Alright, 2018 may have sucked for a lot of people in a lot of ways but as usual there was plenty of awesome music to go around. Even by my leaden standards this list is heavy on the metal but I assure you I liked and listened to all sorts of stuff. It just so happened that these were the ones that hit the hardest and got played the most. Draw your own conclusions, I guess.
10. Tomb Mold - Manor Of Infinite Forms
I have this thing with death metal where I like it to sound like the band and their gear have literally been buried alive and like have maggots and worms crawling through their amps. Everything needs to be caked in dirt and decaying matter to imbue the music with a proper grave-like essence. This album absolutely NAILS that sound. Lightning fast double kicks and triumphant guitar heroism are great fun (and the new Hate Eternal record has those in spades) but what really gets me going are those death metal albums the sound evil as hell and not overly elaborate. I like a band that actually sounds like it's dragging me down into hell, just totally crushing and doomy. Great death metal bands like that evoke an atmosphere. I'm talking classics like Obituary, Entombed, Asphyx, Grave and Autopsy. Tomb Mold feel like they belong to that earlier era from right around 1991 or so, before things turned into an arms race for faster and more brutal and the genre rules got too codified. Much like Vastum, another great death metal band of recent vintage that eschews excessive speed or technicality, Tomb Mold are refreshingly raw and dirty. Most of their songs are built upon simple, meaty and evil as hell sludge riffs. And what RIFFS! This thing is a total groove monster. And never at any point do they lose their musical sensibility. The songs are well-constructed and memorable and the production is downright monstrous. Plus, there isn't an ounce of filler on this album. These guys are the real deal.
9. Voivod - The Wake
Even though these guys are absolute legends, I can't say I expected The Wake to be Voivod's best album since the early '90s. I enjoyed their last record, 2013's Target Earth (their first without any contributions from original guitarist Dennis "Piggy" D'Amour, who died of cancer in 2005), but it seemed like the tragic loss of a visionary like D'Amour had robbed the band of some of their signiture ambition and audacity. What a difference 5 years has made. The ambition and high concept sci-fi grandeur which defined hyper-prog neruo-thrash masterpieces like Killing Technology, Dimension Hatröss and Nothingface is back in full force, and has resulted in an album that is every bit as dense and complex as those classics. Now the band has well and truly gelled with D'Amour's replacement, guitarist Daniel "Chewy" Mongrain. The Wake is also bassist Dominique "Rocky" Laroche's recording debut with the band, and the two members aquit themselves here admirably alongside original members Michael "Away" Langevin (drums) and Denis "Snake" Belanger (vocals). The Wake is a post-apocalyptic tour-de-force of powerful yet angular riffage, complex and jarring ryhthmic breaks, razor-sharp musicianship and the abstract cyberpunk lyricism that has always set Voivod apart from their contemporaries. The affect is similar to solving quadratic equations on your skull with a jackhammer, but despite its seemingly unforgiving nature the album is actually very melodic at times and easy to enjoy even if you don't take it too seriously (Give Portal's new ION a listen if you wanna hear how truly demented math-metal can get). The level of detail in these songs are especially rewarding for the careful listener though, and repeated listens reveals layer after layer of nuance and clarity. It's a surprising and ultimately very satisying new chapter to the career of a band that has never lost the ability to challenge preconceptions and excite open-minded metalheads.
8. Judas Priest - Firepower
I want to be straight-up about this, I did think the hype surrounding Firepower was somewhat overblown, in part because I reject the narrative that Priest's albums since Rob Halford rejoined on vocals have been anything less than superb (Nostradamus has plenty of filler but give the title track a listen and tell me that one isn't one of Priest's finest moments). I still say their best post-reunion album is 2005's fairly incredible Angel of Retribution, and because the other records since then have all been very enjoyable, I don't think of Firepower so much as a "return to form." That said, taken on its own merits, this is one hell of a ride. As someone wiser than I has said, Firepower is the album that they should have made instead of Turbo. That means it's HEAVY METAL, no subgenres required. This is classic Priest in full mid-'80s motorcycles and leather mode, riding on the wind with all guns blazing. Pretty much every song on here is an anthem, from the barnstorming opening quartet of "Firepower", "Lightning Strike" "Evil Never Dies" and "Never The Heroes" to the majestic closer "Sea Of Red". A couple of tracks on the back half probably could have probably been dropped to shorten the run time a bit and of course the retired K.K. Downing's solos are very much missed, but I can't think of many other performers who have released an album this spectacular almost 50 years into their career.
