To my actual loyal readers (read: friends), hope you enjoy this.
#10. Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction Genre: Progressive Metal / General Craziness
This year marked the release of the final two parts of Devin Townsend's four part Devin Townsend Project. Ki, Addicted, Deconstruction, and Ghosts are each unique from one another and stand on their own as greatly inspired, and marvelous works from one of progressive metals best minds. While Hevy Devy's final release Ghosts featured more of a laid back, softer approach, Deconstruction was perhaps the heaviest, and easily the most insane of the four part project. Following the same vein as previous parts, Deconstruction features some great collaborations, including vocals by Tommy Rogers of BTBAM on the track Planet of the Apes, and of course great guitar work from the man himself, orchestration and background work. For someone who is unfamiliar with Townsend's previous work, this album may seem like its a bit all over the place - but it's the insanity that makes this album as good as it is. Besides, who else could pull off a 16 minute track entitled the Mighty Masturbator, and a 10 minute track devoted to cheeseburgers.
Favorite Tracks: Juular, Planet of the Apes, The Mighty Masturbator, and Deconstruction
Genre: Progressive Death Metal / Metalcore
Born of Osiris' third full-length record is the best outing to date. It takes off from the evolutions made as a group on their second record A Higher Place, and takes it to the next level by incorporating different measures of instrumentation and styles, including 8-string guitars. The largest difference is the heavier emphasis on the presence of Joe Buras who played more of a backing vocals role on the previous records. Instead The Discovery features many lead sections where Ronnie Canizaro's growls and deeper vocals play more of a supporting role. The album features tremendous transition work between melodic, heavy and faster paced technical sections, and features some great flow, especially on the closing tracks of the record.
Favorite Tracks: Recreate, Regeneate, Follow the Signs, Shaping the Masterpiece, and Dissimulation
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Obscura have two things going for them: first, they possess great technical skill and musicianship for their selected genre, and second they've gained the monicker in some circles as the new 'Death' - something which can be constituted as nothing short of high praise. Omnivium is the latest release from the German progressive tech-death metallers. The band is known for leaning on various genres to create intricate blends of styles and sound. Their instrumentation includes heavy, fast paced thrash metal inspired riffs, technical guitar progressions, fretless bass and high-tempo blast beats. The guitar work itself ranges between heavy and technical shredding, to soft, melodic interludes and features some virtuosic guitar solos. And to round out the package is the vocal work of Steffen Kummerer who's range fits each section to a tee, and bounces between low guttural growls, haunting, black metal inspired screams, and soft, shallow cleans. Definitely not a record to skip out on.
Favorite Tracks: Septuagint, Prismal Dawn, Vortex Omnivium, Celestial Spheres, and Ocean Gateways
Genre: Post-metal
Post-metal has quickly grown to be one of my favorite genres of metal. Every month I seem to discover new bands following in the footsteps of the likes of Neurosis, Isis and Pelican. Russian Circles has become one of my favored post-metal groups, as their previous release Geneva was one of my favorite albums from a couple years back. This year they're back with Empros and an overall improvement from the terrific outing two years prior. Empros has a larger focus on the use of movements that sweep across their range of sound, where for a few minutes you're riding a roller coaster of heavy, bass driven sound, and the next you find yourself in a calm interlude of lightly played ambient guitar - and then you get thrown back into the fray. The album was recorded with the intention of sounding more like a live set, which it does as the shifts between slower melodic passages, and distorted guitar bridges put you well into the groove of one of their live instrumental performances.
Favorite Tracks: 309, Atackla, Mladek, and Batu
Genre: Black Metal
When the average metal head thinks of black metal the stereotypical thing to think of is the traditional Norwegian black metal bands of old. In more recent years, black metal has taken flight and spread a little bit everywhere across the globe, and a number of American bands have taken center stage among the genres best. Celestial Lineage is the fourth full-length album from WITTR an American duo of brothers who live eccentric lifestyles and carry that into their music. This reccording also continues along with their tradition of forsaking modern recording techniques and technology, instead opting for vintage amps and analog synthesizers to give their music that raw, unhampered and old school quality. The brothers equal share of work creating the soundscapes for the band are what make everything flow together so well, where Nathan Weaver nails the traditional black metal shrieks and the inter-mingling tremolo picked guitar sections, and Aaron Weaver, provides the percussion, bass and synths, creating the atmospheric background of their recordings. The duo see themselves as a live band, which is a rarity for most black metal bands, and Celestial Lineage fits well with this type of mentality, as it is both a raw and crisp recording, which also boasts incredible production value.
Favorite Tracks: Astral Blood, Subterranean Initiation, and Thuja Magus Imperium
Genre: Melodic Death Metal / Metalcore / Deathcore
I know a few people who will probably want to hang me for not including a single melodic death metal album so far, notably Insomnium's One For Sorrow but this was a tough year! Lucky for the genres fans their still remains a high ranking contender - although I'm sure it's not at all who they thought it would be. The Black Dahlia Murder are obviously not your standard order melodic death metal band, as they have lent themselves to being tagged more so as a metalcore or even deathcore band because of Trevor Strnad's deeper death growls and piercing shrieks, and the bands heavier play style. The band however takes its primary influence from Carcass and Swedish melodic death metal bands, and then merges it with some American influence such as Florida based death metal acts like Morbid Angel. Argue every which way you want, Ritual is easily the bands' best record to date and a great follow up to their previous release Deflorate. The blend of influences that one gets to experience on this record is apparent from track to track, and often sends you flying between the spectrum of melodic harmony and distorted, beastly heaviness, of which neither side is in short supply. The best part is when the two come crashing together to create some of the nastiest and beautiful music at once. The instrumentation and Trevor's vocal work on Ritual fits like a glove, with Trevor's lyrics coming in loud and clear, whether in the form of his piercing quick shrieks or deliberate, throaty growls. What else could you ask for from a band with a mixed bag that includes pretty much every aspect I love about their incorporated genres? How about some sick guitar solos? Yeah. They've go that covered too.
Favorite Tracks: Moonlight Equilibrium, On Stirring Seas of Salted Blood, The Window, Throne of Lunacy, and Conspiring with the Damned
4. Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All Genre: Death Metal / Post-metal / Ambient
When someone used to ask me: what do you think of when you hear New Zealand? My answer would have been rugby about 99% of the time. Now - it might still be rugby, but if the discussion turns anywhere towards music, the first thing that comes to mind is the band Ulcerate. Ulcerate possesses a style and sound that is truly unique from my perspective as a listener. The band fuses together the slow evolution and progression of post-metal with atmospheric and ambient music, and finally, vicious, fast paced and brutal ensembles. The end result is something that is a sum of the best of its individual parts, but not something that can instantly be tagged as belonging to one specific genre. The Destroyers of All features tracks averaging about seven minutes in length and which each possess significant points of progression throughout. There is a heavy instrumental focus on this record, which helps accentuate all the subtle features that the band seeks inspiration from, whether its the slow, post-metal heavy riffs, the bass driven atmospheric moments, or the brutally fast drumming and dissonant guitar work. I'm not the only person who's been impressed by this records, as I've seen it creep into the top 10 of many of my favorite metal blogs tops lists. Maybe we're just special? Because outside of those small circles, or people I know who saw me feature the album early into 365Days of Metal, not many I've asked have even ever heard of this band - which is pretty terrible.
Favorite Tracks: Dead Oceans, Beneath, The Destroyers of All, and Cold Becoming
3. Volumes - Via Genre: Groove Metal / Progressive / Metalcore
Volumes is the second band on this list to make the jump from being in my top 5 favorite EP's from last year, to my favorite LP's this year. Their debut EP The Concept of Dreaming was only second last year to my selection of TesseracT's Conceling Fate EP, and were one of my favorite new discoveries for the year on the whole. Volumes operates with a layering of different styles, as each member comes from different musical backgrounds, including jazz, post-rock, rap and metal, even quoting themselves as being: "Meshuggah influenced musically, Tupac influenced lyrically." Take that whichever way you want, but when you look under the hood of the bands' instrumentality and lyricism, it all makes sense. Instrumentally, the bands play is focused on a balance of tight, heavy grooves, technical riffage and the right amount of melodic clean guitar passages. Toss in just the right smattering of effects and keyboard at every turn and you you get a real powerhouse of groove. When I profiled the band previously I mentioned that the layered, dual vocals was one of the factors that stuck out most for me when I first encountered the band. Dual vocalists are far from a rarity, but it's not a trait that all bands are able to execute to its fullest potential. Volumes are one of the bands that manages to do this, by creating good a solid contrast both lyrically, and emotionally across the various tracks on the record. It adds an extra dimension to a band that incorporates an already interesting layering of styles. Via is a tremendously well laid out and executed debut album from a group of young, talented musicians.
Favorite Tracks: The Columbian Faction, Intake, Serenity, Wormholes, Edge of the Earth, and Via
Genre: Symphonic Death Metal / Progressive
Movie soundtracks, and I mean legitimate movie soundtracks with scores crafted by composers and orchestras can often be some of the coolest music to relax to, or enjoy in any number of situations. Which is why Xerath was one of my favorite discoveries back in 2009, when their debut record was released. Why you might ask? Well because this is a group of Englishmen who decided it'd be a kick ass idea to mix film score style compositions with heavy, polyrhythmic grooves. And you know what happened: it ended up kicking fucking ass. I mean mixing symphonic scores with the musical direction of bands such as Meshuggah, Strapping Young Lad, Opeth and Dimmu Borgir, where can you go wrong? Xerath returned this year with their sophomore album II and with it improved upon their work from two years prior. In comparison with their first record, II is heavier, a little less clean and promotes each section of the band more equally. The drumming in particular on II is more pronounced, and the rhythm and guitar work are also slightly improved, introducing even more syncopy into their polyrhythmic tones. The most notable difference in the entire package are Richard Thomson's vocals. Primarily deeper and darker throughout the entirety of I, Thomson's vocals on II are comprised mainly of harsh screams and are much cleaner. It's a change that fits the overall tone of the record much better than on their first release - in my opinion. But his deep vocals are far from removed, and can still be found in well positioned sections throughout the record, creating a truly dark and heavy atmosphere or to emphasize a specific point in a lyrical passage. A great example of this is on the track Reform Pt. III and on the sudden, and short vocal shift early into Enemy Incited Armaggedon where his vocal work lends a slight echo to Jens Kidman of Meshuggah.
Favorite Tracks: Enemy Incited Armageddon, Call to Arms, Reform Pt. III, Unite to Defy, and Machine Insurgency
For most of the year Xerath had nearly cemented itself as my favorite record for the year. But things change.
When it comes down to talking about Djent, it goes without saying that there are a few bands out there who get more than a fair share of coverage. 2011 saw the release of the debut full-length albums of a couple of those big names with TesseracT's One and the long awaited release of Måsstaden by Vildhjarta - an album I was chomping at the bit for, among many others for well over two years.
For the longest time I didn't think a Djent album was going to make its way into my top spot for the year. Primarily because as a total package, both One and Måsstaden fell short of even making my top 20, let alone the rank of top dog. Admittedly I could have included Måsstaden, which is by no means a bad record, it's technically proficient and has its high points, but I think it fell victim to a case of my long and heightened expectations.
When it comes to defining the best Djent release from the community this year, that falls to another band who by and large stole the show. And they've also earned my nod for favorite album of the year, despite some fierce competition...
#1. Uneven Structure - Februus
Genre: Progressive / Ambient / Djent
For anyone who knows my preferences when it comes to metal, it was pretty obvious that my choice for top pick would most likely either be a progressive album or a death metal album - or even a mix of the two. I've tried to peel myself away from referring to certain bands as 'Djent', even though it has picked up steam. The truth is many bands that fit within the characteristics of the sub-genre are much more than just a one trick pony. Of course on the other side of the fence you have the purists who hear the word Djent and Meshuggah used together and start rioting in the streets. So for the sake of discussion, I'm not going to use the word Djent again in this post.
About a year ago to the day I wrote two posts about eight bands and records that fell within the dubious sub-genre that I was most looking forward to in the new year. In the first part I mentioned a band named Uneven Structure and their upcoming album Februus. A six piece band with members playing out of France and Sweden their debut eight track EP, simply entitled 8, was released in late December 2009, garnering a fair bit of attention. It served as set piece to introduce another very talented group fusing progressive, rhythmic complexity and ambient sounds into a delightful brain massaging experience. Februus was release on October 31, a somewhat late entrant among a slew of amazing records released this year. Because of that it fell slightly under some peoples radars, and because of the bands status as one of the new 'trendy niche bands', may have equally have been overlooked by certain purists. And to that, all I have to say is, it's their loss.
Uneven Structure follows suit with Februus in creating a record that flows seamlessly from track to track, and covering an array of various elements, styles and moods. On my first play through I found myself wondering when certain tracks would end, when they had actually crossed over into the next track nearly a minute prior. The tracks Frost and Hail are a perfect example of this, and are probably the best combo tracks on the entire record - Frost also being my favorite song from last year. The thing that makes Februus so different from other albums which follow the same ideals is the level of ambiance that is emphasized by the band. The enjoyment, and the experience of listening to Februus transcends the instrumentality itself when its in full swing, the ambient effects are really what make the album flow together so well, and help solidify the moods carried through the music. While the instrumentation and ambiance do well enough on their own to garner a nod as a phenomenal album, the vocal work and lyricism of the record fit perfectly within each track and explore the various emotions and concepts conveyed through the different songs. It helps in a way to let you relate to the music, and the messages being conveyed, which is probably the best feeling you can get when you listen to a song.
Since I've gotten my hands on Februus I've listened to a portion of it, if not all of it at least once, nearly every day. It's an album that you can listen to under nearly any circumstance, whether I'm working, trying to catch some sleep, just relaxing or want to get some musical enjoyment. It's basically the triple threat that made the decision final: genius level musicianship and quality, absurdly high replay value, and being able to relate to the moods conveyed through the music.
Favorite Tracks: Frost and Hail / Buds, Awe and Quittance
And a little taste for good measure
- J
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