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 »

THIS NEW “METAL ALLIANCE TOUR” SHOULD BE INTERESTING, TO SAY THE LEAST

 Metal News  23 Responses »
Dec 142011
 

Yeah, it’s kinda late in the day for another post, but I just saw a press release about a new tour running from March 15 through April 21 of next year that I thought was worth talking about. This tour had been forecast previously, but now we have a concrete schedule. Here’s the line-up:

DevilDriver
The Faceless
Dying Fetus
Job For A Cowboy
3 Inches of Blood
Impending Doom
Wretched

Why is this interesting? Well, first of all, it should be loaded with new music. The Faceless is currently putting the finishing touches on its third album for a tentative February release on Sumerian. Stands to reason that they’ll be performing songs from that album. I’ll be curious to hear it, because guitarist Michael Keene has described the CD as “the most musical and progressive record we’ve made” and says the songs will be more focused “on musicality and making an expressive, unique, moody and expansive record.”

On top of that, Dying Fetus is currently recording a new album. It’s not projected for release until the middle of next year on Relapse, but they will clearly be finished with the recording before hitting the road on this tour, and so we can expect new songs from them, too. And that’s not all. Continue reading »

ASHES OF AVARICE and AWAKING LEVIATHAN

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Dec 142011
 

(NCS reader and commenter Black Shuck provides this guest post as an introduction to two Midwest metal bands who are worth getting to know.)

In the bygone days of old (last year), when I was a foolish young college student in Galesburg, Illinois, full of hopes and dreams and enough coffee to kill a small child if that child were a pansy, I was introduced to the area’s local metal scene. Two bands who I became familiar with there have already been covered here at No Clean Singing: The Horde and A Hill to Die Upon. But there are two more local gems from the several-states-wide corn maze that is the Midwest who I feel people need to know about: Ashes of Avarice and Awaking Leviathan. So I have decided to take a break from trampling flowerbeds and relaxing with my favorite drink (bourbon mixed with several shots of bourbon) to enlighten you about them.

I’ve never been sure how to classify either of the bands. Ashes of Avarice remind me of Black Anvil in the sense that their music seems at its heart based in black metal, but is influenced by so many other things as to be a different genre entirely. It’s dark, yet it’s a heavy kind of dark, rather than an evil one. It makes you want to headbang and put your fist in the air, to rock the fuck out and have a good time, as opposed to, say, making you want to prance around in the forest and drink the blood of koalas, or whatever it is Satanic Tyrant Werewolf does these days.

The riffs tend toward thrash mixed with traditional heavy metal, yet they don’t really fit into either of these genres, nor are they black metal riffs. They’re inventive, they keep the music interesting without being experimental, they lend it atmosphere. The vocals stay mid-range for the most part (a notable exception being the slow, menacing “Our Hangman’s Sweet Embrace,” where they venture into death metal territory at points), yet still have just enough rawness and power to complement the heaviness of the music and lend it a rough edge. 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 »

NEWS FROM DOWN UNDER: NE OBLIVISCARIS AND DEVOLVED

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  1 Response »
Dec 132011
 

We originally featured this unsigned Melbourne, Australia band with the mouthful of a name back in March 2010, focusing on a 2007 demo called The Aurora Veil. We checked in with them again in October, having learned that they had completed their debut album, Portal of I — a 7-track behemoth with a total run-time of more than 1 hour 11 minutes. In October, the band also released one of the new songs for streaming — “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope” — which fuckin’ floored me. It’s a long, but remarkably multi-faceted piece of music.

We heard from the band yesterday with a bit of news. As reported on their Facebook page, the band has parted ways with their drummer, Dan Presland, who was involved in recording both the Aurora Veil demo and the forthcoming Portal Of I album. The band is already rehearsing with a new drummer, and we hope the loss of Presland (who’s quite good — he won the Australian finals of the World’s Fastest Drummer competition) won’t be a setback. At least it won’t delay the release of the album, since that’s already finished.

In an offsetting bit of good news, the band’s lead guitarist Benjamin Baret has been allowed to return to Australia after protracted wrangling over obtaining a visa. Baret lives in France, and his imminent return to Australia on Thursday of this week appears to be the prelude to release of Portal of I and touring in support of it. The band is still in discussions with labels, and so we’re not yet able to provide a specific release date — but you can be sure we will as soon as that’s set.

So, why are we spending time with this bit of news? Go past the jump and listen to “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope” and you’ll understand (or be reminded, if you’ve heard it before). It’s not like anything else I’ve heard this year — and it makes me so damned curious to hear the rest of the new songs when the album drops next year. Also after the jump, a scorching new track from Devolved . . . 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 »

DEATH IS NEVER FINISHED: REMEMBERING CHUCK SCHULDINER

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  21 Responses »
Dec 132011
 

On December 13, 2001 — ten years ago today — Chuck Schuldiner died of a brain tumor after a two-year battle to survive. To honor his memory, NPR writer Lars Gotrich persuaded eleven metal musicians to pick their favorite Death song, and write what it and Schuldiner have meant to them. The list of contributors includes three former members of Death — Paul Masvidal (Cynic), Gene Hoglan (Fear Factory), and Richard Christy (Charred Walls of the Damned), all of whom, interestingly, chose songs from the 1991 album, Human.

The list of contributors also includes Arthur von Nagel (Cormorant), Elizabeth Schall (Dreaming Dead), John Dyer Baizley (Baroness), Stephan Gebedi (Hail of Bullets), Matt Harvey (Exhumed), Kevin Conway (East of the Wall), Anthony Buda (Revocation), and Steffen Kummerer (Obscura).

It’s an interesting read (and includes streams of the chosen songs), and I thought Gotrich’s introduction eloquently captured the wonder many of us have experienced as we listened to Death’s music from different albums over time — as an artist, Chuck Schuldiner was not only a great talent, he was also constantly moving in new directions. Here’s an excerpt from Gotrich’s introduction (which continues after the jump). To read the whole thing, go here.

“There’s something to be said for the visionary who dismantles the very movement he’s created or pioneered. . . . For a humble guitarist from Florida named Chuck Schuldiner, his metal band Death (not to be confused with the proto-punk band of the same name) was a mere instrument. Along with the Bay Area’s Possessed, Death not only helped spawn an entire extreme genre around gore and technical guitar wizardry, but like horror movies sometimes do, Death also challenged our notions of life. 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 »

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