With one exception, our 2011 edition of Listmania has finally drawn to a close (although TheMadIsraeli still has plans to elaborate on some of his choices with future reviews). The exception is my ongoing list of 2011′s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs”, which may still be ongoing this time next year if I don’t force myself to wrap it up soon.

Compared to what we did near the end of 2010, this year’s series of posts really mushroomed — 44 posts in the space of about five weeks.

Among other things, we were fortunate to receive year-end lists from many of the writers who made The Number of the Blog such a great source for discovering new metal. But this year we also significantly expanded the scope of our own coverage, reaching out to more band members, fellow bloggers, and our own readers to get their recommendations of the best music that 2011 had to offer. We also started the series by re-publishing Best of 2011 lists from magazines and “big platform” web sites who included metal in their own retrospectives about the year’s best music.

I thought it might be useful to collect in this one place links to all of the posts we published in our 2011 Listmania series, organized into the following categories:

• Magazines and “Big Platform” Sites
• Band Members
• Other Bloggers
• Guest Contributors (including NCS readers)
• NCS Staff

So, if you’re still hunting around for new music or want to see what others have been saying about the albums you liked, check out the comprehensive set of NCS links after the jump. And thanks again to everyone who contributed to this endeavor and to everyone who made time to read what we pulled together.

Within each category, the linked posts are organized in their order of appearance:

MAGAZINES/”BIG PLATFORM” SITES

Noisecreep
PopMatters
MSN Entertainment – The Worst 10
Exclaim.ca
Revolver
MSN Entertainment – Top 50

BAND MEMBERS

Jesper Zuretti (The Binary Code)
“T” (Dragged Into Sunlight)
Tamás Kátai (Thy Catafalque)
Exo and Beleth (Noctem)
Van666 (Architecture of Aggression)
Stephen and Kenneth Parker (Arkhum)
Sean Golyer (Oak Pantheon)
Johan Huldtgren (Obitus)
Michael Cook (A Hill To Die Upon)
The Demonstealer (Demonic Resurrection)
Michiel Dekker (The Monolith Deathcult)
Fredrik Huldtgren (Canopy)
Mika Andre (Eryn Non Dae., Nojia, ethersens)

OTHER BLOGGERS

Fireangel (Night Elves)
Trollfiend (Also, Wolves)
Alex Layzell (Grind To Death)
Tr00 Nate (TNOTB)
DemiGodRaven (TNOTB)
MaxR (Metal Bandcamp)
Snagon (TNOTB)
groverXIII (TNOTB)
Gaia (TNOTB)
Steff Metal
Valley of Steel

GUEST CONTRIBUTORS/NCS READERS

Phro
Rev. Will
SurgicalBrute
Surgical Brute (revised list)
Other NCS Reader Lists

NCS STAFF

TheMadIsraeli
Andy Synn – The EPs and the Unheard
Andy Synn – The Great Albums
Andy Synn – The Good Albums
Andy Synn – Most Disappointing
Andy Synn – Critical Top 10
Andy Synn – Personal Favorites
BadWolf – The Final Nine
BadWolf – No. 1 Album of the Year
BadWolf – Most Metal Non-Metal

We first made the acquaintance of Mickael André in the early days of this blog when we developed a fascination for the French metal band of which he is the bassist — Eryn Non Dae.. I counted, and we’ve posted about them seven times since 2010, most recently here. The band’s own description of their music is one I would endorse: “Complex and brutal structures, black and apocalyptic moods, an obscure music where dissonant compositions carry an in-your-face, aggressive vocal style… A trip into the depths of the soul.”

I asked Mika if he would share with us a list of the metal he enjoyed most during 2011, and he responded with a list, which I’ll come to eventually. But this post also gives me an excuse to feature music from the many projects in which Mika is involved. Eryn Non Dae. is only one of those projects, though it’s Mika’s main one. The latest news from END. is very sweet news indeed — they are now beginning to record their second album. Their 2009 Metal Blade release, Hydra Lernaïa, was a remarkable debut, and I’m really curious to hear what the band will come up with next.

But END. is not Mika André’s only musical project. He’s also the guitarist for an instrumental band called Nojia (that’s their photo at the top of this post), who recently released a fascinating debut album called Solarchitect. (available here).

The album starts with a 6-minute overture and then proceeds through four long songs, ranging from 11 to 18 minutes in duration. It was recorded live, with all the musicians performing together in the studio — and when you hear the range and complexity of the music, you’ll appreciate even more what that means. I’ve embedded a music player later in this post that will stream the entire album — listening is an intense, mesmerizing experience.

But Mika’s musical endeavors don’t stop there either. He has also been performing as a live session guitarist for a band called Zubrowska.

It was Mika who first suggested I listen to Zubrowska’s music, back in January 2010, which I think was before he started performing with them. That led to a post about their most recent album, Zubrowska Are Dead, which hadn’t yet been released when I wrote about it in May 2010. Though I didn’t know it at the time, Zubrowska also included in its ranks the current vocalist (Julien “Nutz” Deyres) and drummer (Samuel Santiago) of Gorod. Julien has been the band’s guitarist since the beginning and now handles vocal duties, though Samuel has moved on to Gorod full-time.

Zubrowska has made all of its recordings available for streaming and download at Bandcamp — HERE. I’ll have some of their music later in this post, too.

But that still doesn’t exhaust what Mika has been up to musically. He is also the guitarist in a progressive metal band called ethersens. ethersens released their debut album, Ordinary Days, in 2008 through the Italian label Scarlet Records. Music from that album, as well as a more recent demo track, can be streamed at the band’s MySpace page (here).

Well, with that long lead-in, here’s the list that Mika sent me, along with his comments. By way of explanation, Mika listens to a wide range of music, but in this list he limited himself to extreme metal, and the albums that caught his attention in 2011 (though some were released earlier than last year):

Deathspell Omega -  Paracletus

An amazing moment of controled chaos. That album is an amazing journey through darkness, it’s brilliant from begining to the end. I always wonder how they manage to build these crazy songs. I don’t know how to explain it, but when I listen to that album it’s like something that seems to come from somewhere else speaking to me!

Terra Tenebrosa – The Tunnels

Some guys from Breach made this project. It sounds like nothing i’ve ever heard. There are some typical melodies from Breach, but it’s drowning in a magma of samples and programmings, weird beats and haunting voices. It’s more like an experience than simply listening to music. It’s so dark, and I’m in  love with the cover — definitely one of my best 2011 discoveries.

Blut Aus Nord – 777 (sects)

A french Black Metal band again, and one that is truly disturbing. Like the Deathspell Omega, it’s a whole experience — you have to listen to the whole album to fully feel what it’s about. Completely hypnotic!

I Pilot Daemon – Come What May

These are good friends and people with whom we shared some bands. They have reached a great level of intensity on this album. I think they should have more visibility, but we can consider them as a best kept secret in a way! You have to check them out!

Rotten Sound - Cursed

We played with them at Obscene Extreme festival this year, and even if I’m not much into grindcore I have to admit that they kicked my ass on stage. They’re so intense. There are a lot of extreme metal bands who have amazing studio production, and then when it comes to the live it sounds they’re just disappointing. But Rotten Sound sounds even more violent live than on record. This album is probably not their best, but it’s the one that I listen to when I want to feel that violence again.

********

Thanks to Mika for providing this list. Now, as promised, here are tracks to stream from Nojia and Zubrowska:

NOJIA

ZUBROWSKA

(As our Listmania series winds down, today we welcome another fellow blogger, whose moniker you may also recognize from his NCS comments. Check out his diverse year-end list of new discoveries below, and be sure to check out the Valley of Steel blog, too.)

Hello, NCS readers! Sitting here on the long bus ride from the Valley to my job in Pittsburgh, I am given the opportunity to do a lot of reflecting. For example, today I am reflecting on the fact that it is FUCKING COLD enough outside to FREEZE A POLAR BEAR’S NUTS OFF. But, since it is also the dawn of a new year, many people like to take the time to reflect back on the year that has just concluded, as well as looking ahead to the one that is just beginning. So I have written posts that look in both of those directions. This first one addresses some of the great music I have discovered during 2011, and if Islander chooses to publish it and if you all don’t completely hate it, there will be a second post to follow which discusses what YOU want the future of metal to look like.

Over the past month or so, I have seen literally OODLES of year-end lists all over the internet. In fact, this website alone has featured damn near an oodle and a half. Many of them (not the ones on NCS, specifically, but just some of those I have seen around) seem to just re-shuffle the same few “big name” releases in various orders, with a couple controversial or “surprise” entries to almost make each list worth reading.

Well, I almost didn’t make my own list, because I really didn’t see the point of just rehashing the same old thing YET AGAIN. The more I thought about it, though, I realized the beneficial part of reading these lists, which is that you might find something new that you otherwise would have missed out on. With that in mind, I spent a lot of time thinking about the joy of discovering new music, and how much awesome music I discovered in 2011. So, then I decided to make a list of some of that music, to share with YOU.

In making this list, I knew there had to be some constraints. For example, I decided to avoid new music by artists with whom I was already familiar. I’ve been listening to Anthrax and Megadeth for the past twenty years, and Crowbar for probably about eighteen; Pentagram, Yob, Opeth, Primordial — all of these have been slightly more recent discoveries for me, but still, it isn’t really news that I liked a new album by somebody I already liked, is it? So the list had to be bands that I was either unaware of, or at least hadn’t heard, prior to 2011.

Also, to lend a semblance of relevance to this list, I chose to restrict it to bands who actually had a new release in 2011, not just any album that I happened to hear for the first time. Sadly, this eliminated some of my favorite new finds, such as Estonian experimental/doom duo Talbot and Swedish sludgey doomsters Kongh, both of which are incredible, but who missed the cutoff by releasing their latest recordings in 2010 (Talbot’s EOS EP – download it here) and 2009 (Kongh’s full-length Shadows of the Shapeless – hear it here.

Finally, I decided to leave any bands whose albums I have already reviewed on my own blog out of consideration. With a couple exceptions, over the past few months I have mostly written about bands that were also either brand-new or at least new to me, but it seemed more beneficial (to you, the reader — see how thoughtful I am?) to cover material that I haven’t already discussed at length elsewhere. So without any further delay, here is…

THE TOP^* 11 OF 2011, BROUGHT TO YOU BY VALLEY OF STEEL

11. In Solitude – The World, The Flesh, The Devil
There are plenty of bands springing up nowadays who are practically note-for-note clones of Black Sabbath. On the other hand, this Swedish trad-metal band definitely demonstrate a Sabbathy influence on their second full-length album, but they also show growth beyond that inspiration, instead following in the footsteps of later NWOBHM or trad-metal groups of that era (such as Mercyful Fate). Here’s the title track:

10. Battle Path – Storm & Stress
Doomy, deathy, blacky, avant-gardey, dark experimentalism from Tennessee. They started out as “Black Majesty” (and even released this album under that name originally) but then changed it when they found there was another band using that moniker.

9. Wiht – The Harrowing of the North
Long-form psychedelic sludge from Britain. This album only has two tracks, but the average length is around sixteen minutes. Nevertheless, it manages to hold the listener’s attention, mostly via oppressive heaviness. Coincidentally, oppression seems to be the theme that inspired the album, according to the description given on Bandcamp.

8. Graveyard – Hisingen Blues
I’ll assume you’ve heard of these hard-rocking Swedes before, but I hadn’t — until early 2011 when their second album was released, to much fanfare. This is blues in the Led Zeppelin or Cream sense of the word, rather than the Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters kind. Either way, it has been rocking my socks off all year, especially this song…

7. Oak Pantheon – The Void
Atmospheric black metal band that has, in my opinion, a greater claim of authenticity than most other USBM scenes. This is due to the fact that they come from Minnesota, which (as far as I know) is under at least six feet of snow for about 300 days per year. Suck it, Cascadia.

