Top 20 Albums of 2011

2011. This year was a bit different for me, as I was in Afghanistan.  Deployments always skew my music listening, as I need something more visceral. I listen to predominantly intense music as it is, but a deployment will bring it out of you. While I am over there, I have very few of my regular outlets so music becomes even more important. I totally get that a lot of people are not going to agree with my number one album, but that’s just it, it was MY number one album. The intensity, rage and creativity were all things I needed over there.

I would also like to make note of the amount of female musicians and vocalists in metal this year that came out with albums. A handful of them are on my list, but there is a plethora that isn’t on my list and still came out with a banger of a record. I hope that we’re getting to the point where a metal band won’t get recognized simply because a woman is in the band.

So, without further ado….

20. Rotten Sound - Cursed

Holy Nasum!  Rotten Sound managed to somehow copy the late, great Nasum’s particular brand of grind, while still remaining fresh.  In a year where I was a little underwhelmed by the grind that came out, Cursed showed through.

19. Ilsa – Tutti Il Colori Del Bui

I find death metal to be pretty stale.  It’s all been done, but fortunately, some of the really good trends from days past are turning up, Old School Death Metal being one of them.  You can actually figure out a couple of Ilsa’s influences just off their song title, “Frosthrower.”  They’re pretty much equal parts of Celtic Frost and Bolt Thrower with a dash of late 20^th century Italian horror films.  Well executed.

18. Vastum – Carnal Law

This album was neck and neck with Disma’s Toward The Megalith all year.  Both are really good Old School Death Metal albums, but there was something particularly special about this one.  Part of it lies in the song, “Re-Member” and the rest of it lies with the guitars and vocals of Leila Abdul-Rauf and the vocals of Dan Butler.  Their influences of French philopher Georges Bataille make them that much more interesting.

17.  Atriarch – Forever The End

Somber, moody, dark and meditative.  I love that they’re from Oregon, because it makes so much sense.  It’s pretty easy to want to listen to this in the woods under some grey skies by a lot of water.  Water is kind of a recurring thought when I listen to them.  Mist, dark, deep water, rain- any water, really.  I don’t even know exactly what to call it.  I am sure someone is labeling them, “Cascadian, sage-burning, ritualistic, blackened-funeral doom” or some such nonsense.  I just know that I really enjoyed listening to this in my basement, while it was raining, with a pint of a good, dark stout.

16. The Ergon Carousel – Dead Banks

These guys were new to me.  This is a neat, weird brand of grind.  At first I thought it was the letter ‘E’ in the name that made me think of Employer, Employee, but there are some other parallels.  This band manages to be a little sloppy while playing extremely tight and catchy.  They somehow make it sound natural and it just explodes out of your speakers.  These guys were one of my favorite discoveries this year.

15. Kindest Lines – Covered In Dust

Will someone please, please ask Kindest Lines to be a part of their film soundtrack?  These guys somehow manage to make you think of the 80s, Depeche Mode, The Cure and a whole lotta angst without coming off as corny or as a parody.  In a way, and I can’t believe I am saying this, it’s Goth done right. The combination of the guitars and keyboards alongside Brittany Terry’s wistful, hopeful vocals kept me coming back throughout the year.

14. Robocop – Robocop II

Noisy, grinding, powerviolence that manages to keep the genre’s simple, primitive sounds while demanding you to come back and find something new each time you listen to them.  The most unique thing about this band, a powerviolence band, is that they really understand sound.  While it sounds chaotic and on the verge of falling apart, nothing is where it shouldn’t be.  Everything has a purpose.

13. Dead Language – Dead Language

I saw these guys labeled as a “powerviolence super group.”  There’s a joke involving irony somewhere in there.  This band does the powerviolence thing just right, but my ears continued to perk up when it slowed down to a near stop, let the song take a deep breath and just smack me in the head.

12. Pygmy Lush – Old Friends

One of the loveliest albums I’ve heard in quite some time.  Pygmy Lush have refined themselves into a very pretty, relaxing band.  They basically sound like a nice Sunday afternoon.   Everything is comfortable and familiar even if it’s brand new.  They make remind me of better, less polished Fleet Foxes.

11. Weekend Nachos - Worthless

Ugh.  Pissed off music just doesn’t work unless it’s 100% legit.  You can’t fake anger and disgust.  You just come off as a mockery.  This is not the case with Weekend Nachos.  Their music is as frantic as ever and Hoffman changed up his vocals from the powerviolence, mongo-throated style of grunting to a more audible, yet twice as furious style of vocals.  I am not going to do a separate list, but “Jock Powerviolence” is easily one of my favorite songs of the year.

10. Leviathan – True Traitor, True Whore

Leviathan came back out of nowhere to release an album that had to be released.  In a time where even black metal attempts to go the “transcendent,” positive route, Wrest does it right by releasing an extremely personal album.  I always find the best albums to be the ones that the artist had to create, not out of want, but out of necessity, and this album seems to be right up there.  An extremely dense and dark album while being both controversial and interesting, True Traitor, True Whore manages to not only be a Leviathan record, but if my ears are correct, there are also some Lurker of Chalice moments which are always welcome.

9. All Pigs Must Die – God Is War

One of the most important albums of the year.  All Pigs Must Die are a very special band to me.  Their self titled EP and this, their debut LP, bookended my deployment to Afghanistan.  This band was a constant for the entire year.  Not only are they important to me, but I think they’re important, in general.  They take the negative aspects of society, religion, war and humanity in general and in a really intelligent way, they say, “Look, this is why.”  Kevin Baker remains to be one of the most legit vocalists in music, while being accompanied by some of the most brutal hardcore of the year.  This really is a sermon for the end.

8. Peste Noire – L’Ordure à l’état Pur

French black metal weirdos, Peste Noire, put out probably one of the strangest, controversial and yet, most exciting albums of the year.   L’Ordure à l’état Pur is not your typical black metal by any stretch.  In fact without the vocal stylings and some of the tremolo picking that shows up in the guitars, this is arguably black metal at all.  Some music is cinematic, but this is the first time where I’ve ever said that a particular piece of music belongs in a play.  Watch for the unusual instruments of various horns, accordions and the backing vocals of a barnyard full of animals.  And it all works.

7. Thou – The Archer & The Owle, To The Chaos Wizard, and Big City EP

Yes, I am well aware that Thou didn’t technically put out a full length this year.  No, I don’t care, that’s why I am putting the three EPs here.  Thou manage to be extremely prolific and continue to put out quality release after release.  This handful of releases features covers (including an exceptional cover of Nirvana’s  “Something In The Way) and some songs that were on albums, but not originally meant to be.  Sometimes some of the bands Thou was supposed to work with were unable to, and in typical Thou spirit, they put their share of songs anyway.  Arguably my favorite band of the last five years, it’s been a pleasure to watch them grow and evolve.

6. Fell Voices – Untitled

A refreshing album that is a unique mix of black metal, punk and doom.  The album is alive and it moves.  I reviewed this album earlier this year and I described it as nostalgic and familiar and it’s still that way for me.  It has all the ugly parts of black metal, yet the way they treat them is uncharacteristic.  It’s imaginative and  creative and it makes me want to hear more.

5. Ash Borer – Ash Borer

What a year for Cascadian black metal gaze or whatever silly moniker is attached to this type of black metal that continues to show up on my list.  Ash Borer is furious.  They’re the dark side of nature.  They were another black metal band that quickly became the cream of the crop for me.  They don’t have a wide canon, at all, but it’s totally flawless.  It’s not music to be listened to; it’s music to be experienced.

4. False – Untitled

I am quite guilty of hyping this band to the point that some of my friends didn’t appreciate them as much as I do.  They play extremely visceral and schizophrenic black metal that sounds like punked up Emperor.  The music is well crafted and exciting to listen to, but the proof is in the singer’s voice.  She really belts it out, you can hear her breathing and it makes it so much better when everything else is overproduced or Protooled to death.  Very excited to see what this band has in store.

3. Barghest- Barghest

This album went back and forth with False as Black Metal album of the year for me.  Barghest goes the traditional route and kept it lo-fi and downright evil. Their album eschewed trends, didn’t allow any image to get in the way and just knocked it out of the park with a mean, misanthropic album.  Nothing represents them aside from the music itself, which is pretty rare nowadays.  This isn’t “blackened”, black ‘n roll, inspired by or any of that stuff.  It’s straight up Black Metal done right.

2. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Bloodlust

I love how every year, I kinda have a plan as to what is going to be the best and what I am going to like the most.  Then some album by a band I’ve never heard of comes out and just blows everything away.  This year, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats was that band.  So many bands go for the 70s sounding, stoner/psychedelic, Black Sabbath worship and they just fall flat on their face.  Just because you have an Orange amp doesn’t make it so.  Uncle Acid beats that theory to a pulp.  Bloodlust is a perfect album where the stars align and nothing is forced and all is natural.  They drink from the same well that Electric Wizard and Blood Ceremony drink from, but they play up the druggy occult stuff just right to where it’s like a soundtrack to some horror exploitation snuff film.  Man, I need to go find an early 70s era ‘Cuda with a body in the trunk to go do donuts in right now.

1. Cloud Rat – Fever Dreams

This is a barn burner of an album.  Crust, punk, grind and some other more avant-garde elements creep in this album.  At it’s core, they’re an intelligent Infest inspired grind band, but then they’re so much more than that.  The music is constantly changing, never stagnating and then combined with the urgency and fury of the vocals, it all gels together.  Once again, this is a band that really works because the emotion is real.  She believes what she’s screaming about.  It has to come out.  I identify with that.  I read a few things about them how some people thought that they were a little too “mid-90s hardcore.”  I guess I can hear that in their influences, and their website has them labeling themselves as anti-oppression and anti-discrimination but there is so much more in there too, though I love hearing those labels.  I can’t say enough good things about this record, or their previous self titled record for that matter.  I can’t imagine their show being too low on the energy either.   I just read that they’re playing with Thou and False in a few days and I will be missing it.  That’s a bummer.

Nearly made it:

SubRosa, Tombs, KEN Mode, Disma, Wugazi

Looking forward to next year:

Pig Destoyer, EHG, Gaza, Cobalt, Thou

Discoveries of the year:

Ascension, The Austrasian Goat

Letdown of the year:

Yob – Atma