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. Mainstream means straight up metal, now that I have separated out other sub-genres like power metal and thrash. More easily digested by the masses in most cases, in others they were a black metal band who streamlined their sound into something more straight forward . This might not be the most hipster of the lists that say Vice puts out, what matters is the fact these are the albums I listened to the most . Any ways here are the Top 10 Mainstream metal albums of the decade. 10- Deafheaven - "New Bermuda"
9- karyn crisis' Gospel of Witches - "Salem's Wounds" 2015
8- Dimmu Borgir - "Eonian" 2018
7- Judas Priest - " Firepower" 2018
6 Rob Zombie - " Electric Warlock and Acid Witch" 2016
5- Enslaved- "Aixoma Ethica Odini" 2010
4- Mastodon- "the Hunter" 2011
3- Life of Agony- "The Sound of Scars" 2019 2- 2- 2- Katatonia- " Dead End Kings" 2012
It's that time of year again, to sort through the top 10 albums of all the respective genres, then use them, to compile the top 10 albums of the year. Later in the month I am making the top 10 lists for the decade, though to be blunt this is the decade's weakest year for music. Especially when it comes to new artists, this is at least the second album by these artists. . We are once again defining main stream metal as any genre that is not of the more extreme variety, but still actually metal and not hard rock. This makes it more accessible than say black or death metal. a As in past years I am giving a brief explanation as to why these albums stand over their peers in lower positions on the list. The very fact these bands 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. Sure you can bitch and complain about your favorite band not being on the list. However I listen to five new albums a day so yes I heard your favorite album and was not impressed. No, I do not care what you think about it. 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 mainstream metal albums of 2019 .
10- Borknagar-"True North"
I will always take what I can get from ICS Vortex. Their 11th album,finds the band refining and maturing their sound. Some songs are more prog than others. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the bulk of their work up to this point.
It had the kind of muscle many folk metal bands lack with great sense for hooky anthems. The guitar players dazzle you more than previous efforts. This was one of the years most solid straight up metal albums . It was pretty straight forward but really powerful. They swung their hammers harder than Borknagar this time around.
r the past 19 years they have expanded their sound into something beyond black metal. Bigger and sometimes more symphonic like Dimmu Borgir. This also explains why they have a larger audience. They continue to weave in various elements of world music into their sound. It pays off and proves they care about their songs. They beat out the likes and Borknagar for this spot because they are darker.
7- Cellar Darling - 'the Spell"
This gritty take on goth metal that sounds like it could have crawled out of the best places from the 90s. I debated if they belonged here or the goth list. It boils down to the guitars and vocals owing more to W.A.S.P than Marilyn being the the tipping point. It's the razor they sink into their riffs that gives them the edge over Cellar Darling.
Sadly this is the swan song for this band. Two of the members are in Haunt, so they are bringing this band to a close in order to focus more on that project. I think judging from the title track that opens this album that I prefer Beastmaker to Haunt. These guys are the more metal of the two band. There are less guitar solos here and a darker mood. The raw emotion gives them leverage over Weds 13.
this album boils up from a place where power metal meets doom. The guitars have a more driven chug and the powerfully sung vocals carry an edge. The melancholy to their sound wins me over where most modern power metal loses me as it is too happy to be metal. Almsot to close to call against Beastmaker.
These guys were melding black metal and shoe-gaze way before Deafheaven. Oddly neither of thoe two elements plays a dominant role in this album , but it is a more metallic and aggressive offering than their last two albums .More sonic layers than Crypt sermon.
As a big fan of her old band Crisis, I will take anything I can get from her. Her voice has a great deal of personality no matter if she growls or croons. The sophomore outing for this projects finds the songs having more of a slither to them than the first one. Deeper and darker than Alcest.
The sound of the scars tells me this is the album that should have come after “Ugly” . Not as dense and hard core influenced as the classic “River Runs Red” ,. Caputo’s voice is back where it needs to be to restore uphold the band’s legacy. These songs have warranted hours of repeat listens., more l;listens than I gave Karyn.
