(The time has come. What time is that? Why, it’s the time when we begin publishing our own series on the best metal of 2011 — lists created by our writers, guest contributors, and members of metal bands who we’ve specially invited to share with us their lists. And what better way to start than by turning to Phro for the kick-off?)
Ahhh . . . 2011, how quickly you came and . . . went? Are going? Let’s just stick with came for now.
What a year it has been! I think. I don’t really remember it. I think there was something to do with tentacles and a few zombie girls. Seriously, someone please make the whole zombie/vampire/werewolf thing stop happening. Please. I’m begging you. I can only take so much pithy teen angst foisted upon poor hapless creatures of the night. GIVE THEM BACK THEIR BALLS, DAMNIT!!!
Seriously. And wizards, too. Enough of that shit.
Oh, right, and there was music, too. Particularly metal music. Particularly good metal music. (Anyone who ever utters the words, “It’s been a bad year for metal,” should go out behind the chicken chopping shed and punch themselves in the throat with a rooster. You fucking lazy scum fucker.) But it`s the end of the year, and it’s not enough to simply say there was a lot of it. You people from the Internet want proof all of the sudden! You freaks with your memes and your porn and your meme porn and your porn memes. And your rules!!! So many rules! Well, I have a new rule for you. Rule number 0.5. It states, quite clearly: anything that can be made into furry-rape-scat porn should be made into furry-rape-scat porn and then broadcasted on CNN, FOX, and MSNBC until foxes look sexy. (But only when they`re covered in poop.)
Poop, poop, poop, poop . . . poop . . . poooooooooooooop . . .
What were we talking about?
Oh. Right. Metal.
So, I guess it`s customary for Internetters to make lists. (I’m guessing this has something to do with cracked.com and their list-based economy.) Well, who am I to buck custom? To the listerator!
In no particular order, the best albums of the last year are/were/will later be regarded as having been:
Origin – Entity
I already wrote a review of this album. But I feel like I didn’t quite do it the justice it deserved. This album is like dreaming you’re sleepwalking in a haunted funhouse only to wake up and realize that you really were sleepwalking in a haunted dream house. Oh, and the haunted dream house is haunted by really angry nanorobots whose only desire is the consumption of your flesh. And they`re probably gonna start with your dick/vagina/mangina/woenis/va-jay-goo, because the only thing that makes nanorobots angry is knowing you could go home and masturbate to furry-rape-scat porn if you wanted to. All they can do is bond together to form a tiny, tiny dildo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7dDEiN6OTk
Krisiun – The Great Execution
I also reviewed this album. I’m also still terrified that if I say anything inappropriate, the band will suddenly materialize behind me and kill me to death by skinning me alive and rolling me in salt and chili powder. They’d probably set me on fire and then put the flames out with their demonic demon pee, just to do it all over again. Oh, please don’t kill me, Krisiun….
Fleshgod Apocalypse – The Agony
This album made my face, the head (of my penis), and my brain explode. I also wish they’d chosen an easier name to spell. “Apocalypse” always fucks me up. How about something easier—like:
Fleshgod DESTROYEVERYTHINGANDMAKEITALLBURNTOTHEGROUND!!!!
I could probably spell that correctly every fucking day with my arms tied behind my back while typing with my (depressingly tiny) cock.
Seriously though. The name of the site is NoCleanSinging. (I think it is anyway…holy shit balls, am I on the wrong site again??? NOCLEANSINGLES??? GET AWAY FROM YOU DIRTY ZOMBIE WHORES!!! NOOOOO…NOT AIRBORNE SYPHILIS!!! AAAAAAAAHHH….gga…uha…….)
Damn zombie whores.
Anyway, Fleshgod DESTROYEVERYTHINGANDMAKEITALLBURNTOTHEGROUND decided to spit in the face of the Boss and everything I hold holy by including clean singing. It rocks my socks and impregnates my prostate. Deal with it. Not everything has to be dirty, growly, hate-screaming. (Though anything less than about 75.5% is grounds for the Spanish Inquisition.) [Editor’s intrusion: Phro sorta reviewed this album here.]
Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire – Visceral
Now that’s a band name I can fucking spell. It’s also a band from Colorado. Instant kill!!! (That’s a good thing.) Also, they play “funeral grind doom”…or was it “grind funeral doom”? Perhaps it was “funeral HOLY FUCK, STOP TRYING TO RAPE MY EARHOLES, YOU FUCKING FURRY FREAKS!!!” Well, I guess we’ll never know.
