LISTMANIA 2015: PITCHFORK’S LIST OF THE BEST METAL ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

 LISTMANIA 2015  13 Responses »
Dec 222015
 

Pitchfork-Best metal Albums

 

We’re well into our own putrid site’s lists of the year’s best metal, but yesterday we got the last of the “big platform” metal lists I’ve been waiting on, and so I’m interrupting our own roll-out to bring it your way.

This one is a Top 25 list (with honorable mentions as well) prepared by Brandon Stosuy, the chief metal writer for Pitchfork. Pitchfork is a Chicago-based online music magazine, which proclaims that it is “the most trusted voice in music, celebrating and exploring emerging artists and established pioneers across all genres”. The site also claims an audience of more than 7 million unique visitors per month.

In October of this year, Pitchfork was acquired by Condé Nast, which also owns more than 20 other magazines or online brands, including Bon Apetit, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Golf Digest. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: A YEAR-END LIST FROM KEN SORCERON (ABIGAIL WILLIAMS)

 LISTMANIA 2015  7 Responses »
Dec 212015
 

Abigail Williams-photo by Levan TK
photo by Levan TK

(Abigail Williams released one of our favorite albums of 2015 — to read our review of it and check out the music if you haven’t already, go HERE — and today we bring you a year-end list by AW’s Ken Sorceron.)

In no particular order:

Akhlys-The Dreaming I

Akhlys – The Dreaming I


Continue reading »

UNDERGROUND METAL FOR THE TRVE CURMUDGEON (SURGICALBRUTE’S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2015)

 LISTMANIA 2015  24 Responses »
Dec 212015
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(For yet another year, our old friend SurgicalBrute has delivered into our greedy hands another year-end list of favorite releases, and one of the most extreme underground collections we will post this year.)

I listen to too much damn music, that’s all there is to it. All year long I feel this constant desire to dig through as much metal as possible because there’s always something new and enjoyable to discover and I want to hear it all. It’s one of the reasons I’ll never understand people who say things like “it was a bad year for metal”, because as far as Im concerned, its never a bad year for metal (hell, as I type this out, there are less than 30 days left in the year and I’m still finding great new bands).

Of course, everything has a downside… December has rolled around once again and now I have to figure out how to narrow this massive list down to something far more reasonable. Fortunately, using my scientific method of cheap Scotch and a dart board, I came up with twenty albums (as well as five EP’s) that should be on any metal fan’s year-end list (and just in case you don’t notice, these are in alphabetical order). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: A YEAR-END LIST FROM CRETOS FILTHGRINDER (A BAND OF ORCS)

 LISTMANIA 2015  1 Response »
Dec 182015
 

Cretos

 

(At this time of year, I remember the importance of displaying fealty to the Gore-Stained Axe-Tribe from Hirntodia, and so once again I have invited A Band of Orcs to share with the filthy human readers if our site their ideas about the year’s best albums. I am pathetically grateful to Cretos Filthgrinder, provider of lead and crunchy guitars and utterer of gutturals and growls, for accepting our invitation to share with us his year-end list. HAIL GZOROTH!)

Marduk-Frontschwein

 

Marduk – Frontschwein

This album is the best of 2015 to show beauty (only next to Cretos sexiest Orc) through Orcdor! By Orcdor I Cretos mean battle file and making lines to attack the enemy. Frontschwein captures all enemies slow or fast. Cretos fascinated with themes of war, and Frontschwein does very good since the last war efforts of Marduk’s Iron Dawn EP. HAIL MARDUK! Continue reading »

2015 — A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE PERSONAL TOP 10

 LISTMANIA 2015  20 Responses »
Dec 182015
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(With this post Andy Synn concludes his annual retrospective on the year in metal with a list of personal favorites. Earlier in the week we presented his lists of the Great, the Good, and the Disappointing albums of the year, as well as The Critical Top 10.)

As opposed to yesterday’s list of my “Critical” selections, today I’m taking off my critic hat, and throwing all notions of impartiality to the wind, and gifting you with a straight-up selection of my ten favourite albums of the year.

These aren’t necessarily the best albums of the year, of course, just the ones that I happen to have listened to and loved the most!

The bands on this list hail from a variety of locations – the UK, the USA, France, Sweden, Germany, Australia – and cover a variety of different metallic sub-genres, but what’s most interesting (well, I think so anyway) is just how many of these bands are new, or relatively new, this year round.