All I care about is music . I do no care if they are Keith or Mina, what I do care about is can they sing in the manner needed for Life of Agony. On their 2017 album this was a no. They have remembered who they are on "Scars". The vocals have more aggression and grit, allowing the guitars to follow suit. It is not as hard core influenced as the first album , but it's the heaviest thing they have done in years. Their new drummer proves herself more than capable. Alan Roberts and Joey are still holding down the song writing so it's only up Caputo to pull off the vocals . The album sounds great and they are delivering the kind of performance that makes me wonder what happened on the last album.
"Empty Hole " is another return to form that picks up where "Ugly" left off. This song is more rock n roll , but as long as Caputo is doing their thing I am fine with it. By doing it , I mean measuring up to their performance at least on "Soul Searching Sun" . "My Way Out" is a more deliberate tension crunch to it. The vocals carry the needed heft on the chorus here. Yes, Have to pick on Caputo as their voice is what sets this band apart. The guitars find it easier to hold up their end of the bargain. The drummer really steps up on "Eliminate". This might not be the album's best song , but they have been hitting them out of the ball park so do not lose any momentum. I am fine with them breaking it down for a moodier tone on " Once Below">. The backing vocals are little cumbersome. This is balanced by the lead vocals being strong.
They work work off the kind of strong grooves that make the most sense following "Ugly" , so once again on par with "Soul Searching Sun" . Not the hookiest song on the album, but it works . The last two songs are more rock n roll , I think of the two "I Surrender" works the best. It's darker a Caputo's voice feel more natural and inspired.I will round this one up to a 9.5 , I think it's a fine return to form and Caputo has found their real voice again.
This is the second part of a four part series I am doing, with a theme of if you are sharing your life with someone once of the most important things you can share is your music. It's the pieces of me that I don’t have words for as they are an amalgamation of my thoughts and emotions relating to sonic vibrations. Music can always take me back to a place in time. We are going through the angry teen years, which were also filled with drugs, but not the real hard stuff that comes in the next installment. It's interesting to imagine how two people might have interacted at different times in their life if they met under different circumstances. So this is a soundtrack to that. I have organized it in terms of the year these songs are released . The story they tell is somewhat loose. This is me giving these songs as token to someone of what was inside me before they knew me. This is what my life sounded like before I met them. Me Against the World
A post shared by Daniel R Moore Photography (@drmfoto) on
Ok we are two weeks in a row now, with this feature that has proven to be more popular than I would have imagined. I just press shuffle on my iPod and review the first ten songs that pop up. So here we go, hope this inspires masturbation and multiple eargasms.
AFI- "Feed From the Floor"
Danny Havok's vocals sound great hear and the bass line certainly invokes the Cure. This song stand more in the shadows of pop punk.I haven't give this album enough listens to that is one of the cool things about doing this feature is getting to dig back in an give things a second chance.
Halsey- "Now or Never"
The hook of this song reminds me of Ellie Goulding. I would say there is more of a hip-hop influence bubbling under the surface here than Goulding. The production certainly gives nods to hip-hop. For pop music this going to be one of the strongest albums of the year.
The Smiths -Sweet and Tender Hooligan"
One of the smiths more driving punk like moments. This shows how their influence touches both indie rock bands and post-bands. Moz sound great and the lyrics are as biting as anything else they have done. This is more straight forward playing than what you expect from Marr , but the bass line is killing it.
the Cure- "Blood Flowers"
This song is both sonically powerful and incredibly moving from an emotional perspective. I always forget how good this album was until I listen to it. It really does hold up against the rest of their work.
Cocteau Twins- "Treasure Hiding"
I normally dopn't think of these guys as shoe gaze , but I guess if this was the only song you heard from them it would be easy to slap that label on. Not my favorite song from this album as it lingers in the abstract for too long. Liz sounds great, but she could sing from the phone book and it would sound divine, the melody that comes in at 2:40 mark is awesome , but wish they got to the point.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum- Helpless Corpses Enactment
Another bad that I am always glad to hear when they come up in shuffle as their are so chaotic that Sleepytime is not always my go to when cuing up something to listen to. This is one of their more metal moments, it's a damn shame these guys broke up, because I can't imagine what else they would have been capable of.