Anyway, their music (which I also reviewed, you’re welcome very much, doucheface) is like lumbering giants fucking Mother Earth and then cumming all over your nicely manicured hands. (That’s right, YOUR Mother Earth. What are you gonna do about it, punk? It’s the Internet, and I’m not even real. Except when you sleep at night. Then, I’m real. I’m real and I’m sitting next to your bed whittling tiny little dolls of you. I shove them in my ass and then put them under your nose, which is why your dreams always smell like shit. MY shit.)
To be perfectly honest, the album is kinda short. And that would matter if it wasn’t so good you’ll put it on repeat and not even care when you’ve listened to it 10 times in one day because you’ll be too busy trying to get the emergency room to sew your exploded man-gina-cock back together after glory cumming one too many times.
Deicide – To Hell With God
I don’t think I reviewed this album. I don’t know why I didn’t, though. Its fucking fuck-shit-piss-donkey-raping awesome. It’s like you bought a bag of carrots, took them to the donkey farm, and then the donkeys practically just shoved their puckered assholes right in your face.
Dude, you rape donkeys? Fucking sicko.
Actually, I lied. This album is more like watching robot demons kill robot angels with giant swords made of the souls of sobbing, aborted robot babies. It’s metal as fuck is what I’m saying.
(I really loved the guitar tone on this album. I have no idea why, in particular, I loved it so much, but it was just…delectable. Like the taste of blood splatter after a strawberry shortcake.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZzVkFfni9M
Animals As Leaders – Weightless
I actually think this album was so beautiful and invigorating that the only thing I want to say is that it made me want to tap dance.
Insomnium – One for Sorrow
I’m not gonna lie, I had no fucking clue who these guys were until about a week before this album was released. Yes, I know. I turned in my metal license a while ago. I’m actually not licensed to listen to metal right now, and I have to go to a couple of years of classes to get it back. But whatever, I’m not licensed to have a tentacle dick or throw poop at monkeys or butt-fuck your mom with my Fist of Fisty Doom. I still do all those things, so fuck you.
This album is…okay, so Animals As Leaders was beautiful and invigorating. One for Sorrow is goddamn gorgeous and PCP for people who think PCP wasn’t really giving them enough of a kick. Every time I put this album on, I black out and wake up sobbing in a pool of centaur blood. You know why centaurs aren’t real anymore? Because fucking One for Sorrow is so motherfucking powerful it created ripples in the time stream that went all the way back to centaur-time and all the humans then blacked out and tore them apart. With their teeth.
This album makes me feel like a pissed-off 16-year old again…but in a good way.
Powerwolf – Blood of the Saints
Okay, this album is just pure fucking clean singing. There’s so much clean singing Hillary Duff ran out of the ability to sing cleanly because Powerwolf used up all the clean singing in the universe. So, really, you should be thanking these guys for both making awesome music and shutting Hillary Duff the fuck up. (I have no idea if Hillary Duff is even still alive. Didn’t she O.D. on pain killers in her hotel room while fucking Charlie Sheen? Who the hell am I thinking of??)
Anyway, I only know about this album because Shakespeare came back from the dead to review it. I thought I was delusional, but it’s all right there on the Internet, so I guess it must be true. So, this is my informal, two-sentence review.
This album would cure a heroin addict, because it’s so addictive it overrules all other addictions. And then it bites your face, rapes your god(s), doffs a bishop’s hat, and then shits all over your bloody face.
Wormrot – Noise
This wasn’t really an “album”…in fact, I think it lasts about 5 minutes. But that’s all it took your parents to make you, and if they had been listening to Noise when doing so then: a) you wouldn’t be born yet, and b) you’d be imbued with the powers of pure ferocious hatred.
I’m really including this for three reasons. The first is that I love Wormrot. I wish I were a high school girl, because I’d totally take Wormrot to the prom, get drunk, and have their bastard children. The second is that I want to promote free music! If you think they sold out by releasing music for free through Scion, I have a Fucktopus who’d like to use your anus as a puppet. The third is, simply, that the music is fucking AMAZING.
http://scionav.com/collection/794/Scion-A/V-Presents:-Wormrot—NOISE
Wormrot – Dirge
Ummm…so…when I originally wrote this, I was convinced that Dirge had been released in 2010. Apparently not. So, fuck it, both Dirge and Noise are on this list. If you have a problem with that, I think Wormrot will gladly cut your arms off and beat you to death with them.
Don’t worry, I`ll be there to film it to show to your now-orphaned children.
Sakura Gakuin – Baby Metal – Dokidoki morning
Not really an album or even an EP, it was just one song. One song of the most horrific, vicious, unrelenting, soul-burning hatred ever put in music video form. “Ima nanji?” Kill-and-fuck-everything-ji. [Editor’s Intrusion: Phro sorta reviewed this, too.]
