METAL: Halftime

 

Since we're halfway through the year, here's a list of the year's 20 best metal and metal-friendly albums to date. The list is alphabetical, if you think I missed something I'm open to suggestions!

AT THE GATES – Ghost Of A Future Dead 
By far their best post-reunion album proves once again that they were a cut above the rest of the Gothenburg melodeath bands. RIP Tomas. 

BACKENGRILLEN – Backengrillen
Members of Refused team up with free jazz musician Mats Gustafsson for an impressively noisy debut album where troglodyte doom riffs meet sax skronk, like a dingier Stooges on amphetamines. 

THE BLACK CROWES – A Pound Of Feathers
Stones-ey, AC/DC-ey, and with Hammond organs and female backing vocals providing a Stax-ey feel, this is the Crowes in top form. Get down!  

CONVERGE – Love Is Not Enough
Their previous album (a collab with Chelsea Wolfe) was majestically epic, this one goes straight for the jugular – a relentless hardcore thrash attack that bands half their age have tried and failed to replicate. 

CONVERGE – Hum Of Hurt 
Second album this year, apparently both written at the same time. To my ears, “Love Is Not Enough” was their “metal” record whereas “Hum Of Hurt” is their “noise rock” record. Both are excellent, this one a notch more difficult.  

CORROSION OF COMFORMITY – Good God Baad Man
They’ll never top “Deliverance”, the album that invented COC as most people know them, but this is a welcome return to form and the sound of four men really enjoying themselves with a whole bunch of beer- and whiskey-soaked gritty punk metal riffs and southern rock grooves and hooks. 

FUCKED UP – Year Of The Monkey
There’s no band out there like them, being punk/hardcore but sounding like Rush/Yes with ridiculous concepts, 27-minute-long songs, and kicking so much ass. One of their best. 

GENGHIS TRON – Signal Fire
A million bands today are trying to do what these guys were doing 20 years ago, which is merge extreme metal with electronica, and none of them can look peak Genghis Tron in the eye – including, but not limited to, The Armed who have two members on loan to the current GT incarnation.  

GLUECIFER – Same Drug New High
When The Hellacopters returned I made a wish for a Gluecifer comeback, and apparently Santa Claus is real because this is what I got for Xmas. 

GODTHRYMM – Projections
Classic, quality UK doom metal a-la Solstice, with a few “Peaceville Three” elements thrown in.  

HELLRIPPER – Coronach
Every article about this band describes them as “blackthrash”, but to me this is just imperial era Iron Maiden played at 1.5x the speed, meaning it’s fucking awesome. Not that any album that contains a song called “Blakk Satanik Fvkkstorm” could ever be bad, mind you. 

KARNIVOOL – In Verses 
Australian progressive metal band returns after a 13-year hiatus. The combination of the sound plus the long wait means they can now officially change their name to KarniTool. 

LAMB OF GOD – Into Oblivion
Probably their strongest album since they moved from Roadrunner to Nuclear Blast over a decade ago: Killer riffs, Randy Blythe in top form, and some very welcome noise-rock influences that make this sound like Pantera channeling Jesus Lizard. 

NEUROSIS – An Undying Love For A Burning World
Probably THE most influential band for 21st century metal surprise-drops a new album with Aaron Turner (Isis) the obviously correct choice in replacing the canceled Scott Kelly. Post metal? Doom? Sludge? Tribal? Industrial? I don’t care what you call this, it’s still their best in 20-25 years. 

POISON RUIN – Hymns From The Hills
On early releases their curious blend of punk/hardcore, NWOBHM and dungeon synth with lyrics about the Middle Ages somehow ended up sounding like the Wipers. Their new album streamlines all the influences into something totally their own, and the much-improved production should guarantee a well-deserved breakthrough. 

POISON THE WELL – Peace In Place
I never really got into metalcore and I didn’t really pay attention to these guys the first time around, but their comeback album 17 years after their last one is better than what most contemporary metalcore bands can come up with, because they’re not afraid to experiment rather than stick to the formula. 

SLIFT – Fantasia
Progressive, psychedelic, heavy space rock. People have been comparing them to Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, but I think they could share a bill with Blood Incantation or Neurosis and nobody would bat an eyelid.

SOCIAL DISTORTION– Born To Kill
A 15-year gap since the last album but Social Distortion are still in good form, their usual punk-meets-rockabilly sound augmented by a couple of mellower moments including a decent cover of Chris Isaac’s “Wicked Game”. 

SUN DONT SHINE – Power To Live
Supergroup consisting of Type O Negative and Crowbar members explore their inner Sabbath. 

SUNN O))) – Sunn O)))
The front and back covers feature Mark Rothko paintings, and the album itself is probably the aural equivalent of a Rothko painting that looks simple and will piss off 97% of the people who look at it but will blow the minds of the 3% who get it.