Life of Agony - "I Regret"
This band in their prime was criminally under rated. Too band when Keith's river started running red that he also forgot how he sang on this song and what about his delivery helped define this band and make them stand out from all the other bands in the 90s. This song is one of the few from the second album that sounded like it could have been on their first.
2Pac- "Only God Can Judge Me"
This is not one of the strongest songs from "All Eyez On Me". It suffers a little more than some of the other songs when it comes to how the 90s production holds up today. Lyrically its a bunch of whining about how hard it is living in his shoes. The guest rap by Rappin 4 Tay is pretty terrible.
Mastodon- "Clandestiny"
I don't remember really being overly wowed by this song when I first got the album. It had endured in the competitive landscape of my iPod so that says something. Metal should not feel so middle of the road and this song doesn't hit me as being heavy enough to be metal despite it's guitar tones and most of the metal trappings being close to center.
Cult of Youth - "Monsters"
When they are in the more rambling folk punk strum they tend to sound less like Death in June. The baritone vocal is more rowdy and carefree than Death IN June, in fact I can hear fans of punk liking this more than tragic goths. Their earlier work was more filled with this kind of punk energy.
Twisted Sister - "Burn in Hell"
For anyone who wants to lump these guys in with the rest of the 80s hair metal I think this song sets the record straight. Not as dynamic vocally I think Twisted Sister has more in common with old Iron Maiden or Priest than they do Motley Crue. Unless we are talking about the Crue's first two albums then it does have a similar drive to it.
The Cramps- "Bop Pills"
This song is pretty much straight up rock in the vein of early 50's rock more than it strikes me as being rock a billy unless we are saying Jerry Lee Lewis falls into that as well. It's as song about drugs and those song are always good to party to.
Life of Agony used to be one of my favorite bands when "Ugly" came out. Keith Caputo, who goes by something else now, has seen his voice evolve over the years . But things have changed. Let me stop you right here and say, I do not care what lifestyle choices he has made, I do care about can he sing like he once did . "Right this "Wrong" is better than the opener which sounds like a song that didn't make the cut on one of the post- Layne Stayley Alice in Chains albums . The instrumentation sound like them even if it's stuck in the 90s. The problem might be the hormones he took, sometimes the intervals being sung are what he might have sung in his past life, but the cool trembling vulnerability to his voice which was always juxtaposed by a more aggressive croon is gone making this sound like someone else. "Dead Speak Kindly" would have been a decent Life of Agony riff at one point. Even with the effects on his voice it lacks the balls he once had.
You can hear a little of who he used to in " A New Low'. The chorus of "World Gone Mad" really shows how little aggression he can manage to get out of his pipes these days. "Bag of Bones" is the first song that hits me as being half way decent. He also comes close on "Walking Catastrophe" , this is a song that would have nailed it if his voice still had the punch. Right now it sounds like I Mother Earth, but I guess it makes sense that if you turn into a woman you are going to sound like Perry Ferrell. "Song For the Abused" would not sound out of place on "Ugly" it's also one of the better songs on the album with the band beginning to rally in the third act. The well layered vocals give Keith more tools than he has used before.
The album ends with the piano ballad that is more of an overdone outro. I'll give this album a 7.5 , from a band that up until "Soul Searching Sun" kicked out 10s on their first three this is a let down, but better than shit like Volbeat or what ever radio rock you are jerking off to these days.
Here is another installment, you know what we are doing... winding our way down not the albums that sold the most or were even the most critcally acclaimed at the time but what has held up over the years.
https://www.facebook.com/abysmalhymns/
80- Godflesh- "Selfless"
Justin reached a balance of industrial pound and musicality with enough room to experiment with more electronic elements. More daring and heavier than Helmet.