6. De Staat – Machinery
Somewhere between alt-pop and indie-rock, this Dutch band is definitely not metal, but once I had just the smallest bite of the infectious groove on this record, I was helplessly hooked. Below is a video for my favorite song on the album, which swings more than anything I’ve heard since Edwyn Collins, but I’d recommend seeking out the whole album– especially if you’ve ever secretly found yourself bopping along to any song by Beck or Gorillaz.

5. Borracho – Splitting Sky
Fuzzy, grungy, balls-out stoner metal from the District of Columbia. This debut LP was just released on vinyl; also now available is their 7″ single from the album, in the original English version (“Concentric Circles”) or en espaÒol (“CÌrculos ConcÈntricos”).

4. Batillus – Furnace
Blackened post-industrial sludge-doom from Brooklyn; every bit as heavy as the supertanker from which they took their name. This was not their first release, but it’s the first one I heard, and I believe the first one to use a vocalist.

3. Yggdrasil – Irrbloss
Swedish metal, with some folk elements as well as some blackened elements. The band’s name comes from a myth about the tree of life, and the album title is a reference to legends about will o’ the wisps; there is very little that is airy or phantagasmoric about the music, though. Here is their officially released video for the song “Bergtagen”:

2. The Hanna Barbarians – Syzygy
Once again, not-quite-metal, this Texan bunch play a hard-rockin’ hybrid of southern-fried blues and psychedelia, somewhere between fellow statesmen Reverend Horton Heat and Butthole Surfers. Also, is that the coolest band name ever, or what?

1. USX – The Valley Path
This band from the heart of Appalachia is also known as U.S. Christmas, but I prefer to use the acronym, since that is also the name of a steel company here in Pittsburgh. Plus, the album title has a valley in it, so how could I not love this, right? One single, 38-minute track, this record follows in the tradition of sprawling, epic songs like “Thick as a Brick” in that it has themes that come and go throughout its running time, dynamics that build up and fall down, and requires a hefty devotion of your time and attention to get through it. Except this track is also very atmospheric, mournful, and sometimes depressing. But it’s worth the investment. As I recall, my wife was out of town for a friend’s baby shower the first time I listened to this, and so I had free reign over the house, and could turn the stereo ALL THE WAY UP and sit in a dark room and just let the sound wash over me. I’d highly recommend it.

Well, that’s my list — hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave your comments below, and if you’re bored, come visit me sometime or say hello on Facebook.
Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,
A Denizen of the Valley

^* – Disclaimer: Obviously I did not hear everything that was released in 2011 — or even everything that I received or downloaded, at least not yet, so I probably won’t ever be able to say DEFINITIVELY which ones were the ACTUAL top releases of the year.

(We’re delighted to bring you a special guest post today from New Zealand’s Steff Metal, who among many other activities is the creator of the wonderful STEFF METAL blog. She has a special list for us from down under.)

After reading all the end-of-year lists posted on NCS, and writing my own (Top Ten Metal Albums of 2011), I realised that – despite a few notable exceptions – these lists were once again dominated by the metal powerhouses of the US and Europe. Sure, we don’t exactly have a down-under equivalent to Fleshgod Apocalypse or Origin, but NZ and Australian bands are putting out more and more decent metal albums every year.

I’ve been trying to focus more on reviewing and promoting local metal acts, and what better way to do this than to pick some of the best Kiwi and Aussie releases of 2011?

1. Ulcerate – The Destroyers of All (Willowtip Records, New Zealand)

There’s nothing I can say about The Destroyers of All that hasn’t been said by a zillion other writers who’ve placed this in their top albums for 2011 – simply a stunning piece of experimental death metal. Flawless drumming, dissonant riffs, jarring, doom-laden vocals – the personification of extreme metal perfection. I’ve been going to Ulcerate shows for the better part of 8 years now, and I reckon you’d be thick to miss them on their upcoming tour.

2. Heresiarch – Hammer of Intransigence (Dark Descent Records, New Zealand)

Loud, barbaric and blasphemous – this is Conqueror worship at it’s violent best. You won’t find Heresiarch bringing anything new to the black/death sound, but Hammer of Intransigence is a tight, ritualistic ear-raping, and it delivers it with gusto. The stand-out song for me is the closer “Intransigent”, which mixes slower, doomy passages in with the barbaric slaughter. And, not that it has any effect on their sound, but the album art alone is worth buying this album for.

3. Mournful Congregation – The Book of Kings (20 Buck Spin, Australia)

Good funeral doom can be hard to find these days, as many bands seem to lose themselves in the style without focusing on the emotion behind the music. But the four tracks of The Book of Kings break this unfortunate mould: they build melancholy without melodrama, extolling suffering with a glimmer of hope. The elegant compositions comprise layer after layer of harrowing sorrow and contemplative misery. The sparse vocals never overwhelm, and the guitar tone and riffs bear an uncommon warmth.

4. Woods of Desolation – Torn Beyond Reason (Northern Silence Productions, Australia)

Far removed from the scathing war metal of Heresiarch’s EP above, Torn Beyond Reason has a dreamlike quality – this is the kind of contemplative black metal I really love. Richly layered instrumentation and sweeping compositions combined with blistering riffs make this an album that constantly surprises you. Formed by members of the BM band Austere, Torn Beyond Reason shows a natural progression of that band’s sound.

5. Lamort – A Cold Godless Machine (independent, Australia)

Named after the Death card in the tarot deck, Lamort’s sound could best be described as symphonic extreme metal. A Cold Godless Machine combines fast, heavy riffs, growls, screams and operatic vocals, choirs and orchestral sections, and some seriously wicked drumming. Lamort toured NZ in late 2011 and have been building a loyal following in Melbourne for the last couple of years. They are currently working on their first full length to be released in 2012, and I reckon they’re heading for big things.

6. The House of Capricorn – In the Devil’s Days (Swamps of One Tree Hill, New Zealand)

I reviewed In The Devil’s Days on my blog earlier this year, and, being a doom album, it falls into that reviled category of “clean singing”. However, the groovy riffs and deep, rich bass of “All Hail to the Netherworld” and “To Carry the Lantern” wouldn’t exactly work with black metal gargling. I’m not much of a fan of the slower tracks on this record, but the fuzzy atmosphere of the faster stoner rock tracks more than make up for it.

7. Voyager – The Meaning of I (Sensory, Australia)

I reviewed The Meaning of I earlier this year and concluded it’s progressive metal without the wankery. This is an album stuffed to bursting with melodic, catchy songs that don’t stray from their purpose. The vocals, while clean, have a rough edge and an odd tone that gives Voyager a truly unique sound. The standout track is definitely “Iron Dream”, a tribute to Type O Negative’s Peter Steele featuring a singer who mimics his voice perfectly.

8. Demolition – Kill Zone (Rock Star Records, Australia)

Thrash metal with a heavy, prominent bass sound and some seriously wicked riffs. Dual guitars lay down a heavy melodic foundation for some of the best speed drumming I’ve heard in a thrash album this year. While Kill Zone isn’t exactly anything new, it’s a solid, well-produced records and if you like your thrash in the vein of Testament, Evile, and Voivod, you will not be disappointed with Demolition.

9. Orpheus – Bleed the Way (Rock Star Records, Australia)

Listening to Bleed the Way, you wouldn’t expect to discover that this is the debut album of a Melbourne band. Orpheus’ meaty riffs, pounding bass, and symphonic keyboard melody place their sound alongside the popular Euro-melo-death bands. Tracks like “Unscathed” and the slower and more rhythmic “A Thousand Times” show off this band’s talent for atmosphere and composition. Orpheus will definitely be a band to watch on our side of the world.

10. In Dread Response – Embers in the Spiritless Void (Dead Boy Records, New Zealand)

Aggressive death metal with overarching melody and faultless musicianship, In Dread Response have been building a steady following in New Zealand since the release of their debut album in 2008. Songs like “Through Chasms” demonstrate their attention to details – lyrics that weave graven images in your mind, relentless double kick and layers of riffs that create drama and tension, and almost classical solos that deliver exactly what they promise.

(We’re blessed with yet another year-end list from one of The Number of the Blog’s writers — Gaia. The previous TNOTB lists have already evidenced the diversity of that site’s musical tastes, but this list makes the case conclusively.)

It’s sad when your favourite old band t-shirt is too tired to wear, the print on the front is cracked and faded, the black now lost it’s hue, for some it’s even ripped from rowdy gigs. But it’s refreshing when you get to buy a new one, the print’s cool, it’s a new recently discovered band, and the logo’s unreadable. Just what you wanted. It doesn’t quite replace that old favourite shirt that you can’t wear anymore, but you look forward to wearing this new one.

I’ll miss you TNOTB, but you’ll always be there. My first favourite.

Of course we’re here to discuss lists and whatnot, not tepid analogies of other things. I wholly enjoyed putting together this list. Previous years have showcased my ineptitude to narrow down my lists and so I hope this year’s at least shows a pretence of being discerning. I could never be so righteous and say these are the ‘best’ records of the year, but they are certainly my favourites.

Before said list, I will now cheekily highlight the honourable mentions and they are Six Organs of Admittance, Turbowolf, Memfis, Elvis Deluxe, At Devil Dirt, and Thorr-Axe, all deserving but had to be omitted from the list then lately annexed here. Oh, Master Musicians of Bukakke was another one. And Moab.

Enough prolixity here, lets ramble on.

20. Cloudkicker – ‘Let Yourself Be Huge’
[Self Released]

I believe what Ben Sharp is doing as Cloudkicker is the future. He has proven that you can self-produce a fantastic record -nigh discography- all on your own back. I believe we’re moving towards a hand-made culture, and Let Yourself Be Huge feels like only Ben could have made it. Much more laid back than previous outings, this record produces luscious tones and twinkling acoustic tunes, the music captures the sunset by the beach of its artwork. My favourite record by Cloudkicker so far.

Song: ‘Explore, Be Curious’

19. Foo Fighters – ‘Wasting Light’
[RCA/Capitol Records]

I think it is safe to say I will always be a fan of Foo Fighters; Dave Grohl was The Man when I was younger and he keeps on proving he’s cool. Wasting Light returned the Foos to my general rotation after being dropped since 2007’s awful Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, a stale record at best. At first I was surprised at how heavy Wasting Light was; I suppose I’d grown used to the radio-friendly hits, but it reminded me that the Foos were indeed a hard rock band and that’s where they belong. Great return to form.

Song: ‘Rope’

18. Sahara Surfers – ‘Sonar Pilot’
[Sound Zero Records]

There’s a technique in film to portray someone as mentally ill or paranoid, in which they see something or someone everywhere. In the mirror, on the street, when they close their eyes, in their personal space, down alleys. I have the same problem when I listen to Sahara Surfers. Listening to Sonar Pilot and I see the band playing everywhere I go. I see vocalist Julia Überbacher singing in the mirror, dextrous drummer Michael Steingress thumping away in a shop, Andreas Knapp slings his guitar and sand trickles in to my eyes, while Hans-Peter Ganner’s bass closes alleys and boxes me in. I worry for my mind but Sonar Pilot is so damn good it’s worth it.

Song: ‘Mass Crashing’

17. Hull – ‘Beyond The Lightless Sky’
[The End Records]

Hull’s sophomore record Beyond the Lightless Sky was a very late entry on this list. In fact, it was after I saw JJ Koczan’s list over at The Obelisk when I realized I’d forgotten Hull had a new record out. In all honesty, I was actually giving Hull a second chance as I found their debut Sole Lord to be quite boring, but man, am I glad I caught this record in time. The guitar work is phenomenal; proggy sludge has now been re-invented and should sound like this forever. The song writing has been pushed up a notch, too, with the light and shade aspect in accordance with the two-Mayan-brothers concept and it very much shines through. And very cool artwork to boot. This record shows what Hull can do, and I can’t wait to see how they grow from here.

Song: ‘Earth From Water’

16. True Widow – ‘As High As the Highest Heavens and from the Center to the Circumference of the Earth’
[Kemado Records]

Another late entry, however within two weeks it’s already into double figures on my iTunes library, which is almost unheard of. Over this year I’ve come to appreciate female vocals more and more; Sahara Surfers (above) are a precursor to this, and True Widow follows in step. I love the ethereal quality in bassist Nicole Estill’s vocals and the overall reclined nature Highest Heavens, making this 2011’s finest shoegaze record.

