Chronicles of a Metalhead: Year End Recap [Part 2 of 3]
Undergraduate/Political Science and Print Journalism
Alright, guys. I’m on hour five of staring at my computer screen (hooray paper writing season in the PoliSci department!), but I feel like I’m somewhat prepared for the rundown of the ten best metal albums of 2009. If this is incoherent, I apologize. But then again, no one reads this anyway.
Actually, looking at the list I have in front of me, it’s absolutely impossible to cut this list down to ten. I have finished on twelve and will be presenting that. Suck it, what I said in the past.
Honorable Mentions
God Dethroned – Passiondale – A WWI inspired album by a band that wrote one of my favorite death metal albums, “The Lair of the White Worm.” This is no “Lair,” but still a solid slab of metal. Best Track: “Drowning in Mud”
Lay Down Rotten – Gospel of the Wretched – Solid, catchy, and ultimately slightly generic melodic death metal that someone manages not to bleed into itself. Vocalist steals the show. Best Track: “Gospel of the Wretched”
Khanate – Clean Hands Go Foul – Much weaker than their drone metal masterpiece “Things Viral,” but it sill manages to make your skin crawl. No best track…this album must be listened to straight through.
Carcariass – E-XTINCTION – Big thanks to my buddy in metal and resident God-hater Evan Gillick for turning me on to this. Interesting, techy death metal. Their weak vocalist kept them off the official list. Best track: “In Cold Blood”
12. Cattle Decapitation – the Harvest Floor. Remember when Cattle Decap was a generic, boring goregrind band known more for their being militantly vegan and pro-animal rights than for their music? Well, I do. Their last couple of albums, “Karma, Bloody Karma” and “Humanure” suffered from the same malady. Awesome music, cool lyrics, totally generic and forgetful music.
Now, what we have is their deathgrind masterpiece. Between the blasting drums and guttural grunts, they have managed to sculpt songs that stand by themselves while still compiling a collection of songs that form a cohesive album.
Worry not, Cattle Decap fans, they haven’t lost their hatred of the human race. “The Harvest Floor” is a concept album of sorts, documenting the human race becoming livestock and being forced to the outskirts of town to live as bovine. Overall, a very impressive showing by a band that used to be happy being slightly above par.
Best Track: “We Are Horrible People”
11. Napalm Death – Time Waits for No Slave. I referenced in my last article that there are some bands that could make the same album over and over and I would listen to it. Napalm Death is one of those bands.
I’m not entirely sure how they pull it off, but Napalm get more and more pissed with each release, melding death metal into the old school grindcore sound they built back in the 1980’s. Yes, they are that old. Barney Greenway still bellows and screeches like a fucking banshee and the drums never seems to slow down.
What is different about “Time” is that they seem to have lit a proverbial fire under their asses when it comes to the genuine fury that seems to radiate from these tracks. Lyrical nerds need look no further than this album for some insightful, hate-laced lyrics providing commentary on the human condition and life in general.
Bottom line: If you like Napalm Death or death metal infused grindcore, then check out “Time Waits for No Slave.”
Best Track: “Diktat”
10. Fleshgod Apocalypse – Oracles. There isn’t a ton to be said of this album I didn’t say in the first article, where I name this album the best debut album of the year. This album infuses furious techdeath mastery with the knack for writing a catchy riff that can be both heavy as all hell and melodic at the same time.
Again, if you’re into techdeath, check out Fleshgod Apocalypse, especially if you’re one of the people that can’t get into the genre, but enjoy more traditional forms of music. If any album is going to make an unbeliever enjoy the traditionally dull genre of techdeath, this motherfucker is it.
P.S. Apparently “motherfucker” is a word Microsoft Word recognizes. Awesome.
09. Nile – Those Whom the Gods Detest. Nile has always been one of those bands that on paper seemed like a band I would go absolutely nuts for, but they never really did a lot for me. My distaste with them is the same distaste I have with a lot of TRVE KVLT black metal…the reliance on the blast beat, regardless of how fast you can do it, makes your songwriting seem elementary at best and gets tiresome quickly.
