the Top 10 Extreme Metal Albums of 2022

This list encompasses anything heavy that does not fit neatly into a sub-genre. Some lists were overcrowded and not a good fit so those bands who are just about sonic hedonism are here to haunt you. Much like in years past I sort through the genre lists before making the overall top ten of the year list. The fact these artists made it on the list speaks to how great these albums are, so it's not a slight that the number 8 album is above the 9th album, there is something that just gives it an edge that makes me want to listen to it more. After all we can try to look cool and pick the hippest bands for a list, but at the end of the day what makes an album the best is that it makes you want more, you look forward to listening to it again. I do hope you can find your next favorite on this list and have included links to reviews of these albums if you want to check out audio on these guys. Anyways here are the top 10 Extreme metal albums of 2022

10-Ruin- "Where Death is Spread Out Across the Sky" 

This band crosses many sub-genres. all of their shades of heavy are nasty. They do however still write songs, and I find their album fun to listen to. Guttural grows sometimes rise into more agonized spews. The pervading sense is dread. They do speed up into something more like death metal, though the overall vibe of the album trudges a more death doom road. 

Abysmal Hymns: November is Doom- Ruin- "Where Death is Spread Out Across the Sky"

9-Fit for an autopsy-"Oh, What the Future Holds" 

It starts off falling somewhere between what you might expect from both death metal and metal core then as this album progresses, they begin to introduce new sounds and the adventure really begins. This brings out the best of their songwriting skills and elevates them above the status quo. 

 Abysmal Hymns: Fit For an Autopsy : "Oh What the Future Holds"

8-False Gods- "Neurotopia" 

This sludge doom band from New York is an excellent example of why I so often bring up a band's influences, as they tend to form the sum of their parts, these guys have great sound it is suitable dense and dark in all the right places. There is a slight crusty edge at time, yet they make it apparent how large a role hard core has also played on their musical development.  This is heard often in the vocals from  the almost Fugazi like manner they accent things to the punchy crustiness coating the attitude the vocals are accent with earlier in the album which remind me of Kylesa.  Being a huge fan of their 2020 album, I knew these guys were capable and it cannot be said that they are delivering more of the same. Instead, they are attacking you from a different angle that I appreciate.

Abysmal Hymns: November is Doom - False Gods :"Neurotopia"

7-Hegemone- "Voyance"

This Polish band returns with another dense slab of nasty sonics. Their third full length, and you may remember us really digging their 2018 album "We Disappear". They continue to balance really heavy almost to the point of being abrasive sludge with a more atmospheric drone. They go from getting really heavy then drifting off into a gray shadow filled ocean.  I think they are more convincing as a sludge band than a black metal band, and do not blend the sounds as organically as say Withered. They do stylistically fall between many of the cracks, but no matter how you want to label them

Abysmal Hymns: Hegemone : " Voyance" Review and Full Album Stream.

 

6-Celeste-" Assassine​(​s)"

If you miss the days when Deafheaven was heavy, this French band has you covered, they are darker and nastier than Deafheaven ever dared. They are not another black gaze band as they employ an intense militant hammering, they aim upon your ears with a machine-like precision that has almost more in common with Meshuggah., using atmosphere to breaks up the relentless weaponized grooves. The midrange vocals have more a bark to them than the scathing howls of black metal. Not unlike how hard-core screaming is used to a more percussive effect

Abysmal Hymns: Black Metal History Month- Celeste :" Assassine​(​s)"

5-Hexis -"Aeturnum" 

Not only are they Denmark's heaviest band, but perhaps Northern Europe's heaviest band, though Sweden has some contenders. These guys are not just black metal, but also combined hard core and grind core into something dark and sonically punishing. They allow you to breathe, hitting you with a full-frontal assault of scathing screaming and weighty blasts. Black metal is aggressive and fast, however that does not make it the heaviest genre. It is the deliberate sonic weight put behind something that makes it heavy. The difference between being hit by a small guy who is fast and big guy who has muscle to put behind his punch. 