Song: ‘Skull Eyes’

15. Premonition 13 – ‘13’
[Volcom Entertainment]

Back on 4th December I saw Premonition 13 play live, and Wino stood playing probably only a metre from me. Watching him reminded me of the admiration of striking architecture, a building that is a piece of art unto itself. You can’t help but be impressed. Wino has been the producer of quality doom for over a quarter of a century now, and I may roam into heated debate, but I believe his best work is still ahead of him. He’s always been honest, but his latest output feels rawer and more stripped away than ever before. That manifests itself on 13, the result of Wino’s friendship with Jim Karrow and recent hardships in his personal life.

Song: ‘Clay Pigeons’

14. Opeth – ‘Heritage’
[Roadrunner Records]

I’ve always maintained that Opeth were at their most interesting when they were playing 70s progressive rock, and on Heritage they finally ditched their death metal roots for the better. Some have said this is the record Mikael Åkerfeldt has always wanted to make, yet I believe that is wrong: Heritage was probably the most obvious direction for Opeth to take. Intelligent and well-crafted, Opeth’s brand of dark and evil prog rock settles nicely into their back catalogue as the dominant elements on Heritage have always been there in Opeth’s music; it should not have surprised  anyone. I think it’s a masterpiece and it transfers so beautifully in a live setting.

Song: ‘Famine’

13. Devin Townsend Project – ‘Deconstruction’
[HevyDevy Records]

I don’t think anyone will ever fully ‘get’ this record. The layers upon layers of the hectic, the holistic, and the harebrained just chew the listener up and spit them back out in a tangle. Like a Betamax tape after you‘ve used it once. I think the biggest achievement of Deconstruction is the message Devin is trying to convey, a message that kind of subverts the general thinking within metal, in that metal does not have to be negative, it can also be a positive energy. Devin succeeds in conveying that message with Deconstruction; I don’t know what the fuck is going on in it, but I’m pretty fucking happy about it.

Song: ‘Sumeria’

12. KEN mode – ‘Venerable’
[Profound Lore Records]

We’ve seen two different kinds of ‘losing yourself’ in music on this list: Deconstruction, above, was more a redefining of self, whereas what KEN mode put forward on Venerable feels more destructive. An unravelling string comes to mind. Jesse Matthewson howls like a Stephen King character would, while lost in the ferocious noise of jagged dynamics that act as backdrop. You know the jagged precipices in Dan Seagrave’s artwork? Well Venerable is them in sonic form. This record knocked me over in its delivery and perfect production and was the first record that cemented its position on this list from my first listening. I’ve surprised myself by enjoying at least one hardcore oriented record each year, and I believe this is 2011′s hardcore/noise record for me.

Song: ‘Obeying the Iron Will…’

11. Junius – ‘Reports From The Threshold of Death’
[Prosthetic Records]

Man, was Ghost falling off that Enslaved tour the best thing to happen to Junius this year or what? Actually, wait, no, the best thing was that they released a fucking great record. Reports hit that melancholic sweet spot for me this year. Ironically enough, it’s a ghostly record. It holds this faded quality, the ambience and electronics that back the record along with the exorcising vocals of Joseph Martinez drawing out that haunted house sensibility. What I love, though, is that it’s not negative; it’s an uplifting record. The melodies soar, rather than wither, the lyrics contemplate the esoteric and arcane, yet at it’s core the album is a fire fuelled with hope. Love it.

Song: ‘A Universe Without Stars’

10. SubRosa – ‘No Help For The Mighty Ones’
[Profound Lore Records]

This record reminds me of the Darren Aronofsky film Black Swan. The vocals on No Help For The Mighty Ones are solely female, with main duties handled by Kim Pack, yet the common perception amongst listeners is that female vocals portray innocence. I blame mediocre two-singer metalcore bands. SubRosa, like the character Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) in Black Swan, find the darker side. I actually go cold at the end of ‘The Inheritance’ when the repeated lyric ‘We in the shadow of a dying world’ fades with the musical box. Their colossal, bassy sludge shares little with the dextrous ballet in the film, but each conveys femininity’s dark side. There is nothing tender about this record; it’s completely punishing, massive walls of bass with murals of violins and ethereal vocals etched into the black sonic stone. SubRosa received wider attention this year, and so I hope they capitalise on it with their next record.

Song: ‘The Inheritance’

9. Mastodon – ‘The Hunter’
[Roadrunner Records]

I very much hope that there is a new positivity in metal in the forthcoming year. Devin’s had a go with his project, and it appears Mastodon has taken up the mantle with The Hunter, yet I find myself fighting that assertion. The Hunter feels positive, the craft of songwriting was at the forefront in the recording, and Mastodon kept things concise and everything in line. Lyrically, though, the record is melancholic. The Hunter is in fact named after Brent Hinds’ brother who was killed in a hunting accident. Lyrics like ‘Just close your eyes/And pretend everything is fine’ from ‘Dry Bone Valley’, and from the title track the words ‘Free from it all/ Breathe in the darkest fall’ feel desperate and tethered. While the riffs do shimmer and sparkle, the content is dark and sombre. People have called Mastodon out for dumbing down on The Hunter, but in reality I think they just didn’t comprehend the underlying complexity beneath this record.

Song: ‘Thickening’

8. Monkey3 – ‘Beyond The Black Sky’
[Stickman Records]

Although the context is cold space, Monkey3’s brand of spacey, psychedelic, instrumental, stoner rock, makes me recall the warmth of my duvet on a cold winter morning. Their tones are so luscious and sonorous, as a listener you can just dive in and feel the woven textures wrap around you. I’ve been digging more and more instrumental music. and to borrow a quote from a Doommantia interview with a Tank86 bass player: “As a listener there is a lot more room for your own interpretation since there’s no lyrics that tell you what the songs are about, so you can fill that in yourself. As musicians there’s greater freedom in writing. There’s no conventional song structures you have to conform to and it’s easier to incorporate different styles in your music”. I fully back the sentiment that there is greater freedom with instrumental music. I find some of the most inventive song writing in instrumental bands like Monkey3, and Beyond the Black Sky is intelligently crafted with bona fide instrumental riff-odysseys in ‘Black Maiden’ and ‘Through the Desert’.

Song: ‘Black Maiden’

7. Today Is The Day – ‘Pain Is A Warning’
[Black Market Activities]

I hold my hands up when I say that before I listened to Today is the Day, I thought they were a doom band. So imagine how surprised I was when Steve Austin tip-toed closer, whispered in my ear, then snapped my limbs out of their sockets. I had never heard TITD before, but I could tell I had become an addict. A paralysed addict at that. What strikes me most about Pain is a Warning is the juxtaposition of the beguiling hushed vocals and the raging storm of dissonance and serrated-edged riffs. It disarms the listener, as if Steve Austin is addressing the listener on a personal level. Of course, this doesn’t last, and sooner or later Austin is shrieking and berating through the metal storm that churns from his amplifier. A favourite record for when someone sits uncomfortably close on the bus.

Song: ‘Slave To Serenity’

6. Giant Squid – ‘Cenotes’
[Translation Loss Records]

I know I’m on the internet, but I’m going to have to confess now and say I’m not very geeky. I don’t like video games, have never read a comic nor ever been interested by their film adaptations (apart from Batman, but who doesn‘t like Batman?), I’m not very good with technology, I barely know my way around my mobile, and well, science fiction isn’t that great. So, not much of a stereotypical geek. But man, I geek out over Giant Squid. Aaron Gregory is a fantastic illustrator — check out that record artwork — and, not to forget, a phenomenal musician. And Cenotes is proof of that. Also, Cenotes surrenders the riff of the year; from 5:19 onwards on opener ‘Tongue Stones’, it has me lurching back and forth in what is probably quite a mental display of conviction. As Giant Squid’s ‘guitar album’ it sounds akin to SubRosa’s latest, yet it still maintains those progressive elements that make them that little bit more special.

Song: ‘Tongue Stones’

5. Red Fang – ‘Murder The Mountains’
[Relapse Records]

Murder The Mountains is a heavy record, yet Red Fang have never sounded cleaner. It’s refreshing how this record has proven heaviness and clarity aren’t mutually exclusive.Sometimes I think I can feel flecks of Bryan Giles’s spit as he barks out ‘That’s a trick’ on opener ‘Malverde’. Other times I can really appreciate the balls-out heaviness of the dual guitar attack, their interplay and wizardry on spectacle. Red Fang were brave to go with Chris Funk (of The Decemberists) as their producer, yet it’s pulled off fucking fantastically. MAN, just listen to that riff at the end of ‘Throw Up’, from 4:50 onwards.

Song: ‘Throw Up’

4. Earth – ‘Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Part I’
[Southern Lord Records]

I am fully aware one can’t exactly eat music, but one can consume it. One can experience it, but can’t exactly get in it. I believe this is why we attach a physicality to it. To make it something we can eat or get in, maybe not literally, but figuratively. Angels of Darkness, for me then, is a river of warm dark water that trickles and ebbs under the midday sun and flows and gushes in the face of the midnight moon. There are dark undercurrents that pose a sinister threat of drowning, while there are obstacles of eroding boulders that divert the river down different paths. Listening to Angels, I clasp this warm water in my hands and see the colours swirl with Dylan Carson’s notes and feel the strong undercurrent of Karl Blau’s bass. An achingly beautiful record that makes me want to pour my soul into its waters. Watch out for Part II in 2012.

Song: ‘Descent to the Zenith’

3. Elder – ‘Dead Roots Stirring’
[Meteor City Records]

Man, I love this record. Elder’s Sleep-centric self-titled debut never grabbed me the same way Dead Roots Stirring has; don’t get me wrong, their debut was the best record Sleep never made, but Dead Roots Stirring has Elder smoking from their own bowl, with new European heavy-psych flavours. Sharing tokes with Colour Haze and Kyuss, Elder have carved their way into new ground on Dead Roots Stirring, leaving behind the swamps of Sleep. They jam out with riffs that waver and shimmer, yet still keep that bite they learnt from the life in the swamp, allowing guitarist Nick DiSalvo to lurch and bellow. They execute this new style so well, they hypnotize and mesmerize and leave me gawping.

The Guitar Record of the Year.

Song: Full Record Stream

2. YOB – ‘Atma’
[Profound Lore Records]

It was said in an interview with Invisible Oranges, I believe, that when talking to Mike Scheidt you notice he has those kind of eyes that pierce right through you. That Thousand Yard Stare that makes you realise he’s operating on an entirely different level than everyone else. YOB is certainly the manifestation of that. There’s something Herzogian about them. Each pioneer the difficult and challenging frontiers of knowledge and understanding. Each confront and delve into and inhabit what they are discovering. And Atma is a further extension of that. Sonically, YOB are as punishing as ever; the riff on the latter half of the title track brings forth the image of bodies falling on gravel. As always, there is the cosmic in their doom, too, and ‘Upon the Sight of the Other Shore’ and ‘Adift in the Ocean’ are class all the way through, each cut visited by Scott Kelly lending his sinewy vocals to powerful effect. Atma is a stunning record, and I am so glad we have YOB back. They won’t have their constellation just yet.

Song: ‘Atma’

1. Sungrazer – ‘Mirador’
[Elektrohasch Records]

You may have noticed that a lot of my analysis depends on the feel of the record and how it affects me. I’m not sure why, I suppose it’s just the most compelling way to write. Well, where Atma was celestial and Dead Roots Stirring was hypnotizing, Mirador, Sungrazer’s second record on Elektrohasch, made me feel fucking good. Like really fucking good.

I remember when I first heard Sungrazer, initially introduced to them by the always stellar The Obelisk, and I was struck by how laid back and cool and groovy their stoner rock was. A year on, and their sound has evolved into their own on Mirador; on the self-titled debut they played with promise and on Mirador they delivered in spades: Tweaking with extraordinary songwriting capabilities and variety in their structures, playing with interesting progressive elements and extended instrumental segments. They’re still laid back and cool and groovy, but they now stand out and they have produced my favourite record of this year. It feels like Mirador was made purposely for me. Everything just adds up to a perfect equation, and I feel fucking great every time I play it.

