torsdag 28 Nov 2013, 5:37
from my blog: http://hearholeaholics.blogspot.com
Every year it gets worse and worse. I compile my list of potential candidates for my top ten metal releases of the year, then I comb through countless other "year end" lists for albums that I may have missed. This is when I am reminded most that metal media, both online and in print have been ever-spiraling further and further down the shitter for far too many years now. The reasons I feel this way are a trident of misery. 1) The albums that get the top spots are usually unimaginative, safe, derivative, and mediocre. 2) Its pretty clear that these lists should probably be retitled "albums that we generated the most ad / pr revenue from this year." 3) The people that write these lists are surely nice folks, but they just dont seem to be capable of proper exposure to be an authoritarian on this subject! We are trusting these people to tell us about the best music, so that we dont have to listen to all the bullshit releases, and yet they haven't even scratched beneath the surface to find the true gold. I'm not going to sit here on a throne and tell you that I am the underground metal warlord and that I am the one true authority on this topic, you can make your own judgement. I just don't see ANY website, magazine or blogger that defies the miserable characteristics described above.
With that out of my system, here it is.
1) Caladan Brood - Echoes of Battle
2) Seidr - Ginnungagap
3) the Ruins of Beverast - Blood Vaults
4) Gorguts - Colored Sands
5) Gris - À l'âme enflammée, l'äme constellée…
6) Horn - Konflikt
7) Progenie Terrestre Pura - U.M.A.
8) Portal - Vexovoid
9) Inquisition - Obscure Verses for the Multiverse
10) Panopticon / Vestiges - Split
Each album at some point lifted the hair on the back of my neck, gave me tingles all over my body and made my ears gaze in wonderment. These albums gave me what keeps me happy as a rabid music maniac.
Honorable as fuck Mentions:
Abysmal Grief - Feretri
Abyssal - Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius
Altar of Plagues - Teethed Glory and Injury
Arsaidh / Saor - Roots
Begrime Exemious - Wasteland of Damnation
Coffins - Fleshland
Cultes Des Ghoules - Henbane
Falkenbach - Asa
Galdr - Ancient Light of the Stars
the Howling Wind - Vortex
Hypocrisy - End of Disclosure
Incursus - Adaestuo
Magic Circle - s/t
Nocturnal Graves - From the Bloodline of Cain
Oranssi Pazuzu - Valonielu
Paysage d'Hiver - Das Tor
Peste Noire - s/t
Prosanctus Inferi - Noctambulous Jaws Within Sempiternal Night
Red Fang - Whales and Leeches
Sacriphyx - the Western Front
Skogr - In Obscure Darkness
Summoning - Old Morning's Dawn
Thou Art Lord - the Regal Pulse of Lucifer
Ulcerate - Vermis
Vali - Skogslandskap
Voivod - Target Earth
Warlord - the Holy Empire
Witherscape - The Inheritance
Bummers:
Carcass - Fart Blood
Horna - Askel Lähempänä Saatanaa
Satyricon - Satyricon
Ihsahn - Das Seelenbrechen
Darkthrone - the underground Resistance
If you've read this and you think I've forgotten or omitted anything…youre probably wrong. I've spent countless hours sampling the heaps of shit that came out this year and that is why I feel a duty to be the voice of reason here. See you next year!