LISTMANIA 2020: BRUTALITOPIA’S TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2020

 LISTMANIA 2020  1 Response »
Dec 312020
 

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our annual LISTMANIA series includes re-posts of lists from “big platform” music sites and selected print zines, but we usually don’t re-post lists from other metal blogs because that truly would make this long series virtually endless. But we’ve again made an exception for Brutalitopia, because through a variety of MDF hijinks over the years, the NCS crew have become fast friends with the miscreants wonderful people behind Brutalitopia — Tom, Mick, and Durf. The following is a Top 10 synthesis they compiled from their individual lists originally published at their site — which you can find HERE.

During this year of years when we needed music most, 2020 delivered in droves. Tons of music that seemed limitless at times; limited only in that there was no live venue for us to enjoy it in. Many bands worked long and hard to ensure their albums during this time of quiet for live venues and we at Brutalitöpia have compiled a Töp 10 from the respective lists (much like we did in 2016 and 2017 and even I did way back in 2011 after the death of The Number of the Blog) of Mick, Durf and myself. Kind of gives you a little bit of what we have been doing this year even if we weren’t writing a ton. Here’s to a better 2021 for all.

–Tom Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2017: BRUTALITÖPIA’S TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2017

 LISTMANIA 2017  8 Responses »
Jan 102018
 

 

(Our annual LISTMANIA series includes re-posts of lists from “big platform” music sites and selected print zines, but we usually don’t re-post lists from other metal blogs because that truly would make this long series virtually endless. But we’ve again made an exception for Brutalitopia, because through a variety of MDF hijinks over the years, the NCS crew has become fast friends with the miscreants behind Brutalitopia — Tom, Mick, and Durf. The following is a Top 10 synthesis they compiled of their individual lists originally published at their site.)

 

Hello No Clean Singing! Brutalitöpia is back again to bombard you with more lists; assuming you can take any more since Andy Synn, DGR, and many others have scorched your eyeballs with enough of them recently. All that petty nonsense aside, we think we have some different opinions about different albums than you probably do, because you know that’s, well… different!

We again did our own lists here, here and here but if you want an aggregate of 3 dudes that benefit from the 2 best cities in the country (Chicago and NYC for those not from THIS country), then you are in luck because we’ll do the work because this is the USA in 2017 after all and research (read: clicking) is for the weak. Facts don’t matter, only opinions. Read on for some takes hotter than Tomi Lahren’s on snowflakes! Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: A YEAR-END LIST FROM BRUTALITOPIA

 LISTMANIA 2016  9 Responses »
Jan 032017
 

 

(Our annual LISTMANIA series includes re-posts of lists from “big platform” music sites and selected print zines, but we usually don’t re-post lists from other metal blogs because that truly would make this long series virtually endless. But we’ve again made an exception for Brutalitopia, because through a variety of MDF hijinks over the years, the NCS crew has become fast friends with the Brutalitopia miscreants. Besides, how could I resist the opportunity to post that GIF that Mick made?)

Hello No Clean Singing!  We’re Brutalitopia, a Chicago/North New Jersey (not the swamp part tho) based metal blog.  We put up our individual Best of 2016 lists here, here, and here, and then Islander was kind enough to let us combine our lists through the power of math and share it here with all of you (personally, I think he’s trying to get Listmania to last the whole year).  Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: BRUTALITOPIA’S TÖP 10

 LISTMANIA 2015  3 Responses »
Jan 142016
 

Brutalitopia header

 

(As part of our annual nearly complete 2015 LISTMANIA series, we present a year-end list assembled by some people we’re very fond of — Durf, Mick, Jack, and Tom from the Brutalitopia metal blog.)

Welcome to the Brutalitopia Töp 10, which has been so kindly hosted by our good friend Islander here at NCS. For those of you who don’t know us, we are a collective of 4 morons (3 in Chicago and 1 in New Jersey) who post reviews and do the occasional podcast every year or 2. We have recently started to use our general malaise to our advantage with our Brutally Short reviews where we piece together short reviews in a magazine-type format so as to say we produce something once in a while.

While painstakingly putting this list together I noticed that we happen to have collectively shed some light on some albums that some sites and magazines haven’t, so when going through the collective lists of Durf, Mick, Myself, and the yet-to-be-published (if ever) Jack, I have come up with a solid list of 10, whittled down from a collective of 39 albums total. You’ll find snippets from each of our lists to sum up our feelings on the albums if we thought it was worth a mention, or maybe several passing words from a list in progress (or pulled from Facebook messenger, but who can really tell). For now here are 5 albums that just missed the cut: Continue reading »

HYPNOS: “THE FALL”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
Dec 042013
 

(We are delighted to welcome Mick from the excellent Brutalitopia metal blog to our site with this guest review of the new album by Hypnos.)

I suppose I’m preaching to the choir, but No Clean Singing does an outstanding job of introducing all of us to new bands. In response to Islander’s call to arms for guest posts, I figured I’d return the favor to the NCS community and contribute a band I just discovered a couple months ago that really took me by surprise… so much so that *spoiler alert* it should be making an appearance on my year-end list over at Brutalitopia. If post-metal is your thing, you’re going to want to have Hypnos on your radar.

Hailing from Lyon, France, Hypnos is a five piece post-metal band that sent me a promo back in September for their debut album, The Fall. Despite being a generally lazy listener, I thankfully hopped on this album a few weeks after getting word about it. Only six tracks in length, The Fall utilizes atmospheric passages that bring acts like Isis and Mouth Of The Architect to mind, while throwing in harsh vocals that are somewhat akin to Behemoth. These harsh vocals dominate the album, which, much to the glee of many readers here I’m sure, leaves the album void of clean vocals and accentuates some of the droning harshness The Fall takes the listener through. Continue reading »