Songs: ‘Octo’, ‘Behind’

There are quite a few interesting records due in twentytwelve, so here is a concise list of ten of what I’m looking forward to, just for a heads up:

Neurosis
Colour Haze
Om
Baroness
Shrinebuilder
Snail
Ufomammut
Saint Vitus
Meshuggah
Greenleaf
Crippled Black Phoenix

Okay, that’s actually eleven. Wait, add High on Fire and Gojira, that makes thirteen.

Cool.

My thanks go to Islander for bearing with me.

(BadWolf did something like this last year — HERE — and it looks like it’s becoming a tradition.)

You might as well call this list “Bad Wolf’s ongoing love affair with angsty woman-rock.”

Yes, it’s true—I have loves outside of metal. I have lesser-but-significant passions for female-fronted lyrical rock outfits, Trip-hop, underground Hip-hop, Hard Rock, Folk, Pop, and extreme non-metal music like math rock, prog and noise. The best concert I saw all year, except possibly Converge, was Portishead.

2011 was a poor year overall for Hip hop, I think—and there hasn’t been a good year for Trip-Hop in close to a decade. Pop is stuck in an awful electronica-fueled gutter binge, and grungy rock n’ roll has been almost completely devastated by radio friendly emo-metal hybrids. Ugh.

But 2011 brought a bumper crop of amazing femme-rock, much of it drenched in filth and darkness fit for goat-throwers to enjoy (not-included but honorably mentioned would be St. Vincent, Florence + The Machine, Cults, and Zola Jesus). Hell, one of them feels like a black metal wolf in indie sheep’s clothing.

I challenge you all to listen to some of this music, broaden your horizons, and explore those darknesses from foreign shores. Without further ado:

BAD WOLF’S TOP 10 NOT-METAL RECORDS OF 2011

Anna Calvi – Self Titled

My most-listened-to album of the year. Anna Calvi plays hyper-sexual garage rock with a flurry of exotic twists: she plays electric lead guitar with a Spanish Flamenco pick style, and her minimal backing arrangements sound like love letters to Ennio Morricone’s classic film scores (Metallica has begun their concerts with Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for over 20 years).

She sings from her sexuality, simultaneously all-encompassing and strangely enigmatic. Is she bisexual? Lesbian? Does it even matter? (Probably, maybe, and absolutely not, in that order). For the duration of this 40-minute masterpiece, her angelic voice (think Siouxsie and the Banshees) transported me to a cinematic netherworld, equal parts velvet and barbed wire.

Battles – Gloss Drop

Helmet fans out there have probably heard of Battles—their drummer John Stanier mans the kit here, backing members of Lynx and Relapse signees Don Caballero.

Battles play an experimental brand of progressive math rock, where their arrangements mimic the effects of looped electronic arrangements. The group dropped an instant-classic debut album in 2007 with the assistance of lead guitarist and front man Tyondai Braxton. Four years after, the sophomore LP is here, sans Braxton.

Good riddance, I say! Battles drop the vocals for most of the album, except for a few guest spots from amazing vocalists like Gary Neuman. The remainder of the record is a leaner, tighter instrumental brain-fuck.

Bjork – Biophilia

Bjork, either you get her or your don’t. Personally, I don’t know what’s not to understand: Bjork is an amazing singer, Bjork is also insane, Bjork makes amazing vocal music that is also insane. Simple, right?

Biophilia is receiving odd press focusing around the iPhone app that interacts with the record, and the new instruments Bjork and her associates invented (see? Insane) to play the album.

Underneath the paraphernalia, this is just a solid, morbid album with a tinge of Cronenberg-esque body horror, and a series of intriguing experiments with dubstep that show their furious heads at random during Biophilia.

Chelsea Wolfe – Apokalypsis

Chelsea Wolfe is an LA singer-songwriter who came to my attention earlier this year for doing a Burzum cover using only her voice and a loop pedal.

… I know, right?

Chelsea plays what I like to call Apocalypse Folk Rock—think Tom Waits (below), Nick Cave,  and the acoustic side projects that members of Neurosis and Cobalt quietly tour with. Her music is morbid and evil—low-key minimalist filth drenched in reverb. Apokalypsis, her second album in as many years, made me an instant fan, and I’m not alone: Krallice’s Nick McMaster has posted aobut her merits on Facebook (not that I’m stalking or anything) and Liturgy’s Hunter Hunt-Hendrix has played concerts wearing her Tee-shirts.

Is it a little hip for my tastes? Sure. But listen to Chelsea Wolfe’s hair-raising cover of “You Are My Sunshine” and tell me she isn’t more necro than 90% of black/doom metal today.

Drive – Soundtrack

If you have not seen Nicolas Refn’s Drive, do so. It’s one of my favorite films this year. Its soundtrack is a throwback to 80’s synthpop, but with a dark and biting edge.

The theme song by Kavinsky is the hookiest number here—most of the soundtrack is instrumental and more abstract in nature.

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Fleet Foxes blend Americana folk with Beach Boys style four-part harmony, and the results must be heard to be believed. If you need to imagine it, think of their more radio-friendly cousins Mumford and Sons, minus the douche bit. This is tender, plaintive music that seems plucked from a bygone era. Every sound here pre-dates metal by decades, and yet I’d hold this up as a critique to most modern folk metal.

To me, folk, like punk, is not a collection of sounds or a style of playing, but an attitude. Folk is not happy, or jubilant. It mourns, then adores, then mourns again. I’ll take these sad pickers weeping over faux-Vikings drinking (almost) every time. If that sounds too milquetoast for your tastes, consider this: Fleet Foxes absolutely shred on their acoustic instruments, as well.

Foo Fighters – Wasting Light

When it comes to rock and roll on the radio, the pickings are slim, post-90’s. Incubus is alright but really just make me crave The Deftones. In my neck of the woods you never hear Queens of the Stone Age, or Rage Against the Machine, and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers have lost that lovin’ feeling big time. That leaves us with Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, who know how to write a great single or two, but haven’t put out a solid album in over a decade.

Until now. Holy shit. I had no idea Dave Grohl had anything this cool left inside of him. The Foos recorded this whole album garage-style on analog tape, and recorded the album’s music videos direct to VCR. Something in the imperfect grain of those antiquated technologies returned Grohl and Co. to their roots—heavy garage rock.

This is the Foo’s most emotionally mature album and at the same time their most metal. In other words, it’s the best album of their career.

Hail Mary Mallon – Are You Gonna Eat That?

Hail Mary Mallon is a collaboration album by rappers Rob Sonic and Aesop Rock (both signed to the-best-hip-hop-label-ever, Def Jux, even though the album was released by second-best-hip-hop-label-ever, Rhymesayers).

I’m not a huge fan of Rob Sonic, but Aesop Rock hasn’t released a full album since his ‘retirement’ after 2007’s None Shall Pass. If you don’t know why this is a big deal, do yourself a favor and listen to everything Aes has ever done. The man spits faster and harder than James Hetfield’s right hand picks. And unlike some other emcees, he packs his lyrics with literary left hooks, right? If that isn’t enough incentive, the album title is a reference to Typhoid Mary. Aesop Rock! Disease! Get it!

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

As much as I love dark, bitter femme-rockers like Alanis  Morisette and Tori Amos, PJ Harvey is the queen. I still prefer her Steve Albini-produced sophomore LP Rid of Me, and 2000’s super sleek Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, but Let England Shake is the third instant-classic in her career.

And it’s weird. PJ sticks to her upper register on Let England Shake, and the accompaniment adopts a tinnier sound to match. This album jangles and clangs as it rolls—juxtaposing with the thinly veiled menace and Orwellian phobia that colors PJ’s lyrics.

Tom Waits – Bad as Me

Tom Waits should be familiar to most of you, by virtue of having one of the longest, most critically-acclaimed careers in modern music. To the uninitiated: Tom Waits has one hell of a voice. It’s the most brutal death-rattle you can imagine, but that’s just the way he sounds. Years of smoking and whisky will do that to a man.

Waits takes American folk rock to dark places, punctuating his music with staccato beats. He’s heir to Johnny Cash’s crown, except with a lo-fi, nearly industrial/noise bent. His new record, Bad As Me, is a return to form after near to a decade of spotty records. He’s always brilliant, but this is the first record of his I’ve loved front to back since Bone Machine.

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THE MOST METAL NOT-METAL SPLIT OF THE YEAR

HotChaCha – Do It (Split with Summer People)

My love of HotChaCha is well-documented; I even implored R Loren to sign them on his Handmade Birds label, but to no avail. Regardless, they put on an amazing live show with frequently brutal mosh pits (I left one with a black eye, and this is an indie band we’re talking about!).

HotChaCha play furious noise rock, complete with dance beats and bursts of psychdelia. This EP is their last release with their original four-girl lineup, but it’s a fitting swansong to that stage in their career. These four songs are the best thing they’ve ever written; the swift opening salvo of “Aorist” fits snuggly against the sinister crescendo of “Suicide Mission” and the wicked creep of “All Babes are Wolves,” before “German Soldier” closes the EP in a libido-fueled implosion.

More than any of their previous releases, this one’s about frontwoman Jovana Batkovic—fitting, since she’s remained with the band after guitarist Mandy and bassist Heather left, apparently on amicable terms. With the upgrade in production comes a clarity of voice and lyric. Considering her heritage, Do It feels personal—tales of lust, fascism (speaking as victim, not enactor. Fuck Varg) and violence, juxtaposed against young love.

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THE MOST METAL NOT-METAL SONG OF THE YEAR

Tyler the Creator – “Transylvania”

[Disclaimer – this video is mean, and grossly offensive to women. Does it offend me? Yeah. So does Arghoslent, still got that shit on my ipod… wait for the end, it takes time.]

Because he’s Dracula, bitch.

(The musicians I invited to submit year-end lists were people whose music I liked a lot and who I thought would bring interesting perspectives to our look-back on 2011 metal. Here’s the latest offering, from the vocalist of Sweden’s Canopy, Fredrik Huldtgren, with whom I had the pleasure of spending some time in Seattle last month. If you haven’t yet introduced yourself to Canopy’s music (for example, by reading one of the jillions of our posts about them), it can be streamed and purchased on Bandcamp here. Canopy is at work on their fourth album – may it come soon!)

9. Primordial - Redemption at the Puritans Hand

I must admit, I am quite a bit of a Primordial fanboy. That being said, this album actually took me quite some time to get into. It is a rather slow album, and it does not feel as harsh as their previous efforts. The passion is still there though, stronger than ever, but I feel that now more than ever, Primordial is a band to see live, because that is where it all makes sense.

8. Anaal Nathrakh - Passion

Again, a band that does repeat themselves quite a bit, but they still manage to release albums of such high quality that they deserve a place on my top list. Featuring a guest appearance of Bethlehem’s old vocalist does add a few bonus points, but even without that, the album is both brutal and catchy and all very Anaal Nathrakh.

7. Septic Flesh - The Great Mass

Last Easter when Septic Flesh released a teaser for the new album, “The Vampire of Nazareth”, I was not very impressed. The song seemed to go nowhere and lacked something special. So it was first when I saw them live that I ended up picking up the new album (the artbook actually — apart from the CD, it also contains a “making of” DVD plus another CD with only the symphonic parts and 40-50 pages of high gloss versions of Seth’s artwork), and once I was able to listen to the album in its entirety it started to make sense. “Mad Architect”, “Pyramid God”, and “Rising” are all great examples of how good they can be when they want.

6. Amorphis - The Beginning of Times

Amorphis is one of those bands that can do no wrong. Once again they managed to release an album with great melodies and vocal work. Even though many may complain that the album sounds too much like the previous ones, I still think they are keeping such high quality that it does not matter.

5. Skálmöld - Baldur

Probably the biggest surprise for me this year. Skálmöld was booked for Wacken and as I was going through what I would see, I ended up listening to a few of their songs. Being a bit of a folk metal fan, I rather enjoyed it and decided to try and see them. Once at Wacken they turned out to be the highlight of the festival. A brilliant band with seriously catchy folk metal songs. Even those of you who might not enjoy the recent influx of folk metal should check this out!

4. Blut Aus Nord - 777 sect(s) & 3. Blut Aus Nord - Desanctification

France seems to be the new Norway when it comes to black metal. I chose to couple these albums as they were both released this year, and they are parts 1 and 2 of a trilogy. (The entire trilogy was supposed to be released this year, but sadly enough not all parts were released). Sect(s) is an insane and chaotic black metal album which takes a few listens to fully appreciate. Interestingly enough, Desanctification does start off just as sect(s) ended, but then mellows out. Even the artwork for Desanctification has a more hippy feel to it, and once “Epitome X” rolls around you understand why. Personally I cannot wait until the third part comes out so that I can listen to it from start to finish. I do believe that that is how it should be enjoyed.

2. Solstafir - Svartir Sandar

Perhaps the least metal album on my top list, but one that I just could not exclude. This album is pure brilliance with a lot of clean vocals, original song writing and great melodic work. If I was more of a writer perhaps I could try and do it justice, but instead I suggest that you listen to it. All of it.

1. Peste Noire - L’Ordure à l’état Pur

Wow, where to start…Peste Noire are strange, very, very strange. This album has strange beats, bird imitations, porn sound effects (in French of course), and instrumental parts that sound like they were taken directly out of a commercial for French brie. Still, I cannot place this album into any other genre than black metal. Black metal of the genius kind. An album I can imagine that few will enjoy, but those with the patience will be rewarded. SALOP!

0. Woods of Ypres – Grey Skies & Electric Lights (Woods V)

This album was scheduled to be released in January 2012, but with the death of front man David Gold, Earache let people download it for free. I started listening to WoY around the release of their second album and have been hooked since. The musical changes that went from Woods I -> Woods IV are huge, the latter album being closer to Type O Negative than anything resembling black metal, but never once did they release a bad album. Woods V is a serene and depressing album, more so than what WoY usually are, and one can’t help but see connections between the lyrical contents of the album and Mr. Gold’s untimely death. I never met him in person, but over all these years we always kept in touch and it saddens me to see such a talented and passionate musician leave us. So if any of you are feeling down this winter, put on some Woods of Ypres and let everything overwhelm you. R.I.P. Dave, we won’t keep you out of sight or mind, but we will kiss your ashes goodbye.

(In this post, The Number of the Blog’s groverXIII provides his lists of 2011′s best EPs, albums, and videos. To hear music from the selected albums and EPs, click on the artwork.)

2011 was quite a year for music. I won’t lie… I’m generally a pretty positive guy when it comes to music, which is how I ended up with 75 honorable mentions (and probably more, if I were to go through my massive “albums I listened to” list with a fine-toothed comb). This list isn’t entirely metal, of course, but rather my favorite albums of the year regardless of genre. I had begun my rundown of the following honorable mentions over at TNOTB, but they were lost in our Viking funeral and I don’t have the patience to redo them, so I’m kicking things off with a simple list, in alphabetical order, of albums that I listened to in 2011 and enjoyed, but didn’t quite make my top 25.

There are a lot of big-name releases in the honorable mentions, and lest you think I didn’t like them, bear in mind that these are albums that I did like. If I were to list every album that I listened to in 2011, well, we’d be here for a long fucking time. Anyway, honorable mentions. BEHOLD.

Amon Amarth – Surtur Rising

Amorphis – The Beginning Of Times

Animals As Leaders – Weightless

Arkan – Salam

Barn Burner – Bangers II: Scum Of The Earth

Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

Beyond Creation – The Aura

Blood Ceremony – Living With The Ancients

Blotted Science – The Animation Of Entomology

Blue Stahli – Blue Stahli

Boy Hits Car – Stealing Fire

Celldweller – The Complete Cellout, Vol. 01

Christian Muenzner – Time Warp

Cloudkicker – Let Yourself Be Huge

Dalriada – Ígéret

Dan Dankmeyer – Arcologies/Origin

Demisery – Hive Of Mutation

Devil – Time To Repent

Double Dragon – Sons Of Asena

Dream Theater – A Dramatic Turn Of Events

Dropkick Murphys – Going Out In Style

Elder – Dead Roots Stirring

Entrails – The Tomb Awaits

Essence – Lost In Violence

Evan Brewer – Alone

Fleshgod Apocalypse – Agony

Giant Of The Mountain – Mother Hydra

Glitter Wizard – Solar Hits

Grayceon – All We Destroy

Hammers Of Misfortune – 17th Street

Hell – Human Remains

Iced Earth – Dystopia

Insomnium – One For Sorrow

KMFDM – WTF?!

Korpiklaani – Ukon Wacka

Leprous – Bilateral

Lo-Pan – Salvador

Machine Head – Unto The Locust

Mastodon – The Hunter

MC Frontalot – Solved

Measure The Redshift – Outside The Spectrum

Megachurch – Megachurch 2: Judgment Day

Megadeth – TH1RT3EN

Midnight – Satanic Royalty

Oak Pantheon – The Void

Obscura – Omnivium

Orchid – Carpicorn

Ordinance – Internal Monologues

Orwell – AVOHFASIH

Paul Wardingham – Assimilate Regenerate

Pentagram – Last Rites

Premonition 13 – 13

Puscifer – Conditions Of My Parole

Rodrigo y Gabriela – Live In France

Sabaton – World War Live – Battle Of The Baltic Sea

Saul Williams – Volcanic Sunlight

Septic Flesh – The Great Mass

Shroud Eater – ThunderNoise

Skeletonwitch – Forever Abomination

Skindred – Union Black

Spiralmountain – Spiralmountain

Suidakra – Book Of Dowth

Sungrazer – Mirador

The Dead Exs – Resurrection

The Global Warming Extravaganza – Debaucherous Adventure

Thomas Giles – Pulse

Thorr-Axe – Wall Of Spears

Toxic Holocaust – Conjure And Command

Tre Watson – Death Of A Monarch

Trollfest – En Kvest For Den Hellige Gral

Turisas – Stand Up And Fight

Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats – Blood Lust

Vader – Welcome To The Morbid Reich

Vomitron – No NES For The Wicked

Warbringer – Worlds Torn Asunder

World Under Blood – Tactical

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I found myself listening to a lot of EPs/demos this year, in large part due to the rise of Bandcamp. There were a lot of excellent bands posting their EPs and demos on Bandcamp, many for free, and I discovered a shitload of good new bands as a result. Here are my ten favorite EPs/demos of 2011.

10- The Blue Screen Of Death – The Blue Screen Of Death

The Blue Screen Of Death are a Southampton instrumental stoner rock band who had submitted their demo for consideration over at TNOTB a while back, and between the fantastic fuzzed-out grooves and the wonderfully weird, tennis-centric video for ‘Shove It’ (more on that later), I kinda fell in love. I’m a sucker for desert rock.

9- Shardborne – Aeonian Sequence

I’m also a sucker for instrumental prog metal, and Limerick’s Shardborne delivered that in fine form on their Aeonian Sequence EP. Musically, they remind a great deal of Odyssey (more on them later), combining bits of Rush, Dream Theater, and even a hint of Amon Amarth in some of their guitar leads.

8- From Exile – Just Like You Imagined

I like From Exile. I love Nine Inch Nails. And I love From Exile covering Nine Inch Nails, which is what they did to perfection on the Just Like You Imagined EP. They managed to put their own instrumentally-driven spin on four very different NIN tracks (including my personal favorite, ‘Ruiner’), and more importantly, they made the songs their own without totally fucking them up.

7- Returning We Hear The Larks – Proud England

Jak Noble is the fucking man. He already had a number of fantastic releases under his belt, but he did not rest on his laurels one bit, taking his particular ambient style of djent to the next level and adding his impressively versatile vocals to the mix. With Proud England, he showed just how much potential he really has, and in the process established himself as an artist to keep your eye on.

6- Gorod – Transcendence

Gorod had already established themselves as my favorite tech-death band with the fantastic Process Of A New Decline, my 2009 album of the year. Transcendence wasn’t the new album I was hoping for, but it had a fantastic re-recording of ‘Earth Pus’, their cover of Cynic’s ‘Textures’, and fantastic acoustic reimaginings of ‘Earth Pus’ and ‘Blackout’. The EP’s centerpiece, though, proved to be the expansive 15-minute title track, easily the most progressive material they’ve ever recorded.

5- XII Boar – XII

The proud tradition of the power trio lives on with the UK’s XII Boar, a band after mine own Roman-numeral-loving black heart. Their self-titled EP is four quick tracks of stoner metal, something of a mix of High On Fire and Motörhead, and it will rock your balls off. These guys have a new EP coming very soon, and I can only hope that it matches this release’s intensity and swagger.

4- Bispora – The Cycle

Sacramento’s Bispora came from nowhere to truly blow my mind with The Cycle, a 4-track EP consisting of one long song with recurring motifs. These guys skillfully mix death metal with experimental and progressive tendencies, honed nicely by the EP’s brief runtime. Even though it’s only around 16 minutes long, The Cycle feels like a full, satisfying listen, and it should serve to get you sufficiently excited for the forthcoming album The Pineal Chronicles.

3- The Odious – That Night A Forest Grew

Speaking of experimental/progressive death metal, The Odious rose from Portland to lay waste to my eardrums. That Night A Forest Grew features a fantastic weird streak, starting with the fantastic album art and best displayed with the odd clean break on ‘Threads’. The Odious are also working on new material, and I’m already mentally setting aside a spot on my 2012 year-end list.

2- Tre Watson – Gravestones

My ongoing platonic relationship with Tre Watson very nearly became non-platonic following the release of Gravestones, Tre’s most experimental and varied work to date. The EP’s finale, the 18-minute ‘Dancing On Gravestones’, is worth the price of admission by itself (the price being merely the time needed to download the EP) with its choir vocals, varied riffing, and electronic interludes. If you somehow missed this, it’s time that you rectified that grievous error.

1- Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues

Come on… it’s Between The Buried And Me. Packing more into three songs than Slayer did into entire albums, BTBAM simply knocked me on my ass with The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues. There’s not really much that needs to be said other than it’s BTBAM at their spastic, epic, massive best. If I were to combine my EP list with my album list, this would still be right up at the top.

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Alright, now to the heart of the list: the albums. This list took a great deal of thought, and several of the albums on the list started on the honorable mentions list and got shuffled around, but I think I’ve finally come up with a final order. Anyway, onward and upward.

25- Death Grips – Exmilitary

This was a late addition, and it’s a rap album, but it’s a rap album unlike anything else I have ever heard. Death Grips is loud, aggressive, glitchy, messy, angry, and uncompromising, sort of the rap equivalent of black metal. There isn’t a lot of skill here in terms of MC Ride’s flow, but he has a unique cadence that perfectly fits the insane, industrial-esque beats of Hella drummer Zach Hill. The whole thing is available for free, and it’s an ugly, mesmerizing listen from start to finish.

24- Polkadot Cadaver – Sex Offender

Polkadot Cadaver are not quite Dog Fashion Disco, the maniacal Mr. Bungle-worshipping Baltimore quintet that preceded them, but they do have Todd Smith, John Ensminger, and Jasan Stepp of DFD, and that’s close enough for me. Sex Offender has all of the weird, fucked-up sex-and-violence depravity that fans have come to expect, and that’s all that I could ask for. The Mike Patton influence is still strongly on display, but Polkadot Cadaver continue to slog their own trail through piles of dead hookers, teenage vampires, prosthetic limbs, and cocaine.