Anaal Nathrakh – Passion
Why do people call these guys black metal? They’re as black metal as Rage Against the Machine. Anaal Nathrakh is grindcore that accidentally slipped and fell into to a pit of frozen hell. This album rips and fucks everything to death. This is like getting attacked by zombie lions who aren’t even hungry—they just want to see you scream and bleed. This album is like doing speed and waking up inside of a cathedral, covered in the blood of a thousand nuns. This album straps you into a chair and injects pure horror directly into your brain stem. This album smashes your genitals with a sledgehammer and then replaces your mangled man/lady bits with medieval torture devices. This album is open-heart surgery without anesthetics.
And, goddamn, this album is art. (Most serious sentence in this piece.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvYRPkGOHwo
NOT METAL BUT YOU SHOULD STILL LISTEN TO THIS SHIT
Patton Oswalt – Finest Hour
If you’ve heard of the Comedians of Comedy (and probably you have), this is the guy who I consider the king of that particular group of social rejects. He’s tiny, he’s geeky, and he played a rat in a Disney movie. His comedy is a mixture of madness, social commentary, and poop jokes. If you can laugh, you should probably own everything Patton Oswalt has done. (Brian Posehn would also be on here if his album hadn’t been released last year.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvCwY7EwMx4
(This is the only video I can find on YouTube. I don’t think it’s the best track on the album, but it’s still pants-shittingly awesome.)
Louis C.K. — Hilarious
I initially left this off the list, thinking it was released in 2009. But it turns out the only thing greater than Louis’s hilariousness is my stupidity. It was filmed in 2009 and released this year.
And holy fuck, is it goddamn funny. I literally had to pause it the first time I listened to it, because I was laughing so hard I could neither breathe nor stop the agony in my stomach. This album is to comedy what Lovecraft is to lonely nerds playing D&D by themselves on a Friday night. Godly.
(Louis also JUST released a new live video on his website. For $5. No DRM at all. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but consider supporting his independent release. https://buy.louisck.net/)
Hank 3 – Ghost to a Ghost/Gutter Town
So, this is a country album. There’s no two ways around it. This is a true-blue country album. And I’m telling you that, if you have even .0000001% interest in country, you need this album. Now, in my opinion, it isn’t Hank III’s best album. (That’d probably be Straight to Hell.) But this album sets out to do something different and it succeeds, generally. There are a few too many “concept album interludes”, and some of the “good ol’ Southern culture” is…well, just this side of being as smart as a stillborn fetus. But the music is solid and as fun as passing gay marriage bills in Alabama. (Look at ’em froth at the mouth!)
The first 10 tracks are the Ghost to a Ghost part, which is mostly more traditional Hank III country, while the second half is more a New Orleans style cajun/country blend (though not exclusively). He even sings in fucking Creole on some tracks. (Or maybe it’s French?)
The whole thing is very experimental, but it’s worth your time between bouts of head-banging and trying to fit into a school girl uniform to cosplay Sakura Gakuin.
41 Responses to “PHRO TRIES TO REMEMBER WHAT YEAR IT IS AND WHAT FUCKING ALBUMS CAME OUT THIS YEAR”
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Huh. That was refreshing… in an odd way.
Also, one has finally stopped thinking of Anaal Nathrakh as people who play Black Metal. One thanks you.
Thanks! I think…
You are now officially my favourite person of the day, for including Insomnium and Louis CK. And as always, hilarious stuff.
Have you gotten his newest video? Because it’s awesome. I think Hilarious was more visceral, while the new one is a bit more toned down but sharper. his jokes were more socially conscious and pointed.
No matter what, I highly recommend both of them.
I’m afraid I haven’t. My source for stand-up is, unfortunately, mainly youtube. But if i’ll ever be buying stand-up DVDs Louis’ would be the first ones, together with Dave Chappelle’s and Russel Peters’.
Man, I hate coming after Phro.
Why, brain? Why did you make me type that sentence?
I am biting my tongue. I don’t know how long I can keep that up.
THAT’S WHAT SH– uh, HE SAID
Damn. I left myself open for that one.
Reasons I hate coming after Phro:
1. He uses up all the tissues.
2. It means I have to eat the cracker.
3….
Still biting my tongue. Blood now starting to run down my chin. Beginning to hurt like a motherfucker.
You know I’m just gonna use your blood for lube in….the end.
You said lube.
In your end.
Don’t worry. It’s a graham cracker, so it’s better with glaze.
Oh good, Baby Metal again.