79- Elliot Smith-x/o
If you were depressed and driven to drink in 1998 why would you have wanted to listen to anything else. This morose singer songwriter created the perfect soundtrack for the lowest of swings, was pretty good hangover music , if memory serves me. I got to catch him in concert before he died in 2003. I can't really imagine him doing anything else but dying of a self inflicted stab wound samurai style, take that Bright Eyes. >
&n
78-the Faint-"Blank Wave Arcade"
They got darker and heavier and more grandiose, but this album has something sleazy about it that I like and was a sign things were changing in 1999. Brilliant lyrics they predicted the rise of the hipster. Many of today's new wave revival bands could take notes from this album.
77-Monster Magnet -"Dopes to Infinity"
At one point in my life all my stories began with "Once when I was tripping..." My weirdest memory was the song below was playing while I was tripping and playing with a ouija board by myself in the hallway of an old apartment. My room mate's door was open and his fan was blowing out into the hall way. Not knowing this I assumed it was evil spirits blowing into my mind and turning me into the re-incarnation of a 14th century French Prince. Sure if had a radio hit on it, but that happened on their own terms. Literally mind blowing.
76-Life of Agony-"The River Runs Red"
Their singer's river does run red now, but this album was gritty and desperate . Like if Stone Temple Piolots had been a hard core band before being influenced Pearl Jam influence, since any band influenced by Pearl Jam would suck, they had elements of Biohazard and Type O mixed, with a brilliant story woven into the album.
75-Tears for Fears- "Raoul and the Kings of Spain"
If you weren't ready to let go of the 80s by 1995 , these guys released their 5th album, which holds a slight Latin undercurrent, but proved that they were not just a new flux and could make serious music when they weren't shouting to let it all out.
74-Primus- "Sailing the Seas of Cheese"
The rubber bass of Claypool, slapped this album that was heavy due to the thick angular groove, but also managed to weave some hooks in with his nasal voice.
73-Lenny Kravitz- "Mama Said"
Sure you would eventually go to get tired of hearing this guy all over the radio on the albums that followed, this one was diverse and soulful, pulling from every one from Prince to Lennon to Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone. Slash showed up on the album and it rocked in many different ways.
72-White Zombie-"Astro Creep 2000"
When I first heard these guys it was during the 80s off an album called "Make Them Die Slowly" it sounded like a deranged horror version of Iggy Pop, so when "la Sexorcisto" came out I thought how the hell did they turn into Metallica. This album was a breath of fresh air and sounded pretty good when lots of drugs were ingested, the industrial turn worked better than their stab at thrash.
71-Pixies- "Trompe Le Monde"
Their final album rocked harder than perhaps even "Doolittle" . It was a fitting swan song with it's incredible guitar tones and the band hitting the perfect balance between poppy and weirdness that flips onto an almost punk craze on a dime. They also cover the Jesus and Mary Chain.
Diving into the top 50 of our Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time
50- Nachtmystium- Assassins:Black Meddle pt 1
Blake Judd and Friends redeem American Black Metal.
49- Opeth -Deliverance
The Swedish death metal band takes another step forward into the perfect blend of prog and heaviness, which they later get carried away with.
48- Life of Agony - the River Runs Red
This album defined the Road Runner era of metal in the 90's. It hit the perfect blend of darkness and groove where they others drifted into mall metal.
47-Helloween- Keeper of the Seven Keys
While they borrowed heavily from Maiden, this album influenced power metal for years to come.
46-Kamelot - Ghost Opera
Their fans might suggest albums preceding this one, but the songs on this album are flawless with the band at their peak.
45- Iced Earth- the Dark Saga
This 1996 album by America's beefiest power metal band, was based on the Spawn comic.
44- Diamond Head - Lighting to the Nations
The album Metallica stole most of their earlier riffs from.
43-Agalloch -Ashes Against the Grain
They hit the sweet spot on this album finding the perfect cross roads for their folk, black metal and post-rock influences to all meet at.
42-Mayhem- De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Written in 1987 murder and suicide delayed this albums release until 1994.
41-Katatonia- Viva Emptiness
Bleak and depressing as it is full of melodic beauty, this Swedish band carved their niche with this album.