7. Skeletonwitch - Devouring Radiant Light
Devouring Radiant Light is Skeletonwitch's first new album in 5 years and signals creative rebirth for the band following an extended hiatus caused by the acrimonious departure of their previous singer. Whether it's new vocalist Adam Clemans' more dynamic presence on the mic which has given the band the confidence to reimagine their sound, or simply just time away from the grind of the road which has allowed the members to refocus, Devouring Radiant Light is arguably their strongest album yet. Whereas previous records contained a ferocious blend of classic heavy metal songcraft sped up with thrashing aggression and darkened with just a touch of black metal frost and grimness, Skeletonwitch has now inverted that ratio, leaving the band's sound a frozen, savage wasteland of blackened thrash which still contains an uplifting dose of melodic lead guitar worship. Moreover, the band allow themselves to stretch out to a degree that they never have before, extending their previously compact 3-minute ragers into massive howling blizzards that in some cases run more than twice as long. The changes indicate Skeletonwitch is far more dynamic, ambitious and artistically serious than anyone may have previously thought, and the drastic change in their creative arc bodes well for a band that was in danger of confining itself in a creative straight jacket following 2013's focused but overly-slick Serpent's Unleashed.
6. Vüil - Hell
Whatever happened to '80s speed metal? Clocking in at just 17 minutes and change, Scottish 3-piece Vüil do their level best to bring back the over-the-top excitement of amped-up NWOBHM obsessives on this storming debut EP. Prime, anthemic songwriting and tight playing come together in one gloriously exhilarating thrill ride guaranteed to make heads bang and horns go up. Would-be anthems like "Empress Of The Void", "Hellracer" and "Storm Of The Witches" tell you all you need to know about where these sword and sorcery geeks are at. If that sounds like your thing, you need to get with these guys now. Here's hoping a debut full-length is in the works for 2019.
5. Rebel Wizard - Voluptuous Worship Of Rapture And Response
Much like Skeletonwitch, Rebel Wizard found their way on to this list with an exciting blend of feral black metal and old school heroic axe-worship. Unlike their Ohio peers, who have traded in their bullet belts for corpse paint, Rebel Wizard mainman Bob Nekrosov favors a much more lo-fi aesthetic, having come to the sound via the opposite route: starting out as a dungeon-crawling one man black metal project that was widescreen in scope. Nekrosov describes this sound as "negative metal" but that tag belies how tremendously fun the record is. With its triumphant stadium-sized melodies sounding like they were recorded in a basement, the album manages the neat trick of feeling both epic and intensely personal at the same time. With Rebel Wizard's unique blend of influences, they've staked their claim as the leaders of a new type of metal which seems sure to attract fans and imitators. Get on this and its equally great companion EP Great Addictions To Blindingly Dark Worldly Life now to hear the real thing.