Did you get confused while making your list and think that the topic was “The most bizarrely fucked-up songs on the planet in 2011?” If so, you could have simply listed “Dokidoki Morning” 10 times and been finished. And you could have safely posted your list a month ago.
That’s exactly what he sent me a month ago. I told him he needed to flesh it out with some comedy.
Comedy?!?
I though you wanted come.
Ummmm… Don’t open that package I sent you…
Too late! I opened the package. So far I’ve washed my hands in pure lye and although the skin has all been burned off, I’m now soaking my hands in a warm solution of muriatic acid and vinegar. I hope you’re happy. Please read my messages more carefully in the future.
I am happy. You’ve given me spank material enough to last this train ride.
The middle aged woman standing in front of me smells like crap and she keeps backing up into me. I’m gonna vomit on her, I think.
Photos please. But only if you vomit on her.
I think of Anaal Nathrakh as black metal because they are black metal.
I realize that they ARE black metal…but they don’t sound like it to me.
I think of them more as a fusion of extreme music, particularly on Passion.
I guess, listening to it now, that the black metal elements are quite prominent, but I feel like it’s got so many other genre elements mixed in that it all kind of bleeds into raw fury. And that makes me think more of grind.
They are definitely grind too. Apocalyptic black grind punk noize industrial death metal mutation. But mainly mutation.
Yeah, I think AN is one of the few bands who truly take genrefucking to a level of awesome absurdity.
Pretty Close, sir. [Perhaps one should have said “not JUST black metal”.]
But, isn’t mentioning Punk after mentioning Grind a little redundant?
In my humble opinion, punk is down in the roots of thrash, death metal, black metal, and grind, but it isn’t the same as any of them either, because there were other influences and innovations, too. And when I refer to “punk”, I’m thinking of bands from the late 70s and early 80s — bands who weren’t metal and would kick you in the nuts if you suggested they were.
True. I surely wouldn’t compare Bad Brains’ sound to Napalm Death’s. But, in the context of your description of Anaal Nathrakh’s sound, I mean it is a bit redundant to say that they play Grindcore AND Punk, in the same way that it would be redundant to say that their sound has elements of Industrial Music AND Noise Music.
Despite the “genrefuck” that Anaal Nathrakh’s music is, it seems a little counter-intuitive to their cause to have lengthier descriptions of their sound than necessary.
Of course, one is just being pissy about it for the sake of being pissy about it. (>_> )
OK, I misunderstood your comment. Now I get it, and I think you’re right. Your comment will be forwarded to the NCS Department of Redundancy Department, and you will soon be receiving a prompt response.
I see what you did there. 😀
But, as far as one understands things about NCS, wouldn’t that mean that you would be forwarding this comment to yourself in order to give me a prompt response in addition to the one you just did?
Don’t pay mind to the redundant explanation of the joke about redundancy. One was only curious as to whether it is just you in the department alone.
Just one single person running a whole entire redundant department by himself? Are you joking, or just noot being serious? It is clear and plain to see that it would neither be very practical nor make much logical sense to run such a department in such a way. Of course it is required and necessary for the proper efficient and productive operation to include such department members as the chief director of redundancy, the associate chief director, the assistant chief director, the associate assistant director, the junior associate assistant director, and the associate junior assistant associate vice chief director as members of the department.
The way one imagines it, there would be multiple positions – but, they would all be filled by Islander. [Like he says.]
You have demonstrated the necessary and requisite skills for the departmental associate junior assistant associate vice chief director of the department. Although one of me is quite capable of managing the department myself, having redundancy in administration is important. There will be no pay. However, there will also be no responsibilities either.
There are many of me up in here.
Even though there are some metal albums on the list that I highly enjoyed I have to give special props for Patton Oswalt and Louis C.K. First off, both guys are in the conversation for greatest comics of their era and second “Louie” is the best damn show on television (at least without counting the premium channels like HBO which I don’t get).
I agree about Louie. And everything else you said.
I think in terms of best of this generation, aside from Patton and Louis, I’d also nominate Posehn and Cross. I also recently discovered Jason Rouse, who is more filthy than anything.
Also, I love Bob Saget. But that shouldn’t be a surprise.
I also enjoyed some of these albums, and I think I might also pick up Krisiun… or at least try… also… Wormrot have a Vevo?
I think the Great Execution was phenomenal. I know a few reviewers were disappointed with…something. (I don’t really know what.) But I highly recommend it.
Is it weird that wormrot has a vevo? I mean, same place as the ever so metal Lady GaGa? Why not? Luuuuulzy as Lulu!
“Wormrot have a VEVO?” One was surprised that Wormrot even has music videos.
You are the first I have seen to put the Krisiun album on a year end list. I agree, it is deserving of recognition.