Two weeks into 2022 and I haven't gone through the customary ritual of drafting a list of albums I enjoyed over the previous year. It's not because I stopped listening to music, because I definitely haven't. I certainly have continued to buy and enjoy albums by establish artists and newer bands alike. It has been, however, quite a year since the last time I posted an update on this little blog. The last 365 (+14) days saw my country almost experience a successful coup, a pandemic that developed a solution only for conspiracy wingnuts who pop dick pills and oxycotin all day to suddenly become skeptical of "Big Pharma" to reject en masse, and the price of everything to spike up because, y'know, more demand than supply in an economy that's underpinned by cheap labor. On a personal front, I was worked nearly to death feeding 'Murica while I finished my MBA (with a 4.0 fuckers!) and M got a new job, but we also found time to have some some pretty amazing adventures in places like Terlingua, Texas, Las Cruces, New Mexico, Jackson, Wyoming, and Bar Harbor, Maine. I even let M talk me into a week in Orlando visiting theme parks.
Getting lost in damn near Mexico with M and a stack of random metal records is my happy place.
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| True story: M used the unfortunate death of my grandmother as an excuse to drag me here. |
Buffalo are massive animals that either plod about or can suddenly go 45 mph and bludgeon everything in their path. That makes them like the doom/death of the animal kingdom. Would you believe this was taken on Memorial Day weekend in Maine? Kvlt as fukk.
With a vaccine, live events have begun happening again; I was able to go to a hockey game and tentatively have a couple more of those planned. I still haven't been to a metal show since December of 2019, but my tickets for MDF in 2022 are valid and who knows, maybe I see a show or two before then. Of course, I have some other stuff in professional world to look at; updating my resume and obtaining some post-degree credentials but largely it's kinda time to relax and take a breath. With a lot of uncertainty about what this year promises to bring, I don't know where or what I'll be doing. I do feel confident that the soundtrack remains the same.
This movie wasn't a satire of 2021, it was a fucking mirror. I really hope 2022 is somehow miraculously less depressing...
Biggest Disappointment of 2021
I think that a silver lining of the pandemic, if there is one, is that it forced bands off the touring cycle and it kinda forced them to spend more time refining and revising the albums they'd end up releasing, which in turn meant that overall quality of releases was much better than recent years. I don't think I bought or took an interest in any albums this year that didn't basically satisfy the itch they were meant to scratch. I live in a bubble of course, so I'm sure I could pick up an album that would let me down...but nothing comes to mind for memorable suckage. I mean, if you shoved a Rob Zombie or Five Fisted Circle Jerk(?) album in front of me I'd expect that to suck; the bigger surprise would be if it didn't (supposedly according to at least one online arbiter of metal that I respect was posting that the new Cradle of Filth album doesn't suck, which would be a considerable surprise to me.) So I'm just going to stick with the fact that I didn't get to see any metal live and in person for two full calendar years now as my disappointment. If anything, I don't think there was a release that I heard that made me say "that's an all-time great album" but just a whole lot of really good quality releases that made it a bit difficult to separate the best of the bunch. I imagine that I could create a different list on another day and still feel good about it.
(If someone wants to tell me why Spiritbox is supposed to be cool I'm all ears because I'm kinda sick of seeing them blowing up my Social Media feed.)
Honorable Mentions
10.) Wolves In The Throne Room Primordial Arcana (Relapse Records)
After John Haughm decided to edge-lord a little too hard and the other members of Pillorian decided to pack up shop, Wolves In The Throne Room kinda took up the altar of "band that sounds closest to Agalloch that you're gonna find in 2022." Which kinda makes sense given that WITTR also call the Pacific Northwest home. An example of a band that I came a bit lately towards but now I'm enjoy the chance to delve into their entire discography.
9.) Alluvial Sarcoma (Unique Leader)
Is this deathcore? Progressive death? I dunno. It's definitely modern for the genre, with lots of huge riffs, big breakdowns with lots of space to breathe, etc. Seems to fit in well with the modern Unique Leader sound I guess; it feels more dynamic than you'd expect but still oppressively plodding yet pit friendly.
8.) Cannibal Corpse Violence Unimagined (Metal Blade)
Zero surprises here; it's a Cannibal Corpse record that sounds like a Cannibal Corpse record. That said, Eric Rutan is the best thing that ever happened to this band. The fact that they remain this extreme as they've become 50 year olds deserves a lifetime achievement award.
7.) Alustrium A Monument Of Silence (Unique Leader)
These guys sound so tight and technically proficient that I initially mistook them for part of the Quebec tech-death collective. It's not just their ability to doodle on their fretboards though; Alustrium infuses their brand of tech-death with catchy hooks and actual song structure; there's melody to be found amongst the varied growls and ceaseless bombast of drums. Busy yet restrained in all of the right ways.
