The Top 10 Metal Albums of 2015 So Far

The year halfway gone and I wondering why I am so late getting around to doing this. There have not been a ton of metal album this year that really made me crave pressing play on my iPod to hear them repeatedly. I think we are at a place where something needs to happen to shake the trend of this blackened everything murk of death metal. Why albums like Pallbearer's album from last year stand out is it was not on any bandwagon. There already is a Deathspell Omega and Deafheaven so the bands imitating them need to get a clue. These albums bucked most of the trends, but I feel the quality of where we were at in previous July's is not here. Bu for what they are these albums have set the bar for the rest of the year.


10-Istapp -"Frostbiten"

This one has yet to make it over into the promise land of my iPod, this doesn't take anything away from this album as the top three are they only ones who have remained on my iPod since I got them. So that is not to deminish the power of this icy black metal.



http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/06/istapp-frostbiten.html


 9- Nevoa -" Absence of Void" While hipsters are wasting their time with False they are missing out on this pristine piece of black metal.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/06/nevoa-absence-of-void.html

8-Paradise Lost - "the Plague Within" Another fine album that I can only attribute the fact it did not get more air time to the fact that I listen to two are three new albums a day so they are really slugging it out for my attention and metal that is a little more middle of the road doesn't hit the spot when I want something really heavy.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/05/paradise-lost-plague-within.html

 8- Khors -"Night Falls Onto the Front of Ours" As I have been going through the list and giving these albums more though part of the problem with metal to today's is that bands who aren't black metal bands are trying to be black metal bands and the real black metal bands are trying not to be. Solid metal album, whose only flaw is not giving over to their dark side.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/04/khors-night-fall-onto-front-of-ours.html

 7- A Forest of Stars -"Beware the Sword You Can Not See" When it comes to progressive metal these guys are still nailing it, but some of the weirdness particularly with the narrative like  tone to the vocals hasn't given it a long residency on the old iPod.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-forest-of-stars-beware-sword-you-can.html

6- Enslaved - In Times These guys are in fine form, not sure why I have not felt as compelled to listen to this album as much as those above it. Perhaps they are in that Opeth middle of the road place now. Viking metal for pot smokers.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/enslaved-in-times.html

 5- Vattnett Viskar- "Settler" Enslaved might have gotten a higher rating when I reviewed the album but this album is one of the few that have stood the test of time and held its ground on the iPod.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/05/vattnett-viskar-settler.html

 4-Karyn Crisis' Gospel of Witches The least heavy of all the albums on this list, but one of the most interesting and the best metal vocal performance so far. I need to give this one more time.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/02/karyn-crisis-gospel-of-witches.html

3- The Slow Death- "Ark" The best doom album thus far.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-slow-death-ark.html 

2-Liturgy - "the Ark Work" Hunter can be too much of a  hipster for most, but this album is different than any other on this list and that makes me want to listen to it rather than a band that sounds like very other death metal band.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/liturgy-ark-work.html

1- Tribulation- " the Children of the Night" Watain rubbed off on them, but this dash of black metal attitude played to their favor, one of the years best written albums period.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2015/03/tribulation-children-of-night.html

Khors : "Night Falls Onto the Front of Ours"

The Ukrainian band is back and this time they are firmly rooted in what they do it's more polished and melodic, the guitar playing is much improved and the double bass work is just a sick as any of the best death metal drummers. They have always been skilled songwriters who care about dynamics but this is more finely tuned and catches your ear in the first song. Some times this brings them into a safer more conventional form of metal not unlike that we saw Kampfar delve into on their last album. It's hard to argue against this step into a more Enslaved like direction when it sounds so good. "Dead Bird Valley" has an eerie melody that rings out over a stream of mid paced double bass.

There is a dramatic shift in guitar tone as they take on an almost Cure like tone for the opening verse of "Following the Ways of Blood". This eventually picks up into a more classic metal pacing. Not thrash but with more punch than pre-Pain Killer Judas Priest. Even though the title track is more of an interlude , it shows how over the course of the album melodic elements are being introduced, it's a shame this interlude was not developed into a full song as the nuanced guitar work created the caress of  gentle darkness. I am going to guess that "1664" is not about when Maryland passed a low to ban interracial marriage. It does go into a very beautifully balance riff weighing the sonic dissonance with the melody. The song carries a Behemoth like stomp. The folk of black metal leanings that might have been heard in previous albums are gone and this is now just straight up metal.

"For the Last Time" takes the dark melodies and allow them more room to breath almost going as far into the melodic direction with the layers of flowing guitar as old Katatonia just without the clean singing, although  toward the end of the song there is some singing it's not as delicate as say Katatonia's vocals and still has enough edge to appease those who don't like real singing.  The vocals that do dominate the album normally stay in a mid range roar sometimes gurgling slightly higher or digging deeper which is the more common direction they go in.The first song that doesn't grab me all the way is "Slight Web Solitude".

