(Sending his binary bits all the way from Denmark, MaxR — the proprietor of the Metal Bandcamp blog — makes another welcome guest appearance at NCS with this feature on his Top 10 Metal Bandcamp doom favorites of 2011.)
10 tracks in no particular order plus one honorable mention. 2 hours 26 minutes and 1 second of music. Enjoy.
1. Lycus – “Aghast”. Mournful choral vocal lines accompany the traditional death metal vocals and crashing riffs. And that fantastic fast section as the track goes from stately to pummeling. Cathartic.
2. Bell Witch – “Mayknow”. Ritualistic doom, at the same time both epic and stripped down. The eerie chanting makes it sound almost like a doom hymn. Hypnotic and immersive.
3. Whitehorse – “Time Worn Regression”. A massive crusty sound surrounds the growls and blackened screams. Noises and static give a weird, off-kilter sense to it. Apocalyptic blues.
4. The Flight of Sleipnir – “Transcendence”. Perfectly executed black metal rasps, beautiful clean singing, folk harmonies and a doomy groove. So atmospheric and, yes, mellow.
5. B A T I L L U S – “What Heart”. Percussive drumming, nasty gargling vocals echoing from the cavern. And those hypnotic minutes of synth-underscored riffing in the end. Intense.
6. Ensorcelor – “Crucifuge”. Quoting Kim Kelly: “A sinuous creation of ash and bone, dark and light, Crucifuge is a black metal record at heart.” Hypnotic riffing and a cold, desolate atmosphere create a thing of beauty.
7. Seidr – “A Vision From Hlidskjalf”. Naturalistic doom with passion and emotion. Extremely thick guitar sounds, some of the heaviest shit you’ve ever heard. Crushing and caustic.
8. Abomino Aetas – “Undead”. Funeral doom melded with pure primitive Norwegian black metal. As Cvlt Nation put it: “Picture the vocalist standing above an empty grave screaming at a wooden casket slowly being lowered into the earth.” A black gem.
9. Destroy Judas – “To The Sea”. Melodic doom with the sense of drama and tempo variations of post-metal. Massive, mournful, and yet uplifting. Catchy, in fact.
10. Mournful Congregation – “The Book Of Kings”. Gracefully it transitions from section to section of beautiful guitar solos, haunting cleans, male choirs, deep rumblings, spirited keyboards. This is the one that has it all. Majestic.
Conan – Krull. The honorable mention is really from 2010, but was featured in THE TOP TEN LIST OF “T” and who am I to argue with that? Down-tuned caveman battle doom.
41 Responses to “METAL BANDCAMP DOOM FAVORITES OF 2011”
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An awesome list. And I don’t have (or haven’t heard) almost half of these, so I’ve got some work to do!
I recently wrote about Bell Witch’s demo (which is where “Mayknow” comes from). Islander, they are from your neck of the woods…..
I definitely need to find out more about them. I don’t listen to doom very often, which is probably why I haven’t come across the name before.
To borrow a phrase from Old Man Windbreaker himself….one wonders what you listen to most. What’s your go-to genre? And don’t say “I like everything”…that’s a cop-out answer.
Well, to be brutally honest, I listen to death metal most often, with a particular affinity for the old-school Swedish/New York/Florida sound. More recently, different varieties of black metal have been taking second place. My appreciation for the genre has been growing by leaps and bounds.
Now that you say that, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you mention it before. But as you know I’m really bad at remembering stuff like that. You’ll notice that I didn’t send you flowers on our anniversary…though in my defense I was under the impression we were “taking a break” at the time.
You think I didn’t notice, but you’re dead to me now.
I’m just going to give you a gigantic list of awesome black metal (all Fenriz un-approved) to complete your turn to the dark side.
One had a hunch that your taste centered on old-school Death Metal.
But, going by the comments of how you take in pretty much anything, one was guessing/hoping for a NWOBHM-fan (as illogical as that might sound). [Of course, one doesn’t care too much for NWOBHM or even old-school Thrash Metal oneself.]
Sorry, not a big NWOBHM fan. Old-school thrash is pretty far down my list of favorite genres, too. If you couldn’t guess, the vocal stylings are the main problem . . .
So, one is a regular now?
Yeah, but the better question is….. a regular WHAT?
Is that really up to oneself to decide?
In any case, one will put out a fridgecore record next year. Perhaps that will lend some bias to people’s opinions on me. 😛
One wonders what the fuck fridgecore will sound like, though one is somewhat intrigued.
The sound is exactly what the name describes – a fridge. 😛
Exemplified by \\\Maytag : http://maytag235.wordpress.com/
Of course, one will probably disobey the Holy Commandments of Fridgecore (whatever they may be) and use an actual instrument on the recording as well – one’s own Ibanez GSR-205.
Nice write up on the demo, I agree that it works as a complete album instead of a collection of random demo songs.
Stoked to hear that a full-length is planned.
Oh my god, all of this sounds so cool.
Flight Of Sleipnir and Conan are n my must-listen-to list now. Thank you.
Although I don’t really listen to much of what could be classified as “Doom” I definitely want to get into both these guys. If I’m going for slow I prefer slow + melancholy rather than post-Sabbath-y doom-y stuff.
I do like however how the two sides of the same coin are basically this sort of thick, dark doom on one hand and the lighter, more airy “doom” of bands like Solstafir, We Made God, Khoma, etc… light and dark, but both similarly drawn out and intense.
Slow and melancholy is definitely my thing as well, preferably with death metal vocals. Lycus is perhaps the best example of that style on the list.
That is also on the list then.
Also, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSHvgaUWc8
🙂
Can’t say I was ever really a fan of any doom styled metal, but The Flight of Sleipnir really have something special going on. Been into them since a buddy burned me a copy of their first full-length Algiz + Berkanan a couple years ago. Glad to see decent music getting exposure somewhere. Unlike that ‘metalsucks’ website where everyone just rearranged the same albums in different orders.
Which website are you referring to? There seems to be a bit of confusion around here. I’m familiar with metalsucks.net, but somebody mentioned there was also a metalsucks.homo, so it’s hard to keep them straight…
(No pun intended!)
Ha. The pun was good though.
I hope we’ve seen the last of that guy. He definitely woke up on the wrong side of bed.
I hope he comes back…trolls are always good for a few laughs
Yeah, the year-end lists here have certainly been eclectic – mine included – with tons of great fucking metal. And some entries that made you go “huh?”
I’d suggest looking over my list for Metalsucks if you’re looking for variety; I had more or less absolutely no releases in common with the other writers there.
-KK
I thought your list was the most interesting, and definitely the most intriguing, of all the MS lists I read. Not that you needed to hear that from me, but I needed to say it. 🙂
You had some choices definitely in common with us over here on the dark side of the blogosphere, but my favourite part was where you suggested that people whinging that your list was too “kvlt” or obscure could quite easily go off and check out the bands instead of wasting their time complaining. Well said.
Really?..because the socially awkward guy hitting on her in the comments section was the best part for me
Ha. I missed that part. I don’t tend to read the comments on MS.
The weird part about that is that clearly Grim Kim is actually Grim Ken – girls do not like metal!!!!!!!!!
More exclamation marks!!!!
One’s own sister “The Owl in The Cowl” likes metal – especially works involving Devin Townsend or Mike Patton. She also has an affinity for Cynic, Animals as Leaders and Immortal.
… And she’s 15.
Sounds like she’s off to a good start. She will like one of our Most Infectious Song installments later this week.
Bell Witch, Flight of Sleipnir, Abomino Aetas, and Seidr really impressed me here! Definitely looking more into them!
Excellent post. I’ve been wanting for more doom in my listening rotation.
One has listened to music by about half of these bands. The Flight of Sleipnir are the ones that intrigue me most though.
All the comments here about them, and something at the back of one’s mind relating them to The Number of the Blog, also help.
One wonders when we all join in one-ness and write comments in the one style ye Olde Man Windbreaker.
One was hoping the oneness of the one style of one’s conversations wouldn’t get old so fast. It has been barely a month since one started blabbering here. 😛
By the way, one attributes this style to one’s rediscovery of “The Bicentennial Man”, and a discussion between a bunch of lovable dinosaurs about gender-neutral pronouns in English here: http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2079
One likes to imagine oneself speaking with a Swedish accent. But unfortunately, one is Indian; and is also predisposed to imagining oneself speaking with “Received Pronunciation” for some reason.
Have no fear. Although we may occasionally lapse into Bicentennial-Man-Received-Pronunciation-speak without realizing it, we don’t wish to rob you of the individuality of your expression, nor would we wish to be mistaken for a BBC reader. “One” is preferable to “thon”, by the way.
Nice to see DESTROY JUDAS getting some due. I’m a big Mindrot and Eyes of Fire fan, so I always follow anything these guys do, and it doesn’t disappoint.
Update.
A remastered version of the Lycus demo has been added to the Flenser Bandcamp
http://metalbandcamp.com/2012/01/lycus-demo-mmxi-remaster-flenser.html