6.) Khemmis Deceiver (Nuclear Blast)
Along with Pallbearer and Spirit Adrift, you could almost consider Khemmis part a "big 3" of American doom since the 2010's. Each band draws back to the foundations of the genre to achieve something classically inspired albeit in different ways. Pallbearer writes haunting dirges, Spirit Adrift occupies something of a 1979-1982 era of doom meets cock rock currently, yet Khemmis retains the huge riffing and sludgy heft of doom in what they bring to the table. Deciever is less bass heavy (makes sense; this time around the bass guitar parts were performed by the two guitarists), but still full of downtuned grimy agony and a varied vocal delivery; this time around the growls are slightly more prominent. If Pallbearer aims for loftier "high art" and Spirit Adrift seeks to be the soundtrack for taking psychadelics and getting into an orgy with gals who have the "big bush", Khemmis seeks to crush you with misery, while occasionally adding some swagger with it.
5.) Aenigmatum Deconsecrate (20 Buck Spin)
Bombastic blackened-death from 20 Buck Spin. Aegnimatum delve into multiple death metal adjacent subgenres while remaining a distinct entity, combining a bit of Athiest with the dischordant progressions of 2nd wave black metal, but delivered with the ferocity of Nile. Trying to find reviews that give points of reference to compare these guys to is difficult, but that speaks to the distinct character of what they've put together here. The meandering bass guitar lines underpinning all of this cacophony is a nice detail.
4.) Pyrexia Gravitas Maximus (Unique Leader)
Holy fuck. I'm sure there's a ton of recency bias here but this is the best album this long running NYDM band ever released. And yeah, I'm including the legendary Sermony of Mockery record with that. This album is so good it makes me want to revisit that post-Sermon discography, because until now I don't feel like these guys ever lived up to that album following it's release. That's not an issue with Gravitas Maximus, full of chugging slams, breakdowns, gravel throrated growls, and steady doses of blastbeats and double kick runs. When this style of death metal is executed at the competency that Pyrexia displays here, it is hard to beat. At just 25 minutes or so, it comes fast, hard, and leaves you speechless. At number 4, I may be underrating this one.
3.) Obscura A Valediction (Nuclear Blast)
Is this the 5th or 6th album this German prog-death troop? I dunno, but as someone who felt deeply burned by Opeth when they went limpwristed 10 years ago, Obscura has scratched that niche well in the years since. There's fretless bass lines, lush accoustic interludes, plenty of the fretboard wizardry to appease Cynic fans, enough venom to fit comfortably alongside the catalog of post-Human era Death, and still enough hooks and songcraft to make A Valediction a sufficiently ambitious if familiar journey. It gets a ranking rather than honorable mention because of their peerless execution.
2.) Eye of Purgatory The Lighthouse (Transcending Obscurity)
Holy fucking Edge of Sanity, Batman! Everything about this recaptures that mid-90's era of ambitious death metal that sought to progress while maintaining the focus on riffs and aggression. The production and tones all gives vibes of Sunlight Studios...in spirit if nothing else. It all makes sense when you realize that the most prolific guy in Swedish death metal, Rogga Johansson, is the mastermind behind this band. Rogga, also the driving force of other more caveman-esque bands like Paganizer, Ribspreader, and Those Who Bring The Torture gets a pass for the "lack of originality" here since we're essentially discussing a seminal figure in the "non-Gothenburg" side of Swedish death metal. Big riffs, melodic leads, a use of keyboards that takes an appropriate backseat to meaty riffing. I get it that you could just listen to Purgetory Afterglow or Crimson and get the same experience, but I still can't help but feel like Rogga did an outstanding job of breathing fresh life into previously used template.
1.) The Crown Royal Destroyer (Metal Blade)
I'm not sure if anyone else will hold this album in this level of esteem, but in a year that's hard to separate between a lot of really good albums, I think this may be one of the albums I listened to the most. This is ham-fisted Scandinavian death metal that borrows elements of thrash and melodic death metal to bring forth a filthy yet well produced, crushingly heavy slab of bangers. Songs like "Motordeath" are respect-filled nods to influences such as early Metallica, and I can confidently say that "We Drift On" is the best song never written by In Flames or Amon Amarth. Royal Destroyer is a confident effort by an established, well polished band who know what they do well.
I guess now that I'm done with my university studies (for real this time!) I'll try to update a little more than once annually. I felt like I had some topics I wanted to riff on, and I may well get around to them in the next few months. In the meantime, I'll "shout out" to establishments both real and virtual that kept me supplied with metal over the last year.
Brick and Mortar Stores:
The Sound Garden- Baltimore, Maryland
Vinyl Altar- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Bull Moose- Maine and New Hampshire (especially Portsmouth, NH and Portland, Me)
Extreme Noise Records- Minneapolis, Minnesota
Twist and Shout Compact Discs, Records, & DVDs- Denver, Colorado
Waterloo Records- Austin, Texas
Online Shops and Distros