The album closes with a more viking tinged "My Cossack Way" which digs into that more epic ground charted by the likes of Moonsorrow. There is well thought guitar work and very deliberate drumming. This is an incredibly well crafted album. I will however give it a 9 because it does play it rather safe in sticking to a more middle of the road approach, but if you are a fan of the band around it up to a 9.5 unless you are stuck in the days they leaned toward black metal which this album is devoid of an in that case around it down a half point.

The Top 15 Metal Albums of 2012

Perhaps it's the aggressive nature of the music or athletic prowess of the musicianship,but no other genre of music is held under such competitive scrutiny as the looking glass metal fans place on this infernal art form. I figured since that cats over at Metalsucks thought so much of their tastes to have a top fifteen i would go ahead and tack on five more to the top ten article i wrote for Hiplanta, hey its New Years and i'm fighting off chemical depression so i dont have the inertia to write a whole new blog so take what you can get becuase this is keeping me from blogging out a suicide note and posting on face book that im giving away all my things. In the event i do this ill post a list of cds up for grabs along with my brothers email and he can spread the metal in my memory, but if i make into 2013, then hopefully i can find a loop hole in the federally funded mental health and get on meds.

The criteria I used was we're they still standing on my iPod , how many listens had they acquired on my last fm and the magnitude of their artistic achievement ( this elmininated a lot stuff from bands who churn out the same old same old). With each entry I have included a little salve to soothe the ache caused by not seeing your favorite but inferior band listed.  So lets count them down.


15- "Thaumiel" by Ofermod, This is raw nasty black metal with a twist of death to give it enough grunt that they are growling about succubi giving them blow jobs, o.k to be fair they are just tasting their semen, so these guys might have had to do all the work and just needed a demon to dump it on. It's pretty mean barrage they hit you with and their are these weird sections of almost folk metal like clean singing that actually work, one of those hear it to believe its, and they handled those parts even better than the lame Eluvietie that came out earlier this year, the lack of hurdy Gurdy helped.

14-"the Giant" Ahab, Like another funeral doom band on here it's a late entry, but there's some top notch shredding on this one, I mean how many doom bands of this ilk can pull out a solo that sounds like it was lifted from mid period Frank Zappa. The vocals are relatively versatile and pretty interesting , the only reason it didn't rank higher is some of the slugger moments I have to be in the mood for and when you are talking about auicide to strangers in Sweden reading you blog well you need a gloomier soundtrack or medication. Which considering the hoops you have to jump through these days a noose might be preferred, but I can still joke about it so if you are feeling uncomfortable reading this it's metal get grim and get over, take my advice I'm not using it.

13-"With Hearts Toward None"-Mgla, This Polish blackened death outfit won me over with their admiration for Dissection...yeah Watain didn't have an album out this year and Mgla has much more of their own identity than Thulcandria. This spot could have been occupied by the new Anhedonist but I had iPod problems and haven't been able to give that one a solid listen and this one rips pretty hard so it earned its place on its own accord.

12-"Woods 5: Grey Skies and Electric light" by Wooda of Ypres- This one often just squeaks in under what I consider metal, the lyrics add to its heaviness particularly considering their timely nature with main man David Gold's death. For goth infused metal this one hit the mark missed by My Dying Bride and Tiamat, though it offered a simpler take on being a stand in for Type O Negative. This album needed to be revisited as I enter the winter steel cage match with depression.

11-"In Somniphobia"  by Sigh , I'll go ahead and stop all of you kids hanging out at the Mall of Georgia right now and say the Faceless will not be on this list, the guitar tone was limped than a nursing home and the clean vocals belonged on a Cw teen romance show. Do yourself a favor if you think you are into progressive metal and check out Sighs new one as it progresses in ways Frank Zappa would have been proud of  and still has blast beats. Not the only album with sax on this list either, but it has some of the best guitar work.

10- "Wisdom of Centuries" by Khors, While the new Enslaved isn't awful they have stepped so far into Opeth territory to make it on here. So I choose a darker shade of pagan metal in Khor's new album which has more teeth to it than any thing Enslaved has done since "Vertabrae "  pretty epic so have your twenty side dice ready before you give it a listen.

9 "Al Alzif" by the Great Old Ones"  o.k the new Alcest isn't heavy enough to make it and the new Deathspell Omega is just an e.p. so representing the French this year is a band who bases their lyrics on the works of  H.P Lovecraft which immediatly mutes any argument against them. They still have enough ambiance and adventure to satisfy fans of the other French bands.

8-"Longing" by Bell Witch - This doom duo contains the bassist of Samothrace and I think this is a much more compelling listen than the Samothrace which is on a lot of people's lists. Look for the review of this to be posted tomorrow, it kinda feels like a soundtrack to this moment it my life for better or worse I guess when you are talking about drone heavy funeral doom.

7-" Dragged From our Restless Trance" by Bastard Sapling, if Krallice's new one didn't bring home the bacon for you this Virginia band summons Norway better than other American black metal bands, be prepared for ten minute skull fucking sagas of songs.

6-"All We Love We Leave Behind" by Converge,  While metal core becomes a thing of the past and the sludge band wagon runs out of gas Converge continues to do what they do, is it Jane doe? No is it even You Fail Me ? Not really but  them pissing on the singer of Suicide Silence's  set to record would still sound better than most band's on a good day.