Abysmal Hymns: Hexis : "Aeturnum"

4-Tuscoma- "Gu-cci" 

When you aspire to transcend sub-genres, you might not become the next Neurosis or Deafheaven, but might put out an album better than most of your peers in the sub-genre you do end up falling into. Such is the tale of this band from New Zealand. They have made one of the more unique death metal albums that transcends They most effective when hitting a dark and foreboding balance of atmosphere and menace. They get caught up in the heaviness as they are doing something different in more respects than not, along with biting lyrics that are a great social commentary. 

Abysmal Hymns: Death is June - Tuscoma : " Gu-cci"

 

3-Spiritworld - "Deathwestern" 

Misguided journalism tried to place the emphasis on the western theme, but nothing could be further from the truth this album is possessed by a thrashing metallic hard core feel than what I thought be melding with this more western themed mood originally painted. The riffs hit you with gut punch and the vocals are command with purpose, so it works for me. Most to the albums on the extreme list have been in the sphere of grind core so for a thrash band to make it speaks to how fucking heavy this album is.  

Abysmal Hymns: Spiritworld - "Deathwestern"

2-Candy- "Heaven is Here" 

When it comes to extreme music most of it came from some early crossroads where death metal met hard core. The bands Relapse Records debut finds the noise ridden grind core being refined into a dense and perhaps even more punishing monster while fully aware that they have a job to write songs. The vocals are the most hard-core thing about this band. They are less spastic than Napalm Death. When they lock into a grinding chug the results are very powerful. This album is fucking intense.  

Abysmal Hymns: Candy : "Heaven is Here"

 

1-Wormrot -"Hiss" 

Grind core is typically not my thing, though in saying that there are a few bands who incorporate grind core into their sound that I love, like Portrayal of Guilt and Nails. Singapore's Wormrot is one of the more polished acts in the genre, they also prove themselves to be one of the best songwriters as well. A great deal of credit goes to the vocals which use a chaotic variety of vocal colors. The penchant for hooky thrash influenced riffing plays hand in hand with this as well to create an album that is not only intense but worth countless listens.  

Abysmal Hymns: Wormrot : "Hiss"

Hexis : "Aeturnum"

I have been looking forward to the new album from Denmark's heaviest band. To be honest they might be Northern Europe's heaviest band, though Sweden has some contenders. However, these guys are not just black metal, but also combined hard core and grind core into something dark and sonically punishing. It is not until the third song that these guys let up and allow you to breathe, hitting you with a full-frontal assault of scathing screaming and weighty blasts. Black metal is aggressive and fast, however that does not make it the heaviest genre. It is the deliberate sonic weight put behind something that makes it heavy. The difference between being hit by a small guy who is fast and big guy who has muscle to put behind his punch. They are so good at assaulting you with the catharsis of sound it often makes me to forget to listen more for the finer points of song writing. Dark and heavy is cool, but you still have to have songs. The way they use atmosphere at the end of "Exhaurire" says they do care about composition and dynamics. 

With the minute and a half dedicated to "Interitus" gets the point across with a taste of thrashing grind core. There is more of a hard-core hook to "Tacet".  The bring an interesting sonic feel to the battery of your ears that is "Accipis". The vocal accents give more form and function. The vocals are more purposeful on this album. That is not to say they are going for anything in the bounds of accessible to mainstream metal crowds. There is enough abrasion to scare off the weak. I do not remember the synths standing out as much on their previous albums, so that is a fresh color. "Nunquam" is not a formula, but it does hit you with a similar styled beating. I did go back to give another listen for what I might have missed with the dense sonic blur hit me the first time around. "Vulnera" instantly resonates with me due to the pulse of dark ambiance.