4. Clutch - The Book Of Bad Decisions
The thing about Clutch is that even though all their albums have at least two or three songs which are arguably among their greatest, they've generally also contained a certain amount of filler. For that reason, it's hard to settle on one definitive Clutch album. That being said, the opening sequence of tracks on The Book Of Bad Decisions is one of the most blistering sets of music the band has ever laid to tape. "Gimme The Keys" is a stampeding bit of hard rock myth-making, which then downshifts into the awesome heavy riff crusher "Spirit Of '76", followed by the fantastic title rack. "How To Shake Hands" could be seen as uncharacteristically topical given the current American political climate, but the humor and absurdity with which Neil Fallon's lyrics address the song's premise keeps things from being too heavy-handed. The badass horn-spiked funk riffs of sci-fi fuzz bomb "In Walks Barbarella" are irresistible, in fact it's probably on a short list of the band's best songs ever. After such an incredible start, the momentum of the record lags somewhat in the middle, but the back half of the record still features several highlights like "Emily Dickinson" and "Hot Bottom Feeder", the former a love letter to the reclusive 19th century American poet, and the latter a recipe for Maryland crab cakes. This mix of highbrow and lowbrow culture has always been a hallmark of Fallon's lyrics, and here his down-home American mythologizing, literary allusions, barroom humor and comic book obsessions only further expand a universe that is home to one of the most unqiue minds in rock. Meanwhile the band continues to hammer out the kind of powerful and vital heavy rock and roll that supposedly isn't being made anymore (Ha!), not to mention winning new converts every time they step onstage. Now almost three decades into a career that shows no sign of losing momentum, it seems like Clutch just keeps getting better and better.
3. High on Fire - Electric Messiah
There is a comfortable reliability to High on Fire's output. Very much like their spiritual forefathers in Motörhead, High on Fire continue to produce an earth-shaking caveman roar year after year, steadily releasing albums that are never less than awesome, and then hitting the road to pillage concert stages the world over. As usual, little changes with HoF's burly and agile Celtic Frost-inspired war metal, all topped by Matt Pike's increasingly apt Lemmy-esque bellows. Electric Messiah was indeed named for the late rock and roll god, and once again the songs deliver the goods. More of the same sure, but when a band is this good at what they do, they can be forgiven for staying the course. Of course, this was a busy year for Matt, as the number one entry on my list this year attests to.
2. Earthless - Black Heaven
Hey, do you like guitar solos? Earthless' Isiah Mitchell does, and he's gonna shred his way into the setting sun whether you like it or not. A lot of people were put off by news that Black Heaven was going to feature Mitchell doing vocals full time in addition to his guitar work, but they needn't have worried. First of all, singing isn't totally unheard of for Mitchell (the boys did a seriously awesome cover of the Groundhogs 'Cherry Red' as a bonus track for the CD version of their 2007 album "Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky"), and second of all the singing takes up very little of Black Heaven's runtime anyways. Mitchell may not be Klaus Meine, but at the very least, his reedy Zakk Wylde-like tenor doesn't detract from the band's sound at all, and they know that people really just wanna hear those off-the rails heavy psych jams anyways. More importantly, the adoption of vocals forced the band to reign in some of their less-disciplined tendencies. The result is an album that contains more concise jams that hit harder and burn brighter than just about anything they've previously managed on record. And that isn't to say they don't still set a course for the outer realms of the solar system when it's time to blast off, they just have better idea of how to get there now. So while the ultimate Earthless experience is still seeing them melt faces live onstage, I'm comfortable saying they've reached a new high-water mark on record with Black Heaven.
1.Sleep - The Sciences
The new Sleep album was so far and away my favourite album this year that I almost didn't bother writing out the rest of the list. Right down to the backstory, it's almost too perfect. A legendary band that was sorely underappreciated in its own time reunites for some triumphant (and lucrative) live appearances, but then spends the next several years only hinting at working on a new studio album. Then without any pre-release hype at all, the band drops a brand new full-length LP on 4-fucking-20. These guys are as synonymous with THC as Cypress Hill and they go and pull a stunt like that? It's beautiful.
The thing is, no one would care if the album wasn't so damn good. Bands just don't go 2 decades without releasing any new music and then drop something that so perfectly captures that signature sound and yet also expands on it in new and exciting ways. But that's what Sleep did. The album works territory that really no one else has thought to explore over the last couple decades, save maybe Sleep bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros himself with his other band Om. It's part sativa-smoking teenager who has a Master of Reality 8-track stuck in his car stereo, and part genuine prophet wandering through the desert, preaching his own heretical hasish-infused gospel and gathering converts on his way to the holy land.
The beauty of The Sciences is that it takes all of what was amazing about classic records like Dopesmoker and Sleep's Holy Mountain and adds new and exciting dimensions to the sound. The Sciences is indeed indebted to their now ubiquitous heavy but meditative stoner-doom Sabbath riffage, but the influence of the three members' respective time spent in bands like High on Fire, Om and Neurosis have allowed different colours to seep into the band's previously monochrome pallet. In particular, Matt Pike's guitar takes on a far more abrasive and atonal character in his solos. Also apparent is that with an extra couple decade's experience, Sleep can now wed their hypnotic horizon-gazing approach to some shorter, punchier songs, while still allowing plenty of room for instrumental interplay. The result is an album with a beefy runtime that never seems to lose momentum, even when half the songs top the 10-minute mark. Moreover, the production here is absolutely massive and brings the songs to life in a way that Sleep's earlier song-based albums never benefited from. Al's vocals are more present than ever before, not to mention the fact that his lyrics are as evocative and genuinely fascinating as they've ever been. And those song titles! "Giza Butler"! "Marijuanaut's Theme"! "The Botanist"! I can't get over how on-brand everything about this record is, and yet it still vastly exceeded my already-tremendous expectations. Absolutely my favourite album of the year, and indeed a worthy addition to the catalog of a band whose place in the history of heavy music was already unassailable.
Honourable Mentions
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog, At the Gates - To Drink From The Night Itself, The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol - Droneverdose, Baptists - Beacon Of Faith, Black Viper - Hellions Of Fire, Blackwater Holylight - s/t, |Bob Dylan - More Blood, More Tracks, The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer, C Average - III, Candle - The Keeper's Curse, Castle - Deal Thy Fate, Cirith Ungol - Witch's Game, The Cloud Nothings - Last Building Burning, Conan - Existential Void Guardian, Corrosion Of Conformity - No Cross, No Crown, The Crown - Cobra Speed Venom, Dead Meadow - The Nothing They Need, Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, Dispirit - Enantiodromian Birth, Dödsrit - Spirit Crusher, Dopethrone - Transcanadian Anger, Earthless - From The West, Erosion - Maximum Suffering, First Aid Kit - Ruins, Forming the Void - Rift, Frozen Crown - The Fallen King, Fu Manchu - Clone Of The Universe, FUZZLORD - s/t, Gatekeeper - East Of The Sun, Gozu - Equilibrium, Hasteroid - s/t, Hate Eternal - Upon Desolate Sands, Haunt - Burst Into Flame, Hessian - Mercenary Retrograde, High Priestess - s/t, High Reeper - s/t, Horrendous - Idol, Immortal - Northern Chaos Gods, Jon Hopkins - Singularity, Kurt Vile - Bottle It In, La Chinga - Beyond The Sky, Mammoth Grinder - Cosmic Crypt, Manacle - No Fear To Persevere, Marijannah - 'Till Maijannah, The Men - Drift, Merlin - The Wizard, Mien - s/t, Monster Magnet - Mindfucker, Mos Generator - Shadowlands, Mournful Congregation - The Incubus Of Karma, Neckbeard Deathcamp - White Nationalism Is For Basement Dwelling Losers, Neil Young - Live At The ROXY, Pig Destroyer - Head Cage, Portal - ION, Pounder - Faster Than Fire, Power Trip - Opening Fire: 2008-2014, The Skull - The Endless Road Turns Dark, Sleep - Leagues Beneath, Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology, Spaceslug - Eye The Tide, Spectral Wound - Infernal Decadenc, Striker - Play To Win, SUMAC - Love In Shadow, Sundrifter - Visitations, Thee Oh Sees - Smote Reverser, Thom Yorke - Suspiria, Thou - Magus, Thron - Abysmal, Throneless - Cycles, Tribulation - Down Below, Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin, Ty Segall & White Fence - Joy, Unknown Mortal Orchestra - IC-01 Hanoi, Visigoth - Conqueror's Oath, Wasted Theory - Warlords Of The New Electric, Watchers - Black Abyss, Weedpecker - III, Witch Mountain - Witch Mountain, Yawning Man - The Revolt Against Tired Noises, YOB - Our Raw Heart
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
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