5- "Eremita" by Ihshan  Yep , you are reading it right no Meshuggah. Rather an album with great production value than one where all the life is mixed out of them. You want guitar heroes Emperor's main man not only has a meaner growl than the Swedes have put to album he is also an under rated guitarist which beats out an overrated one any day of the week.

4-"Atra Mors" by Evoken the past  two years funeral doom has really gotten new life, some of the trailblazers for this are Evoken who can send chills up your bong in ways Neurosis can no longer since they have decided to become a Pink Floyd tribute band.

3-"Silencing Machine" by Nachtmystium  It's back to black metal, while High on Fire is busy ripping off  Venom and Motörhead I've been much more content listening to Blake Judd strip things down for some raw darkness and misery on this one and  he still remembers the value of  songwriting to top it off.

2- "Sorrow and Extinction"  by Pallbearer . I saw someone post that is sounded like slowed down eighties dungeons and dragons metal to them....and the problem with that is? Last time I checked some of the greatest metal ever came out in the eighties and the litmus test for good metal is how does it sound when I'm killing orcs . If you do not agree with this you don't know shit about metal so you have no voice in the matter.  These guys are killing lich lords big time like Ronnie James Dio.

1- "Ritual of Passing" by Atriarch You mean to tell me you mixed death rock with my black metal and smoked it with some doom? Well thank you very much I now have the perfect soundtrack to burn my family alive in their sleep before I slit my wrists on acid. In all seriousness folks this is not just chords and growling, but some real spiritual shit going down, chances are you might not get and then your probably weren't supposed to , must be heard to be felt, nothing else that came out this year was this dark and depraved.

Khors : Wisdom of Centuries

I guess the fifth time is the charm for this Ukrainian metal band who in my opinion wears the black metal label loosely and ever looser the pagan metal tag, unless I missed the memo from Mordor and pagan metal is not similar to folk metal and means caught somewhere in between power metal and black metal. I tried on their previous album "Return to Abandoned" for size and at the time it didn't do a lot for me but I think I was coming off of an Agalloch kick . Their most recent release "Wisdom of centuries" is pretty impressive.

To me "return to abandoned" struck me as something more closely akin to Dark Tranquilty than black metal and there were these pseudo signing parts than I dunno, just felt cheesed out. While comparisons to fellow country men Drudkh, will be drawn Ifeel this album is superior to the bulk of of Drudkh's work. While this is my first time giving this one a listen , I'm surprised how seamless the flow of these songs are . Carried by moody melodic guitar, this is not cvlt black metal but large lush and allows the dark edges to spread out like fog in the night.

in some ways their epic proportions remind me of Moonsorrow , though the are less Lord of the Rings, which baffles me why this keeps being called pagan metal aside from the fact they are named after the sun god of their homeland. The riffs are well written and fit together like puzzle pieces meant for each other rather than being forced or having any awkward transitions , asthe one two three go time to get blasty, when then drums do build its the next logical step and the more relaxed passages move just as smoothly. So the arrangements are the albums strong point, all most to a fault as the songs they are stand alone pieces but all parts of one long monolithic composition.
So in the Albums tone, they don't use a wide palate of colors ,we have varied shades of gray and blood red cast on a pitch black back ground.

This similarity of tone makes for a easy listen but hard for me to score this one song by song. I can say the first song comes on pretty balls out, at first this is to the point where I thought they had just picked up for where they left off with their previous album, until the chorus or where a chorus would be which here means time to turn up the epic.from this epic turn the album doesn't look back only inward.

The beginning of "the last leaves" is some of the albums heaviest riffage, the chords are more tenderly picked out in what would be the chorus as guitar is layer in some interesting patterns which almost border on the post rock feel Drudkh leans towards but more majestic and without the drone. Also on this song I was able to pick out the bass where on other songs it got a little lost despite the evenness of the mix.

This song is followed by an interlude which they try to pass off as a song it's barely two minutes of drums and synth,but it leads into "horizon glassy" an instrumental that still feels like another part though the guitar work gives nods to pink Floyd so it forgivable, but could have been a lighter intro to the darker turn the title track takes.the whispered hiss of the vocals is the first time they switch it up vocally as the vocals are delivered with a Nargal like roar through out and this song even has a behemoth like build in the guitars that reminds me of the song "lucifer". Though after I started hearing Behemoth there the I started to hear it every where, though there's a much more organic feel to what they do than Behemoth,and the break down I the second verse of " only time will take it away" took the Behemoth comparisons from mind mind ,though it's safe to say if you are a fan of Behemoth who only flirts with the idea of black metal Khors are a gateway drug to take you a step close to Taake or old Enslaved.

The album end with a minute of ambiance ,so if we are going to count the pink floyd interlude there are six songs or five metal songs however you want to see it. The more I listen to the album, the more i can pick the songs apart, as the wheel isn't being reinvented here. Some of their influences are more more blatantly on their tunics than others so I feel a 7.5 is being generous as the moodier moments I really like.