The Top 50 Albums of 2011 - 50-41

41. Danava – Hemisphere of Shadows
Danava nailed down its take on all manner of spacey, progressive 70’s rock on its self-titled debut a few years back, so it should come as no surprise that album number three is more a re-iteration of ground they’ve already covered than any bold leap forward. That being said, their hyperactive, kitchen sink approach to all kinds of organ addled, laser show rockin’ pre-punk classic rock and roll is kicked up a notch here with some classic heavy metal dual guitarmonies, perhaps at the expense of some of the spacey ambience they featured so prominently initially. The songs here are shorter this time out, but the band still knows how to play their asses off as they tear through their tightened arrangements. It’s like Lark’s Tongues in Space Ritual of the Beast in here. As usual, their strength lies in off the rails jamming, and each song is well crafted enough that the momentum builds and is sustained throughout each track. Once again Danava has turned in a worthwhile listen for devotees of modern art rock.

42. TV On the Radio – Nine Types Of Light
When listened to in a vacuum, Nine Types of Light sounds like the happiest record these New Yorkers have made. In truth, a pall hung over these sessions. Sadly, bassist/keyboardist Gerard Smith passed away from lung cancer just nine days after the album was released. It’s as if the band’s way of coping with the struggle was to dance their problems away. The bleak paranoia of the Bush-era TV On the Radio has given way to a funkier, more dance-inflected sound. The record is not nearly as dense or difficult as earlier opuses, and doesn’t have the spiky attitude that marked them either. Instead, Nine Types of Light is simple and streamlined, the songs crafted to achieve maximum immediacy. Gorgeous songs like “You” and “Will Do” express heartfelt sentiments instead of cloaking them in irony. It’s not as good as their best work, but still a very enjoyable album from a band who’s future would appear to be in doubt.

43. Jesu – Ascension
Justin Broadrick returns once again for a record of slow-motion fuzz guitar meltdowns. His uniquely metallic take on traditional shoegaze dynamics is both suffocatingly heavy and delicate as gauze. Everything here appears to the listener through a codeine fog. Like previous Jesu releases, Ascension has a meditative quality and works equally well as quiet mood music or as a thunderously loud headtrip. If anything, it is even more song-oriented than previous Jesu works, but songs like “Fools” and “Broken Home” are extended riff monsters that march inexorably into oblivion, dissolving into textural bliss. This is music for watching the snow fall gently in the early winter morning, or watching the polar ice caps melt on a doomed planet.

44. Opeth - Heritage
So Opeth finally went ahead and made a straight up ‘70s prog rock album. That’s cool, I suppose if anyone was going to do that it’d be these guys. The name is a pretty obvious allusion to this record’s homage to the types of bands that have been inspiring Opeth since their very inception. Understand this though; nothing on Heritage sounds like metal in any way. The band certainly rocks, and the instrumental chops and compositional ambition this band is known for is here in spades. But don’t go in expecting anything resembling their decade-old progressive black metal classic Blackwater Park, because you won’t find it. This album is all noodly keys and angular guitar solos crisscrossing over bizarre time signatures and clean but abstract vocals. If that hasn’t scared you away, well than have a bombastic neoclassical blast!

45. Primordial – Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand
This album rages like a storm at sea. Primordial have been among the leading lights in the Viking metal scene for a few years now, and Redemption is a new high water mark for them. Music here evolves slowly, with each song containing several riffs. The playing here is sharp, but not particularly technical. The approach here is a little bit rougher than what your average Maiden and Priest-worshipping power metal band would go for, but this is no Scandinavian black metal retread. Each song is an absolute epic, featuring ridiculously heroic manly bellows about war and redemption and triumph. If that doesn’t sound like the soundtrack to your next fantasy role playing game, I’m gonna roll for initiative.

46. Arch Enemy – Legions Of Khaos
These guys have always struck me as faithful disciples of classic metal. Even though the vocals have stayed in the gutter through multiple personnel changes, the dueling leads and classic NWOBHM harmonies of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest have always been their bread and butter. Here the band remains faithful to that template, harnessing a speedy and song-based attack that steers clear of the dirtier tendencies of thrash and death metal. The band takes a highly composed approach to songwriting, and the guitar leads here are tuneful and powerful. Great metal anthems like “Bloodstained Cross” are interspersed with some gorgeous neo-classical acoustic interludes to enhance the dynamic and textural variety of the record, a move that should win points with fans of classic heavy metal fare like Mercyful Fate and Helloween. The record does tend to sag a little with some undistinguished tracks in the middle, but it finishes strong with the awesome “Vengence is Mine,” capped by a brutalized version of the classic Scorpions track “The Zoo.”

47. Six Organs Of Admittance – Asleep On The Floodplain
Another solid record from Ben Chasny’s long-running acid folk project. The 12 and a half minute drone meditation and acid-fried guitar solo of “S/word and Leviathan” is easily the best track here, while the rest is more of the same vaguely eastern-sounding acoustic figures and delicate singing that Chasny has been the master of for over a decade now. “Light of the Light” in particular is one of the most gorgeous songs Chasny has ever written. I’m getting the feeling he can knock these records out in an afternoon if he really wants to. C’mon Ben! Give Ethan a call and get Comets on Fire back together!

48. Exhumed – All Guts, No Glory
These goregrind veterans sound as furious as a band half their age, and twice as technically accomplished. You know the score here. Relentless blast beats, misshapen two and a half second solos, crushing mile-a-minute riffs. There are two vocalists, one doing a deep and guttural growl and the other doing a harsh rasp, both of them spewing unintelligible lyrics that probably resemble the script of a “Saw” movie. But there are also isolated instances of tunefulness, the mark of a band that knows how to balance brutality with songcraft. Warp-speed blasts like “Your Funeral, My Feast” and the title track are genuinely catchy. There are no dungeon production values here either. Everything sounds heavy, powerful and huge, while still retaining a gut-punching immediacy. This record will rip your face off.

49. Absu – Abzu
Abzu is the polar opposite of Absu’s sprawling 2009 self-titled masterpiece. Here the band’s blackened thrash is ripped out at a furious pace with little time for atmospheric interludes or meandering passages. With the exception of the 14 minute epic “A Song For Ea,” these tracks are short, vicious, and unrelenting. Personally I prefer the more ambitious Absu to this record, but the single-minded ferocity with which the band attacks the material is something to behold.

50. Crowbar – Sever The Wicked Hand
These veterans have continually carried the torch for raw southern sludgecore for over two decades now. Sever The Wicked Hand carries on this tradition with a vengeance. Songs like “Isolation” and “Liquid Sky And Cold Black Earth” are dripping with hate and disgust. Everything here goes towards establishing mood, and as the structure of the western world begins to crumble, it’s not too hard to imagine Crowbar’s sluggish riffs and screeching feedback briars serving as its epitaph. If you grew in New Orleans during the early 2000s, you’d be this pissed off too.

The Top 50 Albums of 2011 - Honourable Mention

Making a sequential list like this is a 50-way balancing act, and how I feel on any given day can determine whether something ends up at #17 or #43 or even makes the list at all. I do like the sequential list though, because it does weight my favourites more heavily. Giving someone fifty or a hundred bands they've never heard of won't result in them becoming a fan of every single thing on there, or even bothering to check them out. When you read my top ten you will know that I did spend a good deal of time deciding what goes ahead of what. Call me a nerd, but this stuff is important to me. I also want to make sure the most worthwhile music I heard this year gets a mention. So to make sure I don't overlook anything that I did enjoy but didn't feel like writing about for whatever reason, here now are the honourable mentions.

Altar Of Plagues - Mammal
Anthrax - Worship Music
Autopsy - Macabre Eternal
Avichi - The Devil's Fractal
The Beastie Boys - The Hot Sauce Committee (Part 2)
Big Business - Quadruple Single
The Black Lips - Arabia Mountain
The Black Keys - El Camino
Black Pyramid - Black Pyramid II
Black Tusk - Set The Dial
Blut Aus Nord - 777: Sect(s) [scene]
Boris - New Album
Boris - Heavy Rocks (The purple one)
Brutal Truth - End Time
Cavalera Conspiracy - Blunt Force Trauma
Cave In - White Silence
Cormorant - Dwellings
Corrupted - Garten Der Unbewusstheit
Crystal Antlers - Two Way Mirror
Crystal Stilts - In Love With Oblivion
Decapitated - Carnival Is Forever
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter
Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction
Dirge - Elysian Magnetic Fields
DJ Shadow - The Less You Know, The Better
DoomEastVan - Songs In The Key Of Death
Elder - Dead Roots Stirring
Esoteric - Paragon Of Dissonance
Eternal Tapestry - Beyond The Fourth Door
Eternal Tapestry & Sun Araw - Night Gallery
Explosions In The Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
Hexvessel - Dawnbearer
Hierarchies - Magnitorsk
Indian - Guiltless
Kalki & DoomEastVan - Mandolin Brutality
Krisiun - The Great Execution
Mastodon - The Hunter
Megadeth - TH1RT3EN
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Motörhead - The World Is Yours
Omnium Gatherum - New World Shadows
Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
Orchid - Capricorn
Prefuse 73 - The Only She Chapters
Primus - Green Naugahyde
Psychic Ills - Hazed Dream
Puscifer - Conditions Of My Parole
Ramssess - Possessed By The Rise of Magik
Red Fang - Murder The Mountains
Sepultura - Kairos
Solstafir - Svatir Sandar
SubRosa - No Help For The Mighty One
Thee Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler/The Dream
Toxic Holocaust - Conjure & Command
tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L
Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Bloodlust
Weedeater - Jason... The Dragon
White Hills - Hp-1
Witch Mountain - South Of Salem
Woods - Sun & Shade

The Year In Music 2011

As I do every year, I've compiled a list of my favourite records to come out this year. This will be posted incrementally in the coming week. But first, some prologue to that list, an elegy for the year that was. Of course, this is really a general overview of some of the trends I noticed and is in no way an attempt to give a complete look at all the important developments in music this year.

2011 was a big year for metal. I suppose this goes without saying, because with its populist intentions and perpetual generation of new fans and bands, metal as a whole has never really declined. The attention paid to it by the music media has fluctuated wildly in the last three decades, but the music itself never left. In any case, the neo thrash revival, along with continuing developments in USBM away from its source musics, the co-mingling of post metal sonic signifiers with purer strains of extreme metal, the continued plodding of doom and sludge denziens, some good old hardcore abandon, and all those classic twin guitarmonies and phantasmagorical lyrical themes are all prominent features of today's metal scene. With the resurgence of a hard rock ethos in the metal underground, the music that is being made is by and large less rigid than it was a decade ago. Today's metallic musicians have displayed a willingness to embrace other forms of metal (and non-metal) when making their music, allowing for a more fluid approach to songwriting. In other words there's a whole lot of good stuff being made, and fewer restrictions than ever before.

Rock music is also doing well, artistically at least, but you won't hear much about the good young rock bands making a go of things these days. Unless you're the Black Keys or a surviving relic of the early 90s (Foo Fighters, Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers) it seems like nobody wants to fess up that good rock music is still being made. The media and marketplace is in a pop cycle now, so expect they'll find their way back in another year or two. What is really important for rock aesthetically is that the worlds of rock and metal have finally re-converged after a long period of separation, but that's a story for another essay. In any event, if you're looking for some rock that really does rock, you're not going to find it when a description of the band's music has the frankly meaningless prefix "indie" in front of it. In the last 5 years or so, "indie rock" has become a new sort of half-measure for upwardly mobile bands who like to cop the cool of a real rock and roller without dirtying their hands with any of that filthy "rocking out." How passe. A new shadow major label economy has grown up and filled a void in the marketplace left when the majors stopped signing new bands about 15 years ago. Larger indie labels have been quicker to adapt than the majors to how the internet has changed the industry and capitalized in a big way with cross-platform marketing opportunities. This is not to say that the music being produced is bad. Some of it is quite excellent, but the problem is that indie pop is being misrepresented as rock, and this does no one any favors. Critics might grudgingly praise a rock album that embraces and build upon traditional rock elements, but any positive comments will be qualified with sideswipes about relevance and originality. Never mind those bands that are making relevant and original rock music that sometimes do get a boost from the music literatti (Atlas Moth, Baptists, Baroness, Big Business, Black Tusk, Fucked Up, Griever, Kylesa, Lumerians, Russian Circles, Rwake, SubRosa, Thee Oh Sees, Twin Crystals, Torche, Zoroaster... the list goes on), in most cases any coverage they get usually focuses on the non-rock elements of their sound. This middle ground between metal and the non-heavy indie scene is where the real rock is.

2011 was also a major coming out party for the long-lived drone scene. Experimental musicians and avant garde composers have been working this continuum for decades, even predating the rock 'n' drone experiments of the Velvet Underground. Now it seems the appetite for this stuff is exponentially greater than was ever suspected, and regular music fans are finding out that they really like this stuff when they are exposed to it. I would guess that the appeal of 20-minute electronic sound-scapes and minimalist psychedelic mantras is proportional to the overload of 've seen arise since the virtual collapse of the band format in the pop industry. No one actually PLAYS pop music anymore, and in fact no one now listening to pop music even has any memory of played pop music. The oppressively digitized and mass-produced pop music we have today is programmed, as it has been for about 30 years now. The technological freezing of pop music has been destructive to most people's ability to actually hear and understand music, and the vast majority of people don't give a shit. The one unintended consequence of these long term trends that has been beneficial to they pop audience's appreciation of good music in one way at least, and that is in the casual listener's understanding of texture. An ability to derive pleasure out of the tactile surfaces of sound is essential for the enjoyment of drone music, which generally speaking has none of the traditional elements of pop music, hooks, verses, choruses, or rhythms. Drone music also does not require any refined sense of musicality or special skills of its makers to be effective. All that is needed is a desire to explore the possibilities of pure sound. The possibilities here are limitless, because there really are no rules. People are making this stuff up as they go along, a very exciting prospect. As a result, drone musicians have been coming out of the woodwork, and some of them are extremely prolific. The internet has also been crucial for distributing and trading this music, causing the acceleration of the music's development. In 2011, some fabulous recordings were released, and this trend looks to continue into 2012 and beyond.

There were also a few outliers here and there. To get into them all would take too long, suffice it to say that I try to be pretty well rounded and expose myself to quality examples of most types of music. I like lots of different stuff, even if the heavy, freaky, abrasive, noisy weird stuff makes up the majority of my musical diet. The music world is ever widening and evolving and I can't possibly cover it all by myself. If you have any suggestions for things I missed or maybe overlooked, by all means let me know. Moreover, make your own lists. I love reading 'em.

Beastial

*Update* The current GWAR tour is not cancelled. All dates will remain as scheduled.

Guitarist Cory Smoot of GWAR was found dead on his band's tour bus yesterday morning. They were just about to launch a tour of Canada. Smoot, or Flattus Maximus, was 34. Here's a classic track from these guys in tribute. See if you can find a video of those guys wreaking havoc on the hipsters at SXSW last year.

Extended

And I thought I knew something about long songs. This is pretty sweet.

Sage

"If more people worshipped music, the world would be a better place"
-Scott Ian of Anthrax

Amen to that, brother.

Platform

I love the extended guitar workout. Songs that exist for one reason, and one reason only -- so a hotshot axe-picker can blast off and solo his way into the sun. And I'm 'aint talkin' 'bout "Eruption" here, or any whimsical folk breakdown like Steve Howe or Jimmy Page might do. I'm talking about those slow-burning scorchers where the rhythm section locks in and lays down a bone-simple rhythmic bed for the soloist to go off on, and the singer retires from the stage to go get a blowjob from a groupie. They can be any length, but the best ones are the ones where either you never notice the time going by, or they leave you wishing they went on longer. So, without further ado, here is a few of my favorites.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno - First, all you hear is the drones and chants of the ancients, as if a giant obelisk looms in the distance. Suddenly a screech of feedback announces the arrival of an amped-up speed-freak boogie riff, and Japanese acid guru Kawabata Motako proceeds to being tearing the riff to pieces for the next 20 minutes. As analog synths pan dementedly and a warped space god makes cosmic pronouncements in the background, Motako carries on a full throttle sonic assault, exploring every scorching harmonic that his ultra-distorted guitar can summon.


Comets On Fire - Blue Tomb
Comets On Fire, where have you gone? For the first half of the 00s, these guys absolutely cold-cocked all comers in the psychedelic ultra-rock weight division. Since 2006 however, not a trace of these guys exists on the internet. Twin guitar godzillas Ethan Miller and Ben Chasny have obviously been busy with their many respective projects, but come on guys. It's been five years. You'd think you could at least hit the studio for a weekend and kick out some apocalyptic space death jams with the tape rolling just to give us heads something. Well, if they well and truly are finished, at least we'll always have this hazy sludge mountain to remember them by. As the titanic finale to Blue Cathedral, one of the greatest rock albums ever made, this 10 minute behemoth has always stood as the band's crowning achievement. Chasny and Miller here go supernova as the rythm section lays down a hypnotic groove anchored by Ben Flashman's supremely fuzzy bass. Unlike other Comets freakouts which are all feedback, distortion and amp scream, this is a controlled explosion in molasses slow-motion build towards a triumphant finale. Spirals of guitar undulate and bisect each other at chaotic angles while never spiralling too far from the song's central bass hook. Noel Von Harmonson's echoplex splatter adds a further dimension of sonic dimentia over top. When the whole thing explodes into a heavenly finale, you'll finally glimpse enlightenment. Too band they haven't been around in a while to take us back there.


Built To Spill - Broken Chairs
Doug Marsch is the rarest of things, an indie rock guitar hero. I don't know when hipsters decided that being a really good guitarist was actually a bad thing, but clearly no one told this guy. For a man that has made his career penning unforgettable melodies and twee as fuck ruminations on halcyon innocence, Marsh can absolutely wail on his axe. There is no better showcase for his fuzzy, Crazy Horse-inspired leads than the closing number from their 1999 Keep It Like A Secret album. Check out the 19 minute version on the aptly titled Live album if you really wanna hear him tear a hole in the universe.

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
George Clinton told Eddie Hazel to "play like yo mamma just died," and for the next 9 minutes, Hazel lays down an apocalyptic sonic trip through the gates of hell. Although he does pick up into some flashy, shredding licks at times, most of the solo accentuates Hazel's heavily delayed and distorted wah-inflected tone with masterfully sustained notes and emotionally devastating bends. If Hazel had done nothing else besides this song, he'd still deserve to rank among the greatest guitarists of all time. As it happens, he's all over the first three Funkadelic records, each of them a true psychedelic classic.

Jimi Hendrix - Red House
Really, any number of Hendrix tracks could have belonged on this list, but I've always had a soft spot for this cool Mississippi blues workout. Hendrix would often channel his earthy soul and years of chitlin circuit experience on this song, which he often extended up to 15 minutes or more in concert. Although not a pre-requisite for a great guitar showcase, his excellent vocal performance is of note. He's in full lover-man persona here, his vocals dripping with character and sexual desire. This is interesting, because Hendrix himself thought he was a bad singer, an assertion that I never agreed with.


Neil Young - Like A Hurricane
Not that Niel Young has a shortage of extended guitar jam platforms, but I've always been particularly in love with this song. Though he was known to stretch it out to impossible lengths in concert, this mainstay of his set never bores me. Well, maybe if you include his 33 minute sound collage Arc, but I don't. This song's unforgettable melody is couched in some of Young's most expressive soloing and bookended by his emotionally devastating singing. An absolute masterpiece.

Randy Holden - Fruit & Icebergs
Randy Holden recorded a version of this song with Blue Cheer on their New! Improved! album, but he was only a member of those rapidly fading sludge barons at the tail end of their initial period of greatness. Holden himslef stuck around long enough to record just one side of the record, then went off to record his incredible Population II solo debut, from which this song was taken. The album itself is a love letter to the electric guitar, an example of just how far you can go with one drummer, one supremely gifted axe-slinger, and a wall of amplifiers. This version of "Fruit & Icebergs" is done in gloriously sludgy half-time with twice the fuzz of the original. Holden's jaw-dropping excursions take 60's inspired hard rock and electric blues cliches straight into the ionosphere. You can almost hear the sweat beads running down Holden's forehead and the grimace on his face as he bends into and out of notes all over his punished fretboard. No doubt about it, the man sounds like he's digging a grave. Too bad the album didn't get released for 20 years and the record company sold his gear out from under him, kicking off Holden's 25 year exile from the music world.

Robin Trower - Bridge Of Sighs
I can't get over how rich and thick Trower's tone is on the title track from his 1974 solo album. Trower was never the fastest or most technical player, but when it came to nailing those slow, endless and liquid-smooth space-blues licks, no one has done it better save of Hendrix himself.

Sonic Youth - Hits Of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg)
This is actually a group guitar jam, but the song's lazy lope is the perfect place for Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo to slather their molten, fuzz-caked guitars all over a gently babbling river of hallucinogenic sound. Take the trip.