TROLLFIEND’S TOP TEN TUMESCENT TROLLCOCK TANTALIZERS OF 2011

 Listmania  20 Responses »
Dec 182011
 

(Our man Trollfiend was good to his word. Even though he has his own new, already thriving, metal blog now (ALSO, WOLVES), he hasn’t forgotten his old friends at NCS. Herewith, his list of . . . uh . . . trollcock tantalizers for 2011.)

Not much new music makes its way to the Trollcave,  I barely get any kind of internet connection up in this bitch, and the iTunes store apparently does not accept Trollcash (which consists individually of a severed and shrunken priest’s head stuffed inside a boiled and distended bull’s scrotum and tied shut with seven strands of golden hair from a female dwarf’s beard – in other words, accepted everywhere you see a Visa or Mastercard logo).  What little new music I get must be carefully pillaged from local and ecologically sustainable villagers.  It must then be fermented inside a sheep carcass for six months and then distilled and filtered through rendered baby fat before the pure delicious goodness rises to the top and the rest trickles out the bottom, fit only to fertilize my dung heap farm.

Since most of the good shit has already been skimmed off the top (sweet delicious chunks like Vallenfyre, for example), I decided to be more selective in my selection of selections for this list.  Specifically, I chose my top 10 folk/folkish/ethnic/Viking/pagan/weird-ass-shit albums of the year…in other words, the gristly nuggets no one else would touch.  So fill up your pints and break out the hot sauce because here we randomly go: Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S PERSONAL FAVORITES FROM 2011

 Listmania  49 Responses »
Dec 162011
 

(This is the last installment in Andy Synn’s week-long series of posts looking back at albums released this year. Andy previously provided his lists of the year’s Great albums, the Good ones, and the most Disappointing ones, as well as his list of “The Critical Top 10″. For more explanation of what all this means, plus Andy’s picks for the year’s best EPs, visit this location.)

So here we are, the last list of Andy Synn Week (maybe not the official title, but give me something here guys). Here you will find the ten albums that have made the biggest impact on me personally, the ones which make the most frequent appearance on my playlist. Rarely a day goes by without me listening to at least one of these albums, often several times.

You will note that, in contrast to last year, all my favourite albums this year are drawn from my “Great” list. For once, this is definitely coincidental; it just so happens that as I was paring down my overall list of favourite albums to a mere ten entries, I was left solely with albums that I believe are personally, as well as critically, my absolute favourites. It also covers a whole spectrum of albums, some released right back at the very beginning of the year, reaching all the way up to extremely recent releases, so it also serves as a reasonably comprehensive list in terms of the time-frame it covers!

There’s some minor cross-over with yesterday’s list, as some albums were always bound to be both critically and personally fulfilling, but largely you’ll find here a cross-section of my musical preferences from the year. Each album comes with a short explanation of why I love it; not necessarily why it’s the “Best” album of the year, but just why it clicks with me personally. Continue reading »

THEMADISRAELI’S TOP 15: SYLOSIS-“EDGE OF THE EARTH”

 Album Reviews, Listmania  10 Responses »
Dec 162011
 

(NCS writer TheMadIsraeli is taking a different tack with his list of the year’s best albums — either reviewing or re-assessing each of them, one by one. Here’s the first.)

I have been truly dreading reviewing this album for the simple reason that I may fail to describe adequately what this album means to me in the modern metal landscape. I never got to review this album during my tenure at The Metal Register before we shut down, but I was supposed to.  I’m glad it didn’t go down that way now, because I’ve been able to sit on this album and really take it in.  It’s been in constant rotation all year, regardless of what else beckoned my listening habits.

I remember when self-anointed critics were unreasonably hammering these guys, after three EP’s and a debut full length, for being a Trivium knockoff, simply because they were busy taking Trivium’s thrash/metalcore hybrid sound to the next level.  Sylosis has come a very long way since then, along with numerous lineup changes, with only mastermind and guitarist (now also vocalist) Josh Middleton remaining.  The lineup established on Conclusion of an Age marked Sylosis finally establishing their identity, finally cementing what it was they wanted to do.  The Conclusion of an Age lineup is still here, minus vocalist Jamie Graham, in their triumphant, flawless victory known as Edge Of The Earth.

