2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE CRITICAL TOP TEN

 LISTMANIA 2021  18 Responses »
Dec 162021
 

Once again Andy Synn sets out to try and capture the best of the year in just ten albums.
Does he succeed? Let’s find out!

For those of you who might be new to the site, allow me to explain.

My “Critical Top Ten” isn’t quite the same as your usual “Top Ten” you’ll find elsewhere.

For one thing, it’s not a ranked list. Rather, it’s purposefully structured to present a – hopefully – broad overview of the year’s best albums, ones which I think exemplify, in different ways, the best of their respective genres, in an attempt to feature as many different faces and facets of the year’s Metal scene as I can fit into just ten selections.

Of course, this is inevitably coloured by my own tastes, no matter how much I might try to be objective about things, and limited both by what I’ve actually heard (I can’t judge it if I haven’t listened to it, after all) and by the fact that ten albums is never enough to fully represent the vibrant variety of the last twelve months (case in point, I had to drop both In Asymmetry and Dordeduh at the last minute in order to keep it down to ten).

But, still, I’ve spent many hours agonising over each one of these choices (including the “bonus” recommendations for those already familiar with my main selections) hoping that, collectively, they at least aspire to being a representative sample of 2021 – the albums which are, you might say, critical, to understanding and appreciating the last twelve months in Metal.

Tomorrow, of course, I’ll be publishing my list of my “Personal” favourites of the year, something which is generally a lot easier and a lot less pressure, but for now… enjoy!

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2021– A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GREAT

 LISTMANIA 2021  24 Responses »
Dec 152021
 

(Today Andy Synn brings you his suggestions for the albums which represent the top tier of this year’s metallic crop)

So we’re now halfway through “List Week”, although it’s probably more than that considering yesterday’s “Good” post was easily the most complicated and time-consuming of all the week’s articles.

Case in point, today’s round-up of the “Great” albums – the ones which I think represent the crème de la crème of their particular genre(s), whether by pushing them further or simply by exemplifying their very best qualities – is less than half the length of yesterday’s.

After all, while greatness comes in many forms, trying to define it, even pseudo-objectively, means you’ve got to be a little more selective.

Obviously, this list isn’t comprehensive or definitive in any way (never trust any site or reviewer who claims otherwise) since it’s impossible for any one writer to hear everything that comes out in a given year, and you’ll probably spot the notable omission of albums by Frontierer (don’t worry, DGR will probably include that one), Clouds (excellent on first listen, but needs more time to really sink in), Møl (not a bad band, but overhyped in my opinion) and many more that I simply didn’t get around to due to the fact that time remains annoyingly linear.

You’ll also note that I’ve left off both albums I was involved in this year since I’m not arrogant enough to review my own records, but if you fancy checking out Apathy Noir’s final full-length, At the Edge of the World, or Beyond Grace’s second album, Our Kingdom Undone, feel free to do so in your own time!

Anyway, with all that preamble now out of the way here’s a collection of what I thought were the “Great” albums of 2021… and if you don’t see it here, that’s probably because I didn’t hear it (or I forgot about it).

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2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE GOOD

 LISTMANIA 2021  22 Responses »
Dec 142021
 

(Andy Synn continues his annual round-up of the year in Metal)

Now that all the furore over yesterday’s debacle of disappointments has (hopefully) blown over, it’s time to get into the good stuff.

And I do mean the “Good” stuff, as while the wide variety of albums featured in this article (some 200+ by last count) run the gamut from just “pretty good” to “almost great”, they all have different things to recommend about them, some more so than others, obviously, and my hope is that this list will help at least some of you discover – or even rediscover – a bunch of new bands you’d otherwise overlooked.

Because, let’s face it, the real purpose of this particular piece – which, to be clear, is in no way comprehensive, as there’s lots of things I didn’t get chance to hear (and probably several things I did but have forgotten to include) – is simply to provide a useful round-up for our readers to pick and choose from at their leisure so they can, hopefully, catch up on some of what they might have missed!

In that spirit I’ve made some slight tweaks to the formatting this year, both to make things easier on myself and to make it easier for our audience, so – without further ado – here’s all the new releases from 2021 that I think didn’t quite make the cut for the “Great” list (although some of them came very, very close).

And, bear in mind if you don’t see something you’re looking for here there’s always a chance it will make an appearance in tomorrow’s list!

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2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE DISAPPOINTING

 LISTMANIA 2021  28 Responses »
Dec 132021
 

(Andy Synn officially begins “List Week” with a round up of the year’s most “Disappointing” releases)

As has become my custom I’m kicking off List Week with what is always the most controversial entry, my list of the most “disappointing” albums of the year.

Now, to be clear, this article isn’t about just attacking bands you don’t like. So if you’re coming here to performatively shit on someone else’s work just to make yourself look big and clever… jog on.

No, the point is simply to acknowledge that the artists we love sometimes let us down – whether that’s because they simply fail to live up to their own potential, or because their latest release is more hype than substance – and to give readers a place to communicate, and commiserate, and come to terms with the fact that even our favourite bands aren’t perfect.

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2021 – A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE EPs

 LISTMANIA 2021, SHORT BUT SWEET  15 Responses »
Dec 102021
 

(Next week Andy Synn begins his annual roll-out of year-end lists as part of his ongoing attempt to cover as many different albums from the last twelve months as possible – but, before then, he’d like to draw your attention to some of the shorter, but no less sweet, releases from 2021) 

Well, well, well… it’s been a whole year since we last did this little dance hasn’t it?

Sure, it might seem like it’s been longer than that, for a number of different reasons that we really don’t have time or space to go into here, but it’s actually only been twelve months.

Those twelve months have been absolutely packed with music though, and today we’re going to be taking a look, and a listen, to some – not all, of course, just as many as I managed to actually hear, so don’t get too upset when you realise that this isn’t totally comprehensive – of the EPs that were released this year, beginning with a general round-up of everything that I can remember and recommend, and closing with a countdown of my ten favourite short-form releases of the year.

So let us begin… Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: STEREOGUM’S LIST OF “THE 10 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2021”

 LISTMANIA 2021  No Responses »
Dec 102021
 

 

Stereogum easily qualifies as one of the “big platform” web sites whose year-end lists of metal we perennially include in our LISTMANIA series. Of course, the site appeals to an audience of music fans much larger than devoted metalheads, but its staff includes a talented and tasteful group of metal writers who among other things are responsible for the site’s monthly “The Black Market” column, which has been a great source of discovery for extreme music for nine years running now.

It follows that Stereogum‘s annual metal list is one I especially look forward to seeing every year, and the 2021 edition appeared yesterday. It again consists of only 10 entries, collectively assembled by Ian Chainey, Aaron Lariviere, and Wyatt Marshall. It’s preceded from this statement by Ian: “In keeping with the grand tradition, Aaron Lariviere would like to remind you that ‘this list will disappoint you.’ He’s right. Instead of bests, we pick favorites. That always makes for a fittingly weird list. Hell yeah.” Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: POPMATTERS’ LIST OF “THE 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2021”

 LISTMANIA 2021  12 Responses »
Dec 072021
 

 

As part of our annual NCS LISTMANIA extravaganza we re-publish lists of the year’s best metal that appear on web sites which appeal to vastly larger numbers of readers than we do — not because we believe those readers or the writers have better taste in metal than our community does, but more from a morbid curiosity about what the great unpoisoned masses are being told is best for them. It’s like opening a window that affords an insight into the way the rest of the world outside our own disease-ridden nooks and crannies perceives the music that is our daily sustenance.

One of those sites is PopMatters. It has been in existence since 1999. In its own words the site “is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis” with a scope that “is broadly cast on all things pop culture”, including “music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet”. PopMatters claims that it is “the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world”.

As in past years, last week PopMatters published a list of “The 20 Best Metal Albums“ of the year, again under the by-line of Spyros Stasis and Antonio Poscic. You’ll find that list below. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: AN INVITATION FOR READERS’ LISTS OF THE YEAR’S BEST METAL

 LISTMANIA 2021  96 Responses »
Dec 012021
 

 

We have now entered the final month of 2021, and that begins the final countdown to the end of the year. In the world of metal, this month we’ll also start seeing more and more lists of the year’s best releases.

Back in 2009, when this site was just a few days old, I wrote a post about year-end lists and why people bother with them. The best reason still seems to be this: Reading someone else’s list of the albums they thought were best is a good way to discover music you missed and might like.

We don’t do an “official” NCS year-end “best albums” list. However, we publish the picks of each of our regular staff writers as well as a group of invited guests, in addition to lists that we re-post from a few print zines and “big platform” online sites.

Every year we also invite our readers to share their lists and we’re doing that again right here, right now.

If you’ve been pondering what you’ve heard this year and have made your own list of the albums, EPs, or splits released in 2021 that you think are the best of what you’ve heard, we invite you to share it with everyone in the Comments section to this post. And if you haven’t made a list yet but want to, there’s still plenty of time (read below). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: REVOLVER’S “25 BEST ALBUMS OF 2021”

 LISTMANIA 2021  9 Responses »
Nov 252021
 

 

As part of our annual LISTMANIA series we re-publish “best album” lists from some of the the few surviving print publications that cover metal, and from a handful of “big platform” sites that include metal in their on-line coverage, along with a range of other music genres and other aspects of popular culture.

Of course, as soon as you see the words “popular culture” you know those lists aren’t going to devote too much attention to the kind of music we cover at NCS. But it’s still amusing, and sometimes even edifying, to get a glimpse of what these “taste-making” organs are telling the more above-ground world are the year’s best metal releases.

Today Revolver magazine published their list of the “25 Best Albums of 2021” on-line. Revolver claims that “millions of passionate consumers” visit their website and view their videos across desktop and mobile; that the print edition is the “biggest hard-rock and metal magazine in North America,” with a subscriber base that’s three times larger than the “next biggest U.S. metal print publication”; and that they have a “highly engaged social following with over 1B impressions per month across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.” Continue reading »

LISTMANIA BEGINS: THE DECIBEL TOP 40 FOR 2021

 LISTMANIA 2021  11 Responses »
Nov 192021
 

 

It has become an annual tradition at our putrid site to launch our year-end LISTMANIA orgy with the appearance of DECIBEL mag’s Top 40 list, because they always seem to burst from the starting gate sooner than anyone else — and they’ve done it again this year, although about a week later than they did in 2020. There’s also the fact that, in my humble opinion, DECIBEL is still the best print publication out there for fans of extreme metal, and their list always generates healthy discussions, so it’s a fitting way to launch the latest LISTMANIA season apart from the list’s early-bird status.

The DECIBEL list will officially appear in the magazine’s January 2022 edition, which hasn’t yet hit my own mailbox, but DECIBEL again decided (for the sixth year in a row, or maybe the seventh) to scoop their own list rather than letting leeches like me leak it. They published the list on-line yesterday, and so I can now again re-publish their list without too much guilt, beyond the sheepishness that comes from being one of the factors that forced them to start outing themselves in the first place.

Of course, there will be a lot more content in the January issue. It includes a cover story on the Converge Bloodmoon collaboration record with Chelsea Wolfe, a Hall of Fame feature on Arcturus’ “black metal weirdo classic” Aspera Hiems Symfonia, editorial comment on the records that made their year-end list, and more. It will also include a Portrayal of Guilt flexi disc. You can order a copy of the issue HERE. Continue reading »

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