There is more of a hard-core feel to the confrontational vomit of "Captivus". The jagged guitars are very violent in the lashing of their riffs. They give the same level of fucks, which is zero when they throw the equally intense "Memento" at you. It is really heavy, but I think that "Amissus" that follows it is better in terms of songwriting, as there is more feel and not just intensity. It is more deliberate and has greater evil to its throb. The title track that closes the album is a five- and half-minute atmospheric outro rather than an actual song., I would have preferred to have heard them work those songs into what they normally do, but it is what it is. I will give this album a 9.5,    

10.5

The Top 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time : 10 - 1

Here we are the top ten heaviest albums of all time. If we are counting hard core as metal  then all but one of these albums are metal. But no matter what you want to call them what they have in common is that all of these albums defy description. Blurring lines of genres to create monsters of their own. Unless you are a regular reader or have the tastes of our regular readers ...meaning are not afraid to dig outside of the mainstream into the more underground sectors, there might be some bands where you are like who the fuck is this? Of course some of these albums would have to come from the more underground corners of the scene because they are too heavy for your run of the mill metal head to digest.  If you think Slipknot is heavy, you might not be able to handle this.


10- Author & Punisher - "Ursus Americanus"

The heaviest industrial album of all time. A man and his machines beating the fuck out of your head. 

9-Nails- " You Will Never Be One of Us" 

This album is mean as hell, bullying you into submission. Is it hard core or grind core? It's both fist fucking one another. 








8- Code Orange - "Forever"

These kids used to more closely conform to the hard core genre, other influences like industrial crept in over the years. They became heavier in introducing these elements. I think what really secured their place here, is they do this is a way that makes you believe each note they are playing. 

7-Leviathan - "True Traitor True Whore" 



As with the previous band if you can make me believe you mean every note of anger or torment and are honestly throwing the dark places in your life in your songs, if will feel heavier than if you are just going through the motions of metal. Whitehead had some fucked up shit going on in his life when he made this one. Black metal often postures here it oozes will malice and ill intent. 

6- Zohamah- "Spread My Ashes"

This is where I might lose some of you as we are going to start diverting from mainstream metal. This blackened Doom band is vicious. They play ugly chords and make you feel their anguish. 

5-Altar of Plagues - "Teethed Glory and Injury" 


This Irish band's take on sludgey black metal is dark and dissonant. Yes there are blast beats , but done in a manner that crushes and not just drones. Noise laden atmosphere adds a depressing touch.  Sadly this was their swan song. 


 

4-Anaal Nathrakh- "Vanitas"



Another black metal band proving it works best when you bring other elements to the table. In this case it's grind core and industrial. If Emperor had gone completely insane from smoking meth they might have created something similar.


 

3- Dragged into Sunlight- "Hatred For Mankind" 


It's rare when the fury of the vocals makes an album heavier than it is. That is the case with this nasty blackened sludge fest. If you asked me what album lives us to it's title, I would point to this one.

2-Lord Mantis - "Pervertor"

Less black metal influence that Dragged into the Sunlight. The density of their brand of hammering sludge, is still very musical, but it hits like a rabid wall of sound.

 1- Hexis - "Abalam" 

I got this album six years ago and have not heard anything that comes close to touching it's grinding blackness since then. That is impressive if you take into consideration how much metal I am sent on a weekly basis



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the Top 10 Hardcore Albums of the Decade

The decade began before this blog was started , I can not just rely on sorting through previous reviews. I am just embedding video clips to support the reasoning for these albums to be listed as such, since I already did a best of the year list for each sub-genre. I broke up what was the punk / harcore list and made them two seperate lists. With most lists I am saying I am not going for the heaviest or fastest but  for what has the best songs . That is still true , but for harcore, I do lean toward the more mean spirited and the darker the better . There still has to be a melodic quality that makes this  worth listening to again and again.  Maybe these are not the hippest albums of the decade when it comes to this genre, but what matters more is the fact these are the albums I listened to the most when it came to this sort of thing. ; Any ways here are the Top 10 Hard core  albums of the decade.