Sylosis are THE modern metal band, combining old-school thrash metal aesthetics, metalcore energy and dynamics, and powerful and majestic melodeath melodies.  THEY ARE the ultimate example of the future in metal that lies in the hybridization of sub-genres.  They manage to take the best of these three schools of thought while throwing out the superfluous, unneeded bullshit, and manage to form a cohesive sound that never fails to hit on target. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 4) — AND THE SPELLEMANN AWARD NOMINEES ARE ANNOUNCED

 Listmania, Metal News  5 Responses »
Dec 152011
 

This is the fourth and final part of a multi-part post about up-and-coming Norwegian bands. The first part is HERE, the second part is HERE, and Part 3 is HERE.  And below is an abbreviated version of the full explanation, which appears long-form in Part 1. But first, since I’m on the subject of Norwegian metal, here’s a bit of breaking news:

The Spellemann Awards are the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammy’s here in the U.S. The first Spellemannprisen were awarded in 1973 for albums released in 1972, so if my math is correct, we’re approaching the 40th annual awards show, and today the Spellemann nominees were announced. In the category of Best Metal Album, the following bands and albums were nominated (and we’ve featured four of the five nominees here at NCS):

INSENSE BURN IN BEAUTIFUL FIRE
SHINING LIVE BLACKJAZZ
TAAKE NOREGS VAAPEN
VREID V
ÅRABROT SOLAR ANUS

And now, onward to the explanation about the rest of this post: “Pyro” is the name of a radio program on one of the radio channels (P3) operated by NRK, the state-owned Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The NRK P3 radio channel is mainly aimed at younger listeners, and Pyro is the program that focuses mainly on metal and hard rock. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S CRITICAL TOP 10 OF 2011

 Listmania  18 Responses »
Dec 152011
 

(This is the fourth in Andy Synn’s week-long series of posts looking back at albums released this year. Andy previously provided his lists of the year’s Great albums, the Good ones, and the most Disappointing ones, and tomorrow we’ll have his Personal Top 10. Today, we have his list of “The Critical Top 10”. For more explanation of what all this means, plus Andy’s picks for the year’s best EPs, visit this location.)

So here’s the penultimate list of the week, the first of two ranked top-tens. This list will include the albums that I think are the very best of the best, the ones that best combine creativity, artistic ambition, song-writing, and performance. Regardless of my personal feelings and preferences, these are the albums that I think are critically superior to others. Though the ranking of them was difficult (as it always is when trying to compare artists and albums across metallic sub-genres), I’ve tried my best to give a sense about the critical and objective factors that led to each record earning its respective position on this list.

Although the potential candidates for the list were unavoidably influenced by my own listening tastes — I do, after all, only really tend to select the albums that I feel best qualified and most inspired to review – I have done my best to keep personal preference as far away from these judgements as possible, something that I hope will become clear when you see tomorrow how different the list of my top ten “favourite” albums of the year is from today’s list.

So here are the ten releases I think best represent the year critically. The ten that, ultimately, would be my choices to represent the year in metal music for posterity. Some of them have appeared quite commonly on other lists, albeit perhaps weighted differently, while others have largely been ignored by other sources thus far. Enjoy . . . Continue reading »

THE TOP TEN LIST OF “T” (DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT)

 Listmania  17 Responses »
Dec 152011
 

(We started this year with a review of Prosthetic Records’ re-release of an album called Hatred For Mankind by an ominously mysterious UK band called Dragged Into Sunlight. It remains a particularly harrowing but remarkable listening experience. We followed that in September by hosting the band’s horrific music video for the song “Buried With Leeches”, which YouTube had removed months earlier. Naturally, I was curious about what kind of year-end album list might come from this band, so I invited “T” from DIS to give us his list — and he did. This is it, with T’s brief notes about each album.)

Fuck man, so many good records. I just finished listening to every band listed below beginning to end. It is now dark.

1. Rwake – Rest

Crushing, riff worship. Genius.


Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S LIST OF THE YEAR’S MOST DISAPPOINTING ALBUMS

 Listmania  26 Responses »
Dec 142011
 

(This is the third in Andy Synn’s week-long series of posts looking back at albums released this year. Andy previously provided his lists of the year’s Great albums, and the Good ones, and in the days to come, he’ll also provide his lists of The Critical Top 10 and Personal Top 10. But today, we have his opinions on the Disappointing releases of 2011. For more explanation of what all this means, plus Andy’s picks for the year’s best EPs, visit this location.)

DISAPPOINTING

I’m sorry to say that this year’s “Disappointing” column is largely more negative than last year’s, due to what I perceive as some real flaws and failings which several of the bands mentioned have displayed. Please don’t get personally offended if my dissenting opinion clashes with yours on preferences. I’m merely trying to give an alternative interpretation of events from my own perspective. In addition, as stated last year, “Disappointing” does not necessarily mean “Bad” – several of these records are objectively good, but really come from bands who have demonstrated before that they can do better and achieve more.

I must stress, however, that each of the bands featured in this column is either a band I have enjoyed previously and whose work I was honestly looking forward to, or a band whose work was recommended to me and I expected to enjoy.

