Best of 2013: Challenging the Orthodoxy

Best of 2013 by Adrian Sol on Mixcloud

Gorguts - Colored Sands

Here's an honest confession: I bought Gorguts' Obscura when it came out, and didn't understand it for years. I appreciated it for its strangeness, and I sung the album's praises to anyone who would sit still long enough to listen, but Luc Lemay's intent and execution were beyond anything I'd heard or could wrap my head around at the time.

Likewise, on Colored Sands, Gorguts present a death metal album quite unlike any that have come before it. It's a work of astounding depth and craftsmanship, taking preconceived notions of prog, tech, and brutal death and throwing them out the window to attain a unique and mature vision of the genre that will stand as a high water mark for years to come. I'm not going to pretend I'm any closer to fully understanding Gorguts, but I've never been so at peace with befuddlement.

Highlights: An Ocean of Wisdom, Enemies of Compassion, Absconders

Deicide - In the Minds of Evil

Deicide has been wildly inconsistent since their 90's heyday. Like a formerly great fighter alternating between wins and losses, you never know what you're going to get from their albums these days. Well, I'm happy to report that their latest is solidly in the "win" column. In The Minds of Evil spices up the meat-and-potatoes approach of the band's early years with vicious hooks and just a hint of experimenting with new sounds. Other than that, it's fucking Deicide, unabashed haters of Christ and servants of Satan. What more do you need?


Highlights: Beyond Salvation, Even the Gods Can Bleed, Kill The Light of Christ

Dark Tranquillity - Construct

At this point the most long-lived and dependable of the Gothenberg bands, Dark Tranquillity continue making stellar albums that take their love for florid melodies into new directions. Boldly entwining keyboards and Michael Stanne's New Wave-ish vocals with their melodic death metal, Construct is a treat for those of us who have both Kreator and Depeche Mode on our iPods.

Highlights: Endtime Hearts, Uniformity, Immemorial

Ulcerate - Vermis

Like Gorguts, Ulcerate have deconstructed the death metal paradigm to arrive at a vision that keeps some of the genre's intrinsic hallmarks (blastbeats, growling) and ignores its more obvious cliches. Vermis shows that death metal's territory is too vast to be policed, and heretics like Ulcerate roam its far borders challenging the orthodoxy. Let the retro bandwagon take heed and be wary.

Highlights: Vermis, Weight of Emptiness, The Imperious Weak

Cult of Luna - Vertikal

Cult of Luna have been solidifying their position at the top of the doomcore heap for almost a decade now; Vertikal is an accomplished work with elements of kraut rock, prog, and psychedelia adding texture to its sombre and oppressive palate. Whatever influence Cult of Luna took from Isis or Neurosis in the past, they are now those bands' equal.

Highlights: I: The Weapon, Vicarious Redemption, Synchronicity

Necrophobic - Womb of Lilithu

Necrophobic have been an undeniable (if largely unsung) pillar of black metal's second wave, with solid releases stretching over two decades. Womb of Lilithu expands on their hallmarks of blistering speed and frozen melodies with a symphonic flourish that occasionally makes the album sound like a Satanic metal opera. While most eyes were on Watain and their traveling E-Coli sideshow, Necrophobic snuck in with the best black metal album of 2013.

Highlights: Astaroth, Furfur, The Necromancer

Demonical - Darkness Unbound 

Sometime last year, for the first time since Entombed introduced the 15 year old me to the wonder of Swedish death metal, I had had enough of the style. The onslaught of second rate bands flaunting their HM-2 pedals and lack of creativity seemed to mark the end of my interest in the NWOOSDM, and few recent albums seemed to interest me. Luckily, Demonical reappeared to remind me why I loved the style so much. Driven by hooks and a blackened strain of melody, Darkness Unbounds wisely makes sure the Riff holds more importance than any distortion pedal. With no clear successor to Dismember in sight and their peers overly comfortable with wallowing in old school pandering, Demonical deserve to rise to the top of the heap.

Highlights: Healing Control, Contempt and Conquest, Hellfire Empire

deafheaven - Sunbather

The black metal album all your indie friends are talking about. The post rock and shoegaze elements may endear deafheaven to Pitchfork types, but don't hold that against them. Mixing shoegaze with black metal is not exactly new, but where deafheaven really shine is the way they use those elements to create atmosphere. Like the best black metal albums, Sunbather takes you on a journey, one with unexpected twists and turns.

Highlights: Sunbather, Vertigo, The Pecan Tree

Sepultura - The Mediator Between Head and Hands
Must Be the Heart

It can't be easy for Sepultura. Somehow Derrick Greene hasn't accrued the same kind of defenders as, say, Dio-era Sabbath, and the band's popularity has waned except with the die-est of die-hards; and even those would prefer a reunion with Max and Igor back at the helm. Once one of the most important metal bands in the world, the albums since their infamous split have alternated between decent and disappointing, with few memorable moments. Maybe that's why The Mediator is such a surprise; somehow finding a way to make the cerebral death-thrash of Arise co-exist with the wild experimentation of Roots, Sepultura came out swinging at naysayers with possibly their heaviest album in years. The writing may be on the wall for this iteration of Sepultura, but the band seem unwilling to go gentle into that good night, and I for one couldn't be happier.

Highlights: The Vatican, Obsessed, The Age Of The Atheist

Sabazius - The Descent of Man

I probably spent more time listening to this album than any other released this year - and I don't think I listened to it all the way through more than once. No other extreme metal band strove to challenge the status quo and top their past accomplishments like Sabazius. At over 11 hours long, The Descent of Man is less about catharsis and more like an endurance test, taking doom and drone to misanthropic, mind numbing depths. Part performance piece, part musical prank, it's the apex for slow and heavy music. For now.

Highlights: Cranking the volume to make your neigbours think they have tinnitus. Causing music critics to rethink their profession. Listening to the whole thing in one sitting and emerging from the other side with your sanity intact.

Hellbound? (Probably)

This guy? Definitely.

Just watched the documentary Hellbound?. It's pretty dry for the most part, and the points it makes are fairly obvious - evangelists are nutty and hypocritical, Christian theology is convoluted and open to interpretation. But the filmmakers won my heart with a brief detour into a European metal festival, where they catch Deicide's Glen Benton being his typically wry self, and ask Oderus Urungus to name three people he thinks are in hell ("Jesus. Every pope ever. That's more than three. Ronald Reagan is in hell, believe it or not."). The filmmakers also interview David "Soul Patch" Vincent and Mayhem's Necrobutcher (who seems uniquely ill-suited for documentary interviews).

Rachel Maddow: Tampa Bay, capital of strip clubs and death metal

The Rachel Maddow Show had a clip yesterday about the amusing irony that the Party of Moral Outrage is holding their convention in the capital of titty bars and death metal.  I agree with her, they're probably not there for the death metal.  She name-checks Morbid Angel, Deicide and Obituary, and David "Safe Word" Vincent makes an appearance in the "God of Emptiness" clip.  Good times if you're a left-leaning metal fan.

 

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Best Albums of 2011

Origin - Entity
Following the exit of guitarist Jeremy Turner and long-time vocalist James King, Origin's sole remaining guitarist Paul Ryan surely faced a quandary. How do you follow Antithesis, the best death metal album of the last 10 years? Is it even possible for Origin to get heavier and faster without becoming one-dimensional and boring?

Luckily, Ryan (backed by drum god John Longstreth, bassist Mike Flores, and former Skinless vocalist Jason Keyser) resisted the traditional sequel mentality ("the same as last time but more so") and opted to tweak Origin's formula by adding groove, melody, and epic slow parts. By not wallowing in past glories, Origin have created Entity, an album that manages to be as awe-inspiring as its predecessor without copying it - and one that perhaps signals the beginning of the next chapter in Origin's stellar career.

Make no mistake: mighty Origin made every other album in 2011 its bitch.

Listen To: Saligia, Swarm, Evolution of Extinction


Abysmal Dawn - Leveling the Plane of Existence
Tech-death at its worst is like an over-choreographed martial arts movie - the acrobatics are impressive, but you're left wondering what the point of it all is. Though undoubtedly playing death metal of the "technical" variety, Abysmal Dawn triumph over their peers by putting their impressive chops in the service of songs that are memorable, the hardest feat in extreme music.

Listen To: In Service of Time, Leveling the Plane of Existence, My Own Savior

Nader Sadek - In the Flesh
Steve Tucker's return to death metal couldn't have been better timed, seeing as his former bandmates in Morbid Angel chose this year to unveil their clusterfuck of a new album. With Cryptopsy's Flo Mounier and Mayhem's Blasphemer, Nader Sadek's debut is as filthy and twisted as crude oil gushing over a nude beach. As far as conceptual death metal albums go, this is a unique and forward-thinking meeting of minds that won't be topped soon.

Listen To: Petrophilia, Mechanic Idolatry, Soulless


Demonical - Death Infernal
With so many great NWOOSDM releases (Feral, Miasmal, Entrails), 2011 was plagued with nostalgia for the good old days of Sunlight Studios. What puts Demonical above every other HM-2 revivalist? Well, probably the amount of times I blasted "March For Victory," THE death metal anthem of 2011. And the rest of the album follows suit, mixing blackened melody with stomping riffs that make you want to raise your fists to the sky, a horn of mead in one and an enemy's head in the other. Like Hypocrisy at their best (and most evil), Death Infernal is perfect for metal festivals and house parties alike.

Listen To: March For Victory, All Will Perish, The Arrival of Armaggeddon, and then listen to March For Victory some more!


Machine Head - Unto the Locust
When I was 15, these guys were the greatest band in the world to me; since then, they've mostly been an annoying reminder of how stupid 15 year olds can be. Over the years, Machine Head - a band that promoted their groundbreaking debut by opening for Napalm Death, Obituary, and Slayer - traded in their credibility by jumping on every bandwagon from groove metal to wiggercore to emo. Though 2007's The Blackening was heralded as a "return to form" by the metal press, to these ears it was more of a cynical attempt at metalcore, while "metalcore" was still a thing. Adjusting my expectations accordingly, I wondered what form the follow-up would take. Certainly the band has noticed the relative popularity of Mastodon and Baroness - would 2011 mark the appearance of a bearded, flannel wearing Robb Flynn, complete with horn-rimmed glasses? Thankfully, they've gone the other way, with 7 songs that draw equally from the members' classic thrash pedigrees as well as classic metal (check out the Manowar steal on "Who We Are"). After indulging in every trend from groove thrash to mallcore, Machine Head have delivered, at long last, a heavy metal album.

Listen To: Who We Are, Darkness Within, I Am Hell


Krisiun - The Great Execution
How does a kvlt South American band best known for bloody pentagrams and uninterrupted blasting age gracefully? By applying the brakes and letting their riffs breathe. Call it the South of Heaven syndrome. Like every band that once vied for the "heaviest, fastest" crown, Krisiun now use speed judiciously, allowing their songs to build from mid-paced gallops before erupting into their trademarked blast. It feels wrong to describe a Krisiun album as "hypnotic," but that seems to be what they're aspiring to. Just as long as they don't abandon the blast, I'm happy.

Listen To: The Sword of Orion, Shadows of Betrayal, The Will to Potency

Vader - Welcome to the Morbid Reich
Like Krisiun, Vader know their popularity lies not in bold re-invention but in dependability. And having pioneered the death-thrash style since the mid-80's, few do it better than these Polish grandmasters. Less manic than 2009's Necropolis, Morbid Reich weaves epic melody into their mix of Slayer and Morbid Angel. A fine addition to a praiseworthy catalogue.

Listen To: Return to the Morbid Reich, Don't Rip the Beast's Heart Out, Come And See My Sacrifice


Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand
Much anticipated - by me, at least - the new Primordial album carries on from where 2007's To The Nameless Dead left off, with a mix of Celtic folk and blackened doom that somehow manages to be bleak and uplifting at the same time. Over it all, Alan Averill's vocals distill feelings of rage and loss in a way that few metal singers can dream of. The best folk metal you'll hear this year.

Listen To: Death of the Gods, The Puritan's Hand, Lain With The Wolf



Neuraxis - Asylon
It's sort of hard to root for Neuraxis - they've got more than a passing similarity to the trendcore bands of the last decade, and their current line-up is bereft of any original members. At the same time, it was hard not to succumb to their goofy Canadian charm when I saw them live (on both the Sepultura and Deicide US tours). Like Abysmal Dawn, Neuraxis root their technical virtuosity in memorable hooks, but meander ADD-like from riff to riff, causing their songs to morph along the way. Like serpents, if you give them half a chance, they'll make their way into your head and nest there for months.

Listen To: Purity, Left to Devour, Trauma

To Hell With God Tour Featuring Deicide 2.21.11

Death metal was scary when I was a teenager, and no death metal band were scarier than Deicide. There was nothing coy about their ties to the dark one: inverted crosses branded on foreheads, blasphemous lyrics, and the band members openly labeled themselves Satan worshippers. At one point during their 90's peak, they even called out Slayer for being "poseurs." Along with Cannibal Corpse, their infamy has lent them the highest profile in death metal, even allowing them to occassionally infiltrate the mainstream.

Since then though, sub-par albums, line-up changes, and black metal have muddied Deicide's legacy. Not unlike fighters who've suffered a series of losses, Deicide needed a clear win to maintain their relevance; luckily for them, To Hell With God is such an album. Despite the generic album title (which strays to close to self-parody), the 10th Deicide album is both a return to their mid-90's form and something of a reinvention, thanks in part to the flashy work of guitarists Jack Owen and Ralph Santolla, who replaced the drama that was the Hoffman brothers in 2006.

Joining Deicide on this tour were a number of bands whose allegiance to Satan is suspect at best. The one band whose presence was most welcome - Austrian goat worshippers Belphegor - were missing due to visa problems, leaving a motley assemblage of newjack death metal bands to open. It was like being served canapes before armaggedon, but not completely a waste of time.


I've been a fan of Neuraxis for years - though in truth, the musicians who made the Truth Beyond and Trilateral Progression albums that I love are gone, and the young members in now make the band look more like a child labour camp. Regardless, the Neuraxis of 2011 have the same flair for writing fun (if not always memorable) tech-death that's heavy on the hooks and never tedious live. Looking forward to seeing them with Sepultura in a few months.


What deluded nitwit thought it would be a good idea to put Blackguard on this tour? Certainly their stage presence and OTT melodic metal is too twee to be anywhere near the headliner? Not that they were bad, but they would have been more welcome opening for Ensiferum the following Saturday. The highlight of their set for me was their female drummer, who wasn't just adorable, but really fucking good. All the same, though, they should consider themselves lucky that a hostile crowd reaction is all that they had to suffer through.


Deicide took to the stage with little fanfare, simply walking on stage and plugging in. Glen Benton dryly noted, "I guess you've heard we've got a new album" before his band launched into To Hell With God's title track. Old Glen was in a relaxed mood, content to throw out quips when the occasional obnoxious audience member didn't get the better of his infamous temper. It's been two decades since their self-titled debut scared the shit out of impressionable teenagers and Deicide now look less like the embodiment of hell on earth and more like the Angry Dad Band. Rick Santolla and Jack "The Human Garden Gnome" Owen got hit especially hard by middle age. But the crowd reaction is as it ever was: total pandemonium and rabid appreciation for anything from the first 4 albums.



Deicide at their best are a kind of death metal Atkins diet - short blasts of blasphemous fury that never outstay their welcome. Unfortunately, that approach tends to wear a crowd out after half an hour, and the energy level lagged noticably mid-set, especially during songs from the last decade. However, things picked up immensely for the three set closers: "Kill the Christians", "Lunatic of God's Creation", and (of course) "Sacrificial Suicide". With that and a dozen tossed guitar picks, Deicide were off. I can't wait for the tour accompanying their next album Fuck You, Satan Is Awesome!


Also, major respect to the security staff at Gramercy for literally leaping into action to catch the bodies as they flew over the barricades during Deicide's set, and wading into the crowd to pull out an audience member who had been injured. They even went out of their way to avoid blocking my crappy camera. It's a nice change of pace when the guys on the other side respect the fans who pay their wage, and don't just see them as a nuisance. It's also nice when that respect is mutual.

Albums of 2006

This was originally written and posted on my Myspace blog (the Special Olympics of blogging). I've decided to include it here for posterity's sake.

DEICIDE - The Stench of Redemption

The best death metal comeback in The Year Of The Death Metal Comeback...after ditching half their classic line-up, Deicide V 2.666 unleash a hurricane of technical brutality, epic grandiosity, and succinct songwriting. Oh, and Satan, of course.

NAPALM DEATH - Smear Campaign

Having spent over two decades of campaigning for musical destruction with no sign of slowing down, this is another chapter in the story of a band who've never released a bad album, ever. 
 

VADER - Impressions in Blood

A little tweaking here, a little bolt tightening there, and the death-thrash war machine is ready to go back out and destroy some more cities. Irony is defined as four guys from Poland creating the perfect soundtrack to blitzkrieg.
 

SUFFOCATION - Suffocation

Simply put, with this album, New York's kings of sickness reclaim their throne.
 

LAMB OF GOD - Sacrament

By expanding on their simplistic one-chord mosh approach Lamb of God prove that mainstream metal doesn't have to be dumb or drowned with syrupy choruses. Today's teenage metalheads now have a Pantera to call their own. 
 

MASTODON - Blood Mountain

C'mon, it's not their fault that they're being championed by hipster music journos like Pitchfork and the Village Voice. Besides, how many bands can write songs as technical and asymetrical as Mastodon and still be so headbangingly catchy?
 

SLAYER - Christ Illusion

Wait, weren't Slayer a bunch of old dudes content to hash out bad Hatebreed and Machine Head knock-offs? Who's giving grandpa the PCP and rabies? It took 12 years and the curtailing of their civil rights by religious fanatics, but Slayer finally released an album that sounds like Slayer. Hail Satan, indeed!
 

SICK OF IT ALL - Death To Tyrants

A bare-knuckle return to their roots in the most jaw-breaking way, Death to Tyrants isn't just classic New York Hardcore, it should be remembered as the last NYHC classic.

TOOL - 10,000 Days

Probably the heaviest songs they've ever done mixed with their most atmospheric. Their singer even lives up to the band's name by throwing around and choking awestruck fans.

CELTIC FROST - Monotheist

There's no way a comeback album by a proto-black metal band who went prog, then glam and then broke up could be this good. As religious minded as ever, except this time Tom Warrior has ditched Satan to worship God...flesh. Three words: Cold, sullen, oppressive. Sorry, three more: this fucking rules.