So when my aforementioned friend and Flip Side cohort, Evan, told me that I needed to check out this album, I came into it quite skeptically. I had heard countless of my metal-listening friends verbally fellate this band enough times to feel kind of disenfranchised from them as a whole. I won’t say this often, especially when it comes to music, but I was wrong.
This album is what I feel like Nile has been trying to do for the duration of their astonishingly long career. Mixing the machinelike blast beats with…wait for it…various other drum techniques, neck-snapping riffs and some of the best-placed breakdowns used for atmosphere more than BR00TALITY (my feelings on breakdowns is a whole other tangent I don’t want to go on) and the ever-present shtick they have of making all their lyrics about Egyptian mythology, Nile has crafted an album that FEELS like an ALBUM, rather than a collection of songs. The interspersed Egyptian-style interludes give the listener time to breath every time the blast beats and growls of Karl Sanders seems to be too much.
Best tracks: “4th Arra of Dagon”
08. Sunn O))) – Monoliths and Dimensions. Fair warning: 95 percent of all of you will hate Sunn O))) with a passion so deep that the English language does not provide me with words strong enough to properly describe it. Pronounced “Sun,” this band has been the “breakthrough” band of the dronedoom genre. Headed up the same guy who works in the aforementioned Khanate, Sunn O))) specialize in creating mind-numbing soundscapes of sheer depression mixed with a foreboding beauty by utilizing the power of dead space.
Sound confusing? That’s because Sunn O))) isn’t a band that lends itself to proper description. Picture twenty minute long songs that dabble in occult atmospherics and lyrics with a new note played every ten seconds or so, with a bar of a three note riff often taking as long as 45 seconds to get through, all coated in a layer of reverb and feedback so thick that if you were to listen to it at loud volume, you would feel like you’re being crushed under a wall of noise. Fuck it, I’m not even going to try anymore.
So what makes this album different from the countless other Sunn O))) albums? Simply put, they brought in one of the biggest names in metal: the infamous Attila of one of the godfathers of black metal, Mayhem. What does Attila bring to the table? Not much, but just enough. His unsettling narration of the first track of the album, “Aghartha,” show that Attila brought a more behind-the-scenes approach to a new even less linear style of writing than before.
“Big Church (megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért)” is this band’s pinnacle in this writer’s humble opinion. The lush soundscapes over the formidable background is one of those moments that drop jaws and wonder how so few people can create some like….that.
Best track: “Big Church (megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért)”
07. Warbringer – Waking into Nightmares. Like Slayer? So does Warbringer. Since their debut album “War Without End,” Warbringer has become the face of the retrothrash movement that has taken the American metal scene by storm. The difference with this band is their ability to mimic, yet not to blatantly steal, from their predecessors.
These guys still
love their war-inspired lyrics (go figure), but this time their lead singer
whose name escapes me and I’m far too lazy to look it up, has matured his voice
considerably. Rather than sounding like
a young guy trying to sound mean, this dude’s voice is fucking venomous.
My single favorite moment of any metal song this year is the opening lyrics of
“Scorched Earth.” I would kill to be able to make noises so savage, yet
discernible.
These guys are more comfortable (and effective) when they ride their mid-paced, head-bangable riffs torn straight from Slayer and injected with some Exodus and Anthrax to be sure. Couple that with the singer’s knack for finding catchy vocal patterns, and you’ll understand why Warbringer is and deserves to be up there with Bonded in Blood, Toxic Holocaust, Municipal Waste and Cross Examination as the faces of the new thrash scene that seems to be developing under our noses.
Best Track: “Scorched Earth”
Tune in next week, when I’ll be counting down the six best albums of 2009. The top album may just surprise you. Or not. Whatever, fuck you.