(For the fifth year in a row, I invited my friend Johan Huldtgren of the Swedish black metal band Obitus — whose latest release appears on one of 2014’s Elemental Nightmares splits (here) — to share with us his year-end list. Once again, he agreed. This list previously appeared on Johan’s blog.)

The year is once again coming to a close, and as tradition would dictate I find myself scrambling to get this list together. When looking out at all the other lists published so far, I realize how little new music I’ve managed to listen to over the past year. I find myself with the same excuses as in years past — the fucking day job, travel, and other obligations. I did however manage to scrounge up ten releases I thought worthy of inclusion in an end of year list. Continue reading »

(Continuing with this year’s edition of Listmania, I again invited Johan Huldtgren of the killer black metal band Obitus to share with us his year-end list, because I’ve consistently found his musical tastes to be solid and interesting. Once again, he agreed. An expanded version of this list appears on Johan’s blog.)

For many reasons 2013 was a musically poor year for me. I was very busy with work, I then changed jobs, I bought a new home, sold an old one, and then moved somewhere else. Hence I’ve not been out there searching for new music or even keeping up with my favourite blogs. As such, when it came time to make my yearly pontifications I realized I had barely heard ten albums, much less liked ten albums this year, so I relaxed the verbiage a bit and settled on “releases”, as this would let me include: EPs, demos, splits, and so on. In the end, most of the selections are albums, but some are not. So without further ado, here is the 2013 list of my favourite releases:

10: Vallendusk – Black Clouds Gathering

An album I accidentally stumbled over, and have not been able to let go. Slow melodic black metal, nothing unique but generally well done.

http://pestproductions.bandcamp.com/album/black-clouds-gathering Continue reading »