23- Cut Your Teeth – CYTII

Cut Your Teeth unleashed their second helping of blistering crossover thrash metal with CYTII and found a special place in my heart. There’s no experimentation to be found here, no sprawling song structures, just pedal-to-the-metal thrash. The album is unrelenting, only slowing down on the final track, a cover of Pat Travers’ ‘Snortin’ Whiskey’ that still manages to fit perfectly with the album’s tone. Oh, and they released one of my favorite videos of the year (more on that later).

22- Absu – Abzu

Abzu kicks off with a scream heavily reminiscent of the Tom Araya scream, and with that we are off and running. Absu’s patented brand of blackened thrash (or thrashing black, if you prefer) has been honed razor-sharp on Abzu, propelled by an arsenal of riffs and the endlessly creative drumming of Proscriptor McGovern. Add in some fantastically arcane song titles and album art, and you’ve got the total package.

21- Opeth – Heritage

Alright, so it’s not quite the Opeth album a lot of people were hoping for. I think we can agree that this was a logical direction for the band, though, and so we got an entire album of Opeth paying tribute to their prog-rock roots. And really, once I got past the lack of death metal, I still rather enjoyed Heritage for what it was. I mean, if I really get to feeling nostalgic, I’ve still got a whole bunch of old Opeth albums that I can go back and listen to. I don’t know where Opeth goes from here, but I will be listening nonetheless.

20- Last Chance To Reason – Level 2

I don’t know how many people knew about Last Chance To Reason after their first album, Lvl 1, but after Level 2, I think it’s safe to say that folks are taking notice. A big part of the reason is the band’s move away from their more hardcore roots in favor of BTBAM-esque prog and clean vocals, but they do it in such a way that they do not at any point feel derivative. It’s a testament to the band’s talent and songwriting prowess that they truly distinguish themselves from a number of excellent bands influenced by BTBAM.

19- The Heavy Eyes – Heavy Eyes

It makes perfect sense that The Heavy Eyes, a band who meld stoner rock with the blues so seamlessly, would hail from Memphis. I mean, Memphis’ role in the creation and establishment of both rock music and the blues cannot be overstated. And The Heavy Eyes embody everything that is great about modern blues rock on their debut album. It’s rough around the edges, as it should be, with rough production that brings to mind images of the band playing in a smoky, dusty bar. This is, undoubtedly, one of the finest stoner rock albums of the year.

18- The Human Abstract – Digital Veil

Prior to Digital Veil, I had never listened to The Human Abstract. As such, I had no pre-conceived notions about the band and how they would be affected by lineup changes, because I didn’t really know anything about their previous singer. All I know is that Digital Veil is a fantastic album of technical, progressive metal, done in a similar vein as Last Chance To Reason and BTBAM, but wholly its own thing.

17- Jesse Dangerously – Humble & Brilliant

Jesse Dangerously, self-proclaimed Halifax Rap Legend, is one of my favorite rappers ever, and Humble & Brilliant was one of my most hotly-anticipated albums of the year. It turned out to be a bit of a challenging listen for me, and I can’t really place my finger on why exactly. Maybe it was the massive number of rather unconventional samples fighting Jesse’s voice for my attention. But I was patient with it, allowed Jesse’s brilliant lyrics to work their way into my brain, and sure enough, the album began to click. And once it clicked, it grabbed on and didn’t let go.

16- Angelspit – Hello My Name Is

I don’t listen to a lot of industrial, but when I do, it’s usually Angelspit. I don’t know what it is about Angelspit’s fucked-up lyrics and muscular, aggressive sound, but it just fucking gets me. I’m an addict. Hello My Name Is represents Angelspit’s first album as a five-piece (if you count their visuals guy, as they do) and it also represents an expansion of their sound, and so it took a little bit of getting used to, but goddamn, I still love these guys.

15- I’ll Eat Your Face – Hot Brains Terror

My favorite Irish cartoon supergrind adventure pals, I’ll Eat Your Face, were unable to repeat the feat they pulled off last year of taking the top spot, but Hot Brains Terror is still a blast of HOT GRIND POWER. The sheer amount of weirdness and brilliance that these guys pack into twenty minutes is mind-boggling, and the realization that beneath all this insanity, these guys are actually insanely talented, is a wonderful thing.

14- Vektor – Outer Isolation

Vektor have released the thrash album of the year and managed to live up to the staggering hype that built following their brilliant debut, Black Future. Vektor continue to push the boundaries of the normally narrow thrash metal subgenre and have firmly established themselves as one of the best thrash bands out there, bar none. World, take note: this is how it should be done.

13- Devin Townsend Project – Deconstruction

Just when I think we’ve plumbed the depths of Devin Townsend’s demented mind, he reaches down and pulls out something else that is completely unexpected. Deconstruction was not the return to Strapping Young Lad that people may have been hoping for, but it was still a massive, chaotic album in its own way. Even now, having heard the album numerous times, I still discover something new every time I listen to it. Staggering.

12- Supercommuter – Products Of Science

The final rap album on the list, Supercommuter is the former vocalist for Optimus Rhyme rapping over chiptunes, to fantastic results. It helps that Wheelie Cyberman is another of my favorite rappers of all time, and his robotic lyrics are perfectly suited to his 8-bit accompaniment. When it comes to rap music, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get any better than this.

11- Graveyard – Hisingen Blues

Over the last few years, the 70s hard rock revival has kicked into high gear, and few bands pull it off as well as Graveyard. This was especially true on Hisingen Blues, which rocked as hard as all get-out through a wonderful layer of retro fuzz. It’s not hard to listen to the album and be transported back to the days of Sir Lord Baltimore, Atomic Rooster, and Captain Beyond. There may be people who complain that it’s all derivative and unoriginal, but really, there are a lot worse bands to draw influence from, no?

10- Sahara Surfers – Sonar Pilot

My favorite stoner rock album of the year comes from Austria, where Sahara Surfers tread the line between Kyuss and Colour Haze with some soulful female vocals. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gotten lost in this album and its fuzzed-out guitars, and yet I can’t stop listening to it. The label has made the album available as a free download available here (http://www.soundzero.net/sahara_surfers_sonar_pilot.zip), so there’s no excuse to not check it out!

9- Keith Merrow – Awaken The Stone King

The first new album I heard in 2011, released on Jan. 1, I think it says a lot that Awaken The Stone King made it the whole year and still stayed pretty high on my list. Keith is a friend of mine, but I’m also a huge fan of his, and I’m constantly in awe of the caliber of music that he puts together in his home studio. His death metal project Demisery made my honorable mentions, but it’s his solo stuff that truly does it for me, and Awaken The Stone King might be his best work yet.

8- Falconer – Armod

As far as I’m concerned, there is no power metal band in the world better than Falconer, whether they’re singing in English or their native Swedish. Mathias Blad, theatrically-trained singer and actor, has a voice unlike anyone in power metal, and when you pair him with the powerful riffs of Stefan Weinerhall, greatness abounds. Armod finds Falconer upping the folk side of their sound as well, and the results are as fantastic as ever.

7- Protest The Hero – Scurrilous

Scurrilous was basically Protest The Hero going about their business as usual, which is probably the only reason that it’s not higher on my list. It’s not the revelation that Fortress was, but it stands as proof that Protest The Hero treading water are still head and shoulders above most bands out there. It’s a testament to just how talented these guys are that technicality and songwriting of this degree could be considered routine for a band.

6- Fair To Midland – Arrows & Anchors

Fair To Midland may not be a metal band, but they know how to put it down like few metal bands do. Rock bands certainly don’t make music like this any more, at least not if they want to get played on the radio, but fortunately Fair To Midland don’t seem to be too concerned with that, and for that I am quite grateful, because Arrows & Anchors is quite simply one of the best albums of the year in any genre.

5- Odyssey – An Abstract Existence

In a year filled with fantastic instrumental releases, none of them managed to capture my attention like Spokane’s Odyssey. Too few people have heard of these guys, and it’s a damn shame, because they are phenomenally talented and truly understand what progressive metal is about. This is music made for the love of music, and there is no art so pure as that.

4- Cormorant – Dwellings

Seeing as we’re talking about music made for the love of music, Cormorant released an absolute masterpiece this year with Dwellings. Following the strong Metazoa, Cormorant managed to completely one-up everything about that album on Dwellings, no small feat to be certain. The pure, unfiltered emotion present on Dwellings is not something you can take for granted, and if these guys don’t rule the world some time in the next few years, then we can be assured that there is something wrong with society.

3- Primus – Green Naugahyde

Primus are my favorite band ever. I think that should about cover it. The fact that this isn’t even a particularly strong Primus album in the context of their discography, and it’s still this high on my list, should indicate just how much I love this album, and Primus in general. Les Claypool is a genius and a bass deity, Larry LaLonde is a truly underrated guitarist, and new old drummer Jay Lane fits in perfectly. Here’s hoping it’s not another ten years before we get another new Primus album.

2- Thy Catafalque – Rengeteg

Speaking of musical geniuses, Tamás Kátai fits that label pretty well in my eyes. Thy Catafalque is solely his project now, with guest vocals from Attila Bakos and Ágnes Tóth, and while Rengeteg may not be as experimental as its predecessors, that’s not to say that it isn’t experimental. As always, Kátai has produced an album filled with mesmerizing riffs and transcendent melodies, and songs that may seem simple are in fact deceptively deep and layered, with subtleties lurking at every turn.

1- UneXpecT – Fables Of The Sleepless Empire

I’ve had a pretty good idea that this would be my album of the year for quite some time, and it’s because this is bar none the most unique, creative, energetic, beautiful, chaotic album that I have heard all year. UneXpecT harnessed the madness and disorder of their previous releases and channeled it with improved songwriting into an album that is not so much an album as it is an experience. Combine two guitars, three vocalists, a violin, a keyboard, a nine-string bass, and drums together, and you’re either going to have a mess, or you’re going to have something special, and in this case, you’ve got something special. It’s going to be an acquired taste, and I know that there are going to be a lot of people who don’t get it, or aren’t interested, but I also know that there will be people who do give this album a chance and will discover what I am speaking of. I can only hope that you do.

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Now, for an added treat, my favorite videos of the year, in no particular order.

Fair To Midland – ‘Musical Chairs’

The setting is interesting, but the true strength of this video is the spastic, energetic performance of frontman Darroh Sudderth, who is a madman.

Protest The Hero – ‘Hair Trigger’

Somehow, these guys just seem to have that knack for making ridiculously entertaining videos, and ‘Hair Trigger’ does not disappoint.

Cut Your Teeth – ‘Stallion’

This is the best use of helmet-cam I’ve ever seen, and a perfect way to capture the energy of the band and its music.

Musth – ‘Fish And Ships’

This video scares the living shit out of me. That’s not an easy thing to do.

Mastodon – ‘Curl Of The Burl’

The album may have been a bit inconsistent, but this video is solid fucking gold. Mastodon is another one of those bands that consistently make great videos.

Mastodon – ‘Deathbound’

See what I mean?

Red Fang – ‘Wires’

Red Fang only have two videos under their belts (with a third coming), but thus far, they’ve been rock fucking solid as well, even if the album didn’t necessarily float my boat.

Primus – ‘Tragedy’s A’ Comin’

Les Claypool in a lobster suit. ‘nuff said.

MC Frontalot – ‘Critical Hit’

Because MC Frontalot always entertains, and making fun of pop culture is a guaranteed way of getting my attention. This is the second video on the list with a cameo by Brian Posehn, which is also a good way to get my attention.

Beastie Boys – ‘Make Some Noise’

Most epic music video ever? Probably. Most celebrity cameos in a music video? Probably. And that’s not even counting the full half-hour ‘Fight For Your Right (Revisited)’ video.

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Here’s hoping 2012 is as good to me as 2011 was!

(Today we’re happy to welcome another visitor from The (sadly departed) Number of the Blog: Snagon shares with us his list of the Top 25 albums of 2011.)

2011 marked the end of my life as a boyfriend (I’m engaged), the beginning of my teaching career, and the end of the place where my blogging started, The Number Of The Blog. For all these endings and beginnings I have had my fair share of great new music to take along for this journey and thus my list holds a tremendous amount of personal emotion for me. For now we have the honorable mentions.