10-Oathbreaker- "Rheia" -2016




 





9-Svalbard- "It's Hard to Have Hope"












8-Hexis-"Tando Ashanti"-2018 









7-Enabler - "Fail to Feel Safe" - 2015










6 -Birds in Row- "We Already Lost the World" - 2018





 






5-LLNN- "Deads "- 2018 












4-Phobia- "Generation Coward" -2019






 






3-Nails - "You Will Never Be One of Us"- 2016 












2-Code Orange - "Forever"












1-Converge - " The Dusk in Us"-2017





 

Hexis : "Tando Ashanti"

If you were to ask me who is the heaviest band out today I might point you in the direction of this band from Denmark. Heavy is more than low tuning, thick gain and how fast you strike the strings. It' is about the sonic tensity stirred and the feelings driving how you attack your instrument. Once again genres collides. "Ashanti" feels more like blackened death metal. With raw curdled vocals that are more grind-core. It slows into more of a sludge like dirge, showing these guys can pretty effectively handle both ends of the heavy spectrum. Production the album doesn't sound as dense as the one before it. There is more of  experimental wildness to what they do on this one.

Digging into further into their outbursts of song. The pace becomes more explosive on "Molestus". It becomes very clear in case you forgot what kind of bestial creation is sitting on the drum throne for these guys. "Ritualis" might be more sonic and dense than "Molestus" but is not as solid of a song.  "Calamitas" is more grind-core in length and the fury espoused. The go into spastic blast beats with more of a punk feel to it than black metal here. It does find it's groove. "Nocturnus" starts off with a dark jangling current of noisy guitar that washes out into the drum that come in with a more black metal blur. It does break down into moodier moments which I think are the albums stronger points.  The problem with the pacing is by the time we get to "Opacus" things are starting to run together for me. There is one riff that kind holds everything together, but how the golden rule here...Cool riff alone do no make a good song, stands to be questioned.

The vocals don't feel as varied to me. They seem to be one static scream, where I seem to recall some lower growls on the previous album. There is a pretty intense sonic opening to "Cordolium" the pace is more deliberate and this helps there cause though the song is woven from the same colors that have dripped from the bulk of the album. "Resurrection" feels more like the middle section to another song and the first time I played it through that is what it felt like to me. On it's on there is a few snare hts and cymbal mainly the screamed title of the song chanted to feedback. Much like what you expect from them the blasts of songs are to explosive to keep contained in some sprawling drone so the songs are mainly 2:30. "Septem" is as aggressive as in your face as you could ask for, but is works off the one dynamic.

If you hadn't been beaten into submission by the time they end the album on "Presagium". I really like the darker undertones to this song and latch onto the other moments like this. It's hard to imagine it but I think this album is more organic and sonic than their first full length "Abalam". I'll round this up to a 9 and see how it sits with me. The few listens I have given it thus far makes it one of those albums I can just leave on and let play, but how much longevity I get is another matter.

The Top Ten Metal Albums of 2014 .... so far

Metal Sucks has put out their progress report card for the year, and gods know the sort of  mall metal those guys are pushing, with exception of our friend Grim Kim . So it is time look at whats the best of real metal, according to my Last FM, this is based off of what has been in the heaviest rotation on the ole iPod so here we go.

