JESPER ZURETTI’S TOP 15 OF THE YEAR

 Listmania  5 Responses »
Dec 132011
 

(As part of our series of posts on the Year in Metal, we invited musicians from some of our favorite bands to tell us what 2011 albums made an impression on them. Today, we hear from Jesse Zuretti, the talented guitarist and song-writer from The Binary Code.)

Although I’ve assembled a top 15 list, I highly encourage you to check out my honorable mentions down below. There were too many good releases this year.

1. Talib Kweli – Gutter Rainbows

This album, albeit non-metal, is packed with nostalgia for me. Hearing Ed Lover’s voice on this album was icing on the cake. Talib Kweli is one of the most well-versed rhymers of all time. His music is passionate, original, powerful, and adventurous. Listening to his lyrics is like hearing someone you look up to tell a story about something you relate to, and just exceeding your expectations with the outcome.

Why is this album number one for me? Because this is the first album of the entire year that made me say, “HOLY SHIT!” out loud. I’m not a man of uncontrollable, Tourette Syndrome-esque outbursts at the drop of a note from an artist – be it metal, hip hop, jazz, etc. Those “HOLY SHIT!” moments are generally found when something along the lines of a Pat Metheny solo rips into gear, or when Dennis Chambers flails into a comet trail of fills and ghost notes over a Victor Wooten tune. Talib Kweli handcrafted sound, lyrics, and power into a unique and TOLERABLE hip-hop album in the grand year of 2011. Fuck-all rare if you ask me, considering the amount of cocky-yarble these pretend gangster womanizer rappers have been pooping out into our wretched youths’ ears. Take a minute, pop on this disc (or WINRAR your Mediafire link) and let it roll. Continue reading »

ANDY SYNN’S LIST OF THE GREAT ALBUMS OF 2011

 Listmania  28 Responses »
Dec 122011
 

(This is the first in Andy Synn’s week-long series of posts looking back at albums released this year. In the days to come, Andy will also provide his lists of the “Good” and 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.)

GREAT

Despite my initial worries, 2011 has proven to be quite a good year for Black Metal, with several phenomenal records released this year from many of the genre’s unsung heroes. The absence of many of the leading lights of the scene led me to make several new discoveries as well as allowing several second-tier bands to rise to the occasion. Interestingly enough, this year’s “Great” list continues to demonstrate the variety of different shapes that Black Metal has taken without losing or distorting its core identity.

It does, however, seem to have been an overall more Death Metal-oriented year, with some crushingly heavy releases from both the old guard and the new breed. Despite my own tastes running somewhat counter to the old school revivalism that seems to be so popular in the competing worlds of Death and Thrash metal, it’s obvious even to me that 2011 has been a banner year for the former genre in particular. Even with my own preferences erring towards a more mechanistic form of metallic cyber-terrorism, the year has still thrown up a hefty number of devastating Death Metal discs.

While compiling the list, one thing that surprised me was the profusion of Progressive metal acts and albums that had unconsciously permeated my thoughts. Ranging from effervescent Melodic Death Metal groups to more Avant-Garde and indefinable acts, this year has seemingly been a great one for Progressive metal in all its many iterations.

After the jump you’ll find my list of what I consider the greatest and most exceptional albums released this year, albums which have not only struck a chord with me but have also pushed the boundaries in terms of their sheer quality and creativity. Continue reading »

PHRO TRIES TO REMEMBER WHAT YEAR IT IS AND WHAT FUCKING ALBUMS CAME OUT THIS YEAR

 Listmania, Phro's Posts  41 Responses »
Dec 122011
 

(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 . . . Continue reading »

THEMADISRAELI’S CANDIDATES FOR HIS TOP 10 OF 2011

 Listmania  9 Responses »
Dec 112011
 

(Here’s a teaser from TheMadIsraeli . . .)

This listmania shit is interesting isn’t it?  Some of the picks I’ve seen on a lot of the lists posted here from other sites haven’t surprised me, but some have for sure.  But now I think it’s time to help get the ball rolling on the NCS lists.

Picking my top 10 for this year has been a rather brutal internal struggle for me.  I know what the top of the year group is — it’s been the same pool of 15 albums thus far, but the order keeps slightly changing.  But I figured I’d reveal those 15, and allow my final list of 10 to be a surprise.  Actually, I will not be doing a list per se, but instead I plan to write a review (if I haven’t already done so) or write a “second opinion” (if I did review it) for each of the final 10.  I hope you’ll find this interesting.

So, here are the 15 candidates . . .

Sylosis – Edge of the Earth

Xerath – II

Fleshgod Apocalypse – Agony

Decapitated – Carnival Is Forever Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 2)

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Dec 112011
 

This is the second part of a multi-part post about up-and-coming Norwegian bands. The first part is HERE, and this is an abbreviated version of the full explanation, which 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 rolling out 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 — except I’m giving a few more examples of songs because I’m having to find my own sources for the music (the Pyro stream clips aren’t embeddable). Since the verbiage isn’t a professional translation, any fuck-ups are mine, not Pyro’s.

So here we go with Part 2. In this part, we’re including Maladronia Institute, No Dawn, Corsair, Springskalle, and Okular. The musical styles vary a lot, but I enjoyed listening to all five (and by coincidence, I’ll be reviewing Okular’s new album soon). 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 social media sites for each of them, in case you want to explore further. Continue reading »

2011 – THE EPs AND THE UNHEARD

 Listmania, SHORT BUT SWEET  13 Responses »
Dec 092011
 

(Editor’s Note: Beginning next week, we will start publishing our own lists of 2011’s best metal from NCS writers, NCS readers, and guest contributors who we invited to participate in our year-end review. Here’s Andy Synn’s prelude to what he’s got planned for us — plus the first of our year-end lists; so I guess we’re actually starting today?)

Every day next week I will be delivering one of my Year In Review columns for 2011, much in the same format as I did last year. For those of you who are newer to the site, here’s how it works:

On Monday you will get the list of the “Great” albums of the year. An aggregation of the best written, best played, and most artistically rewarding records of the year, in my critical opinion.

On Tuesday you will get the list of the “Good” albums of the year. A composite of all the albums which are undeniably solid, with a mix of great/good songs, all exceptionally strong but with slight weaknesses that stop them from being really “Great”.

On Wednesday you will get the list of the albums I consider the most “Disappointing” of the year. Now to try and mediate the inevitable flame wars and insult that will be thrown my way, let me make it clear; as things stand I very rarely, if ever, review an album I know I am going to dislike. I try and listen to, and then review, albums that are at least “Good” if not “Great”, so as to describe them and recommend them to people in a positive way.

The albums that make up my “Disappointing” list are not necessarily BAD albums, but largely they are albums from bands who should have, and could have, done better – often because they’ve done better before. At worst, these albums are distinctly average and unimpressive offerings from bands who have far greater potential. A warning though – there are a lot of “big hitters” who produced ultimately “Disappointing” albums this year. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: MSN ENTERTAINMENT’S TOP 50

 Listmania  23 Responses »
Dec 092011
 

We’ve been re-publishing the Best Metal of 2011 lists that we’ve seen on other web sites, focusing on sites that have really big audiences — which sorta means, by definition, that they’re not metal-only sites. So far, we’ve reported about the lists on Pitchfork, NPR, Noisecreep, and PopMatters (and we also included DECIBEL magazine’s Top 40 list and . . . uh . . . Revolver’s list). You can catch up on all that by using this Listmania link.

Today, we’re reporting on The Top 50 Albums of 2011 as selected by Adrien Begrand for MSN Entertainment. MSN Entertainment (which is owned by Microsoft) is another broad-scope entertainment site that includes coverage of music, film, games, videos, celebrity gossip, and a wide range of music. They claim over 23 million unique visitors to the site every month, narrowly edging out NCS in audience size. Once again, we’re featuring their list not because MSN Entertainment is one of our go-to sources for discovering and assessing metal, but because we’re curious about what mass-audience outlets are touting from our precious underground genre.

MSN Entertainment has been rolling out their Top 50 list all week in segments, and as of this morning, the list is now complete. To see the list at MSN Entertainment, along with Adrien Begrand’s comments about each album, GO HERE.

A few thoughts about the list:  Finally, the Devin Townsend Project and Ghost Brigade get some listmania recognition (and Amon Amarth make another rare appearance, too); thrash-lovers will be happy to see Evile’s name on the list; the list includes high finishes for Obscura and In Solitude; straight-up death metal is largely ignored, despite the plethora of good, filthy, old-school offerings this year; and I predict the Top 4 will prove disappointing to many NCS readers.
Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: REVOLVER’S 20 BEST ALBUMS OF 2011

 Listmania  31 Responses »
Dec 092011
 

Yeah, I’m joking.  I don’t really intend to devote any of our precious space to Revolver magazine’s list of the 20 best albums of 2011.  Actually, our space isn’t precious. It’s unlimited, but still.

