoyouwant
  Creation Rebel – Starship Africa
• Manny-O-War
  Rotted – Pestilent Tombs
  Waxwing – One for the Ride
  Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology
  Eric B & Rakim – Paid in Full
  Tongues – Hreilia
  Khruangbin – Con Todo el Mundo
• Dave Pirtle
  Andrew WK – You’re Not Alone
  The Sword – Used Future
  Tyler Bates – The Punisher Soundtrack
  Fu Manchu – Clone of the Universe
  Heavatar – Opus II: The Annihilation
  The Watchers – Black Abyss
• Jeremy Morse
  Pentacle – Under the Black Cross
  Detröyer 666 – Call of the Wild
  Sodom – Persecution Mania
  Destruction – Eternal Devastation
  Kreator – Terrible Certainty
  Spectral Voice – Eroded Corridors of Unbeing

The post Staff Infections: March 2018 appeared first on Last Rites.