10- Black Anvil's "Hail Death"

It is losing a little steam with me now , but when it came out this slab of hooky black thrash with the hardcore leanings the band tried to deny got quite a few spins.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/04/black-anvil-hail-death.html

9- Young and In the Way -  'When Life Comes to Death"-

Not sure if this one will make the purge for the road trip to the beach this week, but it's dark metallic hardcore tinged with black metal, that is darker nastier and heavier than the Black Anvil album, often making me think of what Converge might sound like if they were less spastic and into black metal.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/05/young-and-in-way-when-life-comes-to.html

8- Hexis-" Abalam"-

This might be the heaviest album of the year. That doesn't mean it's the most well written, but to be as heavy as it is there is something there in the songs to have earned this many listens or I was a lot angrier earlier in the year.
http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/01/hexis-abalam.html

7-Kampfar -"Dejevelmakt"

Behemoth might have made it on many lessor lists, this album hit the place for me that Behemoth use to when they were worth half a shit.
http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/01/kampfar-djevelmakt.html



6- Cynic -"Kindly Bent to Free Us"

Since coming out of the closet, you have to rethink the meaning of the album title. This almost isn't metal , but it is well written and well played and likely to see a return for the beach trip.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/02/cynic-kindly-bent-to-free-us.html

5- Alaskan - "Despair Erosion Loss"

The vocals are what hinder this album for me , but there are some great riffs and dynamics other wise that had me returning to it. Not sure if this will make it to the top ten of the year or not.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/01/alaskan-despair-erosion-loss.html

4-Night Fell- the Living Ever Mourn

So here we get into the following four bands that have the staying power to make the end of the year list. This hits all the right dark spots for me to have staying power.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/02/night-fell-living-ever-mourn.html

3-Mayhem- Esoteric Warfare

The best "real" black metal album thus far as the two after this one only have elements or used to be black metal. Mayhem keeps it as true as fuck with out sounding shit , nor are they afraid to try new things.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/05/mayhemesoteric-warfare.html



2- Hail Spirit Noir-"Oi Magoi"

This one was crazy in all the right ways. Taking what a band like Opeth does and black metalling it up a t bit without resorting to all the tired old tricks of the trade.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/02/hail-spirit-noir-oi-magoi.html

1- Agalloch-"the Serpent and the Sphere"

The mood of this album has earned it a lot of listens and I am a fan of their past work so was eager to hear this one.  

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2014/05/agallochthe-serpent-and-sphere.html

Hexis: " Abalam"

This is the first full-length from the Dannish band who gathered together in 2010. Abalam is in fact the  name of the demon from the last exorcism the title references, though in the Goetia it's really Paimon, in case this album inspires you to conjuring it up, which is a possibility as its just that dark .  The line between hard core and black metal is murky here. They pound the point home pretty relentlessly, the vocals morph into more of a hardcore shout on "Exanimis".

The songs hit like sonic shrapnel, the double bass pounds this harsh vomit out in a dense sonic stream.If you thought Nails were heavy then put on your neck brace. The song got right for the jugular in a similar manner as grindcore. This is more like a collection Seizure like bursts of  vileness. At this point it's ritualistic punishment as much as it is song writing "Sequax" forms the first thing on this slab that resembles melody. Normally I would complain, but this is so dark and futile sounding it pull all the right strings in my evil heart. The instrumental title track also carries a melodic bleakness to it.

Like anything else the band is aware too much punishment can lead to decadence. The back of at the being of "Immolabant" building back up into a furious toxic waltz. The vocals stay in a similar raspy midrange, barking out of the whirlwind. There is almost a breakdown feel toward the end of "Exhausit" , but these guys are not coming from a place of any macho posturing. Obviously with a 53 second song like, "Timor" there is not much time to really establish much in terms of song writing.  When they take more time on songs like "Neglexerunt" and "Infernis" more mood is established. Not that by any means they are laying back to ponder their feelings.

Normally we place a high value on  being sonically heavy here, this band put their foot on the gas so hard when it comes to metallics until it comes full circle and creates and album of  sonic density. The black metal elements which come by way of the dissonant tremelo picked layers of guitar that often sit in juxtapostion to a more grind core guitar part, add enough texture to keep this album from being one dimensional. In fact this album demand repeat listens to be fully digested. I'll go ahead and give it a 9, as they have succeeded in creating a blistering monster here.Its an album that will clear the room and separate the men from the boys.