Several of the groups on this list either only released their first album in 2015, or were only properly discovered by the site this year… and that number gets even larger if you take into account the “honourable mentions” as well!

So, without further ado, get ready to find out exactly what albums have been rocking my proverbial socks off this year… Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: A YEAR-END LIST FROM MANTEEGWA

 LISTMANIA 2015  18 Responses »
Dec 172015
 

Crazy eye

 

(Long-time reader and commenter Manteegwa prepared this list of favorite releases from 2015 — and it’s an interesting one.)

For me, 2015 felt like a year where the great releases were peppered evenly throughout. In a time marred by political strife and violence, metal helped me stay positive and realize that there are people out there who still pour their efforts into creation rather than division.

Nechochwen-Heart of Akamon Continue reading »

2015 — A YEAR IN REVIEW(S): THE CRITICAL TOP 10

 LISTMANIA 2015  32 Responses »
Dec 172015
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(This is the fourth of Andy Synn’s traditional week-long series of posts looking back on the year in metal. We’ve previously presented his lists of the Great, the Good, and the Disappointing albums of the year.)

Over the years I’ve moved further and further away from presenting this list as a classic, numbered ranking of albums, and more towards viewing it as a time-capsule of sorts, picking out what I think are ten of the absolute best of the year to represent the absolute pinnacle of the year in Metal.

Of course, limiting it to only ten entries means it’s far from exhaustive in capacity, but I’ve tried – as far as I’ve been able – to give a rounded overview of the past twelve months, embodied in these ten selections which I really think represent the sheer quality and diversity of metallic delights released over the last year.

Interestingly enough, there’s a LOT of clean vocals on the list – by my count there’s a good 6 out of 10 releases on this list which incorporate clean singing, in one way or another, across albums running the gamut from Black to Death to Doom… heck, two of these albums use 100% clean vocals!  (You’re killing me! I hope the paramedics get here soon! — Islander)

There’s also a strong “Progressive” vibe to a lot of this year’s selections, no matter what genre they come from… though there’s also a couple of albums on here which prove that sometimes all you need to be the “best” is to play harder, faster, and heavier than the competition!

Overall this year’s top 10 is comprised of 3 acts from the UK, and 3 acts from the USA, a Swedish duo (not the only two-piece on the list, might I add), a bunch of German cultists, an unbelievably savage Polish ensemble, and one multi-faceted, multi-national collective… and those are all the hints I’m going to give you! Continue reading »

LIST OVERLOAD?

 LISTMANIA 2015  34 Responses »
Dec 172015
 

Overwhelmed

 

I’m willing to bet a wheelbarrow load of loris droppings that we post more year-end lists than any other metal site. Not only do we post lists of the year’s best releases prepared by our own writers (other than me, because my mind doesn’t work that way), we also post lists that appear elsewhere, and every year we also post lists by long-time readers and assorted other guests, not to mention the ever-growing readers’ lists that are hosted here. The risk of doing this is obvious:

I’m already seeing comments, both on our site and on our Facebook page, by people who are starting to feel overwhelmed by the volume of year-end accolades and recommendations. I even received a message yesterday  from one of our invited guests who was wondering whether people will bother to continue reading more lists — because we still have a LOT of lists yet to come.

I confess that I worry about this, too — though not enough to stop! So I thought I would tell you my reasoning behind doing what we do this time of year. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: VONLUGHLIO’S LIST OF 2015’s TOP EPs

 LISTMANIA 2015  6 Responses »
Dec 162015
 

NCS Best of 2015 graphic

 

(Our old friend and steadfast NCS supporter Vonlughlio has once again prepared his year-end list of albums, but first shares with us this list of his favorite EPs from 2015.)

First of all I want to start by thanking Islander for letting me do my end-of-year lists. Last year, for the first time I made my list of favorite albums up to 50, plus made a list of my favorite EPs and Honorable Mentions. This year I’m going to divide my year-end list into two posts. This first one will have my top 15 EPs and mentions of some of the places where I find new music. The second one will have my top 50 albums with the Honorable Mentions (when I’m done with that clusterfuck of a list  – J).

So, to give you an idea of my year, let’s just say that it has been more Brutal than others. Some might like my list, others will hate it, but I’m doing this for me and the bands I like.

Here are my Top 15 EPs of 2015: Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries