For 2018 I made it a point to explore music that I already wasn't well versed in. The upside would be a bigger, diverse pool, and rejuvenating my love for writing about music again. The soundscapes I explored were leaning towards sounds I would not imagine myself listen to when I was 15. I'll take that as a win for character change. Consider my mind slightly open now.
The downside is that this means I needed to explore older albums to have a better frame of reference. This meant I had to go through so much reading just to get to classics or what the interwebz call nowadays "patrician" records. This also meant I had a lot of catch up to do when it comes to contemporary versions of such music. This also includes being late on newer music too, especially from genres I already like. You'll notice that there's isn't enough death metal on this list despite it being one of my favorite genres when I was 15.
But anyway, here are the albums I enjoyed the most (that was released in 2018).
25. Chthonic - Battlefields of Asura
Name: Chthonic
Album Title: Battlefields of Asura
Genre(s): Symphonic Black Metal, Chinese Folk, Taiwanese Folk
First of all, I'll admit this is cheating. There are several albums that could've been in the 25th spot but I decided to go with Chthonic because of nostalgia and how much this Taiwanese band meant to me as a teenager. This is a logical continuation of their previous folk tinged symphonic black metal. I would've preferred a better mix for their bass, but I guess the rawer sound works for them too. It took me a few listens before I stopped asking about the low end.
Symphonic black metal seems to be a relic of the 2000s and this is sort of a throwback, but with East Asian folk elements instead.
24. Black Matter Device - Modern Frenetics
Name: Black Matter Device
Album Title: Modern Frenetics
Genre(s): Mathcore, Metallic Hardcore, Metalcore
This relatively unknown band jumped straight to my list after Trevor Barker of Void Dweller fame kept pushing it in everyone's faces and everybody's facebook group. I guess he makes a good promoter. This scratches the itch I had for the Dillinger Escape Plan since the band is dead now. It's less jazzy than DEP and you can hear the band's metalcore roots in their mathcore.
Fun fact: I didn't know they used a drum machine until frontman Michael Toney told me that in a conversation about writing drum parts with a drum machine.
23. Death Grips - Year of The Snitch
Name: Death Grips
Album Title: Year of The Snitch
Genre(s): Rap, Industrial, Experimental, Avant-Garde
This is probably the weirdest and most polarizing record they ever put out. If you can get past their kitschy, playful vibe, and their prog rock overtones, this is probably their catchiest album to that. From Black Paint, to Streaky to even the bordeline meme-y track Death Grips is Online, everything sounds like a bad accident with Fruity Loops on first listen, but upon further inspection, it's a well crafted album. It's meant to be weird, and I assume the band wants to perceived as another violent noisy rap group.
This is probably the weirdest and most polarizing record they ever put out. If you can get past their kitschy, playful vibe, and their prog rock overtones, this is probably their catchiest album to that. From Black Paint, to Streaky to even the bordeline meme-y track Death Grips is Online, everything sounds like a bad accident with Fruity Loops on first listen, but upon further inspection, it's a well crafted album. It's meant to be weird, and I assume the band wants to perceived as another violent noisy rap group.
22. Street Sects - The Kicking Mule
Name: Street Sects
Album Title: The Kicking Mule
Genre(s): Post-Punk, Industrial, Noise, Experimental
If their last album sounded like industrial's answer to mathcore and hardcore punk, this time around they went for the brooding route. This is Killing Joke meets Nine Inch Nails with modern noisy production. Their post-punk side is really showing in this one.
If their last album sounded like industrial's answer to mathcore and hardcore punk, this time around they went for the brooding route. This is Killing Joke meets Nine Inch Nails with modern noisy production. Their post-punk side is really showing in this one.
21. JPEGMAFIA - VETERAN
Name: Jpegmafia
Album Title: Veteran
Genre(s): Trap, Industrial, Hip-Hop, Rap, Experimental
Unfortunately for Death Grips, I believe in 20 years time when people think of experimental noisy rap music, more people will point to Jpegmafia aka Peggy. His work is inconsistent but this album sounds like a great gateway for listeners who started from Brockhampton or Injury Reserve and want to get into something harsher. Death Grips is way weirder and noisier but because of that, Peggy will be the first step. This album has some of the more creative trap beats I've heard in such a long time.
20. Khôrada - Salt
Name: Khôrada
Album Title: Salt
Genre(s): Post-Metal. Atmospheric Sludge, Doom Metal
I miss Agalloch but this will do for now. Expect clean vocals rather than the Agallochian snarl. Maybe this is cheating too because I enjoyed this album, not independently but because it feels like a good follow up to something I've enjoyed in the past. I loved Agalloch's folky vibe but this one feels closer to ISIS or Cult of Luna but with Agalloch ringing in the back.
19. Ihsahn - Ámr
Name: Ihsahn
Album Title: Ámr
Genre(s): Progressive Metal/Rock, Black Metal, Electronica
Ihsahn is a man of consistency. No matter what genre he tries to blend into his post-Emperor prog rock work, he still has a core sound. You know it's him. Arktis, the album prior to this felt like a Bond soundtrack written with a black metal soundtrack. This is sort of an extension of it but with greater emphasis on Ihashn's love for electronic music and synths. Ihsahn claimed that he was listening to R&B and trap music with deep 808s with Childish Gambino thrown in. On paper it sounds weird and odd, but when you hear it blended with his proggy, borderline black metal riffs it sort of makes sense.
18. møl - Jord
Name: møl
Album Title: Jord
Genre(s): Blackgaze, Post-Rock, Black Metal, Post Black Metal
There is nothing unique or special about this brand of blackgaze. But some bands eschew originality for quality. Just because its novel doesn't mean it's good. møl does exactly that. It's riffier than Sunbather, but it's still at it's core, a blackgaze album first and foremost.
17. Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Name: Deafheaven
Album Title: Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Genre(s): Blackgaze, Post-Rock, Post-Black Metal, Alternative Rock
Deafheaven is the poster child for blackgaze, but this album isn't really gazey when you think of it. There is no messy wall of sound. Instead, this feels warm. It feels like Dave Grohl was there in the studio. Take away the gazey parts you've heard from older Deafheaven records but replace it with the brightness of a Britpop record and Dinosaur Jr's sense of melody. Too bad people will just dismiss it as another blackgaze record before giving it a try.
This is blackened alternative rock. Very different ingredients from the regular blackgaze fusion. Even to call it blackgaze sounds like a misnomer.
Deafheaven is the poster child for blackgaze, but this album isn't really gazey when you think of it. There is no messy wall of sound. Instead, this feels warm. It feels like Dave Grohl was there in the studio. Take away the gazey parts you've heard from older Deafheaven records but replace it with the brightness of a Britpop record and Dinosaur Jr's sense of melody. Too bad people will just dismiss it as another blackgaze record before giving it a try.
This is blackened alternative rock. Very different ingredients from the regular blackgaze fusion. Even to call it blackgaze sounds like a misnomer.
16. Bloody Tyrant - Hagakure (葉隱)
Name: Bloody Tyrant
Album Title: 葉隱
Genre(s): Atmospheric Black Metal, Post Rock, Chinese Folk, Taiwanese Folk
Remember when I said I miss Agalloch. Well, this is Taiwanese Agalloch with East Asian folk instruments. It's calming, I still imagine autumn and winter when I close my eyes listening to this but I see Buddhist temples in the forest instead of the Cascadian winter.
15. At the Gates - To Drink from the Night Itself
Name: At The Gates
Album Title: To Drink from the Night Itself
Genre(s): Melodic Death Metal
The Gothenburg masters are back and they're delivering their usual. But just like their previous reunion album, At War With Reality, ATG no longer adores speed and thrashy beats anymore. There are still some elements but most are mid-paced, almost sludge like qualities. I suppose they want to distant themselves from the fast-paced metalcore clones they helped accidentally created in the 2000s.
14. Nothing - Dance On The Blacktop
Name: Nothing
Album Title: Dance On The Blacktop
Genre(s): Shoegaze
Can I really call this shoegaze? Some people call it shoegaze. Whatever it is, it's calm, yet full with heavy, noisy distortion, with indie rock melancholy. It has the ingredients to create a shoegaze record, but to some, this sounds like shoegaze if that person found shoegaze elements through bands like Deftones or the dreamy tracks of The Smashing Pumpkins. Whatever you want to call it, I feel like in a dream listening to these tunes.
13. Svalbard - It's Hard To Have Hope
Name: Svalbard
Album Title: It's Hard To Have Hope
Genre(s): Post-Hardcore, Black Metal
I miss Oathbreaker and this band sounds like a more compact Oathbreaker during their blackened post-hardcore days. This is short, concise, and has post-hardcore in mind first before black metal. But the ferocity of their black metal influence in the back their mind keeps this blackened.
12. Sectioned - Annihilated
Name: Sectioned
Album Title: Annihilated
Genre(s): Metallic Hardcore, Mathcore
Another confession, this band's twin djentier brother Frontierer could've made it to the 25th spot. But after listening to a couple more times, it felt to samey. This album is more straightforward and memorable. It's more grounded in the trappings of metallic hardcore and basically feels like an extension of mid-era Converge. Dirty, catchy, and easy replay value when you already into metallic hardcore.
11. Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want
Name: Daughters
Album Title: You Won't Get What You Want
Genre(s): Noise Rock, Industrial, Spoken Word Poetry
This noise rock album sounds clunky and spooky. It sounds like the equivalent of having a mentally ill homeless man shaking a barbwire fence rambling away. Now imagine that homeless man as Danzig. The riffs sound so clunky and angular that they start sounding like someone dragging chains on asphalt. Yet you can hear riffier almost doomier moments showing their metal backgrounds.
If you aren't wild on the music, the poetry here, and I use the word poetry loosely here sounds like the ramblings of a man who would be too ashamed to go home for Christmas because he's losing everything.
10. Skeletonwitch - Devouring Radiant Light
Name: Skeletonwitch
Album Title: Devouring Radiant Light
Genre(s): Blackened Thrash Metal, Post Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal
This is no longer your beer gargling blackened thrashers that made soundtracks to your dungeon raids and table flipping sessions. This is way more introspective and has an emphasis on atmosphere. The thrashy riffs are still there, but they want you to earn it by walking through the thick folk of melodic black metal.
9. Idles - Joy as an Act of Resistance
Name: Idles
Album Title: Joy as an Act of Resistance
Genre(s): Post-Punk. Hardcore Punk
Take 80s post punk and sprinkle the attitude of American hardcore punk onto it. Now tell them Brexit just happened and see them loose their minds. That is exactly how this album sounds like.
8. Birds in Row - We Already Lost The World
Name: Birds in Row
Album Title: We Already Lost The World
Genre(s): Post-Hardcore
Torches, their previous output had a blackened tinge but this one leaned closer to 2000s post-hardcore, but kept the ferocity of their blackened past. You still have blasting and snares galore but expect more post-punk build ups with clean vocals.
7. Moodie Black - Lucas Acid
Name: Moodie Black
Album Title: Lucas Acid
Genre(s): Noise Rap, Industrial, Shoegaze
In case anyone asks again, Moodie Black has been around longer than Death Grips. But unfortunately, due to Death Grips being baby's first industrial rap group, the easiest way to describe this is to reference them. This is basically an introspective No Love Deep Web. Stripped down instrumentals and synth-heavy. But now imagine the wall of sound from shoegaze and dreamy melodies. Put that into a trap-ish, 808s heavy context then you get this band. If NLDW is angry towards the outside world, this is about getting angry about who you are and defending that identity from the outside world.
6. Great Grief - Love, Lust, and Greed
Name: Great Grief
Album Title: Love, Lust, and Greed
Genre(s): Post-Hardcore, Metallic Hardcore, Blackened Post-Hardcore
For most of the albums here, I've been listening to them for at least for a few weeks. But this new release from Great Grief? I only heard on boxing day. So it might just be the novelty, but at this point, it's so fucking good.
Take all the fast parts from your post-hardcore albums, use black metal like drumming and use structures akin to crusty black metal and you'll get this melancholic blackened post-hardcore. It gets you angry and sad at the same time.
For most of the albums here, I've been listening to them for at least for a few weeks. But this new release from Great Grief? I only heard on boxing day. So it might just be the novelty, but at this point, it's so fucking good.
Take all the fast parts from your post-hardcore albums, use black metal like drumming and use structures akin to crusty black metal and you'll get this melancholic blackened post-hardcore. It gets you angry and sad at the same time.
5. Denzel Curry - TA13OO
Name: Denzel Curry
Album Title: TA13OO
Genre(s): Trap Rap, Hip-Hop, Experimental, Noise Rap
There are many other rap albums could've made this list but none of them are as diverse as Mr. Curry here. The album is divided into several parts. One part paying tribute to old-school rap with A Tribe Called Quest kind of vibe. While then another part flirts with modern emo rap. Then another jumps into industrial, noisy kind of beats but with a melodic touch. It sounds so Peggy that Jpegmafia and Zillakami jumped in for verses. This is like a snapshot of where rap is right now. Zel isn't afraid to blend the poppier side of things and the harsher side of the game.
There are many other rap albums could've made this list but none of them are as diverse as Mr. Curry here. The album is divided into several parts. One part paying tribute to old-school rap with A Tribe Called Quest kind of vibe. While then another part flirts with modern emo rap. Then another jumps into industrial, noisy kind of beats but with a melodic touch. It sounds so Peggy that Jpegmafia and Zillakami jumped in for verses. This is like a snapshot of where rap is right now. Zel isn't afraid to blend the poppier side of things and the harsher side of the game.
4. Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Name: Zeal & Ardor
Album Title: Stranger Fruit
Genre(s): Black Metal, Blues, Spirituals, Folk
If African American slaves rejected their slaver's religion and started worshiping the devil then you'll get this image. Take all the darker gospels from the plantation and interspersed it with black metal here and there, you'll get close to this. At its core, the band wants to play a darker take on blues and gospels where the black metal does not dominate the sound but only aids where it's going. Don't expect all second wave black metal from Norway, this sounds like an angry shriek from the plantations first.
If African American slaves rejected their slaver's religion and started worshiping the devil then you'll get this image. Take all the darker gospels from the plantation and interspersed it with black metal here and there, you'll get close to this. At its core, the band wants to play a darker take on blues and gospels where the black metal does not dominate the sound but only aids where it's going. Don't expect all second wave black metal from Norway, this sounds like an angry shriek from the plantations first.
3. The Black Queen - Infinite Games
Name: The Black Queen
Album Title: Infinite Games
Genre(s): Synthpop
If I were to evaluate this album independently, I would've scored this lower because the album can be inconsistent. It felt like two albums squashed into one. One part ambient and one part synthpop. But when I listened to it in context, it's actually one of the catchiest synthpop albums I've heard in such a long time. I could easily imagine Greg Puciato with an 80s hairdo, all on VHS. Spatial Boundaries got me dancing, making me feel like a heartbroken kid in a John Hughes movie. Thrown Into The Dark reminded me of karaoke sessions and stormy nights as curtains phase in and out of the balcony. I feel a longing for a past I didn't experience and looking forward to dancing away memories of previous heartbreaks.
2. Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is a Reptile
Name: Sons of Kemet
Album Title: Your Queen Is A Reptile
Genre(s): Jazz, Afrobeat
This is angry, protest jazz. It's meant for you to chant slogans to. You get into angry dance-offs with intense staring like spaghetti western, dialed to 11. I don't know much about jazz, but this sounds like jazz written for people with a background in angry aggressive music in mind.
This is angry, protest jazz. It's meant for you to chant slogans to. You get into angry dance-offs with intense staring like spaghetti western, dialed to 11. I don't know much about jazz, but this sounds like jazz written for people with a background in angry aggressive music in mind.
1. Jesus Piece - Only Self
Name: Jesus Piece
Album Title: Only Self
Genre(s): Metallic Hardcore, Death Metal, Sludge Metal
Travel through time and meet a bunch of old school death metal fans with the intensity of angry neanderthals. Let them play their riffs but describe to them how does metallic hardcore sound like. With that limited knowledge of what hardcore from the future sounds like, tell them to assemble a hardcore song. You will get the most riff intense beatdown hardcore ever.
It's like if Jamey Jasta didn't spend time listening to Sepultura, but focused on Obituary.
But what I love most about this album is that this reminds of the conditions that lead to grindcore. Multiple extreme styles merging to create a new format. This is what Jesus Piece represents. The line between metal and hardcore is so blurry that it is the mess that this is now. But fortunately for the rest of us, it is the better side of both metal and hardcore that merged. We had a similar condition before too in the late 2000s and early 2010s. That time we had deathcore and created the most half-hearted breakdown focussed music ever.
This time we have Jesus Piece gluing the best parts and used intense sludge to give a demented version of a Hatebreed breakdown.
I can imagine Aaron Heard, the frontman of Jesus Piece walking into a room of musicians and stoically proclaim "All of you had your chance. This is how deathcore should've sounded like." And nonchalantly start the most brutal pit both the metal and hardcore scene has ever seen.
Travel through time and meet a bunch of old school death metal fans with the intensity of angry neanderthals. Let them play their riffs but describe to them how does metallic hardcore sound like. With that limited knowledge of what hardcore from the future sounds like, tell them to assemble a hardcore song. You will get the most riff intense beatdown hardcore ever.
It's like if Jamey Jasta didn't spend time listening to Sepultura, but focused on Obituary.
But what I love most about this album is that this reminds of the conditions that lead to grindcore. Multiple extreme styles merging to create a new format. This is what Jesus Piece represents. The line between metal and hardcore is so blurry that it is the mess that this is now. But fortunately for the rest of us, it is the better side of both metal and hardcore that merged. We had a similar condition before too in the late 2000s and early 2010s. That time we had deathcore and created the most half-hearted breakdown focussed music ever.
This time we have Jesus Piece gluing the best parts and used intense sludge to give a demented version of a Hatebreed breakdown.
I can imagine Aaron Heard, the frontman of Jesus Piece walking into a room of musicians and stoically proclaim "All of you had your chance. This is how deathcore should've sounded like." And nonchalantly start the most brutal pit both the metal and hardcore scene has ever seen.
#
Thank you for reading until the end of this list. This isn't actually reflective of what I listened to the most throughout the year, but an evaluation of new material I've heard throughout the year. 2018 has been an explorative year so maybe I'll create a list of new experiences I've had from old albums. (But honestly, it will include a lot of Miles Davis, Depeche Mode clones and older Death Grips records.)
No comments:
Post a Comment