It just happens that although I haven’t renewed my subscription to Revolver, they continue to mail me the mag, and when I got the current issue a few days ago, I peaked at the list. It’s just as terrible as I thought it would be. Not 100% awful — there are a few good albums on the list — but overall it’s painful.

Album of the Year?  It’s the same title as the one that DECIBEL named Album of the Year, except instead of being Path of Totality by Tombs it’s The Path of Totality by . . . Korn.  Seriously.

Coming in at No. 3?  Megadeth.

Locking up the No. 4 spot?  Evanescence.

Do you really, truly want to see the rest of the list?  Alright then.  Suit yourself. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: EXCLAIM.CA’S TOP 18 METAL ALBUMS OF 2011

 Listmania  14 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

We’re still in the mode of scoping out of Best of 2011 lists by “big-platform” web sites. So far, we’ve been U.S.-centric, featuring the lists compiled by Pitchfork, NPR, Noisecreep, and PopMatters. I thought for today I’d go north of the border and let you see the list published by Exclaim.ca.

Exclaim! is a Canadian national print magazine concentrating on music, with a monthly distribution of 100,000 copies. Exclaim.ca is the business’s web presence, with 300,000 unique visitors per month. Like the other big-platform sites whose lists we’ve re-published, Exclaim.ca covers a wide range of music, with metal being only one of the genres, and there’s also an emphasis on Canadian talent.

Of all the lists we’ve re-published to date, Exlaim.ca’s has the highest percentage of bands whose 2011 albums I haven’t heard. In fact, it has the highest percentage of bands whose names I’ve never heard. It also includes a high percentage of grind and noize. Also, I suppose it shouldn’t come as a shock that their album of the year is by a Canadian band (one of those albums I haven’t heard yet). But that same album has been on other lists, including the one that Corey Mitchell contributed to Metal Sucks, in which he said this about the album (which he ranked at No. 4):

“This Kurt Ballou (Converge) produced masterstroke brings to mind the best of Helmet (Strap It On, Meantime), Quicksand (Slip), and Poison the Well (You Come Before You). Alternative noise metalcore (not the bastardization the subgenre has evolved into over the past five years) that rumbles rafters and unsettles neighbors. Aggressive, precise, and one mean bitchin’ Camaro of an aural onslaught.”

The album placed at No. 1 isn’t the only one by a Canadian band. The pick for No. 3 is from Canada, too — but that’s it. Okay, two of the bands are from Washington State, and that’s not far away, but still, it’s not really a parochial list. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA CONTINUES: NORWEGIAN METAL TO WATCH FOR (Part 1)

 Listmania, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Dec 082011
 

This is a different spin on Listmania. For this post, we’re jumping outside North America and landing in Norway. Also, this isn’t really a “Best Album” list. Let me explain:

NRK is the state-owned Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. It operates three main TV channels, three main radio channels, and several “niche” channels on radio and the internet. The NRK P3 radio channel is mainly aimed at younger listeners in the 15-30 age bracket, and of course, since this is Norway, it includes a healthy dose of metal. As far as I can figure out with help from Google Translate, “Pyro” is the name of the NRK P3 radio 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. I found out about this by seeing a Facebook post by a Norwegian band who showed up on the list. I got curious, and so I visited the site. Now, because this is radio programming, I figured the music wasn’t going to be quite as extreme as a lot of the metal that’s our bread and butter here at NCS. On the other hand, this is fucking Norway, and so I decided it would be worth spending some time exploring what they had to offer — and I guessed right.

I don’t speak Norwegian, of course. So, I used Google Translate. It rendered the Norwegian text on the web site into a kind of English . . . the kind spoken by people who’ve suffered some kind of severe trauma to the speech center in the brain. But I could get the gist of the text, and so I’ve tried my best to clean it up and make it mean what I think it means. But since this isn’t really a translation, I may have fucked it up. All errors are mine, not Pyro’s.

On the other hand, I’m not terribly worried about the text, because the site included music from each of the bands, so we’ve got music to hear, and the music is what counts, isn’t it? Continue reading »

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