Anaal Nathrakh – Passion, Anthrax – Worship Music, Antichrist – Forbidden World, The Black Dahlia Murder – Ritual, Boris – Heavy Rocks,  Charred Walls Of The Damned – Cold Winds On Timeless Days, Craft – Void, Dream Theater – A Dramatic Turn Of Events, Haemorrhage – Hospital Carnage, Jungle Rot – Kill On Command, Manilla Road – Playground Of The Damned, Necrophagia – Deathtrip 69, Opeth – Heritage, Pentagram – Last Rites, Razorblade Handgrenade – Tales From The Bricks,  Revocation – Chaos Of Forms, SSS – Problems To The Answer, Today Is The Day – Pain Is A Warning, Toxic Holocaust, Conjure And Command, Yob – Atma

I listened to a ton of music this year so you must wonder how I was able to talk about only 25 of the new 2011 albums; just read on below and behold, the majesty of balance.

#25 All Pigs Must Die – God Is War

As I am a lover of lots of things old school, when something sounds like a metallic tinged version of Discharge, color me intrigued. This is the band’s second official release and Southern Lord is really taking the bull by the horns when it comes to this particular sound. Very rarely does a hardcore band of this day and age have riffs that smash you straight across the face but APMD has them in excess as the furiosity does very little in the way of taking things easy. This album is best suited to kick you in the ass instead of a morning coffee. The slowed down sections are so distorted and have this world-falling-down feeling, but just add even more to what this album is able to accomplish by taking many different bands’ worth of influence and making for an excellent and cohesive album.

#24 Machine Head – Unto The Locust

It has been a long time in the world of metal from when Machine Head released The Blackening which was put out all the way back in 2007. This hasn’t been nearly enough time to quell Robb Flynn’s anger; he is actually quite well pissed still. The album’s opener ‘I Am Hell (Sonata In C#)’ sounds like it could have very well followed the very last track of the previous album. This album as a whole seems like a logical progression for Machine Head, who are still able to churn out quality metal even after the horror that was The Burning Red and Supercharger. Other stand-out tracks are ‘Be Still And Know’ and ‘Locust’; a mainstream metal band well worth your time.

#23 Crowbar – Sever The Wicked Hand

Kirk Windstein has never considered his personal band, Crowbar, to be a mainstream band, and quite frankly they aren’t, but when looking at the NOLA sludge scene they have seemingly become the most popular band out of that particular area. With Sever The Wicked Hand the band puts together a near completely new lineup and their first album since 2005. Windstein’s gruff vocals are the perfect complement to this long and drawn out style of metal that he has long since made his own. ‘Isolation (Desperation)’ has enough slow riffs that bring about the band’s signature style and even then the band can surprise you with tracks like ‘Liquid Sky And Cold Black Earth’, which also move slowly but also convey a sense of beauty in helplessness. It’s great to see a band like this stay together and put out quality albums after a long break. Boy, 2011 seems to have a lot of these.

#22 Exhumed – All Guts, No Glory

Being the lover of all iterations of Carcass that I am, I sure do love what Exhumed has modeled their career after. Early-era Carcass is sure to get a medical degree in musical butchery. Matt Harvey knows all too much about vile bands he has been a part of, such as Repulsion, Gravehill, and NOLA sludge metallers Noothgrush. The fast paced action of All Guts, No Glory has you wondering,“How did it take 8 years to come up with this great material?” This sounds as fresh as the dead corpse of Carcass now smells and without blatant ripping off either. ‘As Hammer To Anvil’ will hook you, and ‘I Rot Within’ will disembowel you, in the best way possible.

#21 Autopsy – Macabre Eternal

Chris Reifert’s name is synonymous with all things old school death metal, and so his band’s inclusion on this list should come as a surprise to no one. Autopsy perfected the death doom style back in 1991 with Mental Funeral. Many other bands have attempted this style with nowhere nearly as good results. It is almost impossible to duplicate both Reifert’s drumming as well as his vocal style; the mere fact that they exist in unison is something that is nearly impossible to comprehend. The reinvigorated Reifert and Co.’s first album in 16 years sounds like it belongs somewhere around the year 1992, as far as where this band has been during their short career. Album opener ‘Hand Of Darkness’ is a great sampler of the highs  and lows, fasts and slows, that this album gives without notice. It’s one of the year’s best death metal albums.

#20 Landmine Marathon – Gallows

Before you extreme metalheads shoot me, this is my first LP exposure to Arizona’s Landmine Marathon and their lethal vocalist Grace Perry. This very grindy version of death metal is a welcome addition to things that female-fronted metal bands can do well. From her small frame Perry can amass some great filthy and dirty vocals while her dual lead guitarists throw in plenty of speedy sections chock full of melody too. What a smorgasbord of different styles coming together into one package. This fast-paced, grind-influenced assault holds tracks such as ‘Three Snake Leaves’, ‘Liver And  Lungs’, and ‘Knife from My Sleeve’ to up the ante, and adds up to nearly a half an hour’s worth of pain.

#19 Disma – Towards The Megalith

Slow and evil, with a large amount of love for NY death metal stalwarts Incantation, New Jersey’s Disma rises. I won’t be the first to point out that this isn’t a step in the direction of something new, but what it is, is something old becoming new again. 2011 represented a large class of death metal hearkening back to the glory days of the genre. This album, however, covers some of the mid-90’s NYDM, a side of things that isn’t explored enough.  Featuring members of the defunct NJ band Funebrarum, and former members of Incantation themselves, the band really allows you to hear this dark and evil death metal from the horse’s mouth. ‘Chasm Of Oceanus’ is a 7-minute long test of ups and downs with a massive guitar tone, one that is quite difficult to escape. Not even the darkest nightmares could ever hold this band back.

#18 Leviathan – True Traitor, True Whore

Breaking up is a tough thing to do, unless you are the one man band Leviathan, whose lone member Wrest has had a rather tough year. Wrest’s former girlfriend accused him of abuse; this has gotten so bad that he is facing some serious jail time. Why do I bring this up, you may ask? Well, this album is basically his response to these allegations from his former girlfriend, as the album’s title references. This is angry, atmospheric, as well as heartfelt, black metal. There are plenty of angry moments, but these are placed around the emotional core of the album. Wrest had his heart broken and as a person who has felt that before, I can sympathize with him as well. All of this comes full circle during the track ‘Contrary Pulse’; there is enough raw emotion in that track to stop even the toughest man in his tracks. This is the break-up album to end them all in the world of ambient black metal, clearly offering more than the standard black metal fare.

#17 Bastard Priest – Ghouls Of The Endless Night

Swedish death metal! What better way to segue into this than to let you know what this is! This is no-frills Swedish death metal of 1990 reborn in 2011 with a fresh and brash buzzsaw sound, with equally old school production, easily upping the ante for the old school aficionado that I am. Matt Mendoza handles the drums and vocals with the mysterious Inventor handling both bass and guitar. This 2nd album continues the trend started in Sweden of bringing back this great sound much like the legendary Entombed and Dismember. Daniel Akeroth, author of Swedish Death Metal, must smile more each day that bands like this one find their way out of the woodwork and into the ears of maniacs such as myself.

#16 Skeletonwitch – Forever Abomination

One of the finest thrash bands to grace Ohio since ever, Skeletonwitch continue their trend of releasing kick-ass metal each and every time they enter the recording studio. Complete with Chance Garnette’s vocal-chord-shredding style of vocals, while his brother Nate and Scott Hedrick make the guitar duo work. This core of the band has been together since 2003 and it shows as they are, more than ever, a well-oiled machine. Album opener ‘This Horrifying Force (The Desire To Kill)’ starts off with some melody and then kicks right in, barely giving you a chance to catch your breath.  New drummer Dustin Boltjes makes his presence felt as his double-bass work is quite excellent when put up next to the rest of the band’s great instrumental performances. A touring band that works hard all the time, Skeletonwitch are as good as they have ever been, if not even more so.

#15 Absu – Abzu

Proscriptor McGovern is a total maniac; there you go. Ever since I saw him and his band open for Immortal back in February, I knew this new album would not disappoint; boy, was I ever right. This is blackened thrash metal with much more emphasis on the blackened side of things. High-pitched screams from behind the drum kit let you know Proscriptor is one talented dude and pulls no punches when it comes to his mythological take on metal, much like my pick last year of Melechesh (a band of which he was a member).  There is a lot packed into the nearly 36 minutes of this album — acoustic sections, tremolo picking, and glorious atmosphere. If you require the feeling of time travel to a long distant past, I think ‘Circles Of The Oath’ and ‘Abraxas Connexus’ would be right up your alley.

#14 The Gates Of Slumber – The Wretch

What kind of old school metal head would I be if I didn’t find some of the finest doom metal that you’ll hear in 2011? Not a very good one, that’s for sure. Indiana’s The Gates Of Slumber have become a very excellent force in the field of old school doom, from the guitar tone to the murky production, so much so that the band’s previous release Hymns Of Blood And Thunder made the #2 spot on my 2009 list back on TNOTB. This album is quite excellent, but not as good as the prior album, as the slow and bass-heavy sections stand out above Karl Simon’s vocal style, which can be an acquired taste. ‘Day Of Farewell’ is a great throwback to the Master Of Reality days of Black Sabbath, with the slow playing and immense sound of the band as a collective. Barely a short track exists on this album, and that is a very good thing, as each riff gets repeated a few times, allowing the listener to become totally immersed in the sound that is created here. This is my particular favorite pure doom metal album of the year.

#13 Vektor – Outer Isolation

If you want to be a technical thrash band, then who better to emulate than Voivod? If you want to throw in some Coroner for good measure, then you have got a volatile mix that the metal world may not yet be ready for. The band’s first release Black Future went largely unnoticed, but with Outer Isolation the band has gained notoriety and some excellent press. Piggy’s guitar sound is largely alive and well in Erik Nelson’s playing. You can even hear a bit of Snake as well as Ron Broder and Mille Petrozza in there; this makes for both dirty and shrill vocals that have the whole band sounding technical, as those sounds are not easily made by most humans. ‘Cosmic Cortex’ is a 10 and half minute epic of an opener and is largely in the vein of Dimension Hatross, with a touch of Mental Vortex and just amazing technical flourish. One of the big up and comers of the thrash metal scene for sure.

#12 Mastodon – The Hunter

One thing I can never hide is my pure love of this Georgia quartet. They helped me move toward modern metal back in 2006 and I haven’t been able to escape their charm since. The Hunter is closer to Leviathan than it is Crack The Skye, as the rough edge that used to be a staple of the band makes a triumphant return on tracks such as ‘Black Tongue’, and ‘Blasteroid’, with some fun experimentation with vocal melodies on ‘Curl Of The Burl’ and ‘All The Heavy Lifting’. Mastodon has made it to the mainstream, yet still remain nothing to scoff at, as Brann Dailor’s drumming ability puts him head and shoulders above many modern drummers. I hope they can keep this great level of balance for years to come.

#11 Graveyard – Hisingen Blues

This album took me way too long to get, but is easily one of the most accessible albums of 2011. Graveyard play some of the finest hard rock of the late 60’s and early 70’s, with major influences being The Groundhogs, Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, among others — showing other new bands like Witchcraft, Wolfmother,  and Witch a thing or two about making some kick-ass hard rock. This makes a metal list because these bluesy riffs are the very foundation for heavy metal and thus fall into the proto-metal scheme of things. This 2nd album has launched them much further than their s/t and shows that Sweden isn’t all about death metal. ‘Buying Truth’ is full of so many great riffs, you’ll wonder where they keep coming from.

#10 Trap Them – Darker Handcraft

If you love metallic hardcore, then these guys are for you. You get lots of parts GBH, Discharge, and Amebix, yet when you least expect it you are bashed over the head with some Entombed guitar tone, making for a really unique combination. As TNOTB’s former author Alex P called them: “Entombed-core”; I can’t think of a better way to describe them. The music is both fast and slow and Trap Them don’t let you know when these tempo changes are coming either. Whether it be ‘The Facts’ or ‘Evictionaries’, this band’s style is damn near close to what so many other bands have attempted but have failed to create. Trap Them are simply one of the very best in metal today and officially putting Rhode Island on the metal radar.

#9 Vreid – V

Hailing from the black metal capital of the world, Vreid’s members know just how to put that chilling cold behind each and every one of their albums, with V being no exception. The band’s lyrical content is steeped in the rich storyline of WWII Scandinavia, filled with feelings of why do we need to be involved and kill or fight off the Nazis. Lots of this is encapsulated in the drumming on ‘The Sound Of The River’ or the guitar mastery on ‘Wolverine Bastards’. Hatred and emotion are nearly balanced throughout, and it makes for one of the deepest listens that 2011 has to offer. This is melodic black metal that isn’t afraid to soothe off its dark edge with some beauty.

#8 Midnight – Satanic Royalty

Cheese is often reserved for power metal, but Ohio’s Midnight make sure you get not only cheese but also a ton of rocking out and dirty sleazy — Venom-styled metal. Midnight really digs down into the Venom catalog; however, they clearly know how to play their instruments. ‘Lust, Filth and Sleaze’ is a modern day version of the Venom song ‘Poison’, and tracks like ‘You Can’t Stop Steel’ dare you not to bang your head or sing along. Filthy, rockin, and cheese; the lyrics would make you laugh, but your head will be banging too hard to notice what they really mean. One of the finest examples of a throwback type of band. This era of NWOBHM often gets overlooked as kind of a joke; I can assure you that this band is far from that.

#7 Blood Ceremony – Living With The Ancients

Alia O’Brien and her occult crew know just what their crowd is, and summoning the devil with her pipes as well as her flute never sounded so good. The Jefferson Airplane and Coven love comes at you in the form of her vocal style and the overt occultism. The riffs and flute are torn from some of the Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull tomes. The rock atmosphere along with some incredible flute playing add layers upon layers to this retro-rock revival group. The organ playing can be traced at some points back to Deep Purple’s legendary John Lord and that alone is a testament to just how diverse the band can be. From the hard riffing and praise to a pagan god on ‘The Great God Pan’ to the excellent flute work on ‘Coven Tree’ and ‘Night Of The Magicians’, you get a taste of the style of music that the bands being drawn from were going for around 1969-1970, and it sounds so fresh 40 years later.

#6 Wormrot – Dirge

2010’s top album winners (from my list) return with their 2nd full length and it is more of the same great grindcore. Terrorizer, Napalm Death, and Brutal Truth have clearly had their fair share of impact on this Singaporean grind trio. Arif’s vocals sound just as brutal as they have ever been while Raysid writes some excellent riffs to go on over the top of them. ‘Deceased Occupation’, ‘Spot A Pathetic’, and ‘Principle Of Puppet Warfare’ make for some more great grindcore with riffs that bring you back to grindcore’s birth around 1987. With more grind bands coming out of the woodwork as we speak, Wormrot remains a great story to come from nowhere and take the world by storm year in and year out.

#5 Cormorant – Dwellings

Arthur Von Nagel is one hell of a nice guy; I say this because while going back and forth on Facebook about the new Zelda game, I had yet to give Cormorant a fair shot. While I’m sorry about that, there is nothing sorry about how good his band’s most recent output is. This album is so deep and immersive, it actually reminds me of what Axioma Ethica Odini did for me last year. Von Nagel’s vocal style and bass playing are excellent, easily giving tracks like ‘The First Man’ and ‘Junta’ more than enough ground on which to stand. Opeth failed at making music for the grand scale this year, but allowed 2011 to be Cormorant’s coming out party, as they are clearly a cut above the other progressive metal bands this year.  Matt Solis and Nick Cohon paint a very beautiful picture as Brennan Kunkel fills in the gaps with great drum fills. A spectacular atmosphere and excellent musicianship make it hard to believe that this band is still unsigned. I’d love to see these guys in concert because in a live setting it could only get better.

#4 In Solitude – The World The Flesh The Devil

The album here is a close combination of what Mercyful Fate and Ghost have done in the past, as the music seems to invoke a shroud of mystery about the band, and Pelle Åhman’s vocal style sounds like a combination of The Nameless Ghoul and King Diamond, making for a very unique sound that really fits the music especially well. ‘Poisoned, Blessed and Burned’ is a great example of this as Åhman wails and the combination comes full circle. Niklas Lindstrom and recent addition to the band Henrik Palm become a huge part of the sound as the guitar lines seem somewhere between Dave Murray and Hank Shermann. This is quite the viable guitar duo, just like the good ol’ days. Some of the songs on the album that rely heavily on guitar really soar because of Palm’s style of play, such as with ‘We Were Never Here’, ‘To Her Darkness’, and ‘Serpents Are Rising’. Åhman’s brother Gottfrid becomes another integral cog to In Solitude’s approach; most classic heavy metal bands have a great bassist on hand and they tend to make their presence felt, much as Mercyful Fate’s Timi Hansen and Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris did. The bass may be subtle at parts, but take it away and In Solitude loses a good deal of their sound.

#3 Rotten Sound – Cursed

Cursed is the epitome of what it means to be grindcore in the year 2011. Most grindcore albums have more than a touch of punk to their sound, but you won’t find that here. This is grind with a basis of metal, metal, and more metal.  Focusing on some of the tracks, I have found the following:

‘Self’ appears to be a rustier number than most of the album’s tracks and it is a welcome change and a call back to grindcore’s more punkish roots (hello Amebix, Extreme Noise Terror, and Discharge). The buzz-out riffs near the midsection of the song really help out a rhythm section that is usually lacking in the lowly world of grind as well.

‘Green’ brings more and more pain with more fast and furious music; that makes grindcore one of the most formidable and right-to-the-point genres of music out there. Barely a breath is taken and we move to the track ‘Machinery’, and the drums sound like they are nearly falling apart before the guitars help to slow down (slightly) the madness that is taking place at this current point and time during the album. As we come toward the end of this album, the songs don’t get worse — they continue to build upon each of the songs before them, such as the marvelous ‘Exploit’ as it begins to sound more and more like classic Scandinavian death metal before kicking back into gear of the more modern crust punk bands such as Sweden’s Disfear. I have to say that in my grindcore travels I had yet to run into Rotten Sound for a long period of time, and I for damned sure have enjoyed my stay with them during Cursed. For drug-crazed grind freaks and death metallers alike.

#2 Inquisition – Ominous Doctrines Of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm

With my love of Immortal fully intact, it should come as no surprise that I love Inquisition, complete with their corpse-painted faces and tremolo-picked riffs. The band differs here in that they focus more on the occult and rituals than they do snow and ice. This may be due to the band’s Columbian roots, far away from the cold of Norway, from which the band gets a great deal of its sound. Now based in the US, Inquisition has unleashed it’s 5th album in 2011 (in the US, 2010 everywhere else), and thus became a major contender for the top of my chart. Dagon’s vocal style sounds like a froggier version of Abbath and he makes his guitar sound just as mysterious as where he gets the ability to make his vocals sound the way they do.

Incubus backs him up with his great drumming ability as the velocity constantly kicks up, as even the slowest sections of the album have some of the best drum sections. Dagon digs at the back of his throat on ‘Upon The Fire Winged Demon’ and ‘Cosmic Invocation Rites’, while his guitar makes you feel as though you are in outer space — a vicious combination and an unparalleled one in this year of 2011 that should make even the slightest fan of black metal squeal with glee. ‘Crepuscular Battle Hymn’ might be the fastest thing I have heard all year, with an intro that doesn’t quit and pinch harmonics that sound like the guitar may explode from near perfect sound. The black metal album of the year and nearly the best of the entire year, this album is absolutely not to be missed.

#1 40 Watt Sun – The Inside Room

Topping my list this year is a band who offer more than sheer loud and lumbering riffs and feature a vocalist without equal; 40 Watt Sun are all about emotion. Patrick Walker’s former band,the formidable Warning, broke up on the heels of their magnum opus Watching From A Distance, a powerful, moving and emotive album that left nary a dry eye in the house. Metal music isn’t supposed to touch on so many different themes like this, is it? Well, this band surely seems to think so; with loud riffs surrounding you and Walker tugging at your heart strings, I’d find it hard for anybody to not see the beauty in their music.

This may be classified as doom metal, as the riffs will surely remind you of that genre, but when you hear the vocals behind them this is clearly not your standard Black Sabbath or Candlemass rip-off. Spong’s bass playing makes its presence felt on moving tracks such as ‘Carry Me Home’ and ‘Restless’, as Walker rips through not only your eardrums but also your very core. A band that gets so much more from a listen than any other and a truly memorable experience. In a year when many great things have happened for me, this is my fall-back music to sit down and reflect to, and will be for a very long time to come. My album of the year by a long shot and I implore you to check this out.

Well did I miss anything? How did this turn out? Let me know in the comments. Glad to be a part of NCS.

We’re big fans of The Monolith Deathcult, and we’ve written about them repeatedly over the last two years. Most recently, Andy Synn included them in a post called “The King Is Dead, Long Live the King”, contrasting “the electrifying, eclectic, and downright esoteric bludgeoning of” their album Trivmverate with the puzzling Ilud Divinum Insanus: “Unlike Morbid Angel’s most recent offering, this actually fuses a brilliant variety of techno-industrial elements and symphonic excess onto a chassis of pulverising death metal utterly seamlessly, making a whole that is far, far greater than the sum of its parts.”

Andy also wrote a SYNN REPORT about their discography, and last March I had the pleasure of interviewing the band’s guitarist/lyricist/backing vocalist Michiel Dekker (published here), who is also a high school history teacher. TMDC have been painstakingly writing and recording a new album called Tetragrammaton – almost two years have passed since the band’s last release, The White Crematorium 2.0 – and the interview provided a few insights into the typically fascinating lyrical subjects of the new album.

So far, the only lasting taste of the music from the new album is a track called “Aslimu!!! — All Slain Those Who Brought Down Our Highly Respected Symbols To The Lower Status Of The Barren Earth”, which was released last February, and can still be heard HERE. I’ve also had the privilege of listening to unfinished demo versions of a few more songs, which has only made me eager for more. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Tetragrammaton will be released in 2012 — it’s certainly one of my most anticipated albums for this new year.

All of this is by way of introduction to the real point of this post. As part of our year-end Listmania series, I asked Michiel Dekker if he would give us a list of the best albums he heard in 2011. Instead of that, I got something perhaps more interesting.

What I got was a list of albums that Michiel has listened to through the years that inspired him during the writing sessions of Tetragrammaton. I suppose you could interpret this list as a set of clues about the music on the new album. On the other hand, Michiel explained in that March interview that all the songs on the new album will have their own identity without an overall musical theme. So, speculation may not prove to be very productive. Of course, that won’t stop TMDC fans from doing it.

Here’s that list, along with Michiel’s comments about the albums:

“In particular order:

1. Cradle of Filth - Dusk . . . and Her Embrace: One of the soundtracks of my teenage years. Brilliant songwriting and killer arrangements. A perfect combination of melody, insanity and brutality.

2. Ministry – Psalm 69/Filth Pig/ Live @ Waldrock: Intense heavy and creepy industrial with massive machinegun riffing and a great use of samples.

3. White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000: The gods of heavy GROOVE!

4. Laibach - Discography: Brillant image, often misunderstood. Killer industrial with Wagnerian choirs and orchestras.

5. Strapping Young Lad – City and Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing: Well, this is the real essention of metal in my opinion. Completely over the top with a tongue in cheek image.

6. Type O Negative – Discography: Needs no further explanation.

7. Nile - Black Seeds of Vengeance, In Their Darkened Shrines: The first deathmetal band which did not bore me.

8. Fear Factory - Demanufacture: Pioneers!!”

And here are additional resources about TMDC:

http://www.facebook.com/monolithdeathcult

http://www.monolith-deathcult.com

http://www.myspace.com/themonolithdeathcult

http://twitter.com/T_M_D_C