Those of you who have followed my reviewing “career” up to this point will know that I hate wasting time with negative reviews, preferring instead to elucidate the positive aspects of the albums I review. You’ll also know that although my preferences are for Black Metal and Melodic Death Metal, I still enjoy bands from across the metal genre-spectrum, including the oft-derided Deathcore genre, several proponents of which I have championed in the past. My aim is to judge them all by their own merits. Though there are some basic forms which should be expected from all the albums I have reviewed, I have found that different genres are best approached from different angles and judged via different criteria.

So here we have it, the various records which left me ultimately disappointed this year. These are the ones who failed to live up to the standards they set themselves with their previous work, or who failed to live up to even the reasonable expectations of quality that we might expect. Please don’t take this personally. Continue reading »

FIREANGEL’S FAVORITES FROM 2011

 Listmania  7 Responses »
Dec 142011
 

(One of the best things about operating NCS is the chance to make connections with metal-lovers from around the world. Because of our frequent focus on Finnish metal, I’ve made a connection with “fireangel“, one of the two creators of a very informative and entertaining Finland-based blog called Night Elves. I invited fireangel to write a post for our year-end Listmania, and here it is.)

Islander kindly invited me to share my favourites of 2011, knowing full well that my taste oscillates between “No Clean Singing“ and more often its mirror image, “No! Clean Singing!”, as it was so nicely put in the 2-Year-Anniversary-post, and that my suggestions would make a better fit with “Exceptions To The Rule” than the NCS Rule itself. Nevertheless, he thought he could live with that, so maybe you can, too. Even though this post is written by one person, it includes the musical favourites of both Night Elves.

I selected some songs that work as my personal pick-me-up for plenty of situations – feeling tired, sleepless, moody, etc – and can convert me into a decent citizen, at least for a limited time.

In order to test the boundaries even more, this post also includes songs that are not necessarily from 2011, but I listened to them on quite heavy rotation in this year. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 3)

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 132011
 

This is the third part of a multi-part post about up-and-coming Norwegian bands. The first part is HERE, and the second part is HERE.  And here’s an abbreviated version of the full explanation that appears in Part 1:

“Pyro” is the name of a radio program on one of the radio channels (P3) operated by NRK, the state-owned Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The NRK P3 radio channel is mainly aimed at younger listeners, and Pyro is the program that focuses mainly on metal and hard rock.

Last week, the Pyro web site rolled out its 2011 list of the most promising metal bands in Norway. What I’m doing in this series is just repeating what I found on the Pyro web site, doing my best (with the lame assistance of Google Translate) to give Pyro’s descriptions of each band they picked as the best new metal bands in Norway, plus the same music from each band that they gave as an example (most of the songs can be found on Amazon mp3 or downloaded from the Urørt site via the links provided in the music descriptions below). Since my verbiage isn’t a professional translation, any fuck-ups are mine, not Pyro’s. I’ve also added some notes of my own, which are in brackets.

So here we go with Part 3. In this part, we’re including  Aristillus, Livstid, The Good the Bad and the Zugly, Blodspor, and The Konsortium. Below the images in the rest of this post, I’ve turned each of the band’s names into links that will take you to their social media sites, in case you want to explore further. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S LIST OF THE “GOOD” ALBUMS OF 2011

 Listmania  7 Responses »
Dec 132011
 


(This is the second in Andy Synn’s week-long series of posts looking back at albums released this year. Yesterday, Andy provided his list of the year’s Great albums, and in the days to come, he’ll also provide his list of the most “Disappointing” albums of the year, followed by his lists of The Critical Top 10 and Personal Top 10 of the year. For more explanation of what all this means, plus Andy’s picks for the year’s best EPs, visit this location.)

GOOD

The “Good” albums this year cross the boundaries of genres and generations, bridging Hardcore and Black Metal, Power Metal and Prog, Deathcore, Death Metal, and Djent. Arguably less overwhelmingly “progressive” than yesterday’s list of the year’s Greatest albums, today’s list of the “Good” (and occasionally ugly) face of modern metal still packs in a hell of a lot of variety and impressive quality.

The “Good” rating is quite a wide one, as several of these albums were just edged off the “Great” list and, in a less impressive year (or perhaps even when considered at another time), might well have been considered among the best the year had to offer. On the other hand, several of these albums came close to being considered for my “Disappointing” list, not because they were bad albums, but simply because they could/should have been better. In the end though, I took into account not only my personal feelings but also a consideration of wider critical opinions and a further re-evaluation of my own critical standards to conclude that these albums, though perhaps not fully capitalising on the hype and expectations laid upon their shoulders, deserved to be considered “Good” representations of 2011’s musical skills and compositions.

So here we have it, the rest of this year’s albums which I would gladly recommend to anyone with more than a passing interest in the metallic arts and all they have to offer. Though they all have their flaws, and some are clearly “more equal” than others, each deserves its spot on the list